Page 39 of Forever Christmas
I end the call. June hops off the rock.
Corabelle hasn’t messaged me today at all, and nobody has told me she was sick. I remember the tough time she had with Finn the first few months and worry that this is the beginning of that again. It will be hard to hide the pregnancy from her parents if it keeps up on this trip.
I want to shoot her a message, but June keeps going,so I have to hurry to catch up. We’ll talk when I get back, I guess. She would have called me if anything big was happening. The fact that her mother stayed with mine means it was minor.
“I wish I could have seen Corabelle barf all over Grandma K,” June says. “That would have been awesome.”
“She’s probably mad as hell,” I say.
“She deserves it,” June says. “You’ve gotten to miss all the horribleChristmases with her yelling at everybody all day.”
“I remember those.” Guilt washes over me that I wasn’t there to make those days better for June. “How has Dad been since I left?”
“I dunno. Angry and brooding as ever. He has a hard time keeping anybody working with him. They quit after a few months.”
Dad does landscape work. He usually has some sort of assistant, as some of the jobs requirea lot of lifting and grunt work. I’d helped him most summers growing up.
Sounds like they are getting the brunt of the anger he used to save for me.
“Is he all right around you and Mom?” I ask her this whenever we talk on the phone, but she always says he’s fine. Face to face, though, I can judge her expression when she answers.
“He’s a jerk, like he’s always been, and I can’t stand it whenhe yells at Mom.” She jumps over a boulder on the path. Our conversation has gotten her energy up again. “I know I’m supposed to love him because he’s my dad. But I don’t know if I do. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, no,” I say. “It makes you a sane person. He hasn’t earned it.”
“I don’t know why Mom stays with him.”
“I had the same questions when I got to be your age. Still don’t havethe answer.”
“Did she get knocked up or something? I always thought they were married a couple years before you came along.”
“They were. Maybe he was different back then.”
We stamp along. June is slowing down again.
This much alone time with my sister is a rare opportunity. I want to make absolutely sure Dad isn’t getting physical with her.
“June, has Dad ever hit you?”
“He spanked me once.Not long after you left. It made me laugh for some reason. He didn’t do it again.”
“You laughed?”
She cracks a smile. “I know, weird, right? He just looked so silly, trying to catch me and swat my butt. He’s slow, you know.”
“But he’s still mean.”
“He’s never anything but mean.”
We reach the trailhead and walk along the road to Corabelle’s car.
“Gavin?” June says, peering at me through theglare.
“Yeah?”
“Are you and Corabelle going to have another baby?”
At first I think she’s asking if Corabelle is pregnant, but then I realize it’s a general question.
