sit down right for a week.
“He said a few of the other members hire guys from Clearview, too.”
When Mom doesn’t change her position, Mark says, “I’m an adult.”
Mom just snorts at that. “You think we should let him join,” she asks Dad, “before checking it out more?”
“Steven is a good man,” Dad says. “I trust his judgment. He has his son there.”
Mom’s not won over yet.
“Can I eat, please?” Dad asks, meaning he doesn’t want to discuss this anymore in front of us.
No one asks if I want to join. No one even seems to acknowledge the possibility. And, unlike Mark, I could probably pay my way. Not that I would.
After dinner, I would normally be on cleanup, but Mom sends me off to do some “homework” so she and Dad can talk without me there. I get the workbook and go out to the side porch, just around the corner so they won’t see me if they open the screen door.
“They seem genuine about building something good,” Dad is saying. “They’re all part of the organizational committee. I would be, too. They’re still working out what this will be, and we could have a say in that.”
“We?” Mom asks.
I can’t hear Dad’s answer, assuming he said anything at all.
“And what could this be?” Mom asks.
“Friends, work, maybe more. A fresh start. Can’t hurt to be better prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Mom asks. When Dad doesn’t answer, she asks, “Am I going to have to start sniffing
your
clothes for bomb residue, too?”
I let my head fall back against the house to keep from yelling. It was one time. One pipe bomb. For fun. And Mark was there, too. But every time Mom wants to make a point about how much she hates me training, she acts like I’m some kind of pyro, blowing stuff up every day.
“
If
I’m interested,” Dad says, “I’m in it for the work. For the hope that it leads to more work.”
“But?” she prompts.
“But . . . they make a lot of sense. Things
are
getting worse. Unemployment, tensions. More taxes, and no one looking out for us.” I can’t hear what Mom says, but Dad says, “Charlotte, I’m just suggesting, maybe it’s time to be a little more serious. It couldn’t hurt to be better prepared, just in case.”
“In case what?” Mom asks.
“In case . . . whatever,” Dad says.
Shivers crawls up my spine and down my arms. This is what I’ve been saying for a year.
It’s quiet for several seconds, and then Mom says, “I don’t want to see you get your hopes up and then find out it’s a scam. Or not a scam, but not something we can afford. Not now, anyway.” I can’t hear anything, and then Mom says, “It just sounds too good to be true.”
A bang, a cabinet slamming shut or something. “Why is it so damn hard for you to accept that maybe, just maybe, someone thinks I have value? That
we
have value?”
“How much value?” Mom asks eventually, and even I can hear the softening in her voice, maybe because it’s clear Dad’s already made up his mind. Or maybe because it’s been a long time since Dad had any leads.
“I don’t know yet,” Dad says. “I need to see what all they have planned and put in a proposal, but Jim Riggs said they’d rather a member did the work. So I think it’ll go hand in hand.”
They must have moved, because I can’t hear them. I inch around the porch, closer to the screen door.
“Then if it is a bust or too good to be true,” Dad says, “we say no thank you and we’ve lost nothing. But if it means work and more — a support system — I don’t think we can pass up the opportunity.”
“Not a penny to them,” Mom finally says.
“Fine,” Dad says.
“If it gets weird, you’re out.”
“Of course.”
Weird
for Mom means anything beyond shooting and camping. For a while she was convinced I was going to run away and join some kind of radical survivalist cult or, like, fall in with white supremacists. If she knew anything about anything, she’d know that none of