FRIDAY
We’re sitting at the kitchen table. It’s late. Our mugs of tea have gone cold. I pick my nose when dad looks down at the key in his hands and I stick the winter-dry booger under the table like it’s gum. Then I move to the side, away from him, from the booger he doesn’t even notice. He’s telling me the story of Old Mrs Morse’s big old oak door and he’s talking about making a key that’ll do the door justice. I’m thinking about whether or not I should have sex with Quiz.
He walks over and turns the heat down. I imagine the cold seeping in from the windows. He returns and stretches out a hand, pulls me up and into a hug. ‘Time for bed, Roe.’
‘Aren’t we going to read?’
‘You’re too old for that, aren’t you?’
And I am, have been for years, but he smiles and I go upstairs. When I get into bed he spreads out at my feet, on the comforter, and even though I’ve already read the entire trilogy myself, I open the first book and read from the place he fell asleep last time. Lyra is trying to figure out how to read the alethiometer. Night fills the room with the creaking of branches and the wind, and my dad falls asleep on my bed while I’m reading. After a while I reach over, turn off the light and listen to him breathe.
SATURDAY
When I wake up, it’s cold and quiet. Downstairs there’s day old coffee in the pot. Dad’s not here so I turn the heat back up. His boots, gloves and old heavy oilskin coat are gone. It’s 24 below with windchill and he’s wise to have wrapped up. There’s no answer on his cell but I leave a message. I get dressed, crack open his bedroom door. His bed hasn’t been slept in. We’re supposed to be making an early start at the shop this morning but when I call, there’s no answer there either.
The car’s still in the garage. Where the hell is he?
I wrap up and walk into town. Carl’s in the diner. I hand him an insulated mug and order a latte, two sugars, to go.
‘That stuff’ll stunt your growth. How about a hot chocolate, Roe?’
‘Look at me, coach is already after me to join the girl’s basketball team.’ Carl starts to make a hot chocolate anyway.
‘You can never be too tall,’ he stands up straight, grins.
‘You’re not fifteen.’
He’s adds an extra spoonful of chocolate. ‘Are you opening the shop for your old man?’ he asks.
‘Not exactly,’ I run my hand along the edge of the counter. ‘Have you seen him this morning?’
‘Nope.’ Carl raises an eyebrow as he hands me my mug.
‘Thanks Carl,’ I say and slide off the stool.
‘Roe,’ he shouts after me, but I’ve gone by then.
I wipe the frost from my dad’s shop window with my glove. Peer in. It’s dark and empty. I try the door handle. Knock. Try it again, shake it a bit. He’s not here. Missing work, not opening shop early on a Saturday for all the anxious errand-runners, that’s just not like dad at all.
the opening of Ramshackle a novel; a later excerpt published in Chapman 109, novel out in April 2012 published by Freight Books
