Page 81 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

Chris tries to shrug, but with his broken bones, it comes out as more of a wobble. He walks a few steps behind me as we approach the first trailer. Taking a deep breath, I knock three times.

No one answers.

I look at Chris.

“Try again,” he whispers loudly.

I knock three more times. Still no one.

We try another trailer, which is opened by a very scary-looking dude with tattoos covering his skull. He yells a few choice words at us before we can even ask for our dad.

“Do you even think he’s here?”

“We’ll try this last row,” says Chris. “At least then we can tell Mom we tried.”

We knock on every door. A tired-looking woman holding a crying baby opens one. Two of the others ignore us completely, which is better than the one where someone flings a shoe at the door, sending me scuttling down the steps.

With a deep breath, I knock on the second-to-last door. Someone stumbles around inside the trailer.

“What do you want?” demands a gravelly voice, as the trailer door swings open. A hard-lived white woman in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt glares at me. Her platinum hair has gray and brown roots longer than my thumbs and mascara is smudged beneath her eyes. The sickly-sweet smell of last night’s booze wafts off her. She looks like an ’80s throwback version of Carol Burnett playing Miss Hannigan in Annie. Stumbling, still drunk, and mean as hell.

“Um.” My voice shakes as I stand there. “I’m a new production assistant for the show, and they told me to bring donuts to the trailers this morning.” I open the box with a flourish. Chris ate four on the way over here, so there’s just a few left.

The woman eyes me suspiciously and then takes a chocolate-and-sprinkles one.

I stand there for a moment, trying to peer past her. A lumpy couch and a cheap-looking table fill most of the room. But leaning against the wall between them is my dad’s guitar. The one he stole from Len and was supposed to give back. I turn around, trying to signal to Chris. The woman shoots me a dirty look and starts to close the door. I put my foot out to stop it.

“Is that all?” she asks, glaring at my sneaker. “Show doesn’t start for a few hours, and I’m still sleeping.”

My mind goes blank for a moment, and Chris limps up the stairs. “We’re looking for Lars Sweetly. Special message from production. Have you seen him today?”

The woman narrows her eyes. “What do you want with Lars? He done something wrong?”

Fear flashes across her face for a moment and her eyes dart to the kitchen table. A mirror and the residue of white, powdery lines covers the table. Something in me—maybe the last thread of hope I had for my dad, which I wasn’t even aware I was clinging to—disappears.

“We just have a message for him,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral. “He’s not in trouble. I think he might have gotten a raise or something.”

“Well, ain’t that the shit,” says the woman, taking a huge bite of the donut. “Lars! Get your ass out here. Somebody from production wants to see you.”

I’m fairly stunned that we actually found him. Chris and I share a surprised look. But I guess even we get lucky sometimes.

Lars stumbles out of the back bedroom, bumping into things and knocking empty bottles to the floor. “What the hell are you yelling about, Janet? Don’t you know a man needs—”

He catches sight of us and stops dead in his tracks.

“Kit? Chris? What’re you two doing here?”

“You know these two?” Janet finishes her donut and picks up a cigarette out of an overflowing ashtray. She plops it into her mouth and tries lighting it with a cheap plastic lighter. Chocolate smears her fingers, leaving fingerprints on the lighter.

“Get outta the way, Janet,” says my dad, pushing past her. “These are my kids. The ones I was telling you about.”

“Ahhhhh.” Janet looks at us a bit differently now. “What are you here for? He ain’t got no money.” She laughs at that and turns away from us as the lighter catches and makes the tip of her cigarette glow.

Lars steps outside, still shirtless. All three of us are on a porch so narrow, it couldn’t be called anything but a step.

“Well, what do you want?” His voice is defensive and also a little tremulous. He crosses his arms over his bony, pale chest. “You did all this work to find me, but why’re you here?”

Chris makes a small, angry noise behind me. Kind of like a snap firework going off, but I find my voice first. “You need to sign these,” I say, thrusting the divorce papers at him. “Mom’s been trying to find you. What happened to you trying to make everything right?”