Big Fat Disaster (9 page)

Mom arches an eyebrow. “And?”

Dale shakes his head. “No dice. Leah tried to make excuses for him; said she needs him to help out in her bakery…but Ryan told me that he already
has
one asshole, and he
sure
doesn’t need to be stuck in a truck with two other ones. I
suppose
he means me and Rachel.”

“Such language!” Grandma spits from the armchair. “Ryan brought all his problems on himself by getting involved where he had no business. It was that girl’s word against the boy’s. Ryan doesn’t get to be the judge of others. The Bible says—”

I blurt, “Yeah, wouldn’t the Bible call Dad an adulterer and thief?”

Mom lunges at me. “Colby!”

“Last time I checked, adultery and stealing were right up there in the Top Ten.” I figure she’s going to latch onto my upper arm again, but she doesn’t.

Uncle Dale talks to me like I’m a little kid, even calling me the pet name he gave me when I was born and looked to him like a chubby teddy bear. “You don’t understand, Colby-Bear. Ryan admitted that all the guests at the party—the entire football team
and
the cheerleaders—were drinking. That girl put herself in the position of being taken advantage of,
if
that’s what really happened. Ryan was wrong to turn his back on his teammate.” He drops into Dad’s recliner and puts his feet up.

I fold my arms and pace in front of the TV. “I’m just trying to figure out who the rules apply to, because my whole life, Dad’s been lecturing me about doing the right thing, even when it’s hard. So, Ryan tells the truth about what he saw and three guys beat him up for it, but instead of being proud of him, you criticize him. I think you’re nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.”

“Colby!” Mom steps in front of me.

I look around, and my entire family is staring at me like I’ve got horns and a pointy tail. I hug myself tight and glare at my feet.

“There’s just one thing to do with a child like Colby at a time like this,” Grandma announces. She works her way out of the chair, stands, and holds out her hands for a prayer circle. “Let us ask the Lord to remove the darkness from her soul.”

I head for my room. “You do what you want. I’m going to pack.” I throw back over my shoulder, “You know, since we have to leave this house, seeing as how Dad
forgot
how to do the right thing.”

After Uncle Dale and Grandma leave to meet up with Dad, Mom tries to get Rachel to invite some friends over for a going-away party. Rachel doesn’t want to see anyone, but Mom insists that we do
something
to try to make our last night together special. We order pizza. Mom asks Rachel to finish packing the stuff she’s not taking to school, since we’ll be moving it wherever we’re going.

Drew and I are tired of packing and want to watch TV, but Mom still won’t let us hook up the antenna cable, and the DVD player is freezing up. Since I haven’t apologized to Grandma, Mom won’t let me have my iPod.

Instead, she listens to it and surfs the Internet for our new life.

I wake around 2:00
A.M.
to someone crying. I tiptoe outside Rachel’s room. Mom’s with her.

Rachel whines, “I don’t
want
to go to Oregon with Uncle Dale. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. We planned on going together!”

Mom’s voice is low, soothing. “Aw, honey, I know. It was going to be a family vacation. I wish I could go, too, but I have about a week to find us a place to live. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Mom. You’re not the one who’s pretending we don’t exist. I don’t understand what’s happening. Is there something, like, mentally
wrong
with Dad?”

Mom doesn’t answer for a long time. Finally, she says, “You’re going to get to school and be so busy getting unpacked and finding your way around Portland, you won’t have time to think about what’s happened here. It’ll be good for you, Rachel.” Mom’s trying to use her sunshiny voice, but it keeps breaking.

Rachel wails, “How am I going to make it until Thanksgiving without seeing you every day?”

Mom sounds like she’s trying to convince herself along with Rachel. “You…you just
will
. You’re my child, and that means you keep going no matter what. You hear me? I need you to be strong. Colby’s a big fat disaster, eating everything in sight, and Drew’s sliding into sadness. I’ve never even opened a checking account on my own, much less decided where we should live.”

