Quitting this Family after Being Abandoned for Laughs novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Four Phones on the Table
Tara's family bets on how long she'll beg from a dark field, her fiance cuts her signal for the win, and she overhears a plot for Saturday night.
My family sat around the dining table with four phones in the middle, and they were betting on how long I would last in the dark.
I could hear every word, because my sister had dialed me into the call herself.
"She can listen, she can't talk," my sister had said. "That's the best part."
I stood in an empty field at the edge of town, holding my phone with both hands.
The call was recording, the way I recorded every call with them.
My fiancé had driven me out here at dusk for an engagement-week surprise.
He kissed my forehead, told me to wait by the fence for ten minutes, and drove off with the only light for miles.
That was two hours ago.
"One minute," my sister said at the table. Dani was twenty-four, and the only one of us with black curls.
The rest of us had my father's straight brown hair.
"Please," my mother said. "She's never lasted a minute."
When I was thirteen and Dani was ten, she fed our dog a plate of meatballs she had laced with weed killer.
I carried him to my parents' room and begged them to drive him to the vet.
My father said, "Dani was only playing. We'll get you another dog."
He died on my bed within the minute.
Nobody ever got me another dