Into White by Randi Pink Read Free Book Online Page A

heart to watch my mild-mannered father morph into a mush of a man, constantly rummaging through drawers and closets, looking for God knows what. He once spent an entire Saturday searching for a can opener. When night fell, he began stabbing a can of Glory greens with a paring knife. He almost cut his finger off, of course, and the three of us spent the night in the St. Andrew’s Hospital ER. In the waiting room, Dad bled clean through four thickly wrapped gauze bandages. When the doctor finally called us back, he glared at my father with unmasked judgment and said, “Night drinkers bleed like stuck pigs.”
    When the doctor left the room, we tipped out of the hospital without discharge papers and stopped by the drugstore for a monster pack of big daddy Band-Aids. I haven’t seen my father drink a drop of alcohol since that night.
    Praise God!
    Mom’s absence was all around us. In the empty bathroom counter, where the brush filled with her brownish shed-hairs usually sat. In the fuzzy gunk in the dryer’s lint catcher, which overflowed and nearly caught fire. The only glimmer of joy was the stack of frozen pizzas that replaced the black-eyed peas. She’d left Alex and me alone with our domestically clueless father. In the end, it was up to us to locate the hidden can opener, which turned out to be in the laundry room (washing powder was in the kitchen, FYI).
    *   *   *
    Mom opened the front door and yelled after Dad. “Our show’s on! It’s the one about tumor-sniffing dogs!”
    Dad hadn’t gotten far, because a few seconds later, he burst through the front door to take his rightful place on the living room pillows next to Mom.
    Alex and I collided at the top of the stairs. “Here’s this.” He handed me a well-read copy of The Scarlet Letter before heading down the stairs.
    â€œThanks, I’ll go put it in my room,” I said, watching him shuffle down the stairs.
    Alex had changed into his blue-and-green-plaid pajamas. He wore a bright yellow tube sock on one foot and a black ankle sock on the other. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he slid on the hardwood and nearly fell. I never understood why more girls weren’t attracted to my big brother. He was the smartest, sweetest, most fascinating guy in Edgewood, maybe the entire state of Alabama.
    I went back into my bedroom, and again, there was Jesus.
    â€œYou good?” he asked.
    â€œI think so.”
    He held his hand open and beckoned for the book. After I placed it in his palm, he thumbed through it once and said, “May I?”
    When I nodded, he and the book vanished.
    We gathered on the living room pillows, lit the fireplace with newspaper (for ambience, not heat), and watched Unsolved Mysteries as a family. Mom slid close to me and attempted to squeeze an already popped pimple on my cheek.
    â€œMom, seriously, quit it,” I said, scooting out of her reach.
    She frowned and folded her arms, defeated.
    â€œThat’s mean, Toya,” Alex whispered.
    â€œSorry, Mom. It’s just, squeezing makes it turn a little red.”
    Alex laughed, and I elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Ow!”
    â€œHush, kids. This is the best part,” Dad interjected.
    As Mom predicted, that night’s episode discussed dogs that could prophesy tumors in their owners. Small potatoes compared to a dog that could keep his family’s power on for three months and counting. Afterward, everyone dispersed to their cubbies and settled in for the evening.
    On a regular day, seven p.m. meant reruns of crappy television followed by an hour of social media stalking in the upstairs bathroom. Mom bought a dinosaur of a computer from Lenny’s Pawnshop at the beginning of school last year. She’d traded a pair of Diamonique earrings and one of her few beloved gold rings for it. It rested on the bathroom counter, since that was the only place in the house where we could steal