“Goody, goody, goody,” spat Wills. He stormed out of the room and up to his bedroom, where he turned his CD player on loud and stomped backward and forward across the floor. Then it went silent..
“Now what’s he up to?” sighed Mom.
“Leave him, Mom,” I said.
Be here with me, Mom, I thought. This is the worst day of my life. I need you here with me.
Chapter Four
We went to Dad’s for the first time three weeks later, but he turned up twice before then to take us out for pizza. Both times Wills refused to go, even though he loves pizza. Mom pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t even say hello to Dad, just shut himself in his room. Dad fidgeted his feet on the doorstep, his forehead covered with globules of sweat, and waited for ten minutes the first time, while Mom and I called up to Wills. The second time he only waited five minutes, his goodwill quickly evaporating, his anger becoming volcanic.
“Let’s go, Dad,” I said. “He’s the one missing out.”
But Mom was missing out too, on a bit of peace and quiet, and Dad was missing out on being Wills’s dad. I was just happy to have Dad to myself, because I missed him like hell. I could catch up on the soccer and the football games and how he was managing without us and what his new place was like. And I could ask him if he was going to come back. I could ask him if it would make a difference if Wills took the drugs they had been told he should take to make him calmer, but which Mom didn’t want him to take because then he wouldn’t be like Wills. Dad said that it wasn’t Wills’s fault that he had left, because as a father he should be able to cope with his own children, and that anyway there were other things. I tried to say that no one could blame him for not coping with Wills, but deep down I felt that Dad had failed us, all of us.
When Dad arrived to take us to his new apartment, I thought I would be going on my own again, and I was looking forward to having him to myself for the whole weekend. That was the good thing about Wills’s refusal to have anything to do with Dad. Dad and I would be able to do all the Saturday and Sunday stuff we did before, but without the constant threat of a hurricane-force wind. But no sooner had Dad rung the bell, than Wills tore out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and into the front seat of Dad’s car. Mom, Dad, and I stood on the doorstep and gawked.
“Miracles will never cease,” sighed Mom.
“Come on, then, Dad,” Wills called through the window.
“Take them when they come, Rosie,” grinned Dad. “Put your feet up and have a good rest. You deserve it.”
“Get a move on, Dad. Let’s see this new sty of yours.” Wills began to thump on the dashboard.
“Good luck,” Mom grimaced. “Try not to get too angry with him, Brian. It’ll only make him worse.”
Dad pecked her awkwardly on the cheek. I wanted to throw my arms around both of them to stick them back together, but Dad pulled away quickly and headed for the car.
Mom hugged me goodbye.
“Will you be all right, Mom?” I asked, wanting suddenly to stay with her.
“I probably won’t know what to do with myself,” she smiled. “Off you go now, and look after your dad.”
Dad’s apartment was only about fifteen minutes’ drive away. Wills spent the whole journey jigging up and down on his seat, drumming indecipherable tunes on the dashboard in competition with whatever was playing on the radio. I tried to ignore him, gazing out of the window at the cluster of brand-new, all-the-same houses that confused the route from our house to where Dad was now living.
“I need to pee,” said Wills, jigging up and down even faster.
“Nearly there,” Dad grimaced. “Try sitting still and it won’t feel so bad.”
Wills sat still but started to groan loudly. I could see Dad was beginning to lose it, before we had even reached his new home, let alone spent a whole weekend there. Volcano-meets-hurricane moments in the car were bad news. We’d nearly crashed once when Dad was trying to swipe Wills with one hand while steering the car around a corner with the other; and he had stopped several times in the past and threatened to make Wills walk if he didn’t shut up, which was a stupid threat because Wills knew he wouldn’t carry it out. I tried to distract Dad by asking what football game was on the television that afternoon, even though I had looked it up before we left Mom’s home to go to Dad’s home.
It was real what was happening, horribly real. I didn’t want it to be real. The only person I had told at school was Jack, and that was because his parents had split up a long time ago and I wanted him to tell me what it was like. He said he’d gotten used to it, and that there were some good things about it, like getting more presents for Christmas and birthdays, and not having to listen to his parents screaming at each other. But Mom and Dad never screamed at each other. They got cross with each other sometimes, that’s all, and it was usually because of something Wills had done that had put them in a bad mood. And I would rather have no presents at all if it meant Mom and Dad staying together.
Dad pulled up outside a brand-new building.
“Holy cow,” said Wills, “is this it?”
“This is it,” said Dad, “at least, the bottom floor of it is it.”
“You mean we’ve got to share it?”
“It’s divided into apartments, Wills, and I’ve got the bottom apartment.”
“Well, you definitely haven’t got a small bottom has he, Chris?” Wills guffawed.
“You wait
