American Boy - Larry Watson [75]
“I have an aspirin....”
“No, it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. It was mostly just embarrassing.”
Mrs. Dunbar smiled up at me. She now had her ankles crossed. “It was very cute earlier. The twins wanted to stay up late, until you and Johnny came back. That’s what they said: Until Johnny and Matt come back, please? Not their father. Not just Johnny. Johnny and Matt.”
At any other time I might have been touched by her remark. There were times when I came close to forgetting that Janet and Julia were not my little sisters, too. But it was late, I was tired, and I still had something I needed to do before my night came to a close. “Yeah. Cute. But hey, I need to go upstairs and pick up something and then I’ll be on my way, okay?”
“Would you like me to give you a ride?”
The Dunbars... always ready to give me a ride. “That’s all right,” I said. “You have to stay with the twins. Besides, it’s not far.”
As I climbed the stairs, I kept to the side of each step so they were less likely to creak. I stayed close to the wall as I tread carefully down the halls, and I turned the doorknob slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible. Mrs. Dunbar knew I was there. The twins were not likely to wake. It was the house itself I was trying not to disturb. I took what I came for and made my way out as quietly as I could.
21.
MY LIFE KEPT MAKING ragged duplicates of itself.
Before I went to bed that night I examined my swollen face in the bathroom mirror, another injury that had come at the hands of Rex Dunbar. But I didn’t look or puzzle long over the bruise or the how and why of it. This time I was sure of the motive behind the blow.
And once again I was waiting, just as I had done after New Year’s Eve, when Dr. Dunbar predicted consequences that never came. This time, however, I felt better equipped for what might come. When the doctor burst into the motel room and punched me I’d been completely unprepared for the blow, but I swore I wouldn’t be blindsided again.
But Monday came and Dr. Dunbar didn’t knock on our door, ready to kick my ass again. He didn’t pull up to the curb as I was walking to school, or leap from his big Chrysler and pummel me. Nor did the sheriff show up to pull me out of class. Not that day or the next.
I couldn’t relax though, because now I was waiting for Thursday. That was the day when Jay’s Pancake House slid a few tables together at the back of the restaurant for the afternoon Kiwanis Club meeting, and the women’s circle met in the basement of the First Presbyterian church. Dr. Dunbar belonged to the first organization, and Mrs. Dunbar the second.
On Thursday afternoon, shortly after lunch, when I felt confident both meetings were underway, I asked to be excused from my fifth-period history class. I told Mrs. Spires that I was sick to my stomach, and I said it with a grimace in the hopes of implying a messy urgency behind my request.
I had the car that day, so when I left the high school I was able to travel quickly to my destination. A light snow sifted down, as fine as cornmeal, which meant that I would leave a trail. But while that realization was upsetting, I also knew I couldn’t cover every contingency, and I wasn’t about to abandon my plan. Perhaps my footprints would mingle with the milkman’s and the postman’s, and perhaps as the snow continued to fall it would conceal my tracks rather than reveal them.
How many times had I entered the Dunbar house over the years? Thousands, certainly. Yet very seldom had I walked in through the front door, as I did that Thursday afternoon. I didn’t bother to take off my coat, but I did pull off my overshoes. I was willing to leave my footprints in the snow leading up to the door, but I wouldn’t dirty Mrs. Dunbar’s floors.
I didn’t have to search long before I found Louisa. She was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a ham sandwich and paging through a copy of Look magazine. A Chesterfield from the pack on the table burned in the ashtray, and there was a bottle of 7-Up open next to her.
She spotted me before I said a word, and once again, she didn