“We talked about the gloves before.”
“I don’t want people to stare.”
Both eyebrows went up. “You can’t bullshit the bullshitter, Zoo.” He held my hands tight. “You are a Novak,” he said slowly, “and Novaks don’t hide from their shame. They accept what they’ve done and the decisions they’ve made, they take their punishment, and they move on.”
A snarl threatened to form on my lips; I quickly looked down. He didn’t have any right to tell me what to do.I’dbeen the one takinghispunishment for three years while he sat in prison.
I pulled my hands out of his. He cleared his throat. Wiped his hands on his jacket.
“I’m so glad to be home,” he said.
“Can you guys hug over dinner?” Sadie came out the front door, locking it behind herself. The lights were off, the generator killed. “I’m starving.”
“Shut up, Sadie!”
“You shut up, skunkface!”
“So glad to be home!” Dad crowed, dancing to the driver’s door of the Chevelle. The change in him from hesitant to buoyant was instant, as if nothing strange had passed between us.
Sadie stopped with her car keys in hand. “Oh. Are we not taking my car?”
Dad looked stricken. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“Sadie. My darling.” Dad held his hand out for the Chevelle’s keys, and I tossed them over. “I have been away fromallmy children for almost four years, and you expect me to leave my eldest at home?”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I get shotgun.”
“Oh, come on—”
Dad cackled as he climbed in the car.
“Home!”
Fool’s Gold was a local restaurant that served great biscuits and gravy, good pizza, and mediocre everything else. Acouple of pool tables and a dartboard were clustered at the south end of the room so players could watch the TV behind the bar, usually set to whatever seasonal sport was on. Today it was the news. We arrived before the dinner rush and got our table near the north window, where Piper Mountain made a purple shadow against the darkening horizon. A few bikers lounged by the pool table in the back, not stirring even when a living man walked right through them carrying beers to his table. There were fewer of them than normal. Fewer ghosts in the parking lot and on the streets, too. They’d been dwindling since Masrell’s fire, like a classroom with too many empty seats.
We ordered, not on purpose, the same meal we’d ordered the last time we’d been here. Dad: a Coke, a Pyrite (a cheeseburger with jalapeños), and an order of onion rings. Sadie: sweet tea and a chicken Caesar wrap (which sounds healthy but is actually the fixings of a Caesar salad spread on a small pepperoni pizza and rolled up). Me: water, french fries, and the hottest hot wings they can possibly make (lovingly nicknamed “Eyeblisters”).
When I pointed out it was the same meal from almost four years ago, Sadie said, “How the hell do you remember that?” and Dad said, “Yeah, sounds like us.”
I remembered because it was the last meal all three of us ate together before Dad got arrested.
“So, who wants to go first?” Dad asked, twirling an onion ring around his finger.
“First for what?” I said.
“Telling me what’s been going on recently. With you two.”
Dad was already looking at me. Sadie’s head turned slowly, as if she was giving me time to start talking. I bit down on my straw until my teeth ground together. This wasn’t fair.
“Nothing,” I said. “Everything’s peachy.” I stuffed a chicken wing in my mouth. Sadie bared her teeth.
“Zora has something she wants to tell you about, Dad.”
I shook my head.
“Oh? What kind of something?”
My eyes began watering. Damn Eyeblisters.
