In the front hall, I dropped my book bag and yanked off my hoodie. There was blood all over the sleeve, and I debated just throwing it away, but I figured my dad would have something to say about that.
The laundry room was in a little alcove off the hall. I didn't like to go in there. The washer and dryer were both stainless steel and the room was so small that the air always had a dense, poisonous smell to it. For a minute, I considered running the washer anyway, but even just standing with the door open was making my pulse hammer in my ears. I wadded up the hoodie and made a mental note to ask Emma if she'd wash it for me. In scalding water. With bleach. Then I shoved it in the hamper and headed for the kitchen.
From the back of the house, I could hear the clack of the keyboard. My mom was in the office, tapping away at her computer.
"Mackie," she called, "is that you?"
"Yeah."
"Don't let your father catch you skipping class, okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
I got a glass of water and sat at the table, looking at the tablecloth and trying to figure out the plaid pattern. It went red, black, red, white, green, and then I lost track.
When Emma came in, I was so out of it that her hand on my shoulder made me jump. I started to ask about the laundry but stopped when I realized there was someone else with her. The second girl was tall and serious looking, with a long, bony face.
Emma got a jar of peanut butter from the pantry and took out a plastic picnic knife.
"Hey, ugly," she said, reaching to tousle my hair. "You're home early." She glanced across the hall at the office door, then said so quietly she was almost mouthing it, "Are you feeling okay?"
I wiggled my hand in a so-so gesture. "Aren't you supposed to be in botany?"
Emma was nineteen and not the kind of person who skipped class. She was taking every science course the junior college offered and her dedication was kind of scary.
"Professor Cranston gave us outside time to work on our group project." She waved her plastic knife at the other girl. "That's Janice."
Janice sat down across from me and folded her hands on the table. "Hi," she said. Her hair was muddy brown and hung in wild snarls on either side of her face.
I nodded at her but didn't say anything.
She was looking at me like I was a laboratory specimen, one of those bugs with the pins through it. Her eyes were huge and dark. "Why does she call you ugly?"
Other people could make pretty much any situation seem normal just by saying the right words. But I wasn't like that. I stared hard at the backs of my hands and waited for Emma to ride in and take over the conversation.
Emma, the master liar. Queen of my-brother-is-normal, my-brother-is-shy. My brother is sickly, has allergies, mono, food poisoning, the flu, the biggest, messiest lie of all: My brother.
Reliably, she came up behind me and leaned her chin on the top of my head. Her hair was fine and limp. Stray pieces had come loose from the rubber band and hung down so they tickled my face. "When he was a baby, he was the ugliest thing you ever saw in your life. All yellow and wrinkly. And he had these teeth." She let me go and turned in the direction of the office. "A full set--right, Mom?"
"Just like Richard the Third," my mom called back.
Janice was still looking at me, crouched at the table like she was hungry. "Well, he's not ugly now."
"I'm going upstairs," I said, and pushed my chair back.
In my room, I lay on the bed but couldn't get comfortable. I felt restless, like little bugs were crawling around under my skin. The man on the bridge had been waiting for me--me, and not some random kid cutting across the bridge. He'd stared right into my face like he was looking for something. I was still cold and shaky from the blood, worse than I'd felt in a while and worse than I used to feel, ever.
Finally, I got up and went over to my closet. I got out my bass and my amp and plugged in the headphones.
The bass was strung with Black Beauties, and I'd pulled off the metal frets. If the song was fast, I used a pick, and when I didn't, the lacquer coating on the strings kept the steel from burning my fingers. But even if I had to play with bare strings, I'd probably do it anyway, just to get that low, humming sound, that feeling. Sometimes it's the only thing that helps. Anything that scares or worries you is suddenly a hundred miles away.
I played the lines to songs I knew and to songs I made up. I played progressions full of high, clear notes that hung forever and heavy tones that thumped and doubled back on themselves again and again and again.
