The Summer the World Ended (14 page)

“Dad?”

He looked up.

“I saw your screensaver.”
Do not cry.

Guilt melted out of his face. “I… Sorry. You know I never stopped loving you.”

“Messed up way to show it… running to New Mexico and never even calling.” She sucked in a shuddering rush of air, fighting the urge to sob. “Mom sent you pics from every birthday.”

“Riley―”

She frowned. “Top secret, yeah, I know.”

Her spoon scraped at the bowl as she transferred the canned pasta from one side to the other. “I thought you hated us.”

“No, Riley. I…” He stared at her, jaw trembling as if some great secret hammered at a stone wall inside his mind, threatening to crumble through. “I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” The dam broke. She looked away, sniveling. “Me?”

Dad glanced at his bedroom door. “Not now…”

“What.” Riley wiped her tears and glared. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Shit.” He jumped up, ran a splash of water through his dish, and dropped it in the sink before rushing to his desk. She forced another spoonful of lameness down. Seconds later, his room brightened and the din of TV news muttered in the background.

Riley braced her head on one hand and stared into the orange miasma as if divining tea leaves.
Why does he keep running away from me?

A few minutes of silence later, Dad spoke. “Yes, I’m here. Copy. Go ahead, sir.”

Is that why he picked the middle of nothing to put his house?
Riley traipsed over to his door. Dad sat on his computer chair in the corner with his back to her, a pair of military-style headphones on. He poked at buttons on a confusing green box covered in dials, markings, and funny protrusions, with what looked like a calculator in the middle of the front face. An odd-shaped cascade of text occupied the PC screen.
Programs look weird.

“Assets Bravo-three-nine and Bravo-four-six confirmed in place. Last contact zero-five-fifteen this morning. Reports situation tenuous. Petulant Dragon unstable.”

Riley put a hand over her heart, eyes widening. Some white-haired guy on CNN spoke about military demonstrations planned by the leader of North Korea. An older-sounding man’s voice emanated from the AM radio, in the midst of a debate with a woman and two other men about the effects of another Korean war, and if the US should get involved. Whatever Dad was talking about sounded scary. She backed away and headed to the fridge, hunting for something other than SpaghettiOs. Outside, the tan appliance looked in decent shape. Inside, it broke her heart. Its only contents were a pair of Corona bottles and half a lime that looked like an experiment in home freeze-drying.

She shut the door with a sigh.
That’s what I was expecting.
On tiptoe, she reached up to the cabinets above the coffee machine, grabbing a tiny doorknob in each hand and pulling.

Every inch of usable space had been packed full of SpaghettiOs cans. The next pair of cabinet doors to the left revealed the same sight.

“Whoa.” She blinked. “Unreal.”

“Dad?” she half-yelled.

“I understand, sir, but the Russians have rolled in some kind of ELF jammer near Odessa, and there’s some unusual activity going on near Belgorod. One moment, Colonel.” His chair creaked. “Yes, hon?”

“Your cabinet is full of Spag-Os. Do you have any real food?”

“Look under the sink.”
Creak
. “No word back from Charlie-Ten. Last contact was four days ago from Seoul. He may have been compromised.”

Riley squatted and swung open the lower cabinet doors, finding them stuffed with packets of Ramen instant noodles in shrink-wrapped wholesale boxes. “Oh, hell no.”

She closed the doors without saying another word, trying not to listen too closely to Dad talking about ‘assets’ and ‘deteriorating situations.’ It might’ve been bland, but the tepid bowl of SpaghettiOs had been her father’s attempt to take care of her. She picked at it until he got quiet.

Ten minutes later, when he hadn’t emerged from his room, Riley got up and clung to the doorjamb again, peering inside. He’d taken off the headset, holding it in his lap like a pet cat. Most of the color had drained from his face, and he stared at the blank computer screen. Something about his presence made her worry the tiniest sound would scare the hell out of him.

Seeing her formerly stoic Dad terrified got her heart pumping by proxy. He’d gone through the entire funeral and estate paperwork without much of any visible emotion. She could sense the hurt inside him when he held her; as he said, some men didn’t show their heart to the world, which made this all the more frightening.

“Dad?” she whispered.

He turned his head toward her, eyes vacant and unfocused, as if he didn’t know who she was. His hand slipped under some papers on his desk, grasping something.

“Daddy?”

The look in his eyes―no recognition―scared her mouth dry. She stared at him for a moment afraid to move or even blink.

“Riley.” Some color flowed back into his cheeks. His eyes fluttered through a series of rapid blinks, and he let his arm drop to his lap. “The last status report wasn’t good. Probably sounded worse than it is.”

“What was that?” She placed a tentative foot through the doorway. “Are you okay?”

Dad waved her over. “It’s okay. Bad news from my boss is all. We have men in place keeping tabs on erratic regimes, and a few of them have fallen off the face of the Earth. Usually, that means they’ve been compromised and are either dead or running.”

She crept up to him as if the carpet had been seeded with land mines. By the time she got close enough for him to put an arm around her, she trembled.

