Badd by Tim Tharp

Author:Tim Tharp [Tharp, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89579-1
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

25

At home, the parents are lying in wait. No sooner am I in the door than Dad pops out of the shadows and orders me into the kitchen for a talk. Mom’s already in there. She sets a slice of pie on the table in front of me, like she can buy me off with that.

Dad sits across from me, his hands folded on the tabletop. Mom sits to my right. “Where have you been?” Dad says. He sounds like an FBI agent interrogating a terrorist suspect.

“Out with a friend,” I say.

Dad wants to know who this friend is. Mom’s probably already called all the usual suspects, so I tell the truth. “Padgett Locke,” I say. “You wouldn’t know him. He’s new in town.”

“You didn’t see Bobby?” Mom asks.

“No. He’s probably in deep hiding after the way you guys treated him.”

“Don’t try to lay the blame on us,” Dad says.

“We just want what’s best for him,” Mom adds.

I can’t look at them. Everything about them seems annoying right now. My dad’s built like a cement mixer with a Bassmaster T-shirt on. Even my mother’s hair annoys me. It’s so perfect. How can it be so perfect when everything else is so messed up?

“This is a serious thing,” Dad says. “It can affect your brother’s whole future, getting discharged that way—without honor.”

“Bobby’s not the one without honor,” I say, staring at the limp slice of pie. “He did his part.”

“Ceejay,” Mom says, “we don’t love Bobby any less. We want to help him, get him back on the right path.”

Dad follows up with, “Your brother needs to know—and so do you—that the choices you make matter. They have consequences. You can’t go around being a wild kid all your life. You have to take that long step into responsibility land. I know. I had to do it.”

Finally I look up at him. “So what kind of choice did you make today, Dad? You ran Bobby out of the house. You wouldn’t even let him tell his whole story. And Mom, you didn’t even make Lacy come back here for her own brother’s homecoming from the war. Those are some real great choices.”

Dad stares at me, and I try to match him but have to turn away before the tears start.

“Ceejay, your sister is doing what she has to do right now,” Mom says. “I talked about it with her. It’s not like she didn’t want to come. It’s just a hard time with your grandmother right now.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around your brother or you,” Dad says. “Your grandma has cancer. Do you understand that? Cancer.”

I nod.

Dad goes on, “I don’t know what’s wrong with your brother. Maybe some army buddy of his got him on that hashish, but that’s a weak man’s way to go, and that’s not how I raised your brother or you.”

“Bobby’s not weak,” I say, my eyes and face burning.

“If he’s not,” Dad says, “then he’ll come back here and face up to us. He’ll face up to us and to himself.

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