Mockingbird

CHAPTER 29 PUTTING OUR LIFE BACK TOGETHER

I SHOW DAD DEVON’S LIST AND he nods. We go to Lowe’s and get a lot of the supplies on the list including quarter-cut oak. We also buy things that aren’t on the list. Like wood filler.

Before we can add anything to the chest Dad first has to put wood filler where the holes are from when he wrenched out the screws and threw the chest on the floor on The Day Our Life Fell Apart. He also has to cut out some sections that he destroyed when he kicked the chest on The Day Our Life Fell Apart. I think about those words and how I haven’t said them lately. I think that maybe now is the day we start to put our life back together.

It takes Dad a long time to fix the parts that he broke. He scrunches up his face and makes noises like it hurts him as much as the chest. He even says, This is rough, and, This is hard.

I know, I say, after he says, This is hard, for the third time. This is what happens when you have a TRM, I tell him. You make a mess. It’s okay. You just have to try harder next time.

I am trying hard, Dad says.

I know. You get a sticker.

Thank you.

Okay. You get another sticker for being polite.

Thanks. His lips press together and it almost looks like a smile. I forgot that Dad used to smile. I wonder if Closure will make him smile.

After a while Dad sits on the sofa and turns on Fox Five News.

You’re not quitting are you? I ask him.

No. I’m just stuck. And I want to watch the news.

I don’t like the news.

I’ll only watch a little.

Is there any other way to get unstuck?

You can go get one of those woodworking books. It has the word Mission in the title. I need to take a look at it.

Okay. I run to Devon’s room. I find the Mission book and start to leave but look back at the room. The sun is shining behind Devon’s blue shade and I go back in to put his shade up so the sun pours in and makes his room warm and bright and I can see dust particles in the beams of light that maybe are part of Devon or maybe not but they make Devon’s room look happy again.

Caitlin! Where’s that book?

Coming! I say. But first I do something important. I leave Devon’s door open.

When I come back in the living room the news lady is talking about the Virginia Dare shooter. He was obviously disturbed, she says, just like the boys involved in today’s school shooting in Maryland. Let me warn you that the video we are about to show of the event has some very disturbing content.

Dad grabs the remote and shuts off the TV.

We both sit on the sofa without moving.

I hug the Mission book but it’s not the same as my Dictionary. It doesn’t take away the recess feeling in my stomach.

I would rather be under the sofa cushion than on top of it but I’m frozen in place.

We both look at the chest in the corner.

Dad sighs.

There is no face for Disturbed on the Facial Expressions Chart so I don’t know exactly what it looks like. But I know it’s not good. It’s the kind of face that gives you a bad feeling because I thought everything would be okay now that we’re working on the chest. But it’s still not.