“Where’s your mom?”
“At the store, I think.”
She smiled just as my dad came back into the kitchen.
“She’s gone—” he started to say, but then he saw her standing there in our kitchen. His beard twitched and he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.
He walked toward her, and he looked angry. A type of angry I hadn’t ever seen on him before.
“Get out, now!” he yelled in her face.
I didn’t like him speaking to her like that, and I wanted to say something but I was so shocked. I always wanted to be like my dad when I grew up. He was polite and courteous. He used manners. But that man was nowhere to be seen right then.
He grabbed her arm tightly. She pulled away from him, almost dropping the vodka as she fell against the countertop.
“I said, get out!”
“Make me,” Carrie dared with a laugh.
I didn’t like drunk Carrie. She was cruel and hard. I didn’t like that she made my dad so angry either. I rarely saw my dad lose his temper. But most of all, I didn’t like that she wasn’t scared by my dad. She should have been, though, because he looked really scary right then, and though I wouldn’t ever tell her so, I was scared too.
He turned to me with a face I didn’t know. “Go to your room, Ethan. Your mom didn’t want you having anything to do with Carrie. We don’t want you to get in trouble, do we?”
I stood there, silent, confused, and unsure on what to do. My dad got impatient and he took my arm and led me away, and he said,
“She’s a little tart, Ethan. You can do better than her.”
I didn’t know what atartwas, and I had never heard my dad say anything like that before, but when I looked over his shoulder I saw the hurt on Carrie’s face. So I ran back to her and I threw my arms around her.
“I miss you,” I said, my face nestled into her neck.
“I miss you too,” she said.
“Get out, Ethan,” my dad said. “Get out and go to your room, now!”
And then I left the kitchen and I went upstairs like I was told, and I thought about how it sucked to be such a good boy sometimes.
I heard them talking some more, but quieter this time. Just mumbles, really. And then I heard Carrie crying loudly. I wanted to go to her, but I didn’t want to upset Mom or Dad. So I stayed upstairs, listening to the noises from the kitchen and wondering why I was such a coward.