I sit on the floor outside my sister’s room. My shoulders shake with silent sobs. I’m a disaster: a big fat disaster.

Early Saturday morning, Uncle Dale and Grandma return with the truck and horse trailer. They also bring a new hard drive for the computer in our family room.

“We picked this up at the electronics store last night. Reese was concerned about you and the girls doing without, since those investigators took all your computers.” Grandma turns to Mom and asks pointedly, “Does
that
sound like someone who doesn’t care about his family?”

“What about my laptop?” Rachel asks.

I jump in, too. “And mine?”

Grandma’s eyes flash. “I’m not made of money! You’ll make do with this, or you’ll have nothing at all!”

Mom accepts the hard drive from Uncle Dale. “Of course, Carol. Thank you.”

Grandma’s worried about Uncle Dale driving back from Oregon by himself, so she’s decided to go along for the ride. Mom and Rachel fake acting happy about “the big day finally being here,” and Drew clings to Rachel in her usual spider monkey way. Uncle Dale makes a run to the local doughnut shop and returns with two dozen. I grab two frosted chocolate and two with pink icing and sprinkles, then rush toward my room to eat them.

Grandma intercepts me as she comes out of the bathroom. She snatches my paper plate from me. “You don’t
need
that many doughnuts, Colby.”

It’s none of your fucking business!
is on the tip of my tongue, but I stop myself before I say it. “I’m hungry,” I lie. I mean, I think it’s a lie. I can’t really tell when I’m hungry. My face burns with embarrassment, and it feels like my double chin is multiplying.

“Pick
two
doughnuts,” she insists. “Just two.”

I lower my head. “Never mind. I’m not hungry.” I step around her and rush to my room. I close my door, lock it, and slide against it to the floor. After a few minutes, I crawl to my dresser and pull my snack stash out of the bottom drawer.

The horse trailer is filled to the top with Rachel’s stuff. She slams the door on Uncle Dale’s pickup truck and trudges across the yard for a final goodbye. The four of us—Mom, Rachel, Drew, and I—all have spasming faces because we’re trying not to cry as we huddle in a group hug. As bitchy as Rachel can be, I still don’t want her to go. Not right now, when everything’s upside down.

“I’ll call you every day,” Rachel tells Mom.

Mom nods and sounds like she has peanut butter in her throat when she talks. “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what’s next.”

This time, Grandma’s the one eavesdropping. “If I have anything to say about it, your mom’s going to unpack and stay put. She’s rushing into this instead of waiting for the misunderstanding to be sorted out. Mark my words: You’re going to be sorry that you acted in haste.”

Mom closes her eyes and shakes her head inside our group hug. Grandma’s still talking, but we ignore her.

Uncle Dale interrupts. “If we’re going to make it to southeast Colorado by dark, we need to get going.”

“Thanks for helping out with Rachel,” Mom tells him. “If it has to be this way, I’m glad that you’re the one delivering her to college.”

“Hey, that reminds me,” he says. He pulls an envelope from his shirt pocket. “When I saw Leah yesterday, she asked me to give you this.”

Mom takes it from him carefully, like it’s contaminated. “Wonder what it could be…”

Uncle Dale laughs. “Knowing Leah, there’s no telling.”

By Tuesday, Mom decides that we’ll move to Norman, Oklahoma. One of her friends from her pageant days is now an elementary school principal and she promised Mom a teaching job. We drive three hours to get there and spend the day looking for a place to live.

After visiting several places with the leasing agent—a guy who looks and sounds so much like President George W. Bush that I’d swear it’s him—Mom decides on a small house that has a fenced yard with a doghouse in it. This sets Drew to begging Mom for a puppy. Mom says she’ll think about it, which sounds like “Yes” to Drew. We return to the leasing office and Mom fills out the paperwork.

While the agent runs Mom’s credit, we eat an early supper at the barbecue place next door, then return to the office to sign the lease.

“There’s a problem with your credit check,” George W. Bush’s look-alike says. He frowns at Drew and me. “Mrs. Denton, could you come with me, please?”