Cornerstone (21 page)

The Addo opens the tea ball and dumps the contents into the bottom of my cup. He examines it as my eyes weep and burn. Garrett keeps his hand on my back and starts rubbing in slow circles. It’s the only thing on my entire body that feels any good.

“Huh. Ironical.” The Addo says. His shoulders jerk backward as he says it. “Contego, you most definitely are.”

“I’m deciding against it, though. I just want a normal life.” I cough. Saying it out loud sends a jolt of nausea through me. What makes it worse is that Garrett’s hand falls from my back. Everything about his face is wide open and stunned.

“Aren’t you even going to listen to the options first?” Garrett asks.

“Maybe there are none for her.” The Addo shrugs.

“There isn’t.” I say. I want to tell Garrett I’m sorry about not doing the right thing—like he is. I just can’t do it to my mom.

Garrett stands up and walks to a back window, overlooking a tangle of thorny branches and leaves that cover what might’ve been a backyard. I stare at the inverted triangle of his back, my stomach rolling with how I’ve let him down. I don’t know how long a time has passed before the Addo finally breaks my concentration.

“Well, kids, the show’s over. That’s it for today.” Addo says, weirdly cheerful. I look back at him and his smile cuts through the sickening static that crackles between Garrett and I. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

“Why?” I ask. Dizzy
and
sick. “I made my decision.”

“Why, why, why?” Addo chortles as Garrett heads toward the door without looking at me. I get to my feet wishing I could sit a while longer. Addo is still rambling. “Why anything? Why do we all have our jobs to do? It’s a day off school, isn’t it? Come. I’ll have cookies. Good ones. The kind without nuts.”

When I think of returning tomorrow, the idea seems to soothe my stomach instead of upsetting it more. Addo gives me a devilish grin as I step out onto the rickety stairs behind Garrett. I remember that I didn’t get to hear anything about my father, but when I open my mouth to ask, the Addo closes the door on me. There is nowhere else to go besides following Garrett to the car.

~ * * * ~

Garrett’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. I keep my mouth shut. We speed out of Smelly Mistakes and at the main road, he goes in the opposite direction of the school. He jerks the wheel at a side street and the tires squeal with the turn. I lurch sideways.

“Could you not do that?” I ask. A muscle hops in his jaw but he slows down a little. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’d like to go someplace
normal.
” he says. His tone sends a flare through me.

“What are you so upset about?”

“Absolutely
nothing.
” Garrett says. The jagged edge in his voice doesn’t sound as angry as maybe, annoyed. Which in turn makes me more angry with him.

“You’re mad that I didn’t pick what you did.” I tell him.

“Nooo. Why would that bother me? It’s your decision, right?”

“That’s right.” I shoot back at him. “It
is
my decision. And why do you care so much anyway? Just take me back to your house. Then you can spy directly on my mom instead of using me to do it. You don’t need me for that anymore.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t...”

“Just take me back.” I say. “Then you can go do whatever you want, wherever you want...with whoever you want.”

Garrett snaps his mouth shut and turns the car toward his house, but the ride back isn’t any smoother.

~ * * * ~

Garrett unlocks the door for me, swings it open, and then turns away. He leaves without another word, tearing down the street in his car. I dump my purse and my backpack on the floor near the door and kick the pack with one foot. My mom has moved from the downstairs couch up to the kitchen table. There is a four inch stack of paper beside her, all filled with her micro-font.

I drop into the seat across from her and her pen pauses.

“What are you doing back here?” she asks. “Garrett was supposed to take you to school after the Addo’s.”

“Tell me about Roger.” I say.

“Your father?” she murmurs.

“Yes, Mom.
My father.
The Addo said he knows him. I thought he was
gone.
I thought you didn’t know where he is.”

“Not until recently.” She lays her pen down.

“What? Where is he? Why haven’t you said anything?”

“What did the Addo tell you about him?”