After a long time, I started to get a strange feeling. Like someone was listening. Not the feeling of the house or even of Emma standing out in the hall. It was more like the warm, anxious rush of playing for a stranger. When I took the headphones off and went to the window, though, the backyard was empty. More time had passed than I'd realized and it was starting to get dark. I stared out at the lawn and the bushes, but it was ridiculous to think that someone had been listening. Completely ludicrous, when I was sitting there with the sound filtering through my headphones.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed with the Gibson propped across my knees and played a walking bass line that peaked and dropped and grew until I could feel it in my own heartbeat.
When I woke up a while later, someone was calling my name.
I rolled off the bed, untangling myself from cables and cords. I'd dozed off with my headphones on. From the floor, the amp hummed softly in the gloom and I felt hazy and numb. Outside, the sky was dark.
The house was very bright, which meant my dad was home. He has this thing for electric lights. If a switch can be flipped, he'll flip it. When I stepped out onto the landing, I had to shut my eyes against the glare.
"Malcolm," he called from the kitchen. "Come in here, please."
I went downstairs, blinking and shading my eyes with my hand.
He was at the table, and I could tell from his expression and his necktie that he'd just gotten back from the church. From Natalie Stewart's funeral. His face was round and generally friendly, but right now it looked sort of raw. I wanted to ask about the service but didn't know what to say.
He was flipping through a pile of old sermons and making notes on them. His suit coat was slung over the back of a chair. He glanced up when I came in but didn't put his pen down. He looked tired and sort of exasperated, like he could hardly wait for the day to be over.
"Do you want to talk about why I got a call from the attendance office this afternoon?" he said.
"They had the blood drive at school. . . ."
He watched my face, rolling the pen between his fingers. "Today wasn't a good day for doing things that could get you singled out. I'm assuming they announce something like that ahead of time?"
"I forgot," I said. "Anyway, it's not like it was some huge crisis."
"Malcolm," he said. "Your entire responsibility is not to make them see."
I stared down at the linoleum. "I didn't." After a second, I glanced back up at him. "I don't."
He arranged his sermons in a neat pile, lining up the edges. Then he got up and went to the counter. He got out a plastic knife and started using it to cut an apple into slices. I wanted to ask why he didn't just pick up the apple and eat it like a normal person, but everyone has their own private quirks.
After mangling the apple for a while, he threw the knife into the sink. It bounced like a pick-up-stick and snapped in half. "Why are there no paring knives in this house?"
"The good one's in the cupboard. Above the refrigerator," I said when he gave me a blank look.
My mother moves cutlery around like she's playing chess. Sometimes, she throws it out. Anything that can't be plastic or ceramic is aluminum. Anything that isn't aluminum, she hides.
He opened the cupboard, sorting through the pile of knives and stainless steel flatware, and took the paring knife back to the counter.
I watched his back as he sliced the apple. His shoulders were tight. He smelled like aftershave and this tense, sharp smell he gets when he's stressed out.
"I was thinking," he said without turning around. "Missy Brandt mentioned that it might be nice to have someone come in and help with the preschool class once in a while. Is that something you'd be interested in?"
I had a feeling that Missy hadn't mentioned it, that this was something he'd come up with on his own, and of course she'd said yes because what else can someone say when the minister asks you to babysit his sideshow of a son?
When I didn't answer, he glanced over his shoulder. "Is something wrong? I thought it might be a good solution. This way, you have an official place in the congregation."
I dug my fingernails into my palms and tried to get my voice under control. "It's just so . . . messed up."
"Well, it might take you a few weeks to get used to being around little kids, but I think you'll do fine if you just give it a chance." He sighed, shaking his head. "That's the trouble with you and your mother. Both of you, you take a situation and start inventing obstacles right away. You never just give things a chance to get better."
So, we were back to the sticky politics of choosing sides. On one side, me and my mom--pessimistic realists, always. On the other side, my dad and Emma, glowing with all the ways the world could be good, and I couldn't just agree with them because I didn't really believe it. But I wanted to.
I picked at the tablecloth, then stopped because it was making me look uncertain, and that wasn't how I felt. I meant what I had to say to him. I just didn't want to say it. "Dad, this doesn't have anything to do with giving things a chance. This is just how it is and it's not going to magically get better. I'm not ever going to be able to just live my life like everyone else."
