-1-

Noah Presley and I get on the interstate and drive out past the adult stores, the new strip mall and the rotting corn fields. We drive to the clearing that was supposed to be for Liberty Springs, a fancy housing development that lost all it's funding before anything could be built.

I park in the middle of the clearing and we sit on the hood of my car. Noah is re-reading a Batman comic and I take out the zombie miniature set I’d been painting.  Painting miniatures was this dumb thing  Grandpa Reese made me do when he couldn't think of what else to do with me and now I couldn't stop. Noah and I had both managed to find quiet  hobbies  because neither one of us were talkers. It was why we hung out with each other more than we did with my sister Spencer and my other cousin Laci.  

Sometimes we talk about the Bible or places we want to go one day. Advice on how to kiss. Not that I'd ever done it. Noah may have. 

He’d never tell me if he did. He’d feel bad that he got to kiss someone before I did or something. Noah was a year younger than me but you’d never think that looking at us. He was so confident and had never gone through an awkward stage.

We don’t talk about school or college. We don’t even  go to the same school but either way school  is bullshit. The only person I know who went to college is my Dad and he’s an asshole.

Well, I guess Aunt Amber and Uncle West went and they’re okay.

Noah and I hang out in silence for about  an hour before my phone starts buzzing. The messages from Mom start of as playful

Where are you hiding, Mason ? We’re going to eat all the cupcakes! Yum, yum, yum

I may need to put a low-jack on that car,  lol. Is there an app for that ?

 

After I don’t respond the texts get more persistent

 

You missed all the fun. ): We’re at the house now. Come home before the streetlights come on ?

 

Please call me Mason

Come home now, it’s family time. No bed time tonight, who do you think is going to go to sleep first...zzzzz

 

It’s past your curfew and it’s a school night. I will send the police after  you!

 

Scratch that I’ll send dad *stern face !*

 

When the phone starts ringing I turn it off.  

Noah’s parents never bother him like mine do. They don’t care if he stays out past midnight or says fuck or that sometimes he wears eyeliner or paints his nails with glitter polish.  They just want him to be happy and get out more and when he is out of their house they don’t ever bother him.  

When it starts to get so dark that neither one of us can see what we’re doing I drive out to the swamp and drop him off at his big, mostly empty house and then drive around Freeport for a little bit before going back to my own house.

Everyone is in the living room watching The Little Mermaid. Dad is sitting on the couch and Mom has her legs in his lap and her resting on the couch arm. 

There are two beers on the table.

Great.

Grady, the birthday girl, and Peyton, my six-year-old sister (who is the same age as  Grady for a few months out the year and therefore her automatic best friend as Grady explained to me ) are on the floor under blankets watching the movie, both of them fighting sleep.

Four-year-old Carter and baby Anabelle Grace are already asleep under a crochet blanket on the loveseat. Spencer isn’t there, she probably got to stay with Aunt Savannah. I sit on the couch next to Mom and she kisses my forehead.

I fall asleep to the song Kiss the Girl.

I wake up to the fighting.

-2-

They’d  had the decency not to be in the house this time. They’re in the screened in back porch--which means the neighbors get to hear him laying into Mom tonight.

“Please, stop shouting Rhett,” Mom begs.

“I’m not shouting,” Dad barks. “But if I fucking ask you  to do something I need you to do it--”

“I forgot-”

“Jesus fucking christ. You always fucking  forget, J. How many fucking times to do I have remind you that things have consequences ? Why do I have to spell everything out for you all the damn time!"

“I--”

“And don’t start because I don’t want to hear an apology... child services doesn’t give a shit how sorry you are.”

“Okay, Rhett--”

“Don't 'Okay, Rhett' me. Those people who sit in those offices don’t care, do you get that, baby ? They just check boxes, that’s all they do. They don't give a fuck. If you don't do everything they way they want it they’ll take Grady away to God knows where--”

“Rh--,”

“This is the kind of shit I’m always talking about. How the hell does anything get done around here ? I’ll see if I can set up an appointment with child services tomorrow and explain but I-- ”

“I’m trying to sleep,” I say and Dad finally shuts up.

He turns to me and I can feel his anger shifting to me. Which is kind of what I want.

