“And where are we?” Kel asked.
“You tell me. You’re divorced and stuck at a menial job with two kids to feed, and Andy moved back home when he couldn’t cut it in the big city.” He cocked his head. “You guys made fun of me the whole time we were at home, and now you’re jealous.”
“Christ, how do we all fit in here with your ego?” I asked.
“Don’t use his name in vain,” Cory said, pointing at me. “This is our mother’s house.”
“It’s our father’s house,” Kel said. “Mom’s dead.”
“Yeah, so is Emma. She should’ve listened to Mom too.”
It was like all the air was sucked out of the room.
“Take it back,” Kel whispered.
He started to say something else. It might’ve been an apology or what passed for one for Cory, but we never found out because I launched myself across the room and tackled him out of the chair.
My feet clipped the table as we toppled over and dishes flew. Glass shattered. Kel screamed.
I barely registered any of it.
Imagine a trip wire attached to a claymore mine. Think of that wire slowly tightening, getting tauter and tauter as days and weeks go by and the weather does its work. There is a breaking point, when the tension on the wire will finally be too much and trip the blasting cap. Boom.
As we hit the floor, I could almost see the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY hanging in the air.
Cory issued a surprised squawk, then a grunt of pain as I landed on him. He tried saying something, but by then I was pistoning my fist into his jaw. All at once we were teens again, except this time I was on top and he was taking the beating.
He rolled to the left to get away from me, and I responded with an elbow to the side of his head. He must’ve thrashed his legs around, because a second later the table tipped over and spewed the remaining dishes and food onto the floor.
“Jesus! Stop it!” Kel yelled, but all I could hear was an echo of Cory saying what he’d said about Emma. Gentle Emma, who only wanted to be a physicist or an astronomer. Who never hurt anyone but herself.
Cory flailed with one arm, and his fist caught me on the side of the head. Supernovas of black stars in the corners of my vision. He was strong from all his workouts in whatever swanky gym he belonged to, but he wasn’t angry.
I was distilled rage.
I wound up a haymaker that connected with his mouth.
Blood flew.
I think it was the sight of so much blood that finally stopped me. Both his lips had split deeply on his teeth, and drops of crimson pattered and smeared on the tile. An abstract painting of our relationship there on the floor.
I climbed off him, heaving breaths, still angry but growing cooler as the adrenaline unstacked and I looked around at the mess.
Cory touched a palm to his lips and stared at the blood before looking at me with eyes so wide they seemed to fill up his face. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
Suddenly I didn’t have the energy to reply. Kel did it for me.
“I think you should leave,” she said, gesturing toward the door.
Cory climbed to his feet and swayed there. He swiped at his mouth again, more blood smearing down his forearm. “I always knew you hated me. Both of you. But you’ve gone too far. I’ll be talking to my lawyer. Neither of you are fit to take care of Dad.”
“Cory . . . ,” Kel said, sounding even more exhausted than I was. “Just go.”
It looked like he was going to reply, then thought better of it. He turned from us and kicked a takeout container of shrimp and noodles. It flew across the room and spattered against the wall, bits of spice and peppers dripping down in the sauce.
The front door opened and slammed shut. An engine started. Tires squealed.
Cory was gone.
We stood there for a while in the dinner wreckage. Not saying anything, just being. Absorbing it all. Then we started to clean.
I picked up bowls and pieces of broken glass while Kel took a washrag to the beer and sauces on the cabinets and chairs.
We didn’t get far. A noise came from outside, jerking both our heads up. The whoop of a police siren. Once and gone, but close.
We picked our way through the debris to the window and looked out.
Up the street, a patrol car had rolled to a stop before the Barrens’ house, and a cop was rounding the front of the car, hand resting on the butt of his weapon.
He was beelining across the lawn toward Dad, who stood on the Barrens’ porch, knocking on the front door.
22
Out the back door and across the lawn.