Julia leaned forward, just in case she needed to get between her brother and her dad. Just in case he really did snap.
Arlo threw the ice cream in the garbage, hard, so it passed all the random pink plastic and stuff and sank straight to the bottom. Then he stood in the doorway, waiting for Julia and Larry to follow. So Julia got up and threw away her ice cream, too. She stood next to her dad. Didn’t say anything. Tried not to cry. She’d wanted that ice cream. That ice cream had been the only good thing to happen in weeks.
Larry took another bite like nothing was happening. The more nervous he got, the weirder and more obstinate he acted.
“Get up. Now. We’re leaving,” Arlo said.
Julia went over to him because right now, Larry was especially her job. If she could take care of him, at least she was doing one thing right. Even if she’d failed Shelly. There wasn’t time to nice-talk him. So she took a chance, grabbed him by the arm and pulled, which worked 90 percent of the time. The other 10 percent, he tweaked. She used too much force. He got taken by surprise and shoved her. Little brothers. She reacted instead of thinking and shoved him back. He fell, landing upright, his ice cream intact.
The Baskin-Robbins was crowded. Everybody was looking at them, even the people in uniform who worked there. This was bad. They weren’t allowed to fight, especially now that Julia was twelve years old. But the golden rule was Never in Public.
Larry scrambled to get up. He used Julia’s leg for support and Julia yelped. It looked like more tussling.
“Let go of each other! NOW!” Arlo shouted.
Still holding Julia’s leg, Larry froze, too scared to do anything else. Julia tried to shrink inside herself without actually moving her body or looking away or attracting attention.
Arlo rushed at them in two lanky strides, then jerked Larry up by the arm. He made this grunt that wasn’t pain, but probably sounded like it to strangers. Everybody in the shop got quiet. Somebody took out their phone and pointed. Larry’s pistachio ice cream dropped, and it slimed their clean floor.
Arlo’s voice went low and rasping. It carried the way lead singers’ voices fill any room, no matter the volume. “Why can’t either of you ever do as told?”
“Sorry,” Julia whispered.
“You know you can’t act like this. Not now! What the fuck are you thinking?”
“I’m so sorry,” Julia said. She could feel the people in the store watching. The green ice cream had smeared. Was all under Larry’s flip-flops, and on his toes, too.
Arlo ran his hands through his hair, hard, the skin of his forehead pulling back, making stark his receded salt-and-pepper hairline. His Wolf Man tattoo looked like it was scowling.
“I want more ice cream and Julia, too,” Larry said.
It was maybe the worst thing he could have said.
Arlo bent low, looked just to Larry now. “They blame me for what happened. If your mom’s in the loony bin and I’m in jail, do you have any idea what’s going to happen to you, you little freak?”
Larry started shaking. He didn’t cry. He just did that thing, and went far away. Julia started crying, though.
“Goddamn,” Arlo whispered as he backed away from his kids. Then, the worst thing. A thing she’d never seen before. He was wiping his eyes. Her super tough rock star dad was crying. His voice was scrapyard gravel. “Meet you outside,” he said. Then he left the store.
The people in the Baskin-Robbins were still staring, and Julia couldn’t tell what they were thinking. She just wished they’d stop looking. Larry was wiggling his ice cream–covered toes. “Come on,” she said.
He didn’t follow, so she took him really gently this time. They found Arlo in the Passat, engine turned. They both climbed into the back, not wanting to sit next to him. He didn’t look back at them. She couldn’t tell if it was because he was mad or because he’d been crying. When they got home, he went down to the basement. Julia was glad. Hoped he’d stay there. Except, he was the only grown-up left.
She took Larry by the hand and brought him to his room. He was still far away. The room looked even more perfect than usual. Clean and Spartan as a robot’s. His bed was far from the window now. They’d moved all their beds far from windows.
She made him wash his feet, brush his teeth, put on his pajamas, then pulled back his covers and had him climb into bed. She handed him the Robot Boy replacement doll she’d made for him: two dishrags rubber-banded together in a cruciform shape, with nuts and bolts glued down for face, hands, and feet.