Mom Hung Up on My Call for Help to Toast My Cousin, So I Vanished novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Dad Alone

At nine that night, a text came in from a number I hadn't saved.

It's Dad. I'm outside. I'm alone. Please.

I read it standing at my window on the second floor.

Below me, under a lamp by the front walk, a man sat on a bench with his hands on his knees.

I knew his shoulders before I knew anything else.

The girl with the lanyard stood next to me.

"You don't have to go," she said.

"I know."

"I'll watch from here. If you wave your arm, I'm coming down with the whole floor."

I went down alone.

My father stood up when he saw me.

He looked ten years older than he had on Saturday.

His short-sleeved shirt hung loose on him, and he held a gray winter coat folded over one arm.

"I brought your coat," he said. "It's cold in the mornings here."

I almost laughed.

Brynn had said the same thing in her text, and he had no idea.

"Thanks, Dad."

He held it out, and I took it.

Then he took an envelope out of his back pocket and held that out too.

"Your mother shouldn't have taken the money," he said. "I went to the bank today. It's a cashier's check for the whole amount, in your name. Thirty-eight hundred and sixty."

I took the envelope, and looked at the number on the check.

It was right.

"Thank you," I said.

I meant it, and I didn't want to.

"Can we sit?" he asked.

We sat on the bench with a foot of cold air between us.

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