Page 28 of Out Of A Fix

But I couldn’t help myself.

FOUR

We bought so many groceries that the kids had to sit with crossed legs, as we filled up all the space on the floor, and they all had bags in their laps. After we finished schlepping them all in, we discovered a new message—singular, as in only one—on the machine. It was Luke conveying to the kids he was sorry Shelly couldn’t be with them, but that her mother was very sick, so she was needed there.

“Old news,” Griff muttered under his breath, and it was easy to read his annoyance in his voice and the furrow of his brows. “But at least he bothered to find out.”

The message continued with Luke telling Griff that some counselor from his school had been blowing up his phone, some guy named Nash, and to please get that sorted out because he was tired of hearing from this idiot.

“He didn’t actually listen to your messages, Nash,” Darwin comforted me, leaning into my side. “He wouldn’t have called you an idiot if he knew who you were.”

It was very kind of him to worry about my feelings, but he should have been more concerned about his father, whom I was going to murder when he returned. He was missing out on vital information at this point. Griff could have still been in custody, injured and not receiving treatment, while Tatum could’ve been badly hurt in a fire.

Luke Duchesne went on to explain to his children that he didn’t have his phone anymore. It had gone into the Boundary Bay. He left a number for them in case of a catastrophic emergency, as there was a guy on the construction team who had a satellite phone and would take calls if something was burning down or if someone was in the hospital. The guy sounded like a real prince.

“I know this is hard,” he concluded the message, “but this money will go a long way to getting us back on track, and I appreciate you all for stepping up. I know it’s a lot to ask of you all, especially you, Griff, but you know as well as I do that after dinner, it’s easy. Just make sure Dar and Tate eat—the pantry and freezer are stocked, so you should be good. I’ll see you all for sure on Friday. Love you.”

And then he was gone.

We listened to it twice.

I suspected Darwin was right. He had not listened to any of my messages, and they were now, probably, deleted. He’d listened to Shelly’s, but still, not great. And again, I knew he was doing the best he could, but he had no idea what was happening with his children.

Rumors of the horrors of Griff’s room had been wildly exaggerated. Was it messy? Yes. It was the bedroom of a sixteen-year-old boy. Of course it was a pit. But I didn’t need a hazmat suit and holy water to go in there. In fact, I was comfortable enough to sit with him inside the hobbit hole and roll his desk chair over to him as he took a seat on his bed. We needed to talk.

Tatum and Darwin were on putting-away-the-groceries duty, which would take them a while. After I got all the perishables in the refrigerator, I told them to get rid of anything that had expired. Once they were done with that, they were to start on the pantry and do the same. Anything they weren’t sure of went on the dining-room table. Everything needed to be emptied and cleaned out.

I had checked, and there was recycling, so no jars or plastic would be going in a landfill. They seemed happy with the task, the organizing appealing to Darwin, the throwing away appealing to Tatum. Also, out with the old and in with the new was always good. Since their mother left, it was like the house, and all of them, had been frozen in time. We were changing that right now. Serendipitously, since I needed to have a private conversation with Griff, and with them both occupied—laughing when I went upstairs—it gave us time.

“I need you to tell me everything that happened from the time you left home on Friday until the moment you saw me at the police station.”

He was sitting at the end of his bed, dejected. “Why?”

“Because two police detectives from Newcastle finished taking statements from Daniels and Benning at the police station, and are on their way over here to speak to you. I need you to have your story straight when you see them.”

“How do you know they’re coming?”

“Because I got a text from Chief Higheagle.”

“Oh,” he said, glancing away from me.

“Hey.”

His gaze was immediately back on me.

“I will not leave you. I will be sitting right next to you on the couch when they get here. You will not be alone with any adult without me there.”

His exhale was long, his shoulders dipping with relief.

“So g’head and tell me.”

It was not, once it was all related to me, even remotely interesting up until he got thrown into the back of a police car at two in the morning on Saturday.

Friday night, he left his sister in a locked house and went to play video games at his friend Benny’s house. Apparently, he had an awesome basement, and his parents let everyone drink there as long as they all slept over. No one was allowed to drive, and you couldn’t leave unless collected by a parent. Since no one wanted to do that, there were always kids in sleeping bags at their house. Not great, but better than nothing. I would let Luke worry about it, because at the moment, Griff was grounded for no less than a month. He didn’t appear all that upset about it, but I was thinking when he was no longer in pain, when his face stopped throbbing, the punishment might chafe.

“What about yesterday?”

Saturday night, he and his buddies Benny and Sean went over to Chief Wilson’s house because he was out of town with Mrs. Wilson, and his daughter, Christine, threw a rager. Kids had come from the high school in Newcastle, as well as the one in Eena, including many that had graduated, and it very quickly got out of hand. If what Griff was telling me was true, I would be furious as well. Eventually someone ran the chief’s riding mower into the pool, and that was a wrap on the party. Griff was walking home when Chief Wilson pulled up beside him, got out, and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. Griff had no idea why, ended up running, had to stop to throw up, and in the field by the high school, was hit again, and that was all he remembered. The next thing he knew, he woke up cold, shivering, his clothes wet, in a cell at the police station. He begged them to call his father and was informed that the chief already had. He was promised that as soon as his father arrived, he would be released into his custody.