In an Instant by Suzanne Redfearn

Author:Suzanne Redfearn [Redfearn, Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-02-29T17:00:00+00:00

51

My mom walks into an empty house, and it takes her a second to remember it’s not supposed to be empty.

“Jack?” she calls.

His wheelchair is beside the couch, his crutches gone.

Bingo follows her into the kitchen and then out the sliding doors to the backyard. Her pace quickens as she climbs the stairs and looks into her bedroom and into Oz’s room. At Chloe’s door she stops, takes a breath, then steps inside.

Chloe turns her face from the window and says nothing.

“Where’s your dad?” my mom says.

Chloe turns away.

“Damn it, Chloe. Where the hell’s your dad?”

Chloe’s head snaps back, her eyes hard and dark.

“Answer me.”

Chloe squints in hatred, and my mom squints back, the fierceness of their gazes clashing with such force it’s nearly audible. Then, for the first time since the accident, Chloe speaks to my mom. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

The answer stuns my mom, and I can tell she can’t decide whether she should hug Chloe or yell at her. She chooses the latter, since it’s what got the response in the first place. “Well, get out of bed and help me look for him,” she barks.

Chloe blinks several times rapidly, like my mom just asked for her right kidney instead of her help in finding my dad.

“Get up,” my mom says again. “This is serious. Your dad is gone.”

Surprisingly, Chloe does. She wavers a little as she pushes herself up, slightly dizzy from the sudden redistribution of blood.

My mom pretends not to notice. “Go down to the beach to look for him. I’m going to drive around the neighborhood.”

Chloe continues to blink like a warning light but also continues to respond. She grabs a hoodie from the hook beside her bed and pulls it on as my mom heads out of the room.

As Chloe shuffles past the dresser, she startles at the sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair is very strange, an inch of bronze and an inch of black, like the ends were dipped in ink. Her skin is ghostly pale, hollowed blue circles ring her eyes, and the scar on her forehead is broiled and pink. And she’s lost so much weight her cheekbones stick out sharply from her face. She tilts her head, sticks her tongue out at herself, tries out a couple of cockeyed expressions, then continues on her way.

By the time she reaches the stairs, my mom is already storming out the door. At first I think this is mean. After all, Chloe is still weak, her toes are damaged, and it hurts when she walks on them, but then I realize that this is the only way it can work. Without an audience, Chloe ignores all those things. As a matter of fact, she pays so little attention to them I wonder as I watch her if her toes even hurt at all or if it’s just an act so she can continue stockpiling her pills.

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