There Are Wolves Here Too by Niall Howell

Author:Niall Howell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NeWest Press
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

EIGHT DAYS MISSING

“YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. THERE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SO MANY triangles.”

With Mom away at an early morning dentist appointment, Dad agreed to go in late for work and hang around the house until she returned. She was fifteen minutes late. I don’t think Dad minded, but it had been a while since he’d handled early morning Peter solo, and I could tell my brother was starting to grate on him.

“Peter, shut up,” I said. “Just eat your waffle.”

“Robin swore at me!”

“Shut up isn’t a swear.”

“Dad, he swore right at me. You’re not even going to get him in trouble?”

“Robin,” Dad said, “don’t tell your brother to shut up.” And then, to Peter, “Happy?”

Peter considered this for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. Then, after further consideration: “Except no, because my waffles are wrong. There’re too many triangles. I can’t eat this many stupid triangles.”

Dad put his coffee mug down on the counter. I don’t think he’d had more than two sips yet. And it sure seemed like he needed it. His taking part in the nightly Catherine searches was beginning to take a toll on him. A couple nights ago, he told Mom that he suspected he and the other regulars were being dispatched to far-off areas because the police wanted to prevent them from finding anything. “I think they’re worried that with so many of us, we might actually ruin potential evidence,” he’d told her. Whether that was the case or not, one thing was for sure: exhaustion meant less patience for nonsense in our house.

Peter pouted about his breakfast once more, and Dad reached over and took two syrupy triangles of Eggo waffle off his plate with his bare hands.

“Problem solved,” he said, raising the waffles to his mouth.

“Hey!” Peter protested.

As Dad popped the waffles into his mouth, a glob of syrup plopped off one of them and landed on his freshly ironed work shirt.

“Dammit!” He kicked back his chair and stomped upstairs to find a replacement.

Peter picked up his fork and jabbed it into a hunk of waffle. He brought it to his eye level, looked at it like it was a dead salamander, and then took a reluctant bite. Having had about enough of his antics—and so early in the day—I grabbed the copy of the Herald at the far end of the table and flipped to the comics page: panel one, Garfield asked Odie the dog to go away. The dog left for the second panel, then returned for the third, and then Garfield told him to stay away using his unexplained cat telekinesis. Comedy gold.

Dad came down the stairs with a fresh shirt, tucking it in as he walked, just as Mom came through the door.

“You survive?” he called to her as he transferred his coffee into his travel mug.

“I’ll call you at work and confirm once the freezing wears off,” she mumbled. Then she looked at me. “Dr. Towne sure is looking forward to your upcoming appointment. You’d think pulling that tooth was the highlight of his career.

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