“Nothing yet. I don’t want to hear about my father from the Addo. I want to hear it from you.” My mother sighs, sits back in her chair and frowns at me.

“Okay. What do you want to know?” she asks.

The phone rings. It works like a bell in a boxing ring. I look away and my mom pushes herself up from the table. She picks up the receiver on the third ring.

“Hello?” she says. I think it is probably Jen, mistaking my mom’s voice for mine. Good. My mom can finally hear what I hear all the time. She listens, the pause stretching, and her eyes slide up to stare at me.

“It’s me.” she says into the mouth piece. Her tone is metal: cold, inflexible. “Yes, Evangeline…What do you mean you keep calling…well, this isn’t my house. I don’t answer the phone…I know she went to see the Addo…of course for counseling.”

“Who is it?” I whisper to her, but my mom turns away from me, lowering her voice to a growl.

“I
am
honoring our agreement…Roger…Roger…Listen to me.”

I gasp. It’s one thing to think you have a father and it’s totally another for him to suddenly be real. He hasn’t been around for seventeen years. To have him come alive now, a 3D version of a framed photo, makes my nerves go thin and tight.

I yank on my mom’s sleeve and whisper, “What does he want?”

She puts up her
wait a minute
finger. “Roger…you’re not listening…I
am…”

It’s only a second more before my mom’s shoulders drop and she slams the receiver back onto the cradle.

Instead of explaining anything, she picks up the receiver again and calls Mrs. Reese.

“Miranda? Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry to bother you at work...Yes, we’re okay, but Roger just called...yes, Roger...mmm hmm...I’m sure it’s nothing but…maybe that would be best...all right. We’ll see you soon.”

She hangs up the phone and her eyes find mine.

I gape. Like she just hit me with a brick.

“You talk to him?” I ask. She goes to the front door and checks to be sure it’s locked. I trail after her, into the kitchen, where she closes the blinds over the sink.

“Your father and I have talked a few times recently. I didn’t want to bother you with it, but he turned up, knowing you were seventeen and wanting to make sure that our agreement still stood.”

“Agreement?” As if this is a normal thing. My mom never talks about him and now that he’s popped up like Rumplestiltskin, his phone call sends the entire cavalry screaming back. And we’re closing up the house like a coffin. I can’t imagine them talking, let alone having any kind of an agreement. I follow close at my mom’s heels, into the living room.

Her eyes dart around the backyard before she closes the blinds on the doors. I pull the curtains over the windows, even though I have no idea why. My mom closes the curtains on her side of the room.

“We made an agreement a long time ago, Nalena. When you were just a toddler. He agreed to stay away from us as long as I kept you out of the community. And as long as you decided to
continue
living a normal life.”

“Wait Mom.” I ask. We climb the steps to the top floor and end up in Iris’s room, overlooking the front yard. “Why does he have to stay away?”

My mom snaps the hot pink blinds shut before she turns back to me.

“Your father is a troubled man, Nalena.” she says.

Before she has a chance to go any further, I hear the front door shake downstairs, as if someone has just tried to walk through it and failed. The two of us gasp. The whirring inside me breaks open and I’m thrown out of myself, standing in front of my mom and my own body. I stare at my mother, hovering beside me, unprotected. I try to reach out and envelope her, but my field works like skin and my mother is outside of it.

The door rattles and there is a gritty sound, like a knife snaking through the metal knob. My mind is spinning,
What did Garrett tell me to do? Believe? Do it? Jump in?
I can’t remember. My mom gasps as I hear the door pop open and bang against the wall. In desperation to enclose my mom in my protection, I clasp my hands together and throw the loop of my arm and my cast awkwardly over her head, pulling her tightly to me as I angle my back to the door.

“Hello?” Garrett shouts from the foyer. The sound of his voice shatters my bubble and I am sucked back into my skin and bones, squeezing my mom to me so hard that the arm inside my cast throbs. Garrett shouts again, his voice dropping to a deep growl, “Nalena? Evangeline?”

“We’re here.” My mom calls back. Her voice is squeezed as she pats my uncasted arm reassuringly. I drop my arms as Garrett’s footsteps bound up the stairs. He appears around the doorway, his brow smoothing the moment his eyes find me. My mom’s voice, solid now that it’s out of my death grip, assures him too, “We’re okay, Garrett. Just a little unnerved.”

~ * * * ~

I don’t have a chance to ask my mom anything else. Within the next five minutes, the rest of the Reese’s pour in. Mrs. Reese is first, then Sean and Mr. Reese and I am stunned when Mark and Brandon come in, materialized from school as if it is easy to slip out, let alone be excused, and make it home, so quickly.

“How did you get here so fast?” I ask Mark when he plops down beside me at the table. “You’ve got a Batman-beam or something?”

He pulls a cell phone from his pocket, holding it up with a cheesy smile.

“Get in the twenty-first, Nali.” he grins. “You should’ve waited until tomorrow. We could’ve gotten a four day weekend.”

“This isn’t about you getting more vacation time.” Garrett says as he strong-arms Mark out of the seat. Mark squawks and goes for the seat on my other side, but Sean slides into the spot.

“Get your own seat, Marky-Mark.” Sean says.

“You guys suck.” Mark whines.

“They do suck.” Brandon agrees from across the table. Mr. Reese walks into the dining room and clears his throat with a piercing glance at his youngest son.

“Stink.” Mr. Reese says. “You guys
stink.
I expect better language, gentlemen.”

Mark throws himself into a seat next to his mom. Mrs. Reese turns her attention to my mother.

“What did Roger say, exactly, Evangeline?” she asks. The room goes silent, waiting for her response. My mother opens her mouth to answer and the telephone rings as if she is doing ventriloquism. Mr. Reese’s hand hovers over the receiver on the wall. He motions to Brandon.

“Go check caller ID.” he says. Brandon shoots off, upstairs into the Reese’s bedroom. The phone rings again and Brandon calls down, “Nothing, Dad. Out of Area. Same as the last call.”

“Evangeline,” Mr. Reese says quickly. “I’m going to put it on the speaker phone. You talk first.”

My mom nods. Her chest expands with a large breath as Mr. Reese pushes the speaker phone button on the third ring.

“Hello?” My mom says, her tone flat and determined.

“Evangeline?” The voice on the other end is male, hoarse, clipped. I look at my mother, but her eyes are on the center of the table, concentrating.

“It’s me, Roger.” she says.

“Don’t hang up on me again, understand? I’m just trying to talk with you.”

“You have to listen to me, or I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

“Oh, but I think you do.” He says with an undercurrent of a dark laugh. It sloshes inside me like the flu. “We had an understanding.”

“And nothing’s changed.”

“Oh now, Liar Liar…I’m not stupid, Angie. I know she received the sign. I know she’s been to the Addo’s.”

Mr. Reese waves his arms to get my mom’s attention. He raises his hands in a question and my mom nods.

“How would you know that, Roger? You agreed to stay away.” my mom says.

“Stay away so you can do whatever you want? It’s a good thing I know people that’ll watch out for me and let me know when I’m getting screwed.” my father says.

“I don’t know who would be saying that. Especially because I’m still honoring our…”

“Who? What’s it gonna take for you to understand that your little
community
isn’t perfect, Angie? There’s scum everywhere. Just because you think I’m the only one...”

“Look, Roger, I don’t…”

“NO, YOU LOOK!” His shout echoes through the phone. “You ain’t gonna make my kid an Alo, you hear me? I saw her at the Addo’s today. I’m watching! You’re just using her to get at your old man’s memory and I promise you this, Angie, you ain’t never gonna get that! Not after you took my baby away from me for my whole life! You took her and I took him. You’re never gonna get that memory, you got it? I made sure of it!”