I found swallowing hard while still trying to appear innocent was counter-productive. Then there was the heat factor that gave me away—sweat began blistering my upper lip. I started to stammer out a quick explanation when a heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder. This had the dual purpose of shutting me up and sinking me onto the bed.
Now that Daddy had my attention, he leaned over, finger to face. “I don’t know, or care, what kind of shenanigans went on last night with Little-Miss-About-Town. However, you are my daughter, and therefore, a reflection of me. I will not have you out gallivantin’ around town with that floozy till all hours of the night. If I were her Daddy, I’d’ve bent’er over my knee a long time ago. ‘Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child,’ is the motto that family needs to remember from the Good Book. They lost control of that one a long time ago. But I am not about to lose control of my kid!”
I knew just what to do in these situations—cast my eyes down submissively.
“Now I know what it’s like to be young. I was young once, too. You can get yerself into a lotta trouble runnin’ around late at night . . . ‘specially a girl like you. You gotta be careful not to get caught up in harmless fun.” He air-quoted now. “‘Harmless fun’ most often leads to harmful consequences. I outta know.” He indicated the leg he injured in a motorcycle accident that effectively ended his military career.
“Yes, sir,” I said, almost seeing his point after last night’s fiasco.
“Discipline the military gave me is the thing that changed my life, and discipline is what you kids need, not more freedom. And that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about . . .”
My stomach lurched. When I braved his eyes again, he gave me the kind of look intended to nail me to the wall.
“I can see now that I can’t trust you to be a proper mother-figure, nor moral guide for those two boys in there.”
I gasped like he’d slapped my face.
“Your lies and lack of good judgment last night made me realize that yer mama over-estimated yer ability to raise them boys. Maybe it ain’t fair to rely on you; yer still immature—like havin’ a kid raise a kid. So I realized this mornin’ at church, while you was home sleepin’ in, that I’m on the right track with this here military academy.”
I was still fighting the urge to scream when he said, “I wanted to let you know that I’ve reconsidered my position on that school.”
I stood up, horrified. “Daddy, no!”
“Yer brother has a real opp’rtunity to make somethin’ of his life with this Elite Academy.” Daddy actually cracked a prideful smile, which caused a strong urge in me to smash a pie . . . right in his face.
“B-but, Daddy, you can’t do that!” He was using last night’s one time transgression as leverage for his plot to enroll Drewy in that military academy. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. And I had to stop it! “You said you weren’t about to send Andrew off to be raised by any of those fancy boardin’ schools!” I reminded him.
“It aint just some fancy boardin’ school—it’s ‘The World’s Most Elite Military Academy’,” Daddy corrected me.
“But you promised Mama!” My voice wobbled. “Please, Daddy! You just can’t send him away—he’s only eight-years-old!”
His eyes moved to a spot above my shoulder. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said, placating me now that I was on the verge of tears. (Tears were my father’s kryptonite.) “Right now they just wanna assess him, see if he’s a good fit for ‘em. From my understandin’, they’re only lookin’ for a partic’lar type of kid.”
Of course they’re going to accept him, I wanted to spit—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all would.
“They’re not lettin’ in just any ol’ rift-raft. And I don’t blame ‘em one bit. Kids today . . .” Daddy continued droning on about what was wrong with kids today, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was thinking back to what I overheard Pete tell Ranger last night. Something about a mission being so easy, it would be like taking candy from a baby.
What was the mission exactly? Stealing a young boy from his family? Was Andrew the candy, and me the baby?
Fear and rage went coursing through my body, forming a potentially hazardous adrenaline bomb. While Daddy went on and on about “the amazing opp’rtunity this was for Andrew,” I felt this liquid outrage begin to bubble over. I had to cork it before I exploded all over him.
“. . . If he’s accepted, they’ll offer him a full scholarship, which includes free room and board. Now you tell me how I can just let that ship sail on by with a good conscious?” Daddy reasoned.
A glare was my answer.
“I’m gonna do right by my boy, whether or not you approve, big sister.”
It sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He knew very well the promises he’d made to Mama regarding schools that were interested in us. And diminishing my role in Andrew’s life to mere “big sister” was really a low blow.
My urge to throw pie in his face had grown to wanting to grind it in for good measure. Stupid, stupid, stupid, my eyes transmitted this message, hoping it would sink into his skull telepathically. But I had a feeling his skull was too thick to penetrate.
“Now you stop lookin’ at me like that, Katherine.”
“Like what?” I challenged, my temper getting the best of me. “Like the man we’re all supposed to look up to is too weak-willed to keep his word?”
I flinched back as violence flashed from Daddy’s eyes.“Weak-willed!” he thundered. “You referrin’ to the same weak-willed man who allowed you to go back to public school and get a job?”
I looked down, suddenly absorbed by a water stain in the carpet. He was right—I could not dispute the fact that he’d also made those promises to Mama. And I was glad he’d broken them at the time, wanting a more normal life for us. Now I wasn’t so sure. If we’d never gone back to public school, then Andrew’s teachers would never have sent query letters to all those schools, and we wouldn’t be sitting here having this argument right now.
I just realized, again, that Mama might not have died a crazy, delusional woman after all. Maybe she’d known exactly what she was doing. Another shiver ran down my spine when I thought of all the ways we’d already gone against her wishes. We were suddenly off on a course she’d intentionally blocked us from. Daddy had already knocked down the barricade, and we were barreling down it now. Was there a steep cliff at the end that we’d run right over, only to plunge to our death? And Daddy was the freight train driving us. Once he’d set his mind to something, he wouldn’t veer off course, no matter what. He suffered from what Mama always referred to as a “one-track-mind.”
Everything was still cloaked in a hazy gray fog, but one thing was clear: my mission was to stop that academy from sinking its claws into Andrew.
There was no way I could argue with Daddy once his mind was made up. I couldn’t out yell him, or physically make him do anything he didn’t want to do. So I had no choice but to outsmart him.
“Have you informed Andrew about your big plans for his future?”