With her game posters on the walls, her bed beneath her, and the familiar glow of Xbox controllers charging up, she could almost imagine herself in her own bedroom again. It surprised her how cool it got at night. She’d expected to roast since Dad didn’t have air conditioning in the place. Is he stingy, or are we poor? Despite it being late June, it got rather chilly: 48-degrees according to the thermometer in the hallway. Wrapped in flannel pajamas, she snuggled under the covers and tried to believe nothing had happened. In a few hours, Mom would come wake her up for breakfast.
A loud noise broke through the veil of sleep, as if someone dragged something heavy across the roof, scraping it. She sat up, squinting at the window. Morning was well underway, judging by the amount of light. The noise grew louder, morphing into the recognizable sound of jet engines as her brain edged closer to being awake.
She crept to the window and peered up. Eight large airplanes with military silhouettes left cottony contrails through an otherwise cloudless blue sky in a straight, boring line. At a guess, they were green or black with swept wings that looked like they could swivel.
As far as she could see behind the house, the same flat open nothingness ran to the edge of the world. Off to the right a bit, a shallow ravine and some faint hills broke up the barrenness, but otherwise she might as well be the last person on Earth.
Riley crawled back onto her bed, after fishing her iPhone out of the jean shorts she handled with fingertips. “Ugh, forget washing these… I should burn them.” She clicked the power button, but the stone dead phone didn’t even display a red battery. “Dammit. Where did I put the cord?”
A short search of her room came to an unsuccessful end. She slipped on a clean pair of shorts before daring to open the door, and scurried through the hall to the bathroom. Afterwards, she wandered through the house, finding no trace of Dad. She leaned against the doorjamb of the master bedroom, peering at the darkness inside. Heavy blackout curtains covered the windows. The only light came from a weak, flickering computer monitor next to three stacked PCs, and the dial of an old radio tuned to an AM news station currently dissecting some judicial confirmation hearing. A small bookshelf had been pulled from the wall, likely when he crawled in to find the line for the TV. Riley stared at an upside down book with a picture of two ‘greys’―aliens with black, almond-shaped eyes. She twisted to get a look at the title. The Conspiracy of Control. A line along the bottom claimed the book proved the government created ‘UFO hysteria’ as a tool.
She whistled and edged to the computer, nudging the mouse. The screen lit up with a picture of Riley younger, grinning like an idiot in a royal blue one-piece swimsuit. She remembered the day Mom took the photo. She’d been eleven and on her way to Amber’s for a pool party. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Seconds later, the image changed to another shot of her at nine outside in the snow. Her legs gave out and she fell into his chair. Image after image flipped by. The oldest had to have been only weeks after he left. The most recent showed her dressed up as Hermione Granger from Halloween 2015, shoulder to shoulder with Amber’s Catwoman. Months ago. Mom took these pictures.
After some time, the screen went black again, offering the feeble grey light of a blank screen.
“Dad?” She wandered through the kitchen to the back door. Hot, dry air blasted her when she slid the glass aside and stepped out onto dusty patio stones that cooked her bare feet. She looked left and right at lots of not-Dad. A peak in the rumble made her squint at the sky toward the still-audible sound of jets. “Dad?”
Riley made her way to the front door, finding the truck gone. He must’ve gone to town to rent that storage space. Why’d he leave me here alone? I’d have gone with him. She backed inside, and caught her blurry reflection in Mom’s TV. When did he bring that in? It had looked a little small at home, but here it seemed massive. She debated bringing the Xbox out to the living room. Mom never let her hook it up because she did not want to have to argue a teenaged daughter off the TV when she wanted to watch her shows.
Not like that was a problem now.
Having it in her room also let her stay up late online with Amber without getting yelled at.
Dad probably wouldn’t care.
