to come back to Jordan with me, but I’m distracted because her entire face and body are hidden beneath a burqa, which even in my dream, is a tragedy, and then it’s all a dense, dreamless nothing.
Until the world explodes.
I sit up, gasping for breath, squirming under assaulting sunlight. The curtain. Why is it open? The explosion happens again. But it’s not an explosion; it’s a fist pounding on my brain. No, my desk.
“Mo. Wake up.” Dad’s voice is incredibly loud, but otherwise the usual audio equivalent of gravy—heavy, humorless. He rips open the other curtain.
“I’m awake,” I mutter, jamming my palms into my eye sockets.
“We’ve got work to do.”
“Uh, work?” I force my eyes open again, just long enough for sunshine to burn my retinas. In that second, his figure registers. He’s at the foot of my bed, already dressed in the usual
Arms folded and every muscle in his body pulled tauter than a guitar string, he’s bigger than the sum of his parts. He’s not a tank like Annie’s dad, and I’m two inches taller than him, but he’s got something inside him that trumps height and heft. Intensity, I guess. It’s scary, and kind of awesome.
“It’s seven thirty,” he says.
“I’m up.”
“You’re lying in bed with your eyes closed.”
I pull myself out and force myself to look through the streaming light, directly at him. He looks off. Yellowish bags have formed under his eyes, and the pocket protector is suspiciously crooked. And he’s not, I realize now, talking all that loudly. It just felt that way at first. “Sorry, what am I supposed to be doing?”
“Helping me take the extra furniture in the guest room out to the shed before the real-estate agent gets here. Packed boxes have to go out too.”
I rub my eyes.
“For the showing.”
“Right,” I say, like this isn’t the first I’ve heard of a showing. I didn’t even realize they had a real-estate agent, though I guess that makes sense. The only thing on my radar for the morning was sneaking off to get married. “How long will it take? I thought you were going into Louisville.”
“I am, assuming you can make time in your busy schedule to help with the furniture. Or do you have something more important happening this morning you’d like to tell me about?”
My head snaps up. The grogginess is gone, and I’m more awake than I’ve been in days. “No, sir.”
He waits. He knows. Mom broke. She chickened out and told him, and now all hell’s about to break loose.
“Get up and help me then.” He leaves without another word.
I throw on shorts and a T-shirt, slightly encouraged. Maybe I’m not screwed after all. Except there was an emotional current beneath the words, and that’s not normal. He’s too logical to get emotional. Maybe he doesn’t know, but he’s obviously bugged.
It only takes an hour to haul a couch, a desk, and fourteen boxes down the stairs and through the backyard, and we spend most of that time cramming them into the shed. When we’re done he gives a satisfied nod and lets me go with instructions to make my room spotless.
Once it’s clean I call Annie. She picks up on the fourth ring.
“Hey,” she says.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. Oh wait, I think I’m getting married this morning. But besides that, nothing.”
“You sound oddly with-it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. You just sounded
“Oh, sorry. I fell asleep.”
“Whatever.”
“Hey, what am I supposed to wear?” she asks.
“What?”
“What should I wear today?”
“Why . . . I don’t understand. Why would I care what you’re wearing?”
“I don’t know. I just thought—”
“Wait,” I say. “You’ve never cared what I thought about your clothes before.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I generally know what to wear, and you have no sense of style.”
“Thank you.”
“But to the courthouse, I mean.”
“Are you asking me if you’re supposed to wear a white dress?” It comes out a little more incredulous, more mocking, than I intended. But seriously.
“No, I just . . . maybe. I mean, is it supposed to look like we’re really getting married? I’ve never been to a courthouse wedding before.”
“The people who work at the courthouse don’t give a crap what you’re wearing. You don’t have to convince them of anything. I’m wearing cargo shorts and that Cap’n Crunch T-shirt.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I can tell she wants to say more, so I wait, but she doesn’t. Her weirdness is starting to freak me out, and I’m almost convinced the next words out of her mouth will be weepy apologies for not being able to do it, followed by guilty whimpering.
“My car or your mom’s?” she asks calmly.
And this is why I love her.
“I don’t mind driving,” she continues, “but I’ll need to stop for gas.”
I picture my mom as I last saw her: still in her pajamas, clutching her teacup, giving Dad the death glare as the two of us traipsed back and forth with boxes. “Yours. My mom’s a little keyed up this morning.”
“But she’s still on board?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“I’ll swing by in a half hour.”
I glance out the window and see my dad’s car backing out. “Perfect. Wait, is that enough time for you to squeeze into your Barbie Princess gown?”
“Shut up.”
“Bye.”
The knock at my door comes almost immediately. I open it to find Mom, fully dressed and made-up, gripping her purse in one hand and her keys in the other. The death glare from earlier has been replaced with something scarier, something frantic. It might be glee.
I step back so she can come in, but she stays in the hall.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Annie’s picking us up in a half hour.”
“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes travel from my freshly made bed to the desk. “Your room looks good.”
“Dad told me it had to be spotless for the showing.”
She narrows her eyes and presses her fingertips to her lips like she can hide what she’s thinking if the words don’t come out. Like it’s not obvious. She’s on the cusp of a tirade against Dad, and I should want to hear it—I should want to go on my own crazy rant—but already this us-against-him doesn’t feel right. Dad and I have always been on the same team.
She’s watching me. She knows what I’m thinking. “I’ll be downstairs,” she says finally, leaving me to wonder what the hell I’m doing to my family.
Our drive to Taylorsville is disconcertingly pleasant. Or it is for Mom and Annie. They chitchat about Annie’s mom’s garden, the humidity, Annie’s sundress, their favorite Mr. Twister flavors—like they’re friends (which
