Drowning Instinct Read Free Page A

―It‘s bad enough that Jenna‘s wasted months of her life, recovering from her . . .‖ He waved a hand to swat my past away. ―I see no reason why we should burden her further by prejudicing them with Becky‘s observations. Jenna‘s out of the hospital. She‘s on no medications. She‘s at home, not in a straitjacket. She comes here, what, twice a month? Becky, no disrespect, but there are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week, out of which my daughter spends, exactly , one hour with you. No, less than that: fifty minutes. Your involvement is minimal. I doubt you have much of an impact at this point.‖

    ―I see.‖ Rebecca‘s tone dripped acid. ―So what, exactly, is your point, Dr. Lord?‖

    ―My point is that we are grateful to you. We acknowledge the help you‘ve given Jenna. But her future will not depend upon the fifty minutes she spends here, nor an assessment based on limited exposure.‖

    ―In other words,‖ I said to Rebecca, ―you‘re fired.‖

    Psycho-Dad blustered a little bit, said things like outgrown and hatched and time to spread her wings , like I was some kind of baby bird Rebecca just wouldn‘t let out of the nest, she was so protective. But it all boiled down to this: Dad decided I needed a fresh start. Turing was in, and little Becky was out. My opinion didn‘t count. God hath spoken.

    Something that happens a lot when your dad‘s last name is Lord.

c
    That summer, I stayed put in my parents‘ new McMansion, which never felt like home. While I was an inpatient, Dad had gotten rid of all my old furniture. I now had a four-poster with a frilly canopy that I completely hated, which was kind of ironic considering how hard I‘d begged when I was younger because all princesses had canopy beds.

    I weeded the garden, mowed the grass, clipped around the trees, painted the picnic table that no one sat on. Given my mom owned a bookstore, there was always plenty to read, so I devoured at least three books a week. When I wasn‘t reading or doing chores, I single-handedly kept Netflix in business.

    And I e-mailed Matt, although I didn‘t tell anyone. I‘d never even mentioned it to Rebecca, who would‘ve freaked. All our e-mails were on a separate e-mail account that I set up on this ghost server run out of Israel, if you can believe it. I know it sounds like overkill, Bob, but I had to be über-careful. My parents hated that Matt enlisted. I think what really ate at Psycho-Dad was that once Matt was eighteen, he was free and our father couldn‘t do a damn thing about that.

    And what Matt wanted was to run; to get the hell out. It didn‘t work out the way he planned—or, maybe, you know . . . it did. Once he was in Iraq and gone, my parents wouldn‘t talk about it, or him. So, if they found out we were keeping in touch, my mom would‘ve had a nervous breakdown. Dad‘s head would explode. Really, I didn‘t need the headaches.

    I didn‘t blame Matt for running. Before my life came crashing down around my ears, I was on the cross-country team. That summer before Turing, I thought about starting up again, doing some serious training. Except I never did—not then, anyway—because I think I knew, somehow, that I could run and run and run away into forever and still never get anywhere.

    The truth is, Bob, that no matter how far or fast you go, the past always follows: an inky, faceless thing tacked to your shoes that only the harshest light can kill, and then just for those few moments when there is nothing but the strongest fire from the brightest sun, breaking over your shoulders, burning that shadow—and your past—to ash.

d
    So now, at quarter past six in the morning, I stood in the semi-dark of a strange high school, staring at locked doors and wondering what to do. Mom was long gone, her taillights flashing as she took the circular drive and headed back down the access road which bled into the highway and east toward her mother‘s—my grandmother‘s—old