She paced in a circle around the sofa, arguing with herself if it would be disrespectful to Mom to defy her and use the big screen for games. Riley stopped and fell seated on the cushions. She didn’t really even feel like looking at the Xbox, much less playing it. If she hadn’t been so focused on getting online as fast as possible to hang out with Amber, maybe her Mom would’ve lived. If she had been more insistent about calling Dr. Gest… Riley slipped over on her side and curled up. If nothing else, at least she would have had a few more minutes with her before…
She hugged a small throw pillow to her chest and cried.
Dad stomping in the front door woke her up. He kicked dirt off his boots and smiled at her when she popped up to peer at him over the sofa back.
“Hey, Sweetie.”
“Hey,” she muttered. “Um, Dad?”
He paused in his beeline for the kitchen to look at her. “Yeah?”
“You left me here alone.”
He pressed fists into his hips, pondering. “Well, you are fourteen, right? I trust you for a few hours.”
“What if I don’t wanna be alone?”
“Oh.” Dad let his arms hang slack. “That didn’t even occur to me. Uh, sorry. You looked like you needed the sleep, so I didn’t want to bug you.”
Her eyebrows drifted together. “What time did you leave?”
“About zero-six-hundred,” said Dad, heading for the kitchen.
She twisted on one knee, facing him as he passed. “Is that six a.m.?”
“Yep.”
“We were up till stupid o’clock unpacking. How the hell did you wake up so damn early?”
He grabbed two cans from a cabinet in the kitchen and opened them, speaking with his back to her. “Practice. Lunch?”
“I didn’t have breakfast.”
“It’s almost noon, hon.”
She wandered to the kitchen table and sat on one of the hard wooden chairs. Elbow up, head against her bicep, she traced one finger over the possibly fake wood grain pattern in the basic Ikea table until the microwave beeped. A few seconds later, Dad set a bowl of SpaghettiOs in front of her and put another one in for himself.
Riley pushed the glop around with a spoon. “Again? We had this for dinner last night.”
Two minutes later, Dad joined her at the table and dug right in. “I know.”
“Guess you’re not much for cooking?”
He pointed at a small cabinet freezer in the back corner of the kitchen. “Got some deer, jackrabbit, and… whatever that other critter was in there. Figured you wouldn’t want it.”
Riley shivered.
“My cooking is pretty much meat, salt, heat, done.” He smiled. “Sometimes, smoke is involved.”
She ate one spoonful, thinking back to the last meal Mom had cooked for them. Salmon, asparagus, potatoes… real food. Her throat constricted and the corners of her eyes got warm. Riley held in the urge to cry as a dozen different recipes danced through her mind. Somehow, in flagrant disregard of her horrible, stressful job, Mom adored cooking. She never just ‘nuked something,’ no matter how worn out she was. Well, not since Riley hit about twelve. When she was little, the occasional micro-meal happened during bouts of the flu or extreme circumstance. Lately, Riley had taken over cooking if Mother had been too drained.
“Dad?”
He looked up.
“I saw your screensaver.” Do not cry.
Guilt melted out of his face. “I… Sorry. You know I never stopped loving you.”
“Messed up way to show it… running to New Mexico and never even calling.” She sucked in a shuddering rush of air, fighting the urge to sob. “Mom sent you pics from every birthday.”
“Riley―”
She frowned. “Top secret, yeah, I know.”
“No, Riley. I…” He stared at her, jaw trembling as if some great secret hammered at a stone wall inside his mind, threatening to crumble through. “I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” The dam broke. She looked away, sniveling. “Me?”
Dad glanced at his bedroom door. “Not now…”
“What.” Riley wiped her tears and glared. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Shit.” He jumped up, ran a splash of water through his dish, and dropped it in the sink before rushing to his desk. She forced another spoonful of lameness down. Seconds later, his room brightened and the din of TV news muttered in the background.
Riley braced her head on one hand and stared into the orange miasma as if divining tea leaves. Why does he keep running away from me?
A few minutes of silence later, Dad spoke. “Yes, I’m here. Copy. Go ahead, sir.”
