I went out through the side door and looked across the street at Mr. Crowley's house. Snow had covered everything with a two-inch blanket of white. Nothing was dirty after it snowed, at least not that you could see; the surface of every car and house and sewer grate was white and calm. I plodded through the snow to the Watsons', two houses over, and rang the doorbell.
A muffled shout drifted through the door. "I got it." I heard footsteps, and soon Brooke Watson opened the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, with her blond hair curled into a knot and held in place by a pencil. I'd avoided her since the dance, when she'd backed away so warily. Now she smiled— she actually smiled—when she saw me. "Hey, John."
"Hey. My mom needs some vanilla or something. Do you guys have any?"
"Like, ice cream?"
"No, it's brown, it's for cooking."
"Mom," she called, "do we have any vanilla?" Brooke's mom stepped into the hall, wiping her hands on a towel, and waved me inside.
"Come in, come in—don't leave him standing out there,
Brooke, you'll freeze him to death." She smiled as she said it, and Brooke laughed.
"You better come in," she said with a smile. I lacked the snow off my shoes and stepped inside, and Brooke closed the door.
"It's your turn, Brooke, come on!" shouted a high voice, and I Saw Brooke's little brother and father lying on the floor with a sprawling Monopoly game laid out in front of them.
Brooke flopped down on the floor and rolled the dice, then counted out her move and groaned. Her little brother, Ethan, cackled with glee as she counted out a stack of play money.
"Pretty cold out there?" asked Brooke's father. He was still in his pajamas, with thick wool socks on his feet to keep warm.
"It's your turn, Dad, go," said Ethan.
"It's not bad," I said, remembering last night. "The wind's gone, at least." And I'm not hiding in the trees while my neighbor rips a man's lungs out, so that's good, too.
Brooke's mom bustled back into the room with a tiny Tupperware of vanilla. "This should be enough to get you through," she said. "Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?"
"I would!" shouted Ethan, and jumped up and raced into the kitchen.
"No thanks," I said, "Mom needs this for something, and I'd better get back with it soon."
"If you need anything else just let me know," she said with a smile. "Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Happy Thanksgiving, John," said Brooke. I opened the door and she stood up to follow me. She looked as if she were about to say something, then shook her head and laughed.
"See you at school," she said, and I nodded.
"See you at school."
She waved as I walked down the steps, flashing her braces in a wide smile. It was achingly beautiful, and I forced myself to look away. My rules were too ingrained. She was safer this way.
I trudged back home, the vanilla shoved deep into my pocket and my hands curled into fists for warmth. Every house looked the same in the snow—a white lawn, a white driveway, a white roof, the corners rounded and the features dulled. No one would ever guess, driving by, that one home contained a joyful family, another contained a wretched half family, and yet another hid the lair of a demon.
Thanksgiving dinner passed as well as could be expected at my house. Every channel was running either a family movie or a football game, and Mom and Margaret watched blandly as they ate. I arranged my chair to get a good view of the Crowleys' house, and stared out the window all through the meal.
Mom flipped through the channels restlessly. Before Dad left, Thanksgiving was a football day, from start to finish, and Mom complained about it every year. Now she flipped through
the games aggressively, pausing longer on the non-game channels, as if to give them a higher status. They didn't remind her of Dad, so they were better than the rest.
My parents never got along super well, but it had grown worse in the last year before he left. Eventually he moved to an apartment on the other side of town, where he stayed for almost five months while the divorce wound its way through the intestinal tract of the county courts. I stayed with him every other week, but even the brief contact they made while making the switch was too much for my parents, and eventually they just stayed on opposite sides of the supermarket parking lot, late at night when it was empty, and I carried my pillow and backpack from one car to the other in the dark. I was seven years old. One night, halfway to my mom's car, I heard my dad's engine roar; he turned on his headlights and pulled out onto the road, turning at the corner and disappearing in an angry rush of sound. It was the last time I ever saw him. He sent presents on Christmas, and sometimes on my birthday, but there was never a return address. He was as good as dead.
Our meal ended with a store-bought pumpkin pie and a can of spray-on whipped cream. The turkey carcass crouched in the center of the table like a bony spider; I thought about the dead man at the lake, and reached out and snapped a turkey rib with my fingers. The TV droned in the background. There was a marked absence of conflict; this was as close as my house got to happy.