Canary by Rachele Alpine

Author:Rachele Alpine
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-60542-614-3
Publisher: Medallion Press
Published: 2013-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 42

Brett signed his papers the day Beacon won their thirteenth straight game, a win that had gotten the media talking about championships, attaching Dad’s name to all their predictions.

It was an away game, and Brett had promised Dad he’d come watch. They’d had some kind of secret talk the other night in Dad’s office, and when they both walked out in good moods, I’d thought I could let go of my fears about Brett enlisting.

It wasn’t until I headed back on the team bus with Jack, who was drunk on the win, that I realized Brett had never showed up. I watched Dad at the front of the bus, joking with the assistant coaches, and wondered if he’d also noticed Brett’s absence. Dad would be upset he hadn’t come. Dad was all about getting us to go to the games to help complete the happy family image he wanted to portray to the Beacon community.

When we got home, the kitchen light was on.

Dad unlocked the door, and in an unusually good mood, continued to talk to me, reliving the glories of the past day.

I followed him into the kitchen, where he looked at the pile of papers on our dinner table, the light

illuminating a bright orange Post-it.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, his mood shifting abruptly.

“What?” I tried to get a look at the pages Dad was now sifting through. The top one had a date circled in red. “What are those?”

“Your brother signed his papers for the Army.”

Dad threw the documents onto the table.

I grabbed them, focusing on the words scrawled on the Post-it: “I’m out celebrating with Julia. You can congratulate me later.”

“He signed papers?” I flipped through the documents and tried to make sense of them. I couldn’t believe Brett had enlisted without Dad’s approval. “Didn’t you two make up? I thought you talked him out of it. Why would he do this?”

“Because your brother doesn’t think about how dangerous this can be.” He slammed a fist on the table. For a man who, a few minutes ago, was celebrating a big win, he looked completely defeated. “God damn it, doesn’t he realize he’s going to kill himself over there?” He walked out of the room.

The door to his office banged shut.

I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I sat and tried to read the papers through watery eyes. I wanted to make sense of what was going on, but it was impossible to focus on the page. All I could think about was what Dad said before he left the room. Brett was doing something that could kill him, and now that he’d signed the papers, neither of us could do anything to stop him.

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