Is that why he picked the middle of nothing to put his house? Riley traipsed over to his door. Dad sat on his computer chair in the corner with his back to her, a pair of military-style headphones on. He poked at buttons on a confusing green box covered in dials, markings, and funny protrusions, with what looked like a calculator in the middle of the front face. An odd-shaped cascade of text occupied the PC screen. Programs look weird.
“Assets Bravo-three-nine and Bravo-four-six confirmed in place. Last contact zero-five-fifteen this morning. Reports situation tenuous. Petulant Dragon unstable.”
Riley put a hand over her heart, eyes widening. Some white-haired guy on CNN spoke about military demonstrations planned by the leader of North Korea. An older-sounding man’s voice emanated from the AM radio, in the midst of a debate with a woman and two other men about the effects of another Korean war, and if the US should get involved. Whatever Dad was talking about sounded scary. She backed away and headed to the fridge, hunting for something other than SpaghettiOs. Outside, the tan appliance looked in decent shape. Inside, it broke her heart. Its only contents were a pair of Corona bottles and half a lime that looked like an experiment in home freeze-drying.
She shut the door with a sigh. That’s what I was expecting. On tiptoe, she reached up to the cabinets above the coffee machine, grabbing a tiny doorknob in each hand and pulling.
Every inch of usable space had been packed full of SpaghettiOs cans. The next pair of cabinet doors to the left revealed the same sight.
“Whoa.” She blinked. “Unreal.”
“Dad?” she half-yelled.
“I understand, sir, but the Russians have rolled in some kind of ELF jammer near Odessa, and there’s some unusual activity going on near Belgorod. One moment, Colonel.” His chair creaked. “Yes, hon?”
“Your cabinet is full of Spag-Os. Do you have any real food?”
“Look under the sink.” Creak. “No word back from Charlie-Ten. Last contact was four days ago from Seoul. He may have been compromised.”
Riley squatted and swung open the lower cabinet doors, finding them stuffed with packets of Ramen instant noodles in shrink-wrapped wholesale boxes. “Oh, hell no.”
She closed the doors without saying another word, trying not to listen too closely to Dad talking about ‘assets’ and ‘deteriorating situations.’ It might’ve been bland, but the tepid bowl of SpaghettiOs had been her father’s attempt to take care of her. She picked at it until he got quiet.
Ten minutes later, when he hadn’t emerged from his room, Riley got up and clung to the doorjamb again, peering inside. He’d taken off the headset, holding it in his lap like a pet cat. Most of the color had drained from his face, and he stared at the blank computer screen. Something about his presence made her worry the tiniest sound would scare the hell out of him.
Seeing her formerly stoic Dad terrified got her heart pumping by proxy. He’d gone through the entire funeral and estate paperwork without much of any visible emotion. She could sense the hurt inside him when he held her; as he said, some men didn’t show their heart to the world, which made this all the more frightening.
“Dad?” she whispered.
He turned his head toward her, eyes vacant and unfocused, as if he didn’t know who she was. His hand slipped under some papers on his desk, grasping something.
“Daddy?”
The look in his eyes―no recognition―scared her mouth dry. She stared at him for a moment afraid to move or even blink.
“Riley.” Some color flowed back into his cheeks. His eyes fluttered through a series of rapid blinks, and he let his arm drop to his lap. “The last status report wasn’t good. Probably sounded worse than it is.”
“What was that?” She placed a tentative foot through the doorway. “Are you okay?”
Dad waved her over. “It’s okay. Bad news from my boss is all. We have men in place keeping tabs on erratic regimes, and a few of them have fallen off the face of the Earth. Usually, that means they’ve been compromised and are either dead or running.”
She crept up to him as if the carpet had been seeded with land mines. By the time she got close enough for him to put an arm around her, she trembled.
“Don’t be scared. It’s thousands of miles away from here. I’m not sure POTUS will commit to anything military even if the Russians overstep. The Ukraine isn’t our fight.”
“What’s a poetus?”
He chuckled. “It’s an acronym for ‘president of the United States.’”
