Die Before I Wake. Laurie Breton
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the table, Tom’s ankle looped around mine. Riley appeared intrigued, so I directed my next words at him. “All the money disappeared. We barely survived. But he was a great dad. The best.”
“Are you going to tell us?” Riley asked. “Or are you keeping his identity a secret?”
“No secret,” I said. “His name was Dave Hanrahan.”
Riley’s face changed, the way it often does when people first hear my father’s name. “Get out of here! The Dave Hanrahan? The front man for Satan’s Revenge?”
“That would be my dad.”
“The guy who wrote ‘Black Curtain’? Oh, man. Tommy, remember how we used to play that record over and over and over? That guy was the epitome of cool. We all wanted to be him.” Riley braced his elbows against the table and leaned forward eagerly, his eyes focused on me, everything and everybody else forgotten. “You must’ve had an amazing childhood,” he said. “Hanging around with all those musicians. Listening to their music. Their stories.”
I opened my mouth to answer him, but I never got the chance. The lights blinked and, from outside, there arose a massive splintering sound, a roar so deafening that it sounded like a freight train passing through. The ground actually shook, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn that the earth itself had opened up and revealed the gateway to Hell.
Then the window behind me imploded.
Two
“It’s not that big a deal,” I said. “Really.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.” With intense concentration and quick, efficient hands, Tom dabbed antiseptic on the gash on my cheek while I tried not to wince. “Another six inches, and—” He closed his eyes and muttered something indecipherable. Darkly, he added, “I knew I should’ve cut down that damn tree last spring.”
He capped the bottle of antiseptic, picked up a Band-Aid, and held my chin in his hand to size up the injury. “It’s too old,” he said, turning my head to the left, then to the right. “Too brittle. Too dangerous.”
“It was just a limb.” A big one.
“Next time, it’s apt to be the whole tree. Damn thing took ten years off my life.”
“I’m fine. Honest.”
“You talk too much. Hold still.” He tore open the Band-Aid, peeled off the paper backing, and gently applied it to my cheek. Sitting back to admire his handiwork, he said, “There. You’ll probably live to talk a little longer.”
I gave him a radiant smile and said, “My hero.”
He grimaced. Crumpling the Band-Aid wrapper, he said, “Some welcome you got. If I were you, I’d run as fast as I could back to Los Angeles.”
“What? And miss all the excitement around here? Surely you jest.”
Humorlessly, he said, “It’s usually a lot more boring than this.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’ll stick around for a while and see for myself.”
He shoved the bottle of antiseptic back into his first-aid kit. “Tomorrow, I’m calling the tree service and having that pine cut down.”
“It seems a shame. It’s probably been standing there for a hundred years.”
“And I’d like to make sure that you’re standing for another hundred.” He closed the lid on the kit and zipped the cover. “The tree goes. Don’t even bother to argue.”
“I suppose you’re saying that because you believe a good wife always obeys her husband.”
Some of the somberness left his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he said, “Do you have any idea how tempted I am to say yes?”
I smiled. “But you’re refraining.”
“For now, anyway. We may have to revisit the issue at a later date.”
“Nice save.”
“I thought so.”
The sound of rattling glassware and cutlery drifted in from the kitchen. “Now that I’m all better,” I said, “I should be helping your mother clean up the mess.” We’d left the dining room littered with pine needles, broken branches, and rain water. Shattered glass was everywhere. On the floor. On the dining table. Tiny slivers of it embedded in what was left of our dinner.
“You’re excused from kitchen duty tonight. Doctor’s orders.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Tom? You do realize that you’re an obstetrician?”
“You have a complaint, file it with the AMA.”
Outside, the chain saw had finally stopped its high-pitched whine. Now we could hear a rhythmic hammering as Riley boarded up the broken window. In the moments after the tree limb had made its unceremonious and unexpected foray into the dining room, chaos had reigned. The girls had been semi-hysterical. Jeannette had tried to calm them while simultaneously herding them away from the broken glass. Riley had thrown on a pair of snowmobile boots and a yellow slicker and rushed outside, flashlight in hand, to assess the damage. Meantime, Tom hovered over me like a mother hen, frantically cataloguing and documenting every scratch and bruise. For a man who spent half his life in the delivery room, he’d gone surprisingly pale at the sight of blood. Or maybe it was just the sight of my blood that frightened him.
Once Sadie and Taylor were convinced that nobody was seriously injured and the house wasn’t in imminent danger of collapsing around them, Tom’s mother had bribed them by promising that if they went upstairs and got ready for bed without argument, they could forego their baths for tonight. That was all it took. We hadn’t heard another sound from them.
Until now. They came padding into the living room wearing flannel pajamas and matching Miss Piggy slippers. Taylor had a book in her hand and a sly expression on her face. “We’re ready for our bedtime story,” she said.
“Say good-night, then, and run along to bed,” Tom said. “I’ll be right up.”
“No.” She held the book in both hands and teetered back and forth from one foot to the other. “We want Julie to read it to us.”
Tom and I exchanged glances. “Do you mind, Jules?” he said.
Did I mind? This was an opportunity for bonding, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. “I’d be honored,” I said, standing and taking Sadie by the hand. “Come on, girls. Let’s see what you’re reading.”
The book was Where the Wild Things Are, one of my own childhood favorites. Upstairs in their bedroom, Sadie slipped beneath the covers and I settled beside her to read, while Taylor perched on the edge of her own bed a few feet away. Both girls were engrossed in the story, but after a few minutes, I could see that Sadie was having trouble keeping her eyes open.
“Enough for tonight,” I said. “Time for bed.”
“We’re supposed to say our prayers now,” Taylor informed me. “Before you tuck us in.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. Of course.” Nothing would have made me admit to them that I wasn’t familiar with this particular bedtime ritual. Dave Hanrahan had nursed a lifelong contempt for anything that smacked of religion, a result of his uptight Catholic upbringing. Dad had attended Our Lady of All Saints School until eighth grade, and the nuns had traumatized him for life. So there’d been no praying in our house. But I’m an obliging soul, and I’ve learned to fake it if I have to. When in Rome, and all that jazz. I could handle a little praying. It might even do me some good.
Taking a cue from the girls, I knelt beside Sadie’s bed, my stepdaughters beside me in their flannel jammies, their oversized Piggy feet stuck out behind them. Hands folded, I closed my eyes and tried to look pious. In unison,