“Why journalism?”
“I just think I would like to use writing to tell people things they ought to know about. To tell the truth.”
“That sounds perfect for you,” he says.
I think so.
“Liam, I have to tell you something.”
He turns on his side. “Yeah?”
“I submitted an essay to the township council.”
“The scholarship contest?”
“Yeah. I wrote about home.”
“Oh.”
“There’s something else. If I win—which I won’t, because I basically called out the whole town—they’re going to print it in the Gazette. I had to agree to that when I submitted it.”
I watch him carefully, trying to catch the expression on his face, but it’s too dark outside.
“So the essay is about him?”
“It’s about Auburn mostly, but yeah, it’s about him.”
He falls silent, and I wonder what he’s thinking. He curls his finger and hooks his knuckle under my chin, tilting my face up to his and kissing me softly.
“I just want you safe,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “Me too. Part of me hopes I don’t win. But I’m also tired of hiding in the shadows here, ya know?”
“Yeah, I get that,” he says.
“Do you like growing up here?” I ask. I’ve wondered for a while, and writing about Auburn made those questions resurface in my mind.
“Ah, yeah, sure,” he says with a soft laugh.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It’s complicated. I do well here. But I do well because I work really hard.”
“Too hard,” I correct.
“And I know people like me,” he says.
“Everyone adores you, Liam.”
“But sometimes I feel like they love me like I’m an exception. Like if I let down my guard, if I’m ever not perfect, they’ll all turn on me in an instant. It’s mostly little things, certain comments, assumptions—but I’m aware of it all the time. I have to be. Like they love when I score a touchdown for the team, right? But they’d act a lot differently if I was kneeling before the game. This town only takes the parts of my identity it likes, ignores the rest. It’s exhausting.”
“I’m sorry, Liam. I can’t imagine how that feels,” I say.
“I just hope all the work pays off. Gets me where I want to go.”
“It will.” I don’t know what it’s like to feel that way every time I step outside my home. To have to wonder if the people around me are hiding some ugly prejudice that could surface when I least expect it. My worry is the inverse of Liam’s—my guard is up when I step into my home, not out of it.
“I am tired of it,” I say. “Not physically tired. It’s hard to explain. Some days I feel like I’m a hundred years old. Like being afraid has always been my life and it’s always going to be my life.”
“Hypervigilance takes a toll,” he says. “But Auburn isn’t the center of the world. We can leave. We will leave.” Liam slides off the car, pulling me with him. He faces me, wraps the blanket around both of us. “Besides, you are tough. You’ve got this.”
“Liam, I literally cry, like, all the time,” I say.
“You don’t give in to any of it. And I don’t have to be there to know you don’t ever cry in front of Campbell and Juniper. You are the bravest person I know.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“Still not flattery, Barnes. Seriously, it was what drew me to you in the first place,” Liam says.
“No, it isn’t, you didn’t even know me.”
“Okay, fine,” he admits, raising his hands to confess. “I first noticed you because you’re cute as hell.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“I couldn’t ignore you. I tried. You’ve always been quiet, but it’s like you think loud. And even though I could kind of tell you were just trying to blend in and be unseen, I couldn’t not see you, Leighton. And then at our lockers . . .”
“What happened at our lockers?”
“You smiled. I don’t think I had ever seen you smile before. And then all I could think was that I wanted to make you smile again.”
“Liam McNamara, you are . . . a damn romantic,” I say. I’m smiling now. “But I was right, it wasn’t about my personality after all.”
“Not until English class. I mean, you barely even talk in school, ever, and then all of a sudden you were flipping out on Brody over a book.”
“Wait a second. You wanted to date me because I went on an angry feminist rant in front of the entire class?”
“God, yes. It was so kick-ass. It confirmed what I was already starting to guess about you.”
“Which was what?”
“That you are brave, Barnes. I like being surprised by people, and you definitely surprised me.”
“Yeah, I’ve got lots of fun surprises,” I say. “Am I more than you bargained for yet?”
I ask like it’s a joke. But I’ve wondered about this for real. There’s no way he would have consciously chosen to be with me if he’d known everything. It’s too much for anyone. Even me.
“Leighton, if you think that asshole is gonna scare me away from loving you, you are bat-shit crazy.”
I laugh in spite of myself. It isn’t supposed to be funny.
But I’m learning to steal my joy wherever I can find it.
Chapter Sixty-One
THE DAY BEFORE WINTER BREAK, Mrs. Riley calls me out of art class to come to the newsroom. She smiles when I walk in, but immediately gestures for me to close the door behind me, and I’m nervous before she even starts talking.
“So here’s the situation,” she dives in without preamble. “The council is choosing your essay.”
“What, that’s—” Huge. Amazing. That’s five thousand dollars. That’s a big pebble.
“Wait.” Mrs. Riley holds up her hand. “It’s not that simple. They’re giving you the scholarship, but they’re refusing to print your essay in the Auburn Gazette.”
I sit down in the chair in front of her desk.
