Page 34 of A Week Away
Sunday morning
Idid finally sleep, though fitfully. I woke up around nine. It was fully light out. A peek out the window told me it was cloudy and gray. That matched my mood.
Having to empty my bladder, I stepped out into the hall. Cass’s breathing was no longer a snore, but was still loud enough to hear in the hallway. I opened the door to the bathroom and stopped in my tracks.
The room was covered in vomit. It seemed to be everywhere but in the toilet. The smell was disgusting and I nearly gagged. I closed the door, went back to the junk room and got my things together, then took a shower in Joanne’s bathroom. I used an old towel I found in the linen closet, one that didn’t match the fluffy pink towels she had. When I was done, I took it and tossed it into the main bathroom. Cass could figure out what to do with it. Then I went downstairs and tried to find something that resembled coffee.
There was no coffeemaker, which did not come as a surprise. In a cupboard, I found a can of instant flavored coffee, sugar-free Swiss Mocha. It probably had the same amount of chemicals as a nuclear waste dump, but it also had caffeine. When I couldn’t find a teapot, I boiled some water in a pan. There were plenty of cups to choose from, mostly from casinos. There was one from Lucky Days where I’d gone once. I didn’t have fond memories of the place so I went with Four Queens. I followed the directions on the can and it was terrible. I added another tablespoon and it improved to simply not very good. That’s when Cass walked into the room.
He looked about how you’d expect a teenager experiencing his presumably first hangover to look: pale, rumpled, a bit stunned.
“I saw what happened in the bathroom. You’d better clean that up before your mother gets home tonight.”
“Why didn’t you clean it up?”
“It’s not my mess.”
“I could make you clean it up.”
“No. You couldn’t.”
“You need to clean the bathroom for me.”
“You’re forgetting I’ve killed three men.”
“In self-defense. That’s what you said.”
“And what happens when you threaten me enough that it becomes self-defense?”
I couldn’t believe I was threatening to kill a teenager. A child. This was not who I was, not who I wanted to be. But then again… that bathroom.
“If I wanted to kill you I could have walked into your room last night and held a pillow over your face. I didn’t do that. In fact, the thought didn’t even cross my mind.”
“Fine. I’ll clean the fucking bathroom.”
As he left the room, I said, “And then we’re going out for breakfast.”
“Fine!”
I threw away the horrible coffee I’d made. I could wait until we got to a restaurant. There was no guarantee the coffee would be better, but I’d take my chances.
Forty-five minutes later, Cass drove me to a place called The Clock Diner that wasn’t too far from his house. The booths and the chairs were covered in a mustard-colored vinyl so repulsive I couldn’t believe it was ever in style. It had to have been severely discounted the last time they redecorated. Hopefully, they’d be redecorating soon.
After we were seated, I glanced at the menu. I decided on the lumberjack breakfast. I didn’t even check to see what it included. I typically liked any breakfast with lumberjack in its name. Mercifully, the glum, flat-footed waitress brought coffee. And it was either very good or benefited by comparison to the swill I’d had earlier.
I ordered the lumberjack eggs over easy and Cass asked for the same. Once the waitress was gone, I said, “I want to go to your mother’s office.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to go through her desk.”
“Do you think there will be a note in there that says ‘I killed my husband’?”
“No. But there might be something that makes things clearer. I’d also like to talk to your cousins Carla and Rose.”
“Why do you want to talk to them?”
“They were around when your parents got married.”
