The Before Read Free

thought. “I haven’t talked to my father in five years. Five, Mom. He hasn’t called. He hasn’t emailed or texted. He hasn’t sent a freakin’ birthday card, let alone a child support payment. In five years. He has no right to—” Again my thoughts tripped over my words. “He has no rights. As far as I’m concerned, in this family, he has no rights.”
    But my mother still stood before me, twisting her fingers into knots, my arguments barely even registering. For the first time in days I looked at her. Really looked at her. She was dressed in a ratty pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt for a carnival at the elementary school Mel and I had attended. She obviously hadn’t brushed her hair in days. She didn’t have on any makeup, except for the dark smudges of mascara under her eyes. How was this my mother?
    My mother was no-nonsense and practical, but she always, always looked her best. A year ago she’d had the flu and couldn’t get out of bed for a week and she’d still looked better than this.
    Somehow, in the past few days, I’d been so focused on keeping Mel distracted and keeping us fed that I hadn’t even noticed how unhinged my mother had gotten.
    I forced a few deep breaths and then took her hands in mine. I wracked my brain for a logical argument to convince her. Something other than my bone-deep certainty that trusting Dad was a mistake. “Mom, let’s think about this. Whatever else is going on, going somewhere with Dad isn’t the solution. He abandoned us. We can’t trust him. Besides, that think tank of his is south of here. It’s closer to the point of origin for the outbreak. Why would we move closer to the danger?”
    She met my eyes, her expression vague. “But it’s such a good idea.”
    “Why? Why is it a good idea?”
    “It’s what your father wants,” she protested weakly.
    I was ready to throw up my hands in frustration. “Mom, think about this. Haven’t you always said that you lost yourself when you were with Dad? That he could talk you into anything? That you couldn’t trust yourself around him? That when you were with him you made more bad decisions than at any other time in your life?”
    She blinked, like she was surprised by my words. Like the idea was completely unexpected rather than something she’d said more times than I could count. “Well, yes, I suppose I have said that. But that was rather harsh of me. I should never have been so hard on him. I’m sure—”
    Finally, I just stood up straight, dropping her hands. “No.”
    “What?”
    “The answer is no. No, we’re not going with him. I’m sure Mel agrees.” After all, when Dad left, it hurt Mel most of all. They had been so close. One day she was the center of his universe, the next he was gone. I knew without even asking her that she wouldn’t want to go with Dad either. “I’m not even going to discuss this anymore.”
    That was a phrase Mom always used to end a conversation, but my voice trembled as I said it. What would I do if she called my bluff? I had no backup plan, but I knew running off with Dad was a bad idea.
    Dad had left when Mel and I were ten and the truth was, sometimes it felt like I barely remembered that part of my life. Yeah, it was only seven years ago, but those peaceful childhood years passed in a blur of familial bliss. When Dad left—with almost no warning at all—everything had changed. I didn’t know what went wrong or why Dad left. Mom never talked about that. But I did know this: She was an entirely different person after he was gone. Not embittered or cynical, but tough, focused. The mom I’d known for the past seven years didn’t do anything just because someone else thought it was a good idea.
    The fact that Mom caved to Dad’s wishes scared me as much as the bloodsucking monsters I’d seen on the TV news footage, because it meant she was so afraid she didn’t know what to do. Yeah, my mom was sometimes a pain in the ass, but she wasn’t afraid of anything.