“But why would they do that?”
“They seem to really believe you deserve the scholarship money. They were impressed by the essay and the topic. So was I, by the way, when they forwarded me a copy, Leighton. But they don’t want to print it. They called it a liability.”
“A liability for who?”
“Well, they implied that printing it could be dangerous to you . . . your family. But, Leighton, we both know it’s a liability for the town, too.”
I look out the window and find Joe sitting right outside, not five feet away. One big black eye is fixed on me, like he knows. Like he’s waiting to see what I do. He shuffles on the window ledge, plucks at the gray plumage on his side.
His beak opens, but the wind carries the sound. He’s yelling, but no one can hear.
He might as well be silent.
I turn back to Mrs. Riley.
“Tell them to publish it anonymously.”
She leans back in her chair. “I don’t know . . .”
“Then it’s not a liability to me. Only to them. And if they still refuse, at least we know it wasn’t just about protecting me. At least then I tried everything.”
“But this is yours, Leighton, you deserve the credit for it.”
“I’ll . . . I don’t know, I’ll send it to the rest of my college applications. I’ll see if NYU will let me submit an updated personal essay. I’ll use it in another way. I still think it should get published without my name here. I wrote it for Auburn.”
“Okay, I’ll ask them,” she says.
“Thank you.”
When I turn back to the window, Joe is gone.
Chapter Sixty-Two
WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THIS house.
And our father’s father lived here before us.
And before that? I guess it was just timber and nails. Nothing evil, I don’t think.
My father
’s father wasn’t evil, either.
But he also wasn’t good.
And maybe when he built this house, he corrupted it.
Maybe all the things we create have some piece of us, something we impart, or something we just leave behind. And perhaps if my grandfather was so angry, then maybe he left it here. Built it right into the foundation and the walls, the practiced hammering of nails. Maybe he built it into this whole damn town.
Magic, Campbell called it once—but maybe she’s closer to the truth now with her haunted house books.
Whatever it is, I used to wish it were here for us. So we could believe that there was something more potent in this home than fear—maybe even something watching over us. But I was wrong.
It’s always been protecting him.
I wonder what that would feel like, to behave however you’d like, and wake up day after day never having to face the consequences of it. I think it would make you feel like maybe you never did anything wrong at all.
Like maybe it’s not so bad if you do it again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
THE HOUSE QUAKES WITH HIS MUSIC.
I turn over in my bed, reaching for my alarm clock. It is a quarter past three in the morning, Christmas Day.
For a moment I stay there, wondering if maybe for the rest of my life the sound of Axl Rose’s voice will make me feel like throwing up. But then I hear the raised voices from downstairs, and I climb out of my warm blankets.
I sneak into the girls’ room. They are awake, huddled in the corner of Juniper’s bed, pillows lined in front of them like a shield.
“C’mon,” I say, and lead them back to my room. In the hallway I can hear that he’s yelling about his cell phone. It’s lost again. He’s been losing things a lot the last few weeks, and we always seem to face the consequences for it.
I hesitate at the door, trying to turn the lock. He broke it last year, the last time I tried to lock him out. I flick on my light and look closer. It just needs a new screw to secure the piece on the door. I run over to my desk and dump out my pencil holder. I’m sure it’s here. I swipe aside a matchbook, and there it is. The screw Joe left on Liam’s windowsill. I didn’t end up giving those things to Juniper—matches and hardware don’t really fit with her collection of marbles and feathers, anyway.
Back at the door, I line up the screw. It fits. I twist it in as far as I can with my bare hands. It isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. It makes me feel better when I shut the light off and join my sisters in the center of my bed. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, and we stiffen in unison when a shadow appears in the line of hall light under my door.
The door rattles on its hinges, but the lock holds.
Mumbled, angry sounds.
“Stop, don’t—” Mom says.
CRACK!
The door splits along its edge, one long, splintered piece holding the lock flying off into the room, and the rest of it sagging on its hinges where it’s bent and broken. There is a flood of light, and the silhouette of a man who isn’t evil, but sometimes forgets.
“Get up,” he says.
We crawl out from behind the pillow. The girls follow me, and I follow Mom. We step carefully over the pieces of my door and the picture frames that litter the floor. We make our way into the kitchen. He holds up a copy of the Auburn Gazette. It’s turned to the page that has township news, police blotters.
The winning essay of the Auburn scholarship contest.
“You wanna tell me what the fuck this is.” He doesn’t yell this time, and somehow, that’s worse. My head throbs from the music, the adrenaline, the fear.
His eyes are wide. He throws the paper down onto the counter and reaches for a pack of cigarettes. Mom walks to the counter, lifts the paper.
My essay.
My first real publishing credential, even if my name isn’t on it.
And it might get us killed.
It is not the crows that make Auburn ugly.
It’s the complicity.
Anyone who has looked the other way.
This essay isn’t an accusation, though. It’s a love letter. For Mom. Campbell and Juniper. This is worth saving. We can do this together, if we call it by its name.
