This Side of Salvation

CHAPTER 9

NOW

By 5:30 a.m., Mara and I are too tired to think straight, much less solve the mystery of our missing parents. We crash on the family room couches, leaving the TV on low volume, more for company than anything else.

I stare at our family picture on the mantelpiece, the one taken when Mom and Dad renewed their wedding vows almost five years ago. It was probably our last photo with John.

How could they leave us, after what happened to him? Wasn’t our family ripped apart enough as it was? I did everything they asked, and they still left me behind because I screwed up last night?

I force my eyes shut. I need sleep if I’m going to take care of Mara. Of course, she’s probably over on her couch thinking she has to take care of me. She moved up to eldest child status when John died; I stayed the youngest but became “MysonDavidmyonlyson.”Which makes me the man of the house now. Whatever that means.

I wake to the doorbell ringing. Mara leaps off the love seat, reaches into her backpack, and whips out a gleaming blade that looks like a small machete.

I sit up fast, instinctively pulling the throw pillow over my chest. “Jesus Christ, Mara! What the hell is that?”

She smirks at me. “Ha, got you to say the Lord’s name in vain. And ‘hell,’ too.”

“Why do you have that—that—that thing in your hand?”

Mara lowers the blade. “I had a bad feeling about this weekend.”

The doorbell rings again. I head up the stairs, two at a time. “We’ll talk about this later.”

She hurries up behind me. “Don’t unlock it without checking the peephole.”

“Don’t run with knives.” I reach the front door and put my eye to the hole. “It’s Kane.”

“Is he alone?” Mara stands to the side, knife deployed.

“Except for the army of undead behind him.” I open the door a few inches, squinting into the late-morning sun.

“Hey.” A bleary-eyed Kane holds up a plastic bag full of black clothes. “I brought your stuff back from Stephen’s.”

“Thanks.” I take the bag but make no move to let him in. “Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome.” He doesn’t leave. “My shoes?”

“Oh, right!” I point to Mara, then his sandals near the stairs. She scurries over to get them for me, staying out of sight.

Kane tries to peer past my shoulder. “Is everything—” “Everything’s good.” I shift to the right to block his view, knocking my foot against the hedgehog doorstop/shoe scraper.

“Did you get in trouble?” he asks in a low voice.

Mara returns to her position beside the door. She slowly shakes her head, then puts her finger to her lips. I turn back to Kane. “Sorry, you can’t come in. I’m pretty much grounded forever.”

His blue eyes cloud over. “Grounded from everyone or just me?”

“Everyone. I can’t leave the house.”

“Except to go to the movies with Bailey.”

I look away, running my thumbs over my sweaty palms. Busted on my first post-Rush lie.

“She said you were going to the new Tarantino film. Since when does your mom let you see R-rated movies?”

“Since now.” I hope my loud volume helps convince him.

“Let me get this straight—you sneak out of the house on the most important night of your parents’ lives and go to a party you were forbidden to go to, and the next day they let up on everything except seeing me?”

“It’s not you, it’s—”

“Don’t you dare say, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’” Kane points at my chest. “You’re just like them. You were totally cool with me being gay until you saw me kiss a real live boy. That grossed you out, didn’t it?”

“No! You know I don’t care.”

“The hell you don’t! You can’t even look at me today.” Kane steps sideways off the porch. “I can’t believe I thought you’d support me. You born-agains are all the same. To you I’m just an abomination.”

He turns his back on me and starts to walk away. I shove the door open wide and step out to follow him.

Mara grabs my arm. “Let him go.”

“He’s my best friend,” I whisper. “We can trust him.”

“Until we know what’s going on, we can’t trust anyone but each other.” When I hesitate, she adds with pleading eyes, “Family first, remember?”

I think of my parents, who taught me that, and where they are definitely not at this moment, which is here. “Kane is family.” I pull away and leap over both porch steps, calling his name.

“David, don’t be an idiot!” Mara shouts.

Kane’s jaw drops at Mara, who neglected to put down her weapon before following me outside.

“David,” my friend says slowly. “Why is your sister holding a big-ass knife?”

“I’m still wondering that myself.”

“Dammit.” Mara puts the blade behind her back but doesn’t leave the porch.

Kane looks up at the second-floor windows. “Where are your parents?”

“At the store,” I say just as Mara says, “On vacation.”

She gives me a silencing glare, then says to him, “They’re at the store getting stuff for vacation.”

“Where are they going?”

“Down the shore,” I blurt as Mara says, “The Poconos.”

She turns to me. “Okay, now you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Doing what, you guys? What’s going on?”

Mara lets out a groan. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“You’re right.” Kane crosses his arms. “I can’t tell anyone what I don’t know.”

He’s willing to walk away right now without knowing our secret—and what’s more, pretend that there is no secret. He’s that good a friend. Which means he’s a good enough friend to keep an actual secret, even one this size.

Mara waves her knife toward the front door. “We’ll tell you, if you make us breakfast.”