My dad turned toward the window so I couldn't see his face. "Don't say that again. None of this is because of you."
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, feeling a deep, pulsing ache in the middle of my chest, like someone was hitting me. "It is because of me. You don't even treat me the same way you treat Emma."
That made him breathe out in a harsh gust, almost a laugh. "You're nothing like Emma. I try my best to figure out what you need, but it's hard. It's never been obvious with you, but that doesn't mean I don't try. That's all we can do, really--try to do the right thing."
I was about to tell him that the right thing was to go with what worked and not put me in charge of a bunch of little kids when Emma came in. She shuffled across the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I stopped talking and my dad kept his back to both of us.
Emma rummaged through the vegetable drawer for a while, then looked at us. "You didn't have to be so rude to Janice," she said, and at first, I thought she meant me.
My dad set down the knife and turned to face her. "You know we have rules about unexpected guests."
We do have rules. We have a lot of rules. Roswell can come over, but only because my dad trusts him. A random acquaintance might be tipped off by our lack of canned food and metal kitchen utensils.
My dad raked his hands through his hair. "Both of you, please. This family is an extremely visible part of the community and we need to be conscientious about the image we're projecting."
Emma closed the refrigerator, hard. "What image? We weren't embarrassing you. She was over so we could go through the seed experiment."
"Well, this isn't really the ideal place for a study session. Could you meet at the library, maybe?"
She put her hands on her hips. "Unfortunately, they have a policy about setting up germination trays at the library."
"Well, what about that nice little bookstore downtown? Or a coffee shop?"
"Dad!"
They glared at each other, but neither of them said anything.
They were the loud ones in the family, always shouting or laughing. I thought how strange it was that they were also the ones who'd perfected the art of a wordless argument. They could communicate just by the various ways they breathed in or out.
My dad made a huffing noise and Emma rolled her eyes and looked away.
She was standing against the refrigerator, staring at the floor. Suddenly, she leapt forward and hugged him around the waist like she was apologizing. They stood with their arms around each other and I knew that there'd never been any question about whether he'd hug her back.
She pressed her face against his shirt and said, "You better put that knife back when you're done. Mom hates it when the kitchen gets disarranged."
He laughed and turned to swat her with the dish towel. "Well, I certainly wouldn't want to disarrange her kitchen, would I?"
"Not if you know what's good for you."
She reached out to rumple my hair, but she was still looking at him. Then she turned and danced out of the room. He watched her go. They had an actual relationship--one I could never decipher or duplicate.
My dad left his mangled apple on the counter and sat down across from me. "I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but you know how important it is to keep a low profile."
"Some people pass out when there's blood. It's a known phenomenon."
He leaned down so that he was staring into my face. His eyes were pale green, like glass, and his hair was going from dishwater brown to gray. He had a way of seeming so good and so right when you didn't have to live with him, like anyone else could just go to him and find something warm and comforting there.
"You don't have the luxury of being like some people. You have to resemble the majority. I'm not saying they're bad, but this is a nervous, suspicious town, and it's going to be a lot worse for a while. A family buried their daughter today. You know that." Then his expression got softer. "Did you pass out?"
"No. I just had to go out and get some air."
"Did anyone see you?"
"Roswell."
My dad sat back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head, studying me. "Are you sure no one else saw you?"
"Just Roswell."
After a minute, he nodded. "Okay." He took a deep breath and said it again, like that decided something. "Okay. You're right--this isn't a crisis."
I nodded, looking at the floor and the shining granite counters. If you assessed our family dynamic based on just the kitchen, you would probably assume it was sitcom quality.
I leaned my elbows on the table like I was checking to see if it would take my weight. The smell of his aftershave was so strong that it kept getting in my mouth, making it hard to swallow. On the wall, the clock was ticking softly, inching toward eleven.
No. It wasn't a crisis. Except someone had scratched Freak on my locker door.
But there was no way to tell him about that. No way to make him understand that none of his rules and his safety measures mattered.
The word was still true.