The Waking Moon

Chapter Six

Dad’s Honda was in the driveway, but the windows of the house were dark. Inside, it was very quiet. When I flipped on the living room light, I gasped to see him sitting on the sofa.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” I asked. He stared at me, his red-rimmed eyes lost and frightened. His mad professor hair was disheveled, and I knew he’d been pulling at it the way he does when he’s upset.

“He died,” he said, his voice breaking. “That boy…”

I stared at him, my body swaying. “What are you talking about?”

But I knew exactly what he was talking about. The boy. I flashed to the feeling of his strong, callused fingers curled around mine, and the thought made me so dizzy, I almost sat down where I stood.

“Your mother is being charged with manslaughter.”

Dad’s eyes were distant, and the wrinkles on his forehead looked deep and permanent. It was the ravaged look I remembered from Judy’s last days. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to run out the door screaming like a maniac and hurl myself under the first passing car. But I just stood there, frozen, feeling the wreckage of our lives raining down all around me.

That evening at dinner, dad talked about the lawyer he’d found, and tried to speak optimistically about mom’s chances of the court going easy on her. But I don’t think either of us believed it. We sat glumly, poking at the frozen pot pies neither of us felt like eating. The only thing people hated more than a drunk driver was a drunk driver that kills a kid. We knew that sweet, heart-broken mom was going to prison for a long time. It was impossible.

“I’m going to Laramie,” dad said, absently crushing the pie crust with the tines of his fork.

“What? You’re leaving me here? Why?”

He sighed and kept his eyes on the table. “We need money, Paulie. And we don’t have it. I called the bank, and they won’t mortgage the house again.”

“What are you talking about? Why do need that much money?”

“I’m talking about giving your mom a fighting chance! Good lawyers are for the rich! What are we supposed to do? Let them throw her case to a public defender? Or get some kid straight out of law school?”

“Can’t you just call Uncle Dave on the phone?”

Dad set down the fork. He pressed his fingertips hard against forehead and pushed at his temples with the thumbs, which meant one of his killer migraines was underway. “He won’t take my call. We’ve got a lot of history to sort out. But I have to try. There’s nowhere else to go.”

I was never told why dad fell out with his only brother ten years ago. All I know is that while he was sinking into debt with his sick daughter’s medical bills, his older brother Dave was amassing a fortune in real estate. And I know that even though Uncle Dave owned much of the pastureland in southern Wyoming, he was still happy to take his half of his parents’ meager estate when they died. And yet he hadn’t seen the value of flying in to attend my sister’s funeral. I didn’t envy what dad had to do now.

“When are you leaving?” I asked.

“As soon as I can cover my classes.” He let out a long, controlled exhalation, and I could tell the migraine had him.

Dad took an Ambien at eight thirty, and disappeared into his room for the night. The house felt desolate without mom. I sat in the living room, absently picking at my nylon-string guitar and staring at the television. The flickering images were meaningless glimpses of a world that no longer mattered. Still, I needed the yammering sounds, the signs of life beyond those suffocating walls. Around midnight I forced myself off the couch and went to bed.