No Good Asking by Fran Kimmel

Author:Fran Kimmel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

Eric took a call from Constable King in the early afternoon. Wilson, out of his stupor, had managed to keep down a few bites of toast. King said Wilson looked rough, a swollen eye and a cut above his lip, but nothing that needed stitches and less than he deserved. “He doesn’t want a lawyer, doesn’t want to press charges. He said he doesn’t want the girl either. I thought you would want to know, Sergeant Nyland.”

Eric hung up the phone and tried to push Wilson out of his head. He had his family to focus on. He went back into the living room, got down on his knees, and finished tightening the last of the screws into the frozen tree now standing in the corner. He glanced at his wife through the branches; her face was flushed with exertion as she slid the ancient steamer trunk by its leather handle across the floor. She’d been planning this for days—the decorating party, all of them together, a row of matching cups along the counter for hot chocolate afterward.

“Do we all have to be here?” Daniel asked, little beads of sweat on his forehead, wet splashes under his armpits. He had complained he was on his last round with the weights when they’d called him up from the basement.

Eric was willing to handcuff Daniel to a branch if that’s what it took. “Look, we already—”

But Ellie interjected, seemingly unfazed. “You did the chopping, Danny. You’re the VIP.”

She undid the leather straps, letting the lid fall backward. Sammy stepped to the trunk, peered in, and flapped his arms.

“Remember these, Sammy?” She pulled out shoeboxes filled with decorations, reams of shiny tinsel. Sammy reached in and collected tiny tin soldiers in his fists. Daniel flopped on the couch, scattering pillows to the floor.

Eric crawled backward away from the tree and got himself upright. He cocked his head to the side. “Does it look crooked to you?” he asked of no one in particular.

“Where’s my chair?” Walter yelled, banging his cane on the floor.

“It is crooked,” Eric said.

“Yup,” Daniel added from the couch.

The tree tilted noticeably to the left. Eric’s mother would have clucked and hemmed and shooed them all away before wrestling it straight as a ruler with her iron fists. He needed to get this right—Ellie had been counting on this for so long, the tree no longer just a tree, but layers upon layers of all that had come between them.

“It’s perfect,” Ellie said. “Perfect the way it is.”

“Who stole my chair?” Walter yelled. “What’s that tree doing in the living room? Where’s my goddamn chair?”

Sammy repeated the tirade word for word, the exact same frenzied pitch, yelling as loud as Walter.

Eric pointed to the far side of the room. “It’s right there, Walter. By the window. Your puzzle too.” Who moved my goddamn pen? Where’s my goddamn mug? Eric grew up with these angry demands. It was as if his father believed he lived alone all those years, as if his were the only handprints to touch these walls.

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