He frowned. “Well. Yes.”
“You didn’t even think to ask if I wanted it?” My voice was shrill. I was being unreasonable. But that couch was where my mother and I had watched Dateline together. Those were some of my happiest memories with her, watching bad things happen to other women. Maybe she’d been trying to tell me something. Trying to warn me: Their bodies are our bodies. Their world is our world. All the things she couldn’t say out loud.
My father’s bruised face concealed his emotions. “That couch was falling apart. But listen. I put some other things in the cellar in case you want to look later. Dinner should be ready soon.”
“Smells delicious,” Duke said. “If you need any help, I’m pretty handy in the kitchen.”
I took my opening dully as my father led us down the short hallway to the bedrooms. “Duke owns his own restaurant.”
“Well, it’s a food truck now,” Duke said, “but the plan is to be brick and mortar in a few years.”
“A food truck, huh?” my father said. “Those are getting popular, I hear. What kind of food?”
I watched my father watching Duke, nodding along, agreeing that the perfect brisket came down to the bark, though I was sure he’d never heard the word bark applied to meat before. It was classic Sober John Bowman, earnestly interested in everyone. I had the wild impulse to interrupt, say, Hey, Dad, remember that time you shoved Mom by the throat, and she was hoarse for a week? Good times.
In the doorway of my room, my father said, “I made some space for you guys in the closet. Just in case.” The rickety closet doors were open, showing an empty rod with a neat row of dry-cleaning hangers.
“No need,” I said.
Duke thanked my father. “So,” he added, with forced brightness, “this was your room, Cass!”
“I mean,” I said, prickly and uncooperative, “not like when I was a kid, obviously.”
But, in some ways, it was—the soft aqua walls, paint flecked to white in places where I’d once thumbtacked posters of Death Cab for Cutie and framed quotes like “Nothing bad happens to writers; it’s all material.” A quilted coverlet on the iron double bed my mother had bought for me when I was eight, such an exciting upgrade from a twin, a wooden trunk at its foot. There was the space beside my white desk where I’d tucked Andrew’s bassinet, even though I always ended up bringing him into bed with me. It’s you and me, buddy, I’d whispered. I’ll always take care of you.
“Well,” my father said, still in the doorway. “There’s another blanket in the trunk in case it gets cold, and fresh towels in the bathroom. I’ll just be in the kitchen.” He smiled, more at Duke than at me, and retreated down the hallway.
“You couldn’t have backed me up about not staying?” I snapped at Duke, kicking my duffel. “This isn’t some happy family reunion, you know.”
“How could I forget?” Duke shot back. Then he lowered his voice. “Andrew’s the one who said they bought a turkey. It’s got to be hard for him to say goodbye.”
I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “I hate being here.”
It felt like the most honest thing I’d said all day. Ask, I thought, surprised by this desire. Why do you hate it so much, Cassie? What happened here? Ask!
Duke tried to close one of the folding closet doors, and it stuck on the frame. He gave it a little rattle. “Should I help your dad with dinner while you check on Andrew or something?”
I sighed and glanced at my watch. Six o’clock. “I have to call Lore.”
“Now?”
“It’s my job, Duke.” I let myself feel the pleasure of that statement, the jealously guarded dream brought to life. I wouldn’t let it go. Not for anything.
Lore, 2017
The house was full: Mateo had come into town, and he and Gabriel and Brenda were sprawled like teenagers on the leather couches, wineglasses in hand, when I led Joseph and Michael to my bathroom. They only lived a minute away, but they liked taking Jacuzzi baths here. El chiquito, Joseph, tilted my wrist so that nearly half the bottle of fancy vanilla-scented bubble bath went in. Soon the bubbles were up to their slick, skinny shoulders, and they grabbed handfuls and blew them, shrieking with laughter. The bathroom floor shone with water and my blouse was soaked through, all three of us laughing so hard that Gabriel appeared in the doorway.
I waved him away. “Ay, mijo, we’re just having a little fun.”
When he left, I looked back at Michael and Joseph, their thick bowl cuts and flushed cheeks, and scooped the biggest handful of bubbles I could and blew them straight into their faces. One day, I hoped they’d remember that they could make a mess with their güela. That their güela liked making messes.
Afterward, I excused myself to walk Crusoe while I talked to Cassie, who was in Enid after her father crashed his car like a pendejo. Pobrecita, having to become a mother to her brother almost overnight.
“So,” Cassie said, “Sergio dropped Fabian off around eight. You went to a movie with the boys at seven and were home by nine, nine fifteen. When you were initially questioned on Monday, August fourth, you said Fabian was there when you got home, and that the four of you were home all night, which is obviously untrue. Why did you lie?”
I let out a rattling sigh. “When the police asked where I was that night, I told them.” I had the receipts and ticket stubs ready, right there in my wallet, but they didn’t ask to see them until later, once we were at the station. “I realized we were going to be suspects. I wanted them to leave so I could think. So I told them we’d all been together.”
“Did you think Fabian was innocent at that point?”
“You got your one question,” I said. “My turn: Are you going to confront your father?”
Cassie whispered, “What do you mean, confront him? I’m here to take Andrew away from him. It doesn’t get more confrontational than that.”
I stopped to let Crusoe sniff a mailbox. “Yes, but don’t you ever want to make him take responsibility? For what he did to your mother? To you?”
The silence was icy. But after a moment, she asked, “Take responsibility how?”
My phone chimed with a text message from Mateo: It’s dark, are you almost back? Sí, gracias, I knew it was dark. I had eyes. I wrote: If I’m not home in 15 minutes send a search party. Make it big.
“Just to hear him acknowledge it,” I said. “I think it could be very healthy for you.”
“I don’t need him to acknowledge it.” Her words were chiseled sharp. “I don’t need anything from him.”
“Bueno.” I was four blocks from home. The evening air smelled like burning mesquite. The stars were magnificent, an endless echo. I thought of Cassie asking how long I thought I could keep up the double life once Fabian got home. I must have had an exit plan, she said. But I didn’t. Not until I had no other choice. “Cuídate, mija.”
Cassie, 2017
My mother used to make Italian chicken pasta on deep winter nights, when the wind thrashed the thin branches of the old bald cypress out back. That smell made me feel like a kid again, belly cramped with nerves. What Lore had said about confronting my father—as if it would ever be that easy.
On my way to Andrew’s bedroom, I passed my parents’—my father’s—open door. He and Duke were still in the kitchen. Without thinking, I ducked inside.