Things We Didn't Say: A Novel by Kristina Riggle

Author:Kristina Riggle
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 0062003046
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Michael

Of course I’ll drive,” my father says when I tell him I want to go to Cleveland, if nothing else so that when the police find him, I’ll be halfway there. Yet I dare not brave these wintry roads in my little Honda.

“I was thinking I could just borrow your SUV.”

“Have you slept all night? Certainly not. Driving sleepless is like driving drunk. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“I can bring Casey, we’ll take turns driving.”

“I’m sure she didn’t sleep, either.”

I can’t refute this. Neither of us suggests I bring Mallory along. For one thing, she doesn’t have a license anymore.

“I will drive you,” my dad says, hanging up the phone before I have time to argue.

“I’m going to shovel the drive,” I announce to the house in general, though Jewel is reading in her room, Angel is upstairs on her phone, and Casey is on her computer downstairs forwarding Dylan’s picture to anyone and everyone she can think of.

I need air. Plus, I’d feel bad if Dad broke his neck on our front walk.

I sip in the cold outside. Mallory must have turned up the thermostat, because it’s gotten warmer than usual in there. I watch it carefully because heat costs a fortune and the house is old and drafty. That was one of our classic fights. What started as “Stop turning up the heat” would result in her shouting, “You don’t care about me!” and would usually veer into crazy territory from there, about how I obviously didn’t care about her because I was having an affair.

The snow is wet and heavy, the kind that causes heart attacks when old folks try to clear their own driveways.

Early in my career we had a huge morning snowstorm, and some photographers went out to shoot a photo for the standard front-page weather story. One of them took an ordinary shot of “man shovels driveway,” with the snow flying dramatically off the shovel. Later in the morning, I fielded a strange call.

It was the man’s neighbor. Just minutes after that picture, the man had dropped to the ground with a heart attack and was not expected to live. The neighbor had seen the photographer taking the picture and had the presence of mind to call and beg us not to run it.

We replaced the picture, and the man died later that day, in the hospital.

I stop to lean on my shovel, panting with effort, and remember watching Dylan as he got swallowed up by the school doors.

“Mike!”

Mallory is on the porch, wearing one of my old heavy coats. As I look up, she picks her way down the slick steps. “Mike, I hate to bug you, but . . . would it be okay if you drove me home for a change of clothes? I can’t keep wearing your sweats, and I don’t think Casey wants me raiding her closet. Not that I could fit in her Gymboree pixie clothes anyway.”

“Mal.”

“Oh, come on, I’m kidding.”

I would like to have Casey drive her, or even Angel, with her learner’s permit, could technically do it.

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