This Raging Light by Estelle Laure Read Free Book Online Page A

so much, I’m sick with it,” my mother said, and I knew it was true when her voice cracked. He shook his head. “Tony, come in the house.” Soothing now, like she was talking to Wren with a bloody knee. “Just come with me. Let me make you a cup of tea.”
    â€œTea?” He laughed. “
Tea?
What are you, out of your mind? I don’t want tea. I want my life back. I want what you took from me
,
dammit
.
”
    â€œTony,” Mom said.
    That’s when he grabbed her.
    They stumbled against each other, and I pressed my nose into the mesh screen, trying to see them, but they had disappeared under the porch awning, and all I saw were the cars parked along the sidewalk. So still. It was so still for a second. And then they staggered back into view, Dad’s hand on Mom’s neck, dragging her.
    Back to the pig noises, the snorting, squealing. He looked up. I don’t know if he was searching for God or stars, but what he found was me. And I swear to you, I swear he wasn’t there. A monster was. Dad’s face twisted, his skin gray and dull in the lamplight. But his eyes, his eyes were on fire.
    I spun and twisted myself out of my spot and down the stairs. I flew, I think. It’s the only explanation for how fast I got out the door. And then I was on him, on his giant hand, yanking and prying. He let go, even with the monster in him, like I was a Taser, my skin on his weakening his grip. Mom fell to the ground, now making animal noises too. She puked a little while her breath tried to come back to her.
    Dad’s legs went out and he cried like Wren did when she was new. Worse than that, because something inside him had scattered, and I knew it right then. The police, the ambulance, they all came. Even a couple of volunteer firemen. It didn’t take long for word to get out. After all, we live just a few houses down from the fire station.
    Mom tried to stop them from taking him, even as her neck turned colors. She wouldn’t press charges. He cried a long time in those flashing lights while Irv and Linda, the cops, tried to get to the bottom of things. At some point Dad started laughing, a hyena now, and they put him in the car, I’m pretty sure mostly because that laugh was such a nasty sound and nobody could get him to stop.
    â€œDon’t take him. That’s my husband.” Mom kept saying it, but they explained that they had to, at least for the night. He wound up on suicide watch in the institution—sorry,
mental health clinic—
and that’s the last I saw of him, writhing and growling in a cop car.
    You’d better believe everybody came out of their houses after they took him too. It was like a damn town meeting. Andrew on his porch in his silk robe. Even Smoking Guy two houses down. Middle of the night, early in the morning, smoking, smoking.
    Nobody said anything about it. Not to us. They just shuffled a little more than usual.
Sorry,
I wanted to say.
I’m so sorry we messed with your suburbia.
    It got to be morning while it all went down. As the cops drove away with Dad, Linda and Mom talked in the little alleyway in voices too low for me to hear. Birds tweeted happiness.
    Â 
    Mom tugged on my hand and didn’t do much more than glance at the neighbors as we went inside. She pulled me up the stairs into Wrenny’s room. Wren was still sleeping, of course, would stay still another couple of hours at least, her amazing sleep-through-everything powers at work. We slipped in on either side of her, collapsed onto the full mattress, pressed into her body, in the room that had once been Aunt Jan’s guest room. We looked at each other over her head. Wren was an anchor between us and we held tight.
    â€œMom.”
    â€œLu.”
    â€œDo you need to go to the hospital?” I kept my voice steady. “For your neck?”
    â€œNo, baby. Let’s just sleep now. Only a few more hours before I need to go get your dad.”