Megan and the other counselors were talking about getting school going again to provide a larger area for the teens and also to provide a stable environment. At least the cafeterias at the facility there were equipped to handle the feeding workload.
The microwave timer dinged for attention. One of the guys got up from the table and pushed by Jenny. When he opened the door, the smell of buttered popcorn filled the room in a fresh warm wave.
Jenny sealed the thermos and wiped her hands on a towel. She made her way toward Casey and the phone.
“Who is it?” Jenny asked. Her first thought was that it was Megan calling to let her know not to come to the hospital because Leslie Hollister had died. Jenny didn’t know what she was going to say if that was the case.
“A guy,” Casey answered. She was thirteen and gangly with a serious overbite. Having her blonde hair pulled up in pigtails made her look even younger.
“Did you get a name?”
Casey shook her head. “He didn’t give it. Just said he wanted to talk to you.” She eyed Jenny speculatively. “Do you have a boyfriend?” “No,” Jenny said crisply.
During the last few days she’d been inundated with personal questions. That came from her acceptance as an authority figure, Megan had said. Kids wanted to know adults so they could better understand them and the perimeters they were allowed, and then how far they could push those perimeters.
Jenny figured it was a lot like a prisoner finding out how far he could push the jailer. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” She took the phone before Casey could ask why not, which she was certain would be the next question out of the younger girl’s mouth. Holding the handset to her ear, Jenny said, “Hello.”
“Jenny? Is that you, girlie?”
As always when she talked with this man on the other end of the phone connection, Jenny’s stomach twisted with relief and dread. She felt relieved because she knew he was still there. Not vanished. Not dead. But she felt dread because of all the bad memories of him. As soon as she felt that, guilt came charging up from the rear to the head of the line.
She worked to keep her voice calm and level. “It’s me.”
He waited a second, and she could imagine him taking a puff from his cigarette. “Do you know who this is?” He’d been drinking. She knew at once because when he drank, he liked to play games that he thought were cute.
“Of course I know who this is, Dad.” Jenny hated his games.
Sometimes he did it to prove how much smarter he was than she, and sometimes he did it to be cruel.
“Thought maybe you might have forgot. It’s been days since I seen you.”
“I called every day, Dad. Three and four times a day after the phones here started working again.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. Weird how CallNotes work. I mean, you can leave a message even when a guy’s phone isn’t working.
’Course, he don’t get it till the phone’s up and working again.”
Jenny turned and made her way to the utility room. The noise from the Monopoly game and the crowd of movie watchers made having a conversation almost impossible. Not wanting anyone to see her talk to her father because he always had such an emotional effect on her, and especially when she was tired, she opened the utilityroom door and stepped out onto the small stone patio Megan had told her Goose and his friend Bill had laid one summer.
Plants lined the patio area. A plastic tarp covered the gas grill. Dishes that people had abandoned littered the patio table and chairs. Farther back, a tire swing hung from a thick branch, a sandbox held a collection of Tonka toys, and a small fort flew a black pirate flag that had faded in the sun. Jenny had seen a picture of Chris and Goose inside the fort. Both of them were dressed as pirates, carrying plastic swords and wearing eye patches.
“Are you all right?” Jenny asked.
“Do you care?”
Guilt slammed into Jenny like a fist. Even though she knew leaving Fort Benning was next to impossible and would have caused stress between her and Megan—in addition to leaving Megan overwhelmed by the number of teens she presently had staying at her house—Jenny had felt glad to have a reason not to leave.
“Of course I care.”
“Seems to me if you cared, you’d have come home sometime over these last few days.” Her father’s accusation was flat and hard.
“I couldn’t come home. Have you watched the news?”
“You know I try to stay away from that. Buncha depressing people with sad lives is what it is.”
Like yours is any better, Jenny couldn’t help thinking before she could stop herself. Then she immediately felt bad. He was her father and she was supposed to love him. I do love him, she told herself fiercely. And that was the truth. However, the truth was that she also didn’t like her father much most days. Loving someone and liking him were totally different.
She said, “I know you don’t make a habit of watching the news, but with everything that has gone on, I thought maybe you might have watched.”
“I didn’t.” He paused, and this time she could hear him take a drag on the cigarette.
“A lot of things have gone on. Things that you should have known about.”
“Oh, I know about them,” her father said. “Had a guy come to my door a day, maybe two days, after you left. A church guy. Started telling me that the world had up and ended and we were all going to hell.
Now ain’t that somethin’? Man shows up at your door and tells you you’re going to hell.”
Goose bumps prickled across the back of Jenny’s neck. “Did you do anything to that man?” Her father had attacked door-to-door
