Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Self-isolating, she said.
He’s … he’s always had moods. That’s nothing new.
Did he eat much at Thanksgiving? Anything? I don’t watch people eat. What do I care? I …
Macon can take care of himself. He always has.
“At some point we’re going to address that chip on your shoulder,” she tells me, “but right now, if you’re not in that car in ten minutes, you’re a piece of shit.”
Whatever I was going to say to her is lost, and she leaves, closing Liv’s door behind her. Walking to the window, I peer out again, watching him move around the car. He doesn’t look up. Ever. Not at the car that passes on the road. Not at the kids playing across the street. Not at Trace carrying shit out the front door and loading up the truck.
I shake my head. She’s overreacting. She’s just trying to make up shit. Insert herself by creating a problem that doesn’t exist. Macon is fine. He should get laid a lot more, maybe even get a girlfriend, sure. Maybe he should have kids by now, I don’t know. He’s ten years older than me. I guess I assumed I’d have my own place by that age. Why doesn’t he have anyone?
Why doesn’t he fucking leave us? I would’ve. Why is he still taking care of us? Why—
I punch the wall, the fire in my gut blazing, and I don’t know where it’s coming from. I back away from the window, running my hand through my hair.
Why didn’t he just leave?! Why didn’t he just fucking leave and live his life? He didn’t need to stay. I wouldn’t have stayed!
My eyes burn.
He isn’t yelling at me anymore.
He doesn’t yell at me at all. He doesn’t eat with us. He’s in the garage all the time. Alone. All the time.
This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask anything of him. He didn’t have to stay.
He’s okay. He’s always okay.
I go to the window again, watching him head back into the garage, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt. Just like my first memory of him.
Needles prick my throat. Macon is my first memory ever. Not my mother or my dad.
Macon.
Something crashes, and I jump, looking away from the TV. Trace screams behind me, because the noise scared him. He’s little. Just learned to walk.
“You keep fucking knocking her up!” Macon yells as our dad holds him by the collar against the wall. “You just leave her alone!”
“Stop it!” Dad pleads with him. “Stop!”
He shakes Macon, but my brother is almost as tall as our dad. Dad isn’t hurting him, but they’re fighting a lot, and Macon messed up the table. It’s upside down in the kitchen.
He shakes his head as Dad tries to hold him. “There are too many of us,” Macon tells him. He cries.
Army picks up Trace. He tries to hold him in one arm and take my hand, but I pull away.
“I hate it here,” Macon shouts. “I hate her like this! Why can’t you leave her alone?”
Dad stands there, his black hair gone white at his temples. I stare at the tears in the plaid shirt tied around his waist.
Macon loves Mom more than he loves Dad. He’s always mad at him.
The ceiling creaks, Mom in her room. She’s there a lot. Alone. A lot. “She can’t have another kid,” Macon chokes out.
He and Dad look at each other, but my dad doesn’t say anything. He leaves out the back, the screen door flapping shut behind him.
Looking back at Macon, I see the wet spots on his T-shirt, and he wipes his face dry. He doesn’t look at us, just runs out the front door.
“Dallas, come on,” I hear Army say.
Instead of following him, I go to the window in the dining room and climb out to the wing of the house that used to be here. Big columns still stick out of the ground, and there’s lots of boards everywhere. Iron sits up on a platform nailed onto the old rafters that my dad built for the older boys, and only they’re allowed to go up. He lets me climb up there sometimes, though. Iron is six.
The light shines down, and I stand under the treehouse, seeing him through the cracks. He’s lying down, his arms under his head. There’s music somewhere. It smells good out here. Flowers.
I almost call up to him to help me up, but I don’t. I don’t want him to move. It’s nice to look up. I love Iron. He’s nice to me.
She can’t have another kid.
I hold my fingers, looking back at the house and up at the rafters. I don’t know where to go.
My throat hurts. I want to cry.
The sun goes down while I’m out there.
And then … someone picks me up. I’m in the air, flipping around, and I’m on Macon’s back, holding tight as he climbs up to the treehouse. I smile at the feeling in my stomach, suddenly feeling better.