If we say, Enough.
“There’s no writer on it.”
“Fuck that. That’s you,” he says, lighting his cigarette right in the kitchen and pointing at the paper. “I know because someone on the council told someone they know, and that someone told me. There are no secrets in this town. Everyone’ll know in a few days.”
Good, I think. I want them to know.
And it’s true, there are no secrets in this town.
His anger wasn’t a secret, but somehow me talking about it is the embarrassment.
He’s opening and slamming kitchen cabinets, knocking things over.
“And you know what they’ll do next? Never hire Barnes Construction again. So congratu-fucking-lations, Leighton, you’ve ruined the family business. And where is my goddamn cell phone?” he says. “And why is it so hot in here?” He reaches for the thermostat, shutting the heat off, and starts moving around the kitchen, opening every window. Mom sets the paper down on the counter and walks over to us. She puts her arm around me.
“We’re going to bed,” she tells him.
“Not until I say you can,” he says, still moving through the living room, opening more windows.
“Go to hell,” she says, pushing us toward the stairs.
He stops what he’s doing. His eyes are dark. They scare me. It’s like he’s not even in there.
“Don’t push me tonight.” He moves upstairs, I presume to make sure the second floor is freezing, too. Mom follows, closing the windows behind him as she goes.
Barely a moment passes, and we hear a strangled cry from upstairs.
I run, hurling myself around the banister. He has her at the top of the stairs, bent over the railing backward, his hands on her throat. I’m on him in moments, shoving into him as hard as I can to get him off her. I push him into the bathroom door, and he swears at me. He charges at me, and shoves, and I slam into the banister. I hear something crack, and for a moment I’m not sure if it’s something in me.
The wood beneath me splinters, and shards stick up at every angle, jagged and broken. I try to suck in air, but the wind’s been knocked out of me, and it hurts.
A moment passes. Two. Three.
I gasp a breath.
Campbell runs across the hallway and swings her fist. It connects with the side of his head. There’s no way it hurt him much, but it doesn’t matter. He’s out of control, and he turns on her next. He reaches for her, and I scream. It’s a noise I’ve never made before in my life, and I’m on him like a wild thing, scratching anything I can reach. He releases Campbell, and I grab her and a sobbing Juniper, pulling them into my bedroom. I usher them into the armoire, and hear the sound of him pulling Mom back downstairs, and all I can think is how he’s taking her closer to his gun, it’s right there on the fridge, it would only take a moment, one second, and he could destroy our entire world.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap.
A cracking noise from the other side of my room, at the window, and when I get to it, there’s the flash of feathers in the dark as a crow flies away.
And something else.
A gift dropped onto my windowsill outside. I push open my window and reach for it, confused. Grateful.
It’s Dad’s cell phone.
Auburn, Pennsylvania
December 25
CROW POPULATION:
78,460
Chapter Sixty-Four
RED AND BLUE LIGHTS FLASH ON the worn, once-white siding of the house. Red, blue, and gray.
A different kind of American dream.
It’s cold outside, and each of my hands is wrapped around a smaller one. Our flannel pajamas aren’t holding up against the wind.
Officer Bill DiMarco is the first to arrive. When I see him, I feel
that thing trapped in my chest panicking. Will he just let him go again?
But he doesn’t. He puts him in handcuffs. He acts like he doesn’t even know him.
Another officer arrives and calls a judge at home, waking him to request an emergency protection order.
The second officer pulls Mom aside, but I can hear them. He explains that because of the holidays, a real hearing will take some time, but we can extend the temporary order until we get into a courtroom, probably after the new year. If he’s released before that, the order bars him from the house and any of us.
And according to the order, he has twenty-four hours upon release to surrender his firearm.
Officer DiMarco walks over after putting our father in the back of his car. I wonder if they said anything to each other.
He shifts back and forth on his feet. He looks so uncomfortable. I imagine he’d rather be anywhere else but here responding to this call tonight.
“I read the essay, Leighton. I’m sorry. I, uh—I’m just sorry. That was really hard to read.”
“It was really hard to live in.” I’m exhausted. And freezing. I’m not in the mood for any more of the halfhearted atonements of grown men.
Officer DiMarco just nods once and turns to Mom, promising her that he’ll personally deliver a physical copy of the temporary protection order later in the day.
Mom never wavers.
I don’t think about tomorrow. I don’t think about the possibility that she could change her mind again. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I feel like we’ve been heard. I feel like maybe we are safe.
And it feels so damn good.
Auburn, Pennsylvania
December 31
CROW POPULATION:
84,784
Chapter Sixty-Five
WE GET READY AT MY HOUSE, for once. Sofia has been here before, but rarely. We stand in my room, each tugging on an extra layer of tights because it’s freezing outside. The black dress is as fantastic as it was the first time I tried it on. Sleek and shiny. The black satin makes the reddishness of my hair stand out. More like Mom’s.
If These Wings Could Fly Page 21
