Peter entered the house to a fanfare of slamming doors. Apparently he had just missed the initial blow-up following the discovery of Caroline’s escape. There would be a brief cooling off period before Tara and his mother would be at each other’s throats again. They would make every effort to draw his exasperated father into the fray. Then the three of them would make peace by turning on Peter. Peter would make himself available for the onslaught, absorbing whatever abuse they heaped on him, all in the name of family unity. The family that preyed together stayed together.

On the dining room table he found Caroline’s note. Simply discarded. None of his family would waste energy crumpling or tearing paper when they could just as easily crumple and tear one another. Peter skimmed through all the gushy parts looking for some clues as to Caroline’s future. Did she have a plan? Was there anyone in San Diego? Did she have any money? Just a lot of I’m Okay, You’re Okay sop about letting butterflies go to see if they’d return.

Peter heard some clattering in the kitchen, dishes going into the sink. He walked through the doorway and found his father, still in the sweat pants and tee shirt he always slept in. Peter dropped the car keys on the table.

“I brought the car back.”

His father nodded. “Done, then. Done.”

Peter sat at the table watching his father’s back, rounded over the sink, running a sponge along the counter. “Great timing,” Peter groaned.

His father rinsed the sponge, squeezed it out, then dried his hands on a dishtowel. “A woman makes up her mind, augh!”   The old man waved his hand dismissively. “That was good what you did yesterday, sonny. With the juice. I gotta remember that.”

Peter watched his father fidget with kitchen items. He picked up the kettle, shook it, then emptied it into the sink. He moved the can opener six inches to the rear of the counter. He looked for a better place for the paper towels, then decided they were best off in the place from which he had picked them up. When his father ran out of business, Peter asked him, “When did you know? About Caroline.”

The old man bristled. He shrugged.

“How much did you give her?”

“What is this…an interrogation?”

“I’ve got a right to know. I signed…”

“Aaugh!” The old man swatted Peter’s questions away with both hands. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, leaning forward on his elbows. “How would it look if everyone knew, but one? If everyone got a proper good-bye but one?   Would seem like she was leaving out of spite, instead of….” His father turned toward the window, hanging one arm over the back of the chair. He spoke slowly, quietly. “You get to an age where you can read faces. You can see not only where a person’s been in life, but where that life is heading. What I could read on Caroline’s face…” His voice trailed off.

“Dad, was it your idea?”

His father turned back to the table, eyes wide, imploring. “She needed a life. What life is there for her here? No jobs, no school, no men worth a rat’s ass. She worked two months outta the last eight, and I’m damned if she’s going into that stinking refinery!”

Peter slumped. He laced his fingers together. He stared at his hands: the delicate, almost feminine fingers, the palms free of callous. “I thought you just handed the cash to Dino.”

His father rolled his massive head. “That bloodsucker.” He forced a laugh. “I ain’t into him that much. And Roger the Dodger’s gonna bail me out.”

The old man pushed his chair out and hauled himself to his feet. He stepped over to the window and wiped away some of the condensation from the gray pane. He studied the snowdrifts in the backyard. “Blizzard of ’78. We’ll remember this one.”

“Yeah,” Peter sighed. He went out into the living room. The doors upstairs would open soon. Better get ready. Peter passed the crèche and regarded the miniatures of the Holy Family. Now there was an unattainable ideal. Perhaps it was easier without siblings. Still if what Peter’s father said was true, that a parent could look at his child’s face and see not only what life had done, but what life would do to that child, what was it that Jesus’ parents saw? Did the cross cast a shadow even in the manger, obscuring the radiant beams from thy holy face?   Did His Mom tear into the joker who showed up with the myrrh? Did she continue to freak out, say, when her darling boy cut his hand or stepped on a nail? Or could she see beyond the cross to sunrise on the empty tomb, and know that in the fullness of time, darkness would give way to light?

Peter touched his own cheek. What was there? A smoldering darkness? Only the twilight of his teens? Was there even a flicker of that light Caroline had shown their father which convinced the old man to withhold money from a leg-breaker on her account? Peter flicked at some straw and turned away from the crèche. Regardless of what his parents saw, regardless of the scene this afternoon when the bedroom doors re-opened, tonight Peter would sleep, as if in death. The paralysis would take him, and hold him, but give way with the morning light. This was the cycle of things, in which he could trust.

© 2003 by Kevin Rush, all rights reserved