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I snuck back upstairs and hesitated outside of the room I knew Gino was sleeping in. I pressed my ear against the door and smiled when I heard him snoring.
I couldn’t help myself. Another chance like this wasn’t going to come around anytime soon, so I crept into my room, pulled my sneakers on, dragged a hooded sweatshirt on even though it was too warm to wear it, and headed back downstairs. I was out into the early morning sunlight a few seconds later.
Dante’s house was perched up at the top of a hill with a long concrete staircase heading down to the sidewalk. I held onto the black railing, wondering how many times his hands had touched the same spot, as I hurried down and hit the sidewalk with a grin.
It felt damn good to be out of that house.
I knew it was stupid. As I walked along, taking deep breaths of the fresh air, I knew I should just turn back and go inside. Dante was keeping me indoors for fun, and he wasn’t forcing me into it. He wanted me to stay hidden so that I could stay safe.
But that was easier said than done.
Even with my laptop and my Kindle, I was bored out of my mind. It wasn’t my house, and I couldn’t get comfortable, not with that strange man Gino lurking around all the time. He watched reality TV most of the day, and when he wasn’t staring at the Housewives of Whatever, he was talking on the phone in Italian to someone. I could never hear the other side of the conversation, but it couldn’t have been interesting, just based on the way Gino would grunt in to the receiver then jabber off long, monotone phrases.
I sighed and kept going, stretching my arms. His neighborhood was quiet, and I only passed a couple of older folks with white hair and windbreakers walking little white yappy dogs.
Cars rolled past on the old gray street, and the yellow painted lines looked chipped and frayed, like they could use a fresh coat.
The houses were all stone-fronted with peaked roofs and brick chimneys. Some were attached doubles, but most were large singles. Dante’s house was one of the singles, and I guessed that was on purpose. A lot of homes had steep yards with overgrown grass and weed-covered flower beds. Although the houses seemed nice, it looked like people didn’t put much stock in landscaping.
I turned down a couple more streets and walked through a new neighborhood. The houses were different, all attached, all stone, but they had the same steep yards with concrete stairs leading to their porches. I kept going until I found a major cross street and looked both ways, frowning at the cars that rolled past in either direction.
I knew I shouldn’t go far. I didn’t know Mt. Airy. I could easily get lost, and Gino would probably get in trouble if they had to come and find me. But then again, I was already gone, and I might as well make the best of it. So I turned right and walked on until I reached another major intersection and turned onto a road with gleaming steel trolley tracks running down the center.
Shops lined either side of the street and the shoulder was covered in old cobbles. There were coffee shops with handwritten signs in the windows, and green awnings in front of banks, and little antiques stores with junk piled near the door. More people walked past, a group of teenage kids in baggy jeans and carrying skateboards, more groups of white-haired boomers in casual clothes, and even a few young professionals, like one woman in a pants suit with a phone plastered to her skull.
I wandered for a while. I was hungry and wanted some coffee, but I had no money, so eventually I found a bench under a large shady oak tree and stretched my legs out to watch people go by.
I used to do that sometimes with my father. He’d bring me to a bench when I was little and sit me down. We’d watch people together, and sometimes he’d try to tell me their stories, like he could understand who they were based on their clothes and the way they walked. It was a funny skill and I liked his stories, but those afternoons were few and far between. Mostly, my father was drunk and high or missing entirely.
It was always the best when he disappeared for weeks on end. I’d have him in the back of my head, a worry nagging at my skull, but life would be simpler. I wouldn’t have to worry about him passing out in the living room, about him choking on his own vomit in bed. I was free to be a normal person for a little while at least, but he always came back, and always needed something.
