Things We Didn't Say_ A Novel - Kristina Riggle [69]
The roads are still tricky, I can tell from the way other cars fishtail in front of us, and the way my dad’s jaw clenches. I wonder if he used to do that in surgery, tighten his face in concentration. No wonder he was always so tired. He would be standing up for hours, awake for hours. I suppose he’s conditioned himself to this kind of thing.
He thinks I don’t appreciate his hard work because of his financially cushy life, relative to mine at least. I just don’t need to give him more credit because he gives himself plenty already.
The sameness of the Ohio turnpike is hypnotizing and, given my exhaustion, makes me feel a bit delirious.
I try sending Casey a text, but she doesn’t reply. Maybe she’s sleeping; it’s late. I hope everyone is asleep by now. I imagine my house dark and calm and peaceful, as a home should be.
My dad clears his throat and I look over. I’ve been stroking my jawline scar.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
I fold my arms and lean back against the seat, watching the highway lights blur past me out the window.
It was one of the worst fights. I’d gotten an overdraft notice from the bank, in fact, several of them. We should have had plenty of money. Enough, anyway.
I was tired from work, and I should have broached the topic carefully, because there were ways I could handle Mallory to minimize the theatrics. But there were always days when I wasn’t up to it, my resolve to be the stoic weakened by late hours at the office.
This was one of those days.
Dylan and Angel were in bed. This was before Jewel, and when the other kids were young enough that we could tuck them in at a reasonable hour. I’d finally opened the mail.
Mallory was at the table with a travel coffee mug full of beer. She had mints in her pocket she would chew between mugs, as if that fooled anyone.
“Dammit. Mallory!”
“What?”
“What have you been spending money on now?” I threw the papers down in front of her.
“The kids needed clothes.”
“What clothes? I haven’t seen any new clothes.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you do the laundry.”
“I see them every day, I—” I flinched. I’d been sucked into her trap. Arguing the minutiae, missing the point. “We’ll never get ahead if you keep taking money out of the ATM.”
“I need money sometimes.”
“For what?”
I knew damn well for what. I wanted to hear her say it. In fact, a desperate irrational urge seized me, a need to hear her just once come clean about something.
“Stuff.” She took another sip, leaned back in the kitchen chair. She couldn’t look more bored.
“Give me your ATM card.”
She snorted. Didn’t move.
I walked around her to the dining room table, where she always put her purse. It was a rule my mother had pounded into me: never, ever go into a woman’s purse or a man’s wallet. I was past rules, past reason.
When Mallory saw me grab her purse, she jolted to life. She raced to me and got her hands on it. We tugged back and forth, and the sacklike purse exploded onto the floor in the struggle.
In the middle of the wreckage—tampons, loose change, makeup—I spied a flask. Had she started drinking on the go? Her face was warped in fury, her eyes huge and wild. I broke away from her stare and saw her wallet, which I snatched up.
She leaped on me like a feral cat. I turned my back to her, hunching over her wallet, tearing through its contents to repossess the ATM card.
Part of me knew I’d gone too far. Maybe I was right to repossess that card, I was always goddamn right, in fact, but my error was in tactics. I’d sunk to her level, as I later would analyze, but then, right then, my reason had been burned away.
I seized it and held it up over her head. This was a childish action, but I was elated with accomplishment.
She leaped at it, raking her fingernails down my arm.
She slapped my face, but I barely felt it. I continued to hold the card out of her reach and circled back into the kitchen. Coming down from the high of my victory, I was realizing that I had a bigger, more present problem.
Mallory was drunk and crazy-mad, and the kids