Page 124 of The Deal

Her arms come down and the sleeves cover her forearms, and I decide that the black lace was playing tricks on my eyes.

“Do you live here with Mr. Graham or do you have your own place?” I ask as I wait for the mashed potatoes to finish nuking.

“I moved in with Phil about two weeks after we met,” she admits.

I have to be imagining things, because there’s no way that chord in her voice is bitterness, right?

“Oh. That’s kind of impulsive. You guys hardly even knew each other, huh?”

“No. We didn’t.”

Okay, I’m not imagining it.

That’s absolutely bitterness.

Cindy glances over her shoulder, an unmistakable flicker of sorrow in her eyes. “I’m not sure anyone ever told you this, but spontaneity has the tendency to backfire on you.”

I have no clue how to respond.

So I say, “Oh.”

I get the feeling I’m going to be saying that word a lot tonight.

36

GARRETT

He hits her.

The son of a bitch hits her.

It only takes thirty minutes in Cindy’s company for me to reach that conclusion. To pick up on the signs. I see it in the way she flinches whenever he touches her. Just slightly, and probably unnoticeable to anyone else, but it’s the same way my mother would respond each time he came near her. It was almost like she was anticipating the next strike of his fist, or his palm, or his fucking foot.

But that’s not the only warning sign Cindy is broadcasting. The long-sleeved lacy thing over her red dress is a dead giveaway—I’ve fucked enough sorority girls to know that you don’t match white heels with a black jacket. And then there’s the spark of fear that flicks through her eyes whenever my father so much as twitches in his chair. The sad droop of her shoulders when he tells her that the gravy is too watery. The slew of compliments she gives him because she’s obviously trying to keep him happy. No, to keep him calm.

We’re halfway through dinner, my tie is choking the life out of me, and I’m not certain I can control my rage anymore. I don’t think I can make it to dessert without attacking the old man and demanding to know how he can possibly do this to another woman.

Cindy and Hannah are chatting about something. I have no clue what it is. My fingers grip my fork so tight I’m surprised it doesn’t snap in half.

He tried to talk to me about hockey earlier when Hannah and Cindy were in the kitchen. I tried talking back. I’m sure I even managed to form proper sentences, with subjects and predicates and all that shit. But from the second Hannah and I walked into this godforsaken house, my mind has been somewhere else. Every room holds a memory that brings bile to my throat.

The kitchen is where he broke my nose for the first time.

Upstairs is where I got the brunt of it, usually in my bedroom, where I don’t dare venture tonight because I’m scared the walls might close in on me.

The living room is where he slammed me against the wall after my eighth-grade league didn’t make it to the playoffs. I noticed he hung a painting over the hole in the drywall, though.

“So yeah,” Hannah is saying. “Now I’m singing a solo, which is what I should’ve done in the first place.”

Cindy makes a sympathetic noise with her tongue. “This boy sounds like a selfish ass.”

“Cynthia,” my father says sharply. “Language.”

There it is again—that flinch. The weak “I’m sorry” should come next, but to my surprise, she doesn’t apologize.

“You don’t agree, Phil? Imagine you were still playing for the Rangers and your goalie left you in the lurch right before the first game in the Stanley Cup series.”

My father’s jaw stiffens. “The two situations aren’t comparable.”

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