“I don’t know.”
Wyatt tensed in apprehension and made another swipe for the portable, but Clay jumped back and shoved him away at the same time. “Skipping school already?”
“I’m not feeling good. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Staying home could cause issues.” Clay sidestepped Wyatt again, swiftly dodging his grab for the phone. He raised his fist threateningly as if to punch him and snapped into the receiver, “You do not want to skip classes when school just started.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe.” Clay spoke in slow, concise words. “Staying home ain’t an option for you. You need to be in school. You’re too smart to ruin your chances at college. Got it?”
Tabitha was quiet for a long moment before she said, “Yeah, I got it.”
“And you’re okay tonight?” Clay asked in a low, concerned voice. “You don’t need a doctor or nothing if you’re feeling ill?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Clay hung up the phone and set it on the counter. He gave Wyatt a hard glare. “She’s fine.”
“No, she’s not. She said she was ill. Why doesn’t she wanna come to school if she’s fine?” Wyatt practically roared; the blood was rushing to his face from the level of his fear. “There’s something wrong.”
“If she wanted your help, she would’ve asked for it.” Clay pushed him back when Wyatt made another go for the phone, intent on redialing. “We gave her plenty of chances.”
“Like hell!”
“You have to wait, Wyatt. This is life-altering shit we’re dealing with.”
“If her mother’s drunk all the time and her brother’s such a bully, why does she want to stay there?” Jules asked, voicing out loud the same question Wyatt asked himself all the time.
Clay scrubbed a hand over his face and looked away. His body was tense, and he seemed to be battling an inner war with himself before he admitted in a quiet voice, “I know y’all don’t get it, but no one wants to end up with the state. It sucks. Belonging to a fucked-up family is better than being an outsider in a normal one. I’d go back to the trailer park in a minute. It’s better to stay with the place you know. Some of those normal folks only appear that way on the outside. Bad things happen in foster homes too.”
Jules took a step toward him. “Clay—”
“No.” He held up a hand before Jules could hug him in a motherly fashion. “I ain’t looking for your sympathy or your babying. I’m just telling you why Tabitha is the way she is. She knows her mama is fucked-up, and she knows her family’s broke, and she knows her home life ain’t healthy, but it’s all she’s got, and right now she’s not ready to leave, and I think you got to respect that. That’s it.”
There was a deathly silence after Clay’s admission that was the closest he had ever come to explaining his feelings about his mother leaving or his being stuck in the foster system.
“You’re not an outsider here,” Jules finally whispered. “You don’t feel that way, do you?”
He looked away, the discomfort radiating off him in waves.
“Clay,” Jules pressed when he avoided her question.
He looked back to her after a long moment and shrugged. “No, I don’t feel that way here, but y’all ain’t exactly a typical family. Trust me, I’ve been stuck in dozens of normal houses, and this one ain’t even in the running for normal. Your dad keeps weird hours, and you’re home alone most of the time, but instead of fucking around like normal teenagers, you work yourselves to death for stupid things like sports and grades, and when you do finally go to bed, you sit up half the night listening to police radios. What the rest of this town doesn’t know is Conners are ’bout as paranoid and fucked-up as they come, which is probably why I like y’all. Now I’m going to bed.”
Clay turned to leave while Jules and Wyatt stood there gaping after him.
Wyatt stayed up listening to the police scanner, hearing his father’s voice crackle over the radio waves as he communicated with the deputies and dealt with all the mundane occurrences that went on in Garnet at night. Two cars got tickets for speeding. A third got pulled over and ended up with a DUI. Someone broke their foot getting out of the shower. A domestic disturbance at two in the morning had Wyatt sitting up in bed, but when he heard the address, he knew it wasn’t Tabitha’s house.
He was up when his father got home at four.
Wyatt’s hands were laced behind his head when the door cracked open, sending a sliver of light into the dark room.
“Hey, Dad,” he said rather than feign sleep like he usually did.
His father walked in, still wearing his uniform. “How come you’re still up?”
“Just thinking.”
He sat on the edge of Wyatt’s bed. “Whatcha thinking ’bout?”
“Just stuff.”
“Your sister okay?”
“Yup,” Wyatt said with a weak smile. “Jules is better than most.”
“Clay all right?”
“I guess so.” Wyatt pushed the covers back and sat up. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his sweaty forehead because the nerves still had him anxious. “Why can’t he live here all the time? Why do we have keep forcing him into these places he hates?”
“Well, Wy.” His father sighed tiredly. “We’re okay in a pinch, but I don’t think the state wants him here full-time.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I ain’t got a wife or a normal job, and there’s probably better places for a kid who ain’t never had a stable home life.”
“I think that’s bullshit.”
“Maybe,” his father said with a laugh. “Is that what’s got you counting sheep at four in the morning?”
“Do you get tired of your job?” Wyatt asked him curiously. “Tired of dealing with all the stuff you can’t fix?”
His father considered the question for a long time before he nodded. “Yeah, I get tired of it, but I reckon someone’s got to do it. Might as well be me. Besides, there are good days. It ain’t all hopeless.”
“Just most of the time,” Wyatt said, knowing the answer without hearing it.
“You know, Wyatt, you don’t have to be a deputy right out of school like I was,” he said in concern. “Whatever you wanna do, I support you. If you think this job’s not for you—”
“It’s not that.” Wyatt cut him off before he could waste his breath. “It’s just, I don’t always know what the right answers are. It’s supposed to be easy, right? This is the law. This ain’t. You break it, and that’s it. You go to jail, but sometimes the rules don’t work the way they’re supposed to.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No,” Wyatt said quickly. “I’m just thinking ’bout things.”
“Well, stop it.” His father reached over and pushed his head lightly. “Turn it off for a while and get some sleep. You got school in a few hours.”
Wyatt fell back against the bed and went back to staring at the ceiling as his father stood. He was at the door before Wyatt asked, “How’d you know you loved our mom?”
In the ray of light, Wyatt could see the pain flash over his face as he answered in a soft, endearing voice. “To be honest, Wyatt, I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t love her.”
Wyatt sighed, understanding completely, and it scared him to death.
“Would you undo it?” he asked curiously. “I mean, I know you got to say all the crap ’bout getting us out of the deal and everything, but if you take all that out of it, would you still love her, knowing you were gonna spend most of your life hurting over it?”