Once Around the Carousel

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tim started his questioning before they made it out of the driveway. "Okay, spill it. What the hell's going on? What's the old man keeping from us? And what the hell's wrong with Mom?"

Sharon's mind flooded with things she should say, then fear crossed each item off the list. Finally, she fell back on playing dumb. "What'd ya' mean?"

"Don't give me that. Something's up. Dad hasn't let us come home since before Christmas. And Mom looks like; I don't know, like she's sick or something. He told us she couldn't come to our graduation cuz she had to stay home with you, but I know that's bullshit."

Sharon knew her father's edict of seclusion left her mother with virtually no outside life. But to hear she didn't attend the lms' graduation came as a shock. Her mother had left for the weekend. But when Sharon thought about it, her mother couldn't give a single detail about the graduation ceremony. And her description of Deerfield's campus never went beyond a recitation of the pictures from the worn catalog in her bedside table.

While Sharon had been absorbing the brunt of her father's depravity, she could only sit back and watch as the wrath and anger he attached to it landed on Perrin. Bob had extinguished any flickers of self-esteem Perrin had retained after ceding control of her life in the earliest days of their marriage. She lived in a perpetual state of panic, like someone performing a plate-­twirling act whose training amounted to nothing more than instructions to "just keep 'em spinning."

"I guess," Sharon mumbled. Then without thinking, she followed her father's lead, "Mom's just getting old."

Even during Tim's continued questioning, Sharon noticed something that made her feel good. A change in the way her brother acted. He no longer treated her as if she were a child. Even through the preppy aloofness, he'd picked up at Deerfield, an air of equality had arisen between them. And it sealed Sharon from speaking the truth even more. Her brother had stopped treating her like a child, and the last thing she wanted to do was ruin it with reality.

Walking into Linda's house provided its welcome relief nearly immediately. Then, as she shut the door, Linda came hopping down the stairs, hollering. "Was that your brother's car?"

"Yeah, they just got home from school. They won't be here long, though. My dad's sending them away for the summer," Sharon said, playfully tugging on Linda's apron.

"I'm cooking dinner and straightening up before we go out," Linda said, swatting Sharon's hand. "So where are they going now," she asked as Sharon followed her into the kitchen.

"Some trip to drink beer in Scotland. But Tim was really cool when he drove me here." Sharon said. Then curious about what Tim asked her, she put the question to Linda. "Do you think my mom looks sick? Tim kept asking me if there was something wrong with her."

Linda looked at Sharon with much the same expression Eliza used when she asked the obvious questions about their mother. "This hasn't been the happiest year for any of us," Linda said gently.

Sharon's defenses went up immediately. "I guess my dad's mean to her sometimes," she said, then paused, pardoned by the ringing phone.

From the "uh huhs", "yups", and "sures" Sharon figured Linda's father told her something that upset her.

"That was my dad," Linda said, hanging up the kitchen phone. "He's not coming home for dinner. And I made him roast chicken the way he likes it." Linda looked dejected, and Sharon couldn't help thinking she truly was turning into Perrin.

After picking through a little bit of dinner, Sharon got antsy for the party. Terry, one of her cheerleader friends, and her boyfriend were picking them up, and Sharon wanted to be ready. "I'm gonna run up to your room and get dressed," Sharon said, jumping up.