“Don’t be scared. It’s thousands of miles away from here. I’m not sure POTUS will commit to anything military even if the Russians overstep. The Ukraine isn’t our fight.”

“What’s a poetus?”

He chuckled. “It’s an acronym for ‘president of the United States.’”

Who talks like that?
Riley bit her lip. “Dad, you’ve got a kitchen full of canned pasta and ramen noodles. No wonder you’re a skeleton. You need to buy some real food. I’ll cook.”

“There’s probably about twenty pounds of meat in the deep freezer.”

Riley squirmed. “Eww, Dad. I’m not eating rabbit. They’re cute.”

He exhaled, seeming like his old, stoic self again. “I’m not fond of going to town. Once or twice a week for a burger at Tommy’s is my limit. You saw how they looked at us. If you weren’t born in the area, they don’t want to associate with you.”

“You can’t call what you have out there food.”

Dad made a noncommittal face. “It’s what I have.”

“I’ll go. I sorta know how to drive. Mom let me practice in the bank lot a few times.”

“A Sentra’s a bit different than a truck; besides, I need to stay close to the radio for a day or two.”

She tapped her toe on the carpet. “We need real food. If you don’t wanna go to town, let me. Come on, it’s all flat. Not like there’s anything to hit.”

“You’re too young.”

“I can reach the pedals just fine if I scoot the seat forward.”

He leaned back, drawing a creak from the chair spring. “You don’t know your way around.”

“It’s an L. Down the road from the house, turn right, and there’s that little grocery shop thing. There aren’t even any cops out here.”

“Let me think about it. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Come on.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him out of the chair. “I’ll drive a bit in circles around the house so you see I can do it.”

He grabbed her in a tight hug, sniffling into the crook of her neck. Riley went stiff from shock at the sudden reaction.

“Uh, Dad?”

The upwelling of emotion lasted less than a minute. He let go of her, got up, and grabbed his keys from behind the old keyboard. “You remind me so much of Lily… when she got an idea in her head.”

Riley stood in place, stunned as he walked outside. She wasn’t sure if she should feel happy for talking him into letting her drive, or give in to the overwhelming need to mope about Mom.

“You coming?” he yelled.

“Yeah.” She looked down at her flip-flops, considering the sneakers in her room.
Screw it. It’s hot.

iley scratched the sole of her right foot on the corner of the brake, waiting for Dad to make up his mind. After seven loops around the house, she’d gotten the jerkiness out of her braking. If she was going to ding a fender, better Dad’s 98 Silverado than Mom’s 2014 Sentra… if it ever showed up. She hooked all ten toes over the brake pedal and smirked at the dust-covered console. It wasn’t
too
high, but a cop would probably pull her over for being suspiciously short.

“This is a bad idea,” said Dad.

“So is eating SpaghettiOs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Why’d you take your flops off?” He raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes I’ll bag a jackrabbit or a deer if they wander far enough. There’s food.”

Riley shrugged, pushing them around the floor with her big toe. “Mom said something about cops can give you a ticket for driving in them… get snagged on the pedals or something.”

“Probably not a great idea to drive barefoot either.”

“Or without a license.” She grinned. “It’s not too late to take over.”

“If things were normal, I would, but…” Dad looked out the passenger window at the desert. “Any minute now, Colonel Bering might comm in and I have to be here. Bad things are on the horizon. If I miss a message, people could die.”

Riley sighed. “If I eat another bowl of SpaghettiOs, people could die.”

“I’m serious, Squirrel.”

Her lips curled as if to growl at that damn name, but she held it back. Real food hinged on her winning this debate, and hurting his feelings wouldn’t help that cause. She looked over at him, her throat tightening at the unusual pallor in his cheeks. His eyes had glazed over, as if the Grim Reaper himself stood in front of the truck.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

“Straight to Las Cerezas and back. Don’t stop anywhere else. Don’t talk to anyone, especially cops, and go put on real shoes before you leave.”

“Okay.” She reached for the door handle. “Can I talk to the store clerk or do I have to mime?”

He blinked and looked at her as if she’d just spoken French. For all she knew, maybe Dad did speak French… since he seemed to work for Military Intelligence.

“Dad?” She waved past his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yep.” Color returned to his cheeks as he smiled. “I really meant cops. If you get stopped, tell them you’re fifteen and forgot your permit at home.”

She reached down between her legs and picked up her flip-flops. “Lying to cops is a bad idea, Dad. Especially when they can catch me.”

“The cops are the first ones they’d target. All that risk and stress for low pay. The people I work for operate at a different level than the rest of the citizens. We’re not beholden to them, so don’t give them any advantage over you. Any information you give a cop
could
wind up getting to the wrong people.”

“Uh, right. Okay.”

“I mean it, Squirrel.” He grabbed her forearm, a little too tight. “We can’t trust cops. Their job is to keep everyone compliant and docile. If the world was aware of just how close it was to destroying itself―that would be that. Everyone would lose their minds to anarchy.”