“I don’t, usually.” He pushed the bottle away from himself and rubbed his eyes. “I guess that explains why I’m sitting at the table drunk after two swigs. Have the worst headache.”
Delilah thought about this as she eyed the bottle, tempted to point out that more than half the liquid was gone; it didn’t seem like it was only two swigs that he’d taken. In fact, he’d been. . . off?. . . since he’d picked her up in Gavin’s driveway. He’d barely said a word to her, and instead had kept prodding at his head, finally asking her to check the glove box for a bottle of aspirin.
“You seeing that boy?” He was staring at her now, and even with her eyes averted she could feel it. She’d never spoken to her father about boys or even girls. He’d definitely never seen her kiss one. He had always stayed safely in the father zone, discussing what was for dinner or whether she wanted to rethink wearing such a short skirt.
Delilah ran her fingernail along the gap between the aluminum and Formica of the kitchen table. “Gavin?”
“You think I know his name? The tall, skinny kid who looks like he climbed out of bed in the middle of the day. The old hippy lady’s son.”
Delilah froze. She could have sworn something rustled outside. “You know his mom?”
Franklin Blue snorted, shaking his head with contempt. “Hell no, I don’t know her. Nobody really does.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Her father was drunk, she reasoned. He didn’t even know Gavin’s name. How could he know anything meaningful about him? “His name is Gavin, and yes. I’m seeing him.”
“You keeping yourself pure?”
She looked up at him then, surprised at the sharpness of his tone. Her parents were strict and pious, but they’d rarely been as sanctimonious as he’d been with just those few, drawled words. Her father’s eyes were glassy and unfocused as he stared, unblinking, at the chair across from him. She followed his gaze and then looked around the room. All around her the walls seemed to pulse, first quietly and then as if the sound were penetrating her head. “That depends on whether I’m still pure if I kiss him,” she said finally.
“‘Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave,’” he quoted, words slurring together slightly.
He didn’t sound quite right, and Delilah wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, the fact that he was quoting Scripture as if reading from a script, or something else entirely. The wind outside dragged a branch across the kitchen window.
“Okay, then, Dad. I think I’ll head back upstairs.” Delilah watched him warily before she pushed away from the counter and walked back toward the door to the living room, and just beyond it, the stairs to the relative sanctuary of her room. To her right, a desk drawer rattled in its track, making her jump, and a gust of wind blew through the living room as if hitting her right in the face. A window had burst open across the room, letting in the frigid night air.
“‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.’” Her father’s voice rang hollow from the kitchen, but when she turned to look at him, he was asleep with his head lying in his crossed arms on the table.
Upstairs she pulled her phone out from under her pillow and finally gave in to texting Gavin again. I need to talk to you.
After ten minutes with no reply from him, she felt like her room was contracting in small pulses, breathing in and out. Strangely, unless it was directing its anger at her, she had never minded the idea that Gavin’s house was alive, but the thought that such a thing could spread, that the house that hated her could also somehow take over her own home, was terrifying.