Who talks like that? Riley bit her lip. “Dad, you’ve got a kitchen full of canned pasta and ramen noodles. No wonder you’re a skeleton. You need to buy some real food. I’ll cook.”
“There’s probably about twenty pounds of meat in the deep freezer.”
Riley squirmed. “Eww, Dad. I’m not eating rabbit. They’re cute.”
He exhaled, seeming like his old, stoic self again. “I’m not fond of going to town. Once or twice a week for a burger at Tommy’s is my limit. You saw how they looked at us. If you weren’t born in the area, they don’t want to associate with you.”
“You can’t call what you have out there food.”
Dad made a noncommittal face. “It’s what I have.”
“I’ll go. I sorta know how to drive. Mom let me practice in the bank lot a few times.”
“A Sentra’s a bit different than a truck; besides, I need to stay close to the radio for a day or two.”
She tapped her toe on the carpet. “We need real food. If you don’t wanna go to town, let me. Come on, it’s all flat. Not like there’s anything to hit.”
“You’re too young.”
“I can reach the pedals just fine if I scoot the seat forward.”
He leaned back, drawing a creak from the chair spring. “You don’t know your way around.”
“It’s an L. Down the road from the house, turn right, and there’s that little grocery shop thing. There aren’t even any cops out here.”
“Let me think about it. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Come on.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him out of the chair. “I’ll drive a bit in circles around the house so you see I can do it.”
He grabbed her in a tight hug, sniffling into the crook of her neck. Riley went stiff from shock at the sudden reaction.
“Uh, Dad?”
The upwelling of emotion lasted less than a minute. He let go of her, got up, and grabbed his keys from behind the old keyboard. “You remind me so much of Lily… when she got an idea in her head.”
Riley stood in place, stunned as he walked outside. She wasn’t sure if she should feel happy for talking him into letting her drive, or give in to the overwhelming need to mope about Mom.
“You coming?” he yelled.
“Yeah.” She looked down at her flip-flops, considering the sneakers in her room. Screw it. It’s hot.
iley scratched the sole of her right foot on the corner of the brake, waiting for Dad to make up his mind. After seven loo
ps around the house, she’d gotten the jerkiness out of her braking. If she was going to ding a fender, better Dad’s 98 Silverado than Mom’s 2014 Sentra… if it ever showed up. She hooked all ten toes over the brake pedal and smirked at the dust-covered console. It wasn’t too high, but a cop would probably pull her over for being suspiciously short.
“This is a bad idea,” said Dad.
“So is eating SpaghettiOs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“Why’d you take your flops off?” He raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes I’ll bag a jackrabbit or a deer if they wander far enough. There’s food.”
Riley shrugged, pushing them around the floor with her big toe. “Mom said something about cops can give you a ticket for driving in them… get snagged on the pedals or something.”
“Probably not a great idea to drive barefoot either.”
“Or without a license.” She grinned. “It’s not too late to take over.”
“If things were normal, I would, but…” Dad looked out the passenger window at the desert. “Any minute now, Colonel Bering might comm in and I have to be here. Bad things are on the horizon. If I miss a message, people could die.”
Riley sighed. “If I eat another bowl of SpaghettiOs, people could die.”
“I’m serious, Squirrel.”
Her lips curled as if to growl at that damn name, but she held it back. Real food hinged on her winning this debate, and hurting his feelings wouldn’t help that cause. She looked over at him, her throat tightening at the unusual pallor in his cheeks. His eyes had glazed over, as if the Grim Reaper himself stood in front of the truck.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
“Straight to Las Cerezas and back. Don’t stop anywhere else. Don’t talk to anyone, especially cops, and go put on real shoes before you leave.”
“Okay.” She reached for the door handle. “Can I talk to the store clerk or do I have to mime?”
He blinked and looked at her as if she’d just spoken French. For all she knew, maybe Dad did speak French… since he seemed to work for Military Intelligence.
The Summer the World Ended Page 9
