Page 34 of The Wrong Family

I don’t know???She texted back. Nigel sent back an emoji scratching its head. Winnie set her phone down. She stared toward the stairs, wondering if she should say anything at all; it was just cereal. Maybe he got it from one of his friends—that seemed more likely—Subomi or Angelo. But Winnie knew both of their mothers, and they were of the Kashi, antigluten variety.It’s just cereal, she told herself firmly before heading upstairs. But why did it have to bethatcereal?

Their walk around the lake after lunch was unsurprisingly awful. Winnie tried to lure Samuel into conversation but was met with the cold indifference that he seemed to specialize in lately.

In her heyday she’d been the most popular person in any room, and that confidence, still ingrained in her personality, took a blow every time her son rejected her. When Samuel walked ahead to distance himself from her, she gave up, pulling her phone from her pocket. Manda had tried to call and then had resorted to texting. She kept half an eye on Samuel as she read the texts, her mood plummeting. Nigel had been right in his prediction: Manda was refusing to let Dakota back, her newfound spine made of steel.

As she was getting ready to text back, her phone rang, Manda’s name popping up on the screen.

“Hey, I was just texting you back,” Winnie said. She watched Samuel bend down to pet a fat bulldog up ahead.

“He’s making threats.” Dakota’s normally timid wife sounded angry. “He’s saying that someone is putting these thoughts in my head because he’s never known me to be an unforgiving person. Can you believe the actual level of gaslighting he’s using?”

She could tell that her sister-in-law was pacing; she’d seen her do it often when she was on the phone, her feet getting tangled in the skirts of the long dresses she wore. Manda claimed that the dresses were a souvenir from her Pentecostal upbringing.

“Wait, wait,” said Winnie. “Threatening youhow?”

“How do you think, Winnie? God, I know how you guys worship your brother, but he’s not been right for a while. No one wants to acknowledge that.”

Winnie took a deep breath as Manda called out to her boys. “Lincoln, ask your brother, all right? Go…right now. Go!”

“I’ll acknowledge it.” Winnie was tired of making excuses for Dakota; she had her own problems to worry about now. “What do you think he needs?”

Manda was quiet for a long time, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded much calmer.

“He hears people. I think he’s schizophrenic or something, Winnie.”

Samuel had moved passed the bulldog and was drinking from a water fountain, the toe of his orange Vans pressing down on the pedal. Winnie flinched. He did that to annoy her. He darted away out of sight, probably to avoid the look she was about to give him.

“What do you mean, he hears people…?”

“I don’t know. Ask him yourself. I can’t believe he didn’t say anything to you. He said he saw a ghost in your house. I’m not letting him near the kids, I’m not. Paired with the drinking and drugs, he’s a ticking time bomb.”

Samuel was making his way up the path toward the street now; she didn’t want him crossing without her.

“Manda, he was drunk half the time he was at our place. He wandered around in his boxers crying. I don’t know what he thinks he saw, but you’re right not to let him around the kids. I’ll call him, see where his head’s at. I promise.”

“I don’t need you to call him, Winnie,” Manda said dryly. “I’m done. He may have mental health problems, but he’s also an entitled, drunk narcissist and it was all ofyouwho made him this way.”

“That’s not fair. You know he lost his father when he was—”

“That’s exactly the problem. Goddamn, Winnie, I thought you were different. He thinks he can do whatever he wants to me and the kids, and then just cry about his issues and I’ll forgive him, just like your family always does. And you refused to see the much bigger problems he has because it wasn’t convenient for you.”

“Manda, you called me…”

“Yeah, to warn you that Dakota has it out for your husband. Goodbye, Winnie.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but Manda had already hung up.

Samuel was no longer in her line of sight. She pocketed the phone, pressing back her tears, and sped up. What was that saying? It didn’t rain until it poured.

Samuel was already in his room when she walked through the front door. She slid into a chair in the kitchen and sat with her face in her hands, trying to make sense of what was going on. First the envelope with the clippings, which, aside from the actual night of the incident, was the single worst day of Winnie’s life. Then there was the library card ordeal—she still didn’t know what to think of that. And now the Froot Loops. Samuel was acting like a complete stranger.

25

JUNO

The obituary was short:

Josalyn Russel, daughter to Terry Russel and stepdaughter to Mark Gordon, died unexpectedly on February 8, 2008. Her funeral service will be held at the First Baptist Church in Lima, Ohio.

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