Jack & Jill by Kealan Patrick Burke Read Free Book Online

responsible for it all than with them.
    The old man 's breathing grew heavy. His skin was almost gray.
    " Why aren't you saying anything?" I asked him. "It's your turn, your time to say something. You've had long enough to be quiet." I was shouting, and knew it was inadvisable if I didn't want to draw unwanted attention. Those neighbors, of whom I thought fondly—particularly Mrs. Farris next door (though I had no idea if she still lived there), my savior when the time for running came—would have learned to regard my father's house as an ugly, loathsome place. They would have kept their children well away, gossiped amongst each other, and taken to advising new residents of where exactly the registered sex offender lived.
    "I have to get my pills," my father said, and for the first time, I wondered if perhaps he hadn't been faking the severity of his ailment after all. He headed for the door.
    "Get your pills then," I said icily. "But we're not done here. Not yet."
    "We should be," he replied . "We have nothing more to say to one another."
    "There's plenty to say if you just had the guts to say it."
    Pausing only to give me an exasperated look, he eased himself out into the hall, leaving me alone with the sounds of the rain hammering on the roof and my pulse pounding in my ears.
    As I listened to my father's slow passage up the stairs, each step punctuated by a grunt of effort, pity tried to dilute the anger and to a degree succeeded, but couldn't hope to water down the hate I felt for the old man. He was mentally ill, deluded, his words were testament to that, and I guessed him too far gone to be cured of it. Besides, to be cured, you have to accept that there's a problem, and he believed no such thing. In his mind, he'd loved his children dearly, perhaps too much, and they'd turned on him as a result.
    Twenty minutes pass ed. It was quiet upstairs. I wondered if he'd died up there, and envisioned him lying on the floor, skin white, lips blue, eyes bulging from their sockets, and I felt an alien and unwelcome pang of dismay. I justified the feeling by telling myself it was because no one wants to see a dead body, or to be burdened with the task of calling the necessary authorities and waiting around for it to be removed.  But that wasn't the whole truth, and in this, it would seem my father was not the only one capable of creating alternate realities in which certain truths were omitted.
    Reluctantly, I had to acknowledge the fact that, while I did not know what might have precipitated the change in him, nevertheless for a time, he was a good father, a normal father whose children had had no cause to question the purity of his love.
    Once upon a time, Jack and Jill had a Dad.
    An abrupt ache in my bladder, courtesy of the bottle of water I'd chugged on the way here, incited a ridiculous inner debate on what using the bathroom might signify to my father. I needed to go, but it seemed ill-advised to do so here, for fear that even something as simple as the need to use the toilet might be interpreted as a momentary dependency on him. For decades you've had no use for me , I imagined him thinking, but you have use for me now, for I am KEEPER OF THE FACILITIES! I sniggered quietly to myself. What a crock of shit. I was being absurd. But at least it had stopped me thinking about the good old days, which would have done nothing but lessen my resolve.
    I look ed up at the ceiling. A moment later, I heard him shuffling around up there. I did not sigh with relief, but felt it, and hated myself for even momentarily entertaining anything other than hostility toward him.
    Perhaps he wa s hiding up there, afraid to come back down.
    Perhaps he was searching for a weapon.
    Jesus, get a hold of yourself. I was wasting my time, but at least I had confronted him, said aloud to his face the words that had been tattooed on my soul for longer than I could remember. That would have to suffice, and, I hoped, might make some little bit of