Read Online Inexcusable by Chris Lynch - Free Book Online Page B

Ray said, pointing half his sandwich like a gun at the tool-belt-wearing TV guy. “There are so much more important things to do with your life, if you got a life, than putting shelves and track lighting in your garage.”
    It was always this way. Always. He shook his sandwich hard at the guy, to try and shake him out of it. A slice of cucumber fell on the floor. I went over to him, picked it upoff the floor, and ate it. Then I kissed him on top of his head. He had the very beginnings of a bald spot toward the back, exactly smacked-lips size.
    â€œGoing to take a shower, Dad,” I said.
    He waited until I was almost out of the living room.
    â€œGoing to buy another dog, probably, maybe,” he said.
    I stopped. “What?”
    â€œYou asked me what I was going to do. When you came in, there, you asked me.”
    He did not take his eyes from the TV, as if he were actually taking note of the instruction going on.
    â€œYa, right, but I didn’t think you—”
    â€œAnd maybe fix up the house. A little. With the extra time. I kind of let it go, over time. Over time.”
    I stood looking at him. He knew. He already knew what I was asking, what I was thinking. He was already thinking it. He was thinking it here, while I was thinking it out there, running.
    â€œYou had other stuff to do, Ray. You were busy.”
    â€œYes I was,” he said. “I was busy with other stuff.”
    I could not, for the moment, walk away. The sweat, clinging to me and cooling, felt awful, the way it could, felt like a thin skimming of drying cement all over my body. Talking wasn’t much easier.
    â€œAnother dog?” I said.
    â€œYa. Maybe. Maybe something really small.”
    â€œThat’s good, Dad. That’s good.”
    â€œThat, and starting my other family, of course.”
    â€œOf course.”
    I cracked the cement, backed out of the room and partway up the stairs.
    â€œRisk?” he called while simultaneously turning up the TV too loud.
    â€œOf course,” I called back. “When I come out.”
    â€œFran called, wants you to call her back,” he said even louder because the television was getting louder. He had accidentally left his thumb on the button, which was not as uncommon a thing as you might imagine.
    â€œTake your thumb off the button, Dad,” I yelled.
    â€œOh, right,” he yelled back. The volume subsided. I took my shower.
    When I came out, feeling newly skinned and light, I found, on the telephone table, a plate of cracker sandwiches left for me. Ray’s specialty, Ritz crackers filled with crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam with the gigantic seeds that snapped when you bit them.
    Hmm. These were suspicious little treats. Snack sedatives that Dad used to whip up at times of duress. Sometimes my duress, sometimes his. Sometimes we just invented some duress that was nobody’s.
    I picked up the phone, sat in the chair, and dialed Norfolk.
    â€œNo, Fran,” I said.
    â€œTry to understand, Keir. I wanted to come. We both wanted to come—”
    â€œTomorrow, Fran. You are supposed to be here tomorrow. How can you be calling me today to say you are not coming tomorrow?”
    â€œWe just . . . you’re right, we should have let you know sooner, but we were really trying to make it. We so wanted to be there, but exams, they’re just killing us. We are studying every minute as it is, and I just don’t see how we can be there at your graduation on Sunday and be ready and be here for the exams at eight o’clock Monday morning.”
    There was an extremely long pause.
    â€œAre you going to talk to me?” she said.
    I took one delicious Ritz peanut butter and jelly cracker sandwich and popped it into my mouth. Then I sent another one in there to join it. Together they were awfully noisy.
    â€œNow you are being childish,” she said.
    She may have had a point. I may not have cared. I popped