Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Eight

DAD: No.

AUNT BEX: No.  You weren't.  If I recall correctly, I'm the one who saw it so how could you possibly know—?

//: Someone slams a drink onto the table with a crack.  The Operative can't shake the feeling that even if the door had been closed, she would have heard the next part of the conversation.  :\\

DAD: Beacuse she's dead, Bex! She's dead, okay?  Because there's no way in hell...

//:  Dad stops himself.  Aunt Bex seems to wait for him to finish, but he doesn't.  Not without being prompted.  :\\

AUNT BEX: No way in hell... what, Zach?

DAD: She wouldn't leave us.  Not again.

//:  Again?  :\\

AUNT BEX:  She would if she had to.

DAD:  She knows better than to leave without backup.

AUNT BEX: Who's to say she doesn't have backup?

DAD:  No—just.  God, Bex.  No. Because forget about me or Rachel or you.  The only way she'd leave the kids is if she were dead.  God, this is exactly what you did last time.

//:  Last time?  :\\

AUNT BEX:  Last time—

//:  Another crack as glass hits wood.  :\\

AUNT BEX: —I was right.

//:  The Operative can practically feel the tension oozing through the slim crack at the base of the door and It occurs to her that in a fight between Rebecca Baxter and Zacahry Goode, nobody wins.  :\\

DAD:  Maggie's going to be here soon.  Put on a smile.

AUNT BEX:  That's it?  You're just not going to talk about it anymore?  You're just going to run away from all your problems like you did when we were sixteen?

DAD:  I'm not running, Rebecca.  My daughter is going to be here soon and she doesn't need to get her hopes up.

//:  Aunt Bex scoffs.  :\\

DAD:  What?  What could you possibly have left to say?

AUNT BEX:  You're right.  It's nothing.

//:  It doesn't soudn like nothing.  :\\

AUNT BEX:  Just never thought I'd see the day that Zachary Goode stopped chasing after Cameron Morgan, is all.

<t>End Transmission</t>

The seconds felt bloated and like they didn't quite fit together the way that they were supposed to.  My  head spun and I clutched at my mother's necklace, my only anchor in this whirpool that threatened to wash me away completely.  I couldn't breathe.  Couldn't swim.  Drowing in my aunt's words and my own thoughts.

Mom was dead.

She was dead.

Mom. was. dead.

I tried listening for more, desperate to hear the rest of Bex's theory.  Desperate to hear Dad tell her she was right.  

Every record can be faked.

Mom was dead.

They weren't saying anything else.  Maybe they would've sat in silence forever if I hadn't worked up the courage to knock on the door.  I think I remember Dad telling me to come in and I vaugely recall the sqeak of the door as I pushed it open, but I can't remember.

Mom was dead.  Right?

Dad and Aunt Bex were good.  Really good.  If I hadn't already known this before, I would have known it then.  There wasn't a sign of their gloomy conversation as I walked in.  Just two, half empty bottles of beer leaving temporary wet rings on the trunk in front of them and a pair of smiles leaving permanent lines on their faces.  The two of them lounged across that couch like they were the most innocent people in the world.  "Hey, there she is."  Dad greeted me like I was the best part of his day or something, which, let me tell you, I was not.  "We were just wondering when you were going to get here."

I knew that it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.  Suddenly, I didn't feel so bad about keeping D.C. a secret.  If he was going to start hiding things, then maybe I would too.  At least my secrets were justified.  

I almost confronted him about it.  I almost asked him what the status on Mom really was and I almost told him that I had been listening.  But I didn't.  Because even though I knew the smile on his face was fake, I had somehow convinced myself that it wasn't.  That Dad was actually happy and that I didn't have the heart to make him talk about Mom again.  Somehow, I convinced myself of all of that, and I think maybe he had convinced himself, too.

"You don't mind if I stay for dinner, do you?" asked Aunt Bex.  "Your dad makes the best grilled cheese.  When I heard he was making it, I couldn't resist staying."

And, well, that part was the truth.  Dad did make the best grilled cheese.  He used two slices of cheese instead of one and had been graced with the invaluable skill of knowing the exact moment to flip the sandwich over.  It was kind of like eating heaven, if we're being honest.  "Sure thing, Aunt Bex."

Dad and Aunt Bex have been really good friends for as long as I can remember.  When Aunt Bex came to the safe house, she would always sit next to Dad.  Whenever the two of them were within a 300-mile radius of each other, they met up at a gym somewhere and hit each other for a while.  Even over the summer, when Dad had been out exploring the world—running in whichever direction he could—Aunt Bex had been with him, keeping an eye on him.  She’d even steal the phone sometimes and chat with me about how cold Greenland was or how stingy the market folk had been that day.

So yeah, Dad and Aunt Bex had always been close, but I wondered if they’d ever been as close as they were in that moment.  Like, physically close.  Like, grossly, physically close.  Their knees were touching and Dad’s arm was stretched across the top of the couch just behind her.  When they moved, they seemed to have that same supernatural sense that Will and Bill had, not one moving without the other.  I saw the way Aunt Bex punched his shoulder and how Dad leaned in closer when she was talking and I wondered just how close they had gotten that past summer.

But then Dad got up, twisting the tie from a bag of bread and I made a silent pact to never, ever, ever, ever, never think about how close Dad and Aunt Bex were again.

“So,” Dad said in that voice he did when he was trying to imitate the dad from Leave it to Beaver.  “What did you learn at school today, sweetie?”