Chapter 7: The One Exception

On Saturday morning Mom was at a conference two hours away, Colin was locked in a practice room at school, and June was asleep with her door shut.

I came downstairs at nine and found Dad sitting at the kitchen table in yesterday's tie.

He was staring at a bowl of cereal, and he had not touched it.

His face was gray, and sweat stood out along his hairline.

"Bobby," he said. "Coffee."

"Cups are in the cupboard."

"Right. Good. That's a good one." He laughed, and it came out wrong. "You're closed."

The monitor on his arm was chirping.

It had been chirping, steady and thin, for a while.

His thumb came up to swipe it quiet, missed twice, and landed on his own wrist.

I knew this.

I had known it since I was seven, when Mom first sat me down and showed me what it looked like.

The Saturday door on the pill organizer was still shut.

"Dad, when did you last eat?"

"Yesterday. Lunch. I had a meeting." He frowned at the cereal. "I'm going to the office."

"It's Saturday."

"Then I'll be early."

He tried to stand up, and his knee gave out, and he sat back down in the chair with a thump.

There was a rule I had made for myself, in front of a laminated sheet and a root beer, and the rule said I was closed.

But I had written one exception on a napkin that night, in my own handwriting.

It said "emergencies."

I did not put on sunglasses.

I did not make a face, or a voice, or a joke.

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