Don't Stand So Close by Eric Red

Author:Eric Red [Red, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror
ISBN: 9780954252342
Google: YHF9LwEACAAJ
Amazon: 0954252349
Publisher: Short, Scary Tales Publications
Published: 2012-07-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“DIDN’T YOU HAVE A tree house when you were a kid?” Grace asked casually that Friday after school while they were painting the roof of the structure in the tree.

“Nope, they didn’t have big enough trees in Encino. We had a backyard, but it was just an orange and lemon tree.”

“You missed out.”

“Well, I didn’t have a tree house.” The two kids had been doing the restoration for three weeks now, after school twice a week and on Sundays after the girl got back from church with her folks. The front wall had been completely reboarded, primered and whitewashed. Cans of half empty paint, a toolbox with hammer, nails and a saw lay on the hunting platform up in the crook of the branches.

“This was my first Barbie,” said the girl, wiping off a doll she pulled out of the musty interior that had seen better days.

“Looks it,” quipped Matt at the decayed condition of the toy.

That got him a punch on the arm.

Grace had something on her mind as she stopped to dip her brush, eyeing him gingerly. “What happened to your Dad?” she asked carefully.

Matt sighed and leaned back against the wall, setting down his brush. “He died when I was six. It’s been just me and my Mom ever since.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. When he looked over at her he saw from her dismayed expression that she genuinely meant it.

Matt smiled in memory. “He was a really nice guy, a good dad, and I remember him pretty good. His name was Jack and he was a bassist in a rock band.”

“That’s so cool.”

“Yeah, my Mom was just a teenager when she met him backstage at one of his concerts. She told me she was a groupie and had his pictures all over her room.” He shook his head. “I think maybe I wasn’t planned, but he totally married her when I came along and I just remember that we were really happy. I miss him.”

Grace looked both thoughtful and grateful and spoke from the heart, tracing a circle in the dirt on the floor with her finger. “I’m so lucky to have my Mom and Dad and can’t imagine what it would be like if I lost one of them. That must be so hard. And having to move and start all over in a new state and city, make new friends. You’ve been through a lot. Me, I always lived here, and everybody I know is from here. I’ve been sheltered but also really secure.”

Matt tugged on his fingers, worried. “My Mom she tries real hard, but it’s hard on her having to support both of us and she never had another guy after my dad, except me. Man, when they had those school cutbacks last year and she lost her job, we barely made it.”

“That’s a lot of pressure.”

“For her, yeah, it’s a lot.”

“On you, I mean. I see how you worry about your mother, trying to be a good kid all the time, worrying what happens to her, that’s what I meant.

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