AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nola gets to her feet. A broken picture frame is in one hand and the index finger on the other hand is oozing blood. “One minute he was fine and the next minute he started throwing things at my head.” It’s the most out of sorts that I’ve ever seen Nola.
I take my dad by the hand and get him seated in his desk chair. “It’s okay, Dad, I’m here,” I soothe. “What happened?” He just shakes his head, his eyes filled with confusion and shame.
“You wanted me to stay with you, Mr. Kennedy, don’t you remember?” Nola asks, taking a step toward him. I give her a look that stops her cold. “He did,” Nola says to me. “He didn’t want to go with Colin. I said I’d stay. Call Colin and ask him.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to,” I say icily. “What did you say to him? You weren’t talking to him about Eve’s case, were you?” I cross my arms in front of me.
“No,” Nola says. “We talked about peonies.”
“Peonies?” I repeat. I glance at my dad but he’s looking dumbfounded at the mess on the floor.
“Yeah, peonies,” Nola says, meeting my eyes, daring me to challenge her.
“You need to leave now,” I say. It’s all I can do to not grab Nola by the arm and drag her from the house.
“Bye, Henry,” Nola says as she turns to leave, dropping the picture frame she’s holding. It crashes to the floor.
I track her footfalls as she moves through the hallway. I wait for the sound of the front door opening and closing. Certain that she’s gone, I turn my attention back to my dad. He looks exhausted. “What did Nola say to you?” I ask, my heart hammering in my chest, afraid of what he’s going to say.
“She ruined the peonies,” my dad says. “Ripped the heads right off.” He wades through the paper littered across the floor and out of the room. “But I found it. Don’t worry, Maggie, I took care of it.” I stare after him, confused. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Once again Nola has swept in and somehow left a mess. Literally and figuratively. Nola leaves a toxic cosmic residue behind wherever she goes.
I look down at the shattered picture frame. A small smear of blood streaks the broken glass. In the photo my mother is sitting on the porch steps. She is gazing at the camera, a soft smile on her face. She looks content. Happy. This was the way my mom looked at my dad in the quiet moments of the day, when the chaos of running a busy household and chasing two young kids had slowed. I think about how I miss her.
I follow my dad out of the room and watch as he climbs the stairs up to his bedroom, his shoulders hunched, head bent as if he’s climbing a mountain. What did Nola say to him that would cause him to start throwing things? Certainly it wasn’t about his peonies. It could be that my dad was just confused, worried because Colin wasn’t here. I return to the kitchen and survey the mess. This was definitely not about flowers.
I go upstairs to check on my dad and to bring him a glass of water. He sometimes forgets to drink and gets dehydrated. He’s lying on his side, covers pulled up around his chin. He’s already fallen asleep and is snoring softly. He’s fine. For the first time I’m grateful that my dad forgets.
I call the police station and let them know that I won’t be back in today, that my dad needs me. While I wait for Colin to come home I keep busy by cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. I put the sandwiches I brought for lunch into the refrigerator and sweep up the glass and scrub the floor. In my dad’s office I return the computer to the desk and gather all the papers and the broken picture frame from the floor.
I’m transferring a pile of wet towels into the dryer when I hear my dad on the steps and I go out to meet him. “Hey, Dad,” I say. His hair is sticking up and his shirt is untucked. “How was your nap?”
“Where’s Colin?” he asks sleepily. “What time is it?”
“Two o’clock. He went to deliver some sculptures to Willow Creek,” I tell him.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. My heart squeezes. He doesn’t remember.
“Nola Knox was here,” I say.
“I’m sorry I missed her. What time is it again?” my dad asks as he moves toward the front door.
“Two o’clock,” I say. “Nola left when I came over. Have you eaten anything? I brought you a sandwich.”
“Peanut butter sounds good,” he says as he pushes through the screen door, steps out onto the porch and to his spot on the swing.
I don’t know if it’s safe to leave him alone on the porch, but he’s got to eat something. As I go inside toward the kitchen, a renewed sense of frustration toward Colin rushes through me. He should know better than to leave our dad with Nola. In the pantry I find a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter. It doesn’t look like Colin has been to the grocery store anytime lately and I find myself getting angry again.
I slather the peanut butter on half a dozen crackers, arrange them on a plate and bring them out to the porch with a glass of iced tea and one of the sandwiches I brought to the house. “Here, Dad,” I say, handing him the plate of crackers. I sit in a chair adjacent to the swing as he nibbles tentatively.
“Dad, Nola was here earlier and something made you very upset. Do you remember what she did? What she said?”
“Nola was here?” he asks through a bite of cracker.
“Yeah,” I say with relief. He has already forgotten. “She was here.”
“Bad business about her sister,” my dad says, shaking his head.
