“Yes, sir.”
With hot-padded hands, I brought out Daddy’s dinner and switched out my cooling plate of mashed potatoes and vegetables, then went and sat on the other side of Mikey. “Hey Daddy,” he piped up before I could think to stop him. “Didjaknow that Pete took us for a wide in his Hummer?”
I sighed, feeling like he coulda talked all day without saying that.
The fork going into Daddy’s mouth halted mid-air. Andrew and I exchanged looks. Shoot. We forgot to tell Mikey not to tell. It happened over two weeks ago, but there was no statue of limitation on Daddy’s consequences. His fork went down, and his anger went up. Mikey was on the receiving end of one of Daddy’s filthiest looks.
“Now why would he do that?”
“Because I asked him to!” Mikey boasted.
“Excuse me, Daddy,” I quickly intervened because Daddy’s face was starting to change colors, “it was very early on and Andrew had finished testin’ for the day. We had a few extra minutes, so he took us for a ride around the parkin’ lot.”
“I do not want Andrew’s mentorin’ time wasted on joy rides anymore. Do you three understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” we chorused.
“We got more work to do around here than I can shake a stick at. And it continues to go undone, because you”—Daddy air-stabbed me with his fork—“claim there’s not enough time in the day to do it . . . We got fences to mend, pens to muck, fertilizer to spread, need I go on?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, I’ll say it a thousand times: idle hands is the devil’s workshop. You kids need to keep yer time occupied with fruitful activities like learnin’ and workin’ this ranch—teaches invaluable life skills.” Daddy turned an approving eye on Andrew. “You see how my discipline plan is pannin’ out for Andrew here. He’s not only top of his class, but he’s at the top of all eighth-grade kids across America, accordin’ to the reports I’ve been gettin’ from Cadet Davenport.”
Now it was my turn to put down my fork. Nobody told me anything anymore. I wondered if Andrew knew and turned appraising eyes on him. His expression was about the same as Mikey’s Batman mask, which scared me.
“He’d be a shoo-in at West Point. Although I don’t know why we’d wait or fool around with senators’ nominations,” Daddy said derisively, “when the best o’ the best is already offerin’ up such a good deal.”
Alarmed, I leaned around Mikey. “But Daddy, you read the contract. It says you have to give up parental rights for the duration of his training. You’re not seriously considerin’ that, are you?”
“Well, I’ll give you the short answer to that—maybe.”
“What?”
“Now you listen here, Katherine Lee,” Daddy said, his voice going to a place that led nowhere good, “I ain’t just handin’ my son over to just anybody. This here EliteAcademy is the very best there is . . . in the world!”
“But Daddy!” I spluttered for the hundredth time in a month, “You promised Mama you wouldn’t send any of us away to special schools!” Even to my own ears I sounded like an over-played sad song you’d grown accustomed to tuning out.
“I ain’t sendin’ you or Shadow anywhere. . . . Far as I can tell, Andrew’s the only one bein’ sought after here.”
“He’s only eight-years-old!” I reasoned, not taking the bait.
Daddy pointed the blunt end of his knife at me. “You forget yer place, missy. Andrew is my son, and I’ll do with him as I see fit . . . as I will all you kids, for that matter. Now I talked over my concerns with Cadet Davenport, and he said ninety-nine percent of the cadets’ parents sign the paperwork. It’s just a formality, so that meddlin’ parents won’t in’erfere with the trainin’ . . . and there are reg’lar visitin’ days allowed.”
“Allowed?” I said.
Mikey shifted in his seat. I knew he was about to say something, so I squeezed his thigh under the table. But a determined Mikey was a lot like a penned bull right after the chute opened. “Daddy . . .”
“You will speak when yer spoken to, young man!” Daddy interjected quickly, eyes wildly bouncing around the room, refusing to settle anywhere near his youngest child’s face.
Mikey reared across the table. “Daddy, you’wer NOT sendin’ Drewy away to that school!”
We watched as Daddy’s face turned the same color as the baked-in ketchup coating his meatloaf. Andrew and I exchanged glances again. Mikey, relieved of his mind-load, shoveled a mound of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Some of Daddy’s firm resolve seemed to implode like a cake pulled out of the oven too soon. “I’ve still not made up my mind, that’s fer sure. It’s a big decision. I sure don’t like the idear of not seein’ him ever’ day.”
I inwardly bristled, thinking he didn’t see him every day but didn’t say anything, as this was a step in the right direction. He almost sounded like a real father for once. The result of all this reasonableness was me wanting to unburden myself to him. Explain my mystifyingly strong feelings about the school, let him know we’d been followed and spied on, divulge the proof I had that Pete lied, that we were being conned. I wanted help to make sense of it all. To lay it all out on a bulletin board like a complex unsolved mystery.
But I didn’t. Daddy had had it up to his eyeballs with female intuition and conspiracy theories, having lived through Mama’s vivid breakdowns. He’d made it very clear he wasn’t going through that again. Proof. That’s what I needed. Like a victim of a crime—with no witnesses—coming to the police to report it, there would need to be solid evidence before an indictment. Or else I would end up sounding deranged. It was pretty much my word against theirs. And frankly, they were more credible than my intuition. They had all the numbers and facts on their side that Daddy loved so much. Especially his favorite number in the world—one.
Unfortunately, the only proof I actually had was against Pete. If I convinced Daddy about his lies, he would most likely just demand another mentor. A picture of a dimpled-brute with a smirk-smile entered my mind. I shuttered to even think of it. And the catch twenty-two was: blowing the whistle on Pete would result in his dismissal from my life. Even though I knew he wasn’t on the up-and-up, I still didn’t want him to go. Not yet . . . not ever. I couldn’t even fathom having him disappear from my life as though he never existed. It was like suddenly trying to live without the sun—I was already severely deficient in my vitamin D from my self-imposed sabbatical of the last couple of weeks. But I still had the same problem I’d had since the beginning: I loathed his organization and everything it stood for—preying on the weak, lying and cunning, evil intentions creeping out from all sides. But I felt the direct opposite of that about their ambassador.
It was an impossible position to be in—falling for the enemy.
The boys had gone off to bed, and I’d just finished packing lunches for school the next day and was headed off to my own bed, loaded down with a basket of clothes and a bushel of worries.