Like extortion, maybe.
I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets, scowling all the way up the walk. Jay strutted beside me. I couldn’t tell if we were a united front against Dad or if he felt like he was being marched to the gallows. Guilt and resentment at being made to feel guilty wrestled at the back of my head. Ex and Chogyi Jake came up behind us.
Jay rang the doorbell. For a long moment I thought no one would come. Maybe they weren’t home. Maybe they just didn’t open the door to me and mine. Then the porch light came on, a pale echo of the falling sun, and the door opened.
“Hey,” Curtis said. “Jayné. Jay. What’s . . . ah . . . what’s up?”
The forced casual tone, the way he didn’t step aside to let us in. He was under orders. I understood that, and a flare of anger came up in me. It wasn’t a position Mom and Dad should have put him in.
“Came to see Dad,” Jay said. “Can you get him?”
“Sure,” Curt said with obvious relief. “Hang on a sec.”
He closed the door and his muffled voice came through it, calling for my father.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” Jay asked.
“For getting Curt off the hook. Not making him feel weirder about being the family bouncer.”
Jay looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s what you worry about? Whether Curt feels awkward?”
“It’s one thing,” I said. “Global warming kind of freaks me out too.”
Jay shook his head. It was the same tight motion Dad used when he was angry and not safely at home where he could blow up. I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to decide what I’d do if they left us standing out in the cold. Go around to the back door, maybe. Or kick in the front and see if Dad shot at me. Not like I’d be the first. I felt like I was back at grade school, waiting to see the principal.
The door opened again and Dad was there. He crossed his arms and looked down at us.
“I thought I told you not to speak with her,” Dad said.
“I need her help.”
“You don’t need anything she’s got on offer,” Dad said.
“Good to see you too,” I said, and Chogyi Jake touched my shoulder. He was right. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t escalate things. I bit my lip and looked down. Dad was wearing cheap suede slippers with fake lamb’s wool. Grampa shoes. I couldn’t think why that should make me sad.
“I need to talk to you,” Jay said. “And my sister does to.”
“She’s not your sister. Not anymore.”
“She’s my sister,” Jay said, his voice growing stronger. “And I need to talk to you. Please let us come in.”
Dad’s face was set. He had more gray at his temples than I remembered.
“Carla’s gone,” Jay said.
I couldn’t say what I’d expected, except that it wasn’t this. Dad froze for a moment, like a video feed stuck on a single frame, and then for a moment his face seemed to cave in on itself. An enormous sorrow seemed to drown him, and I thought he might actually start to weep. It would have been slightly less strange if he’d grown wings and sang Ethel Merman tunes. The moment passed, and he was himself again. He stood back, nodding us inside.
“You and your friends can wait here,” he said to me, nodding to the front room. “I want to speak to my son in private.”
I ate the pain. There was nothing else to do with it.
The Christmas tree looked a little more disreputable than before. The needles were browning and falling away, and it left the tinsel looking cheap. Vulgar. A clown suit on a corpse. My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide and hopeful. I sat on the good sofa and didn’t look at her. I was afraid she’d offer to take my rider again, and I didn’t want to see the desperation in her eyes once more. My father’s voice cracked from the TV room like a whip, and she vanished. I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes. Chogyi Jake sat beside me. I knew him from the way he moved.
“You know where we could be right now?”
“Where?” he asked.
“Literally anyplace but here. Doesn’t that sound great?”
Ex chuckled. He was by the picture window, looking out at the street. Jay and Dad were talking, low masculine voices like the murmur of a car engine on a long, unpleasant drive. I took off my sunglasses, and the room seemed unnaturally light.
“Is something bothering you?” Chogyi Jake asked.
I started to answer, paused, shook my head. There were too many answers to the question, and I couldn’t even start to pick out just one to start with. It was Ex who spoke.
“You mean besides her brother’s asshole guilt trip? She’s worried that because she’s getting as much information as we can before we hang our asses out in front of Jonathan Rhodes, she’s just as bad as Eric.” He turned and looked at me. His eyes were flat with outrage. “And her father’s treating her like she’s been dipped in shit.”
“He’s not really my father,” I said, wondering how exactly Ex had gotten me in the position of defending Dad.
“He raised you,” Ex said. “He’s your father. And having met him, I think you turned out great.”
“Thanks. I think,” I said.
“He’s had a difficult life,” Chogyi Jake said. He was facing Ex, but I knew the words were meant for me. “Living with a lover who not only betrayed him but who was wounded by it. Raising the child of that betrayal as his own. I assume he took comfort in his faith, but many men in his place would struggle. Fear or sorrow or even love can come out as anger.”
“Yeah, sucks to be a patriarch,” Ex said.
“Guys,” I said. “They’re in the next room, right? Maybe cover this later.”
“Sorry,” Ex said. “Just a little pissed off right now.”
My father’s voice was raised now, and it had taken on a rhythm, like a preacher in his groove on Sunday morning. Jay’s voice was a counterpoint, moving into the spaces and gaps. It was all like a grim, uncomfortable music, and it was as familiar to me as breathing. It would go up, spiraling louder and louder until it reached some kind of crisis, and then come crashing back down to that uneasy post-storm calm that passed for peace in my childhood. I tried not to listen, not to have my belly tighten in response.
“Okay, Invisible College,” I said. “Any speculation about what they’re up to?”
“Trap,” Ex said.
“Trap,” Chogyi Jake agreed. “Absolutely.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “Well, that took a few seconds. Anyone else got a way to distract me from this thoroughly awful day? Limericks? Crossword puzzles? Seriously, I’m open to anything.”
“Have we considered whether they necessarily have ill intentions?” Chogyi Jake asked.
“Thought that was covered in ‘trap,’ ” I said.
“Perhaps. But what do they believe they are trapping? You are the heir of Eric Heller. Once when we faced them before, we thought we knew what that meant. Since then, it’s turned out to be something very different. Perhaps this doesn’t have to be the situation we’re expecting.”
“Don’t know about that,” I said. “I mean, yes, Eric was a terrible, terrible person, but Randolph Coin did try to throw me off a skyscraper. Why he did it matters less than that he did, right?”
Chogyi Jake nodded at me to continue. Everything in his face and body said Maybe. I didn’t want to, but the words came anyway.
“I mean, okay, that was after we killed his bodyguard and tried to shoot him, but . . . Ah, jeez. We’re not the bad guys again, are we?”
“I don’t buy it,” Ex said. “The whole enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thing is naive. Sure, the riders fight against each other. Just because there’s a war in hell doesn’t keep the devil’s enemy from being a demon.”