I hear more than a scuffle then, and it’s punctuated by a hollow-sounding bang. I can’t help it, I creep down the top few steps until I can crouch down and see into the living room. Dad has Uncle Mike pressed up against a wall but releases him as suddenly as he slammed him back, and I can see Dad taking deep, chest-filling breaths. Both of them are.
“Will, I—”
“Quit coming out here when you’re drinking. Quit talking about my family like any part of them ever belonged to you. Quit acting like you know anything about being a father.” He walks to the closet and pulls out the blankets and pillow Mom keeps on hand for Uncle Mike and tosses them on the couch. “Drunk or not, friend or not, you sayanythinglike that about my wife again and I’ll lay you out.”
I have just enough time to retreat into my room before Dad heads upstairs.
CHAPTER 20
Days pass without rain. I drive past Hackman’s Pond a few times anyway, but I never see Heath. Everywhere else things are okay. Not good, not awful, just okay.
I keep dreaming of Cal dying, of Jason killing him. Over and over again my subconscious projects the grisly scene in my mind, trying to fit the pieces together in a way that explains how my brother could have done what he did, but they never fit.
I wake up gasping one night, sure that I can hear Cal’s blood dripping, only to find rain beating against my windowpane.
I’m not relieved exactly when Heath’s truck finally pulls up behind Daphne at the tree the next day. My dream is too fresh in my mind. I’m worrying my bottom lip when he joins me under the shade.
“I thought I might have to leave for work before you got here.”
“I couldn’t get here sooner,” is all he says while moving to the branch, to the spot I’m starting to think of as his.
We don’t have an exact time for meeting up, and it’s not like the rain is predictable. The smart thing would be for us to exchange numbers or set specific days and times to meet, but we haven’t done that and I don’t think we will. Keeping it vague and dependent on the whims of the weather helps it feel less premeditated. Less like I’m doing something I shouldn’t.
“My work schedule changes basically every week,” I say. “If I’m ever not here after it rains, that’s why. Not, you know, for any other reason.”
Heath nods. An awkward silence stretches in the few feet separating us. I don’t know how to fill it. I’ve been sitting there for nearly an hour, trying and mostly failing to smother the guilt that surrounds me for wanting to see him. Last night, hearing the rain and knowing what it meant was the only thing that let me find sleep again after my dream.
I don’t understand why, especially as I’m feeling worse and worse as the silent seconds tick by.
“So you visit him, right?” I startle hearing Heath’s voice. “You go see him in prison?” He’s squinting in the sunlight reflected of the pond. He doesn’t sound angry, but I don’t know how could he be anything else when talking about Jason so I nod rather than voice my answer.
“What do you even say to him?” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Do you have normal conversations, like, do you tell him about your car breaking down or how the cat crapped in the living room again?”
“We don’t have a cat,” I say quietly.
Heath shifts his gaze to mine, forcing me to hold it as I perch on the branch a couple feet away.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Forget it.”
But I know he can’t. I move so that we’re facing each other. “We talk about normal things. Never anything heavy or serious. My mom will change the subject if I even try.”
“And your dad?”
“It’s only my mom and me who visit him.”
“Your dad and sister don’t go?”
I shake my head. “Never.”
“They say why?”
I think about the fight I overhead between Dad and Uncle Mike. “I think maybe my dad feels guilty, like he did something wrong raising Jason.”
“And did he?”
My eyes flash to Heath’s. “No.”
