Chương 7
Feed him.
Medication Wednesday.
Walk before bed.
Thanks.
No concern about whether I had work.
No concern about whether I had plans.
No concern about what it might cost me to reorganize ten days of my life.
They had simply assigned me the consequence of their decision.
That was familiar too.
When Kyle needed someone to help move apartments, I was dependable.
When Mom’s website crashed before a sponsored post, I was good with computers.
When Dad needed transportation after knee surgery, my schedule was flexible.
When Megan needed three hundred dollars because an online payment platform had frozen her account, I was sensible with money.
But when the family gathered for something enjoyable, I became negotiable.
I took the note from the refrigerator.
The salmon magnet snapped against the metal.
Owen appeared in the doorway.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Saying yeah when the answer is complicated.”
I held up the paper.
“They planned this.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean they planned me.”
He waited.
I flattened the note on the counter.
“They didn’t forget to tell me.”
“No.”
“They needed me to arrive believing I was going so I’d already be here for the dog.”
Owen’s face changed.
Until then, I think both of us had treated the situation as cruel improvisation.
The note made it logistical.
If they had told me on Thursday that I was excluded, I might have refused to dogsit.
If they had told me Friday, I might not have come over.
Instead they let me pack.
They let me drive across the lake.
They let me stand outside with luggage.
Mom had called only after I was inside the house.
“They knew you’d show up at eight,” Owen said quietly.
“Exactly.”
Marcus was behind him now.
Neither man made a joke.
For several seconds, the refrigerator hummed.
I folded the note once.
Then again.
Not because it needed folding.
Because my hands needed work.
“I’m adding the numbers.”
Owen nodded.
Marcus said, “Keep it general.”
We used a freestanding acrylic sign holder from the storage unit.
I wrote the text myself on my laptop and printed it on Dad’s office printer.
Eight restaurants.
Hundreds of employees supported across the region.
Millions of customer transactions annually.
Hiring.
Training.
Safety.
Operations.
Budgets.
Facilities.
Compliance.
People.
At the bottom, I added one sentence.
This is what “just fast food” looks like when someone actually does the work.
Owen read it twice.
“Too much?”
“Yes.”
I reached for the paper.
He moved it away.
“Which is why it works.”
Marcus took the page from him.
“The transactions line could be interpreted as company data.”
“Remove it.”
I did.
The revised version was simpler.
Stronger, somehow.
Marcus slid it into the acrylic holder and placed it on the counter panel beneath the glowing display.
We all stepped back.
The room changed.
Before, it had been a joke.
Now it looked like an argument.
That made me uncomfortable.
“I don’t know if I like that.”
“Good,” Marcus said.
“Why is that good?”
“Because revenge that feels completely good is usually stupid.”
Owen nodded toward him.
“I like this guy.”
“You both can leave.”
Neither did.
At eight thirty, we put everything away.
Marcus took his promised two photographs.
Owen insisted I take one more set documenting the condition of the room.
Then they stood by the door while Buddy leaned against Marcus’s leg with shameless affection.
“You staying here tonight?” Owen asked.
“I should.”
“For the dog?”
“For the dog.”
“Your apartment is twenty minutes away.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
He did not push.
Marcus scratched Buddy’s head.
“You need anything, call.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
I looked at him.
“Thanks.”
After they left, the house became painfully quiet.
I walked Buddy before bed.
When we returned, I turned off the menu display and every light except the lamp above the kitchen sink.
I found spare sheets in the hallway closet and made up the guest room.
Mom had turned my old bedroom into a meditation space years earlier.
There was nowhere in that room to sleep anymore, only a low bench, floor cushions, and a diffuser shaped like a stone.
The guest room had once been Kyle’s.
Of course it still had a bed.
I lay awake for almost an hour listening to Buddy shift around on the rug beside me.
At eleven twelve, my phone lit up.
It was a message from Megan.
You alive?
I stared at it.
Then another appeared.
Mom says you’re being weird.
A third.
Don’t ruin her trip because you’re mad.
I typed three different replies and deleted all of them.
Finally I wrote one sentence.
I’m taking care of Buddy.
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
Then disappeared.
Appeared again.
Her answer came a minute later.
Good.
For some reason, that word hurt more than the jokes.
I set my phone facedown on the nightstand.
Buddy lifted his head.
“You’re welcome,” I told him.
He thumped his tail once and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I woke to twenty-three missed calls from my mother.
I sat up so fast Buddy scrambled to his feet.
The missed calls had started at six forty-three.
Six forty-three, six forty-five, six forty-seven, then a rapid burst of calls from Mom, Dad, Megan, Mom again, and finally Kyle.
There were also fourteen messages.
CALL ME.
Daniel, answer your phone.
What did you do?
This is not funny.
Dad’s message was the shortest.
Undo it.
I stared at the screen, still half asleep.
Buddy stretched beside the bed and yawned so widely his whole body seemed involved.
“I’m guessing they found out.”
He wagged.
I opened the family chat.
Megan had posted a photograph.
It showed my parents’ living room exactly as we had left it, except daylight filled the windows and the training display was off.
The image had clearly not been taken by anyone in the family.
May you like
Under it, Megan had written, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
I zoomed in.
