Читать книгу A Little Friendly Advice - Siobhan Vivian - Страница 8

His leaving seemed sudden at the time.

I was on the living room floor in my sleeping bag, hair divided into two still-damp pigtails, trying to watch Annie for the millionth time. I say trying, because Dad walked past the screen like every five seconds and ruined all the best dance numbers. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. When I was annoyed enough to make a fuss, I found him snatching the last of his dusty records from the shelf.

This instantly struck me as strange behavior because the records were ancient and I had never heard them played. In fact, we didn’t even own a record player. So I crept behind him toward the master bedroom to investigate.

Mom had wedged herself into the tiny space between the nightstand and her dresser. Her back was up against the wall like a criminal in an alleyway — completely out of Dad’s way.

We watched Dad cram the last of his possessions into an overstuffed trash bag. Two large suitcases had already been filled and waited in the doorway. Mom wasn’t crying or making a scene. She just stood stiff as a statue with her hands folded over her nursing scrubs. She didn’t even acknowledge me when our eyes met for a brief second.

Even though it was already dark and the middle of winter, I ran outside without stopping for a jacket. My bare feet crunched in the iced-over snow that no one had shoveled from that afternoon’s storm. I leapt up on the hood of that blue truck and sat with my back against the frosty windshield. Brisk cold seeped through my gauzy pajamas. I shivered and shook, but there was no way I was going to move. I had to stop him from leaving.

Snow crunched helplessly under his work boots. Dad dropped his things in the bed of his truck. He told me twice to get down, but I didn’t listen. Hot tears streamed off my cheeks.

When he looped his arms under my armpits and lifted me off the hood, I arched my back and let my limbs hang like dead weight. It was a game we used to play when I was little. But instead of tickling me or groaning in fake struggle, my dad set me off to the side of the driveway like it was nothing. And, without a word, he got in his blue truck and drove away.