“You can go back inside and get me the keys to my car,” Dad says, holding his hand out.

My eyes shift to Mom. She’s looking down.

Damn, she’d ratted me out to Dad and told him I had in school suspension this week.

“No. It’s my car,” I  protest.

“Cooper sold that car to me and I gave it to you,” Dad reminds me. “And if you’re going to be out past curfew, ignoring your Mama’s texts and then I find out you got your ass expelled from school you can’t have it.”

“I wasn’t expelled,” I argue back. “It’s just an in-school suspension. It’s basically just detention.”

Dad hates being corrected and I know it. My back slams into the wall as he shoves me against the sunroom door and pins my shoulder with his hand. Mom makes a small pleading sound.

“What have I told you about talking back ?,” he shouts, close to my face. “You shouldn’t be getting detention either. You should do whatever the hell  your teacher tells you to do. Now, go and get me the keys and you better learn some respect before I have to teach it to you, son.”

Dad’s threats are mostly empty.

He’d spanked Noah and I with a belt once when I was seven. Mom freaked out but Noah and I found a bird's nest and, despite being told not to, thought we could open the eggs and see the birds.

I pull my car keys out of my jeans pocket and instead of handing them to Dad I toss them to the floor. If he wants them, he can pick them up off the ground.

“Mason,” Mom says in a scathing tone and bends down to get them. Dad smacks them out of her hand and they hit the floor again.

Dad grabs me by the neck of my shirt and drags me out the sunroom door. I almost fall down the three steps that lead to the backyard. It’s early December and the night is cool.

“Rhett,” Mom says in a warning tone following after us.

“Go back inside baby,” he tells her, but she doesn’t move.

“Back against the house, knees up,” Dad orders me.

I want to resist and see if I can get him to leave me alone, but he yells the order again and I comply.

I press my back flat against the house, plant my sneakers into grass and bend my knees to a 90 degree angle. I can only hold the position for a few minutes before my knees shake and I have to fall. Dad stops his lecturing to scream at me to get back in the position and I do.

I knew he could make me do this all night, he’d made grown men quit the Coast Guard doing shit like this, but Mom reminds him I have to go to school in the morning for my first day of In School Suspension and he lets me stand straight after an hour.

My legs feel like lead and I  can barely walk. Before I go into the house, he puts his hand around the back of my neck and brings me close to him. He smells like beer.  

“Pick the car keys off the floor and then go to bed and I don’t want to hear another word out of you tonight.” he says to me like I’m a child.

I just nod and he lets me go.

 

***

-3-

Dad was always tough.

But after his accident he’d become a real mean son of a bitch.

The accident  happened five years ago, a few weeks after Grady has been born. My Dad is a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. He'd been temporarily stationed in Alaska and a nighttime yacht tour had gone off course. One of the younger boat staff, someone my age, fell overboard into the below freezing water. It was the darkest part of the night and one of the lights was out on the rescue helicopter. 

Dad did his job though.  He found the teenage, got him out of the open water and hauled him up to the helicopter's basket. But Dad’s own tether wasn’t right. It got tangled or wasn’t tied properly--we never heard the details of the investigation-- and Dad got slammed into the helicopter. He busted up the side of his face and  shattered his hip and leg. They put him in a coma at the hospital and the medical team thought he was going to die.

I was in middle school when it  happened. I was confused because I didn’t think bad things happened to my family. Dad was still my hero then despite his shitty attitude sometimes.

There were only three of us kids then; Me, Spencer and Peyton. Aunt Savannah took a leave from  her grad school program to help Gran watch Spencer and I while Mom and Peyton, who was  a small baby then, went to Alaska to be with Dad in the hospital.

When Aunt Savannah had to go back to school and Gran had to go back to work I  was shipped off to Connecticut with Grandpa Reese for the school year and Spencer got to stay with our cousin Laci’s family.

That year had really sucked for me.

When they finally brought Dad back home from Alaska he was basically bedridden and Mom was pregnant with Carter. Mom spent most of that year taking care of Dad, dealing with Mr. Cody's trouble, talking to Coast Guard lawyers and being extremely overprotective of us kids until Dad finally got off his disability and went back into the Coast Guard.

Dad couldn’t jump from helicopters anymore and was re-assigned as a Coast Guard recruiter and instructor for military water rescue teams. His job required him to be at recruitment events or training session  all over the world. His work schedule was weird; he got temporarily located away from us a lot. It meant we mostly saw him during his vacations and between assignment.  

It also meant that when he was home--he was home a lot. He’s just gotten back from a 4 week deployment in London and wasn’t scheduled to go anywhere for another 7 weeks.

I think Dad was pissed he got taken off the job and took a lot of his anger out on the  rescue swimmers he trained. Last summer I went to stay with him while he was instructing  in North Carolina and the other instructors told me Dad  made at least one trainee break down in tears a day. 

When I get up for school on Monday morning and go down to the kitchen Dad’s cooking breakfast in his dark blue dress uniform, which is weird since he's not working. The fried eggs he’s making smell really good, but I’m still mad at him for taking my car keys last night so I  slump into my chair at the table and silently pour myself a bowl of Cheerios.

Carter, Grady and Peyton are at the table playing the game on the back of the cereal box. They complain when I move the box to pour myself a bowl, but I ignore them

I don’t speak to Dad  and for being a newly 6-years-old, Grady notices this immediately.

“Why didn’t you say good morning to Uncle Rhett ?,” Grady asks me.

I don’t say anything and Dad just smiles at Grady.

Mom comes downstairs with a sleepy Anabelle Grace  in her arms. She’d only joined the family last year, but I could already tell she’d be the most mellow of my sisters. She was almost never hyper, never cried and her favorite thing to do was put her little index finger to her lips like she was shooshing you.

Thank God.

“Alright, I’m ready for school, Mama.” Dad tells Mom, picking up Grady’s My Little Pony backpack and putting it on his back, over his uniform.

“Uncle Rhett ! That’s mine!,” Grady giggles, pulling the backpack off him.

“Be careful, Tennessee,” Mom says when it looks like Dad’s going to fall. His balance has never recovered from the accident, he usually wore a brace.

“How am I supposed to carry my books ?,” Dad asks Grady in a silly voice and she giggles. “Alright, How about this book bag ?”

He picks up Peyton’s bright pink book bag and puts it over his other shoulder. It looks equally  ridiculous.

“No Daddy ! That’s mine!,” Peyton shouts.

“Come on, ya’ll,” Dad teases as the little girls laugh. “I don’t understand how I can go to school without a book bag ?”

“You don’t go to school.” I say, sick of this game and all the loud giggling.

“Yeah- huh, Daddy’s going to visit my class for career day!,” Peyton exclaims loudly in my face.

Dad gives Peyton her bookbag back and takes Anabelle Grace from Mom. The girls make an ew sound as he kisses Mom on the mouth. I see it coming and look away.

“Hey, Gracie Bells,” he says softly to my baby sister.  “Did we wake you up ? Do you wanna go to school too, babygirl ?,”

He tries to  play with her, but Anabelle Grace looks like she wants to go back to sleep. She spots my Cheerios and starts quietly whining and  reaching for them. Dad thinks she's reaching for a pacifier on the floor so I start eating faster because if I ever had something my sisters wanted they always seemed to get it.

 I actually don’t mind Dad ignoring me this morning, but he must know that because he suddenly puts his hand on my shoulder.

“1,” he counts squeezing my shoulder. Then starts kissing the girl after each count. “2...3...4...5...,”

“Why am  I missing a child, Juliana ?,” Dad laughs.

“Spencer stayed at your Mom’s. Savannah wanted to take her to school. Remember ?,” Mom says, crossing her arms  and I can tell he doesn’t remember.

A few years ago Aunt Savannah had pulled some strings to get Spencer a scholarship to some cushy private school that was being forced to enroll 40 percent more female students. Aunt Savannah was writing her thesis about it and  was already working on a scholarship application for 6-year-old Peyton, while I was still stuck in public school.  

“You’re going to miss the bus, son.” Dad says, messing up my hair.

I usually drove myself to school and Dad’s waiting for me to beg him for my car keys back, but I don’t give him the satisfaction.

I just walk out.

I put in my earbuds, put  my phone to the vilest song I can find and walk to the bus stop. There weren’t any other high school kids in our neighborhood who took the bus and the bus driver almost leaves me.

It's not like I was a bad kid.

I didn’t curse at teachers, I didn’t sell drugs, drink  or fight. I didn’t have sex and  probably wasn’t going to until I was married.

I wasn’t a bad kid.

I just didn’t do my work most of the time.

Any of the time.

It was boring.  

 

***

 - 4 -

When I get to the in school suspension room at Freeport High, I’m the only one there. Ms. Leigh, the special education teacher, gives me eight readings and a 100 page packet of math equations to do. I actually prefer in school suspension to regular school; No  teachers. No pressure.

A few hours after lunchtime the suspension room door opens and I hear my name being whispered.

I get nervous and my mind goes to Dad. I remind myself that he’s not on duty right now. That nothing bad can happen again.

Then the  principal’s secretary leans into the room and tells me I have an early dismissal.

I walk outside to the front of the school and see Mom’s SUV. I walk up to it and see Mom in the car, a take out bag from The Parkway next to her. She must have left work early, she worked part time at a craft store two towns over. I peek behind Mom and see that Anabelle Grace isn’t  in a carseat in the backseat and I know where we are going.

Mom doesn’t speak as we drive out of Freeport and 40 miles down I-10.

When we get to the old United Light commune she parks the car in front of the  house that she grew up in and sips from her coffee while we split the chicken fingers from the The Parkway Diner. 

Mom once told me the commune looks exactly like it did the day it was abandoned. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for getting rid of the commune so it just sat. The only proof that this place wasn’t lost to humanity were the two looming cell towers that had been built on the land.

We don’t go into the houses anymore because once we saw a rabid looking squirrel.

When it gets hectic--usually when Dad is around--Mom and I  take off. I don’t know if she does this with my other siblings and I’m too afraid to ask because I think it might make it less special.  

Mom and Dad’s past with the cult was on our small bookshelf. I’d skimmed the book, United Lies, I’ve read certain stories multiple times because they were kinda cool but I’m too scared to go any deeper and read Mom and Dad’s sections. I  saw my parents how I saw them and didn’t want that to change.

It’s eerily creepy, but calm on the abandoned commune. Sometimes we’d find sharp pieces of shrapnel and bullets. At first I didn’t know what it was,  but I’d finally learned it was from the grenades used during raid.

We sit in the car for half an hour, eating lunch and listening to the radio.

“Mom, do you ever want to leave him--”

“Mason,” she scolds me.

She’d been trapped, I think sometimes

“He’s a bully--”

“Mason, don’t ever talk about your father like that. He takes care of us…and he knows he has to work on his temper.”

“Don’t you ever want to hurt him--”

“I  know how to hurt him,” she says quietly. “If you and I were to stay right here.”

I didn’t think that was enough, I don’t think he ever appreciated us by the way he acted sometimes.  He was always telling us what to do. He never listened and he never acknowledged everything we had to give up when he got hurt

I plug my phone into the car and Mom and I fight about which music to play, Mom hates most of my indie stuff and I can’t stand her lame 90’s pop music.

We finally settle on Lady Gaga.  We dance in the car, singing the lyrics to Poker Face, I should be embarrassed to be having this much fun with my Mom but I'm not.

Then Mom’s phone rings. She sees it’s Dad calling and lets it go to voicemail. She makes a shooshing motion with her finger to her lips and laughs as she does it.

Then the phone rings again and she picks it up, rolling her eyes and then laughing to herself.

“Hi,--” she says and her face does something I’ve never seen it do.

It breaks.

“Mom-” 

“O-okay. It’s okay, honey. Yeah, no… I’m coming,” Mom says suddenly hanging up the phone

She looks white as she backs the car out.

“Are the girls okay ? Did something happen at the school ?”

She shakes her head.

“What is going on, Mom ?”

She frowns and shakes her head again.

“...Dad thinks Gran died,” Mom says.

She barely gets the words out before we’re speeding back up I-10.

---

A/N

So, in the Pink Frosting prologue Rhett was injured not dead. Nobody ever said he was dead.

Also, the main reason they have so many kids is because they were bored.