The Narcissist's Daughter by Craig Holden Read Free Book Online Page A

mine at the rear of the house, but sitting on Brigman and Sandy’s bed in the front, looking out at the street. Her nose was plugged, her face swollen from crying. I gathered there had been a fight.
    “He didn’t go to work,” I said. “You know what that means?”
    She nodded.
    “How much has he had?”
    “Not that much yet, I don’t think. Couple cans.”
    “What happened?”
    “He just treats me like such a baby.” She continued to stare out the window as Donny crawled in under the dash to poke at something. “I want to get a job.”
    “What job?”
    “A job job, for money. I have a friend who works at the mall, selling those hot pretzels. She said they need someone a couple nights a week and weekends.”
    “How you gonna get there?”
    “You could drive me—”
    “You can’t count on that.”
    “Right. So, I was thinking I could drive Mom’s car.”
    Sandy’s ’64 Buick Skylark hadn’t been moved from our garage since the last time she drove it, in 1973, a few months before she died. The idea of the brand-newly licensed Chloe driving it now sort of shocked me, and yet it made sense—assuming we could get it running, why shouldn’t she use it? Except that Brigman would never allow it. It was some holy thing with him, the last vestige of Sandy on the earth, a parked shrine out there covered in dust.
    “So he said no.”
    “Like, really no. He got all pissed off.”
    “And what’s Donny got to do with it? You all three didn’t just happen to skip on the same day.”
    “He was gonna take me over to apply—the lady who owns it is only there during the day—but now Dad won’t even let me do that. He told me I have to stay up here.” Her face contorted and she squeezed her eyes shut as new tears came. The stain seemed almost to fluoresce when she got this upset. I had the urge to touch her, to feel her hair or the still little-girl-soft skin on the white side of her face, to try to smooth out somehow the confusion and anger that seemed so often to burn in her.
    “I’ll talk to him later,” I said.
    “It won’t matter.” She was right. It wasn’t just the car. It was her going out to be exposed to the world in that way that he dreaded. But I was too tired to think about it. I went across and lay on my narrow bed and listened to Chloe start crying again and Brigman knocking around downstairs, and imagined I could hear Donny Tooman hammering out in the street.
    Donny and Brigman had struck an odd sort of friendship when Donny and I were in our early teens, a kind of master and disciple thing when Brigman was still the Guru of Hot Rod and Donny would come over and help him work on his cars, and go with him sometimes to Motorhead. It was around that same time that Donny began baby-sitting for Chloe. She was maybe five, which would have made him thirteen. I don’t know if it was so much a formal arrangement (I mean I could have sat for her if Sandy and Brigman had really needed me to) as a matter of convenience and keeping everyone happy. Even at that age, Chloe seemed to have a need to get away from home, and Sandy and Brigman seemed happy enough letting her go. So Sandy would phone across the street and Donny would come out to the berm and wait for Chloe to cross over. She was gone sometimes for hours over there. I was somehow aware that Brigman slipped Donny a wad of cash now and then to cover his time, though I believe Donny would have done it regardless.
    As I drifted off, an image wafted back from the day before. I met Dr. Kessler outside as I was leaving. He carried a box of Dunkin’ Donuts in his good hand—snitch food. I was just going to say good morning but he stopped and looked at me seriously and said, “If you have trouble with Ray, let me know.”
    “Trouble?”
    “He can be hot-headed and careless. I don’t mean in his work. His work is fine. It’s other things.”
    I didn’t know what to say, but I nodded.
    “Just stay in touch. Stop by sometimes.”
    “Okay,” I