Page 67
“Oh, come on, Freddy,” Bradley said. “I really liked you, man!”
Her father shuffled out of the shadows. “It isn’t like that, sweetheart.”
“Then what is it like?”
Her father scrunched up his face, unwilling or unable to provide an answer.
“We’re sorry, Devra.” David finally shut the door. “But he’s right, it isn’t like that. It’s not that we’re afraid of you. We’re afraid for you. Afraid that if anything bad happens to us, it will worsen your mental health, add to the load of guilt and anxiety you already carry around. We care about you. We only want what’s best for you.”
“I can’t believe this.” Devra dug thumbs into her temples. “All this time, I thought we were in this together. That we were cursed. I don’t know why, but that made it more bearable. Like we were…I don’t know, a team. Now I feel like I’m all alone. That our entire messed-up family is entirely my fault.”
“It isn’t your fault.” David rushed over and cupped her elbow, perhaps to show her he wasn’t afraid, that he wouldn’t recoil. But this time, Devra flinched away. Because he was right—she was afraid for him. She had been for a long time. Terrified to be close to those she longed to be closest to. If anything happened to him or Papa…because of her…
God, what was she doing? What had she been thinking coming here? Years of terror resurfaced with a vengeance, stripping away what little courage she’d gained these past few weeks. We need to leave, she tried to say, but the air inside her lungs was frozen stuck.
“It’s not your fault if you’re cursed any more than if we’re all cursed,” David said. “We’ve never blamed you, not for a single second. We are in this with you. We always have been.”
“Do you have any idea how this feels?” Devra managed to say. “To be the cursed child? The cursed—?”
“Enough with this damn curse!”
Her father’s shout reverberated up the walls. Devra couldn’t recall the last time he’d raised his voice, and her shock stilled her escalating panic.
“I have let this carry on for far too long. I thought I was supporting you, Devra. I thought if I played along, it might soothe your anxieties, that you might find more peace being alone over the holidays than constantly fretting when we were together. I thought I was being a good father. I thought…I don’t know what I thought anymore. It’s all gotten too twisted. Was I really doing it for you, or was I doing it for myself? Because letting go was easier than trying to keep us together. I just don’t know anymore. But the one thing I do know with absolute certainty”—his voice boomed, filling the space—“there is no curse!”
David gasped.
Devra covered her mouth. “How can you say that?”
“You can’t be serious?” David said. “The broken leg, the broken car, the broken window. There is clearly something very broken in this family. If it isn’t a curse—”
“Stop it.” Frederick stuck his fingers in his ears. “If I hear that blasted word one more time, I’ll lose my mind. David, Devra, listen to me. It isn’t real. It’s only a string of inexplicably bad luck.”
“Papa!” Devra shrieked. “Don’t say that. Bad luck? I thought you believed me. I thought you—”
“How can you possibly explain it, then?” David shouted. “The burned arm, the burned house.”
“The burned ponies.”
“Those hives she got from that present you bought her.”
“The cursed makeup set.”
“Another fun Christmas Day spent in the emergency room.”
“Mom leaving us.”
“Mom leaving us!”
“That plane that stayed on the tarmac for seven hours before they finally declared the flight cancelled.”
“They refused to feed us. I thought I was going to die on that tarmac.”
“They basically held us captive. That can’t be normal.” Devra flailed her arms for emphasis and knocked over a table lamp. It lay docile on the carpet for a single second before the glass bulb exploded in a loud pop and everyone in the room jumped.
Pause.
“Or that!” David and Devra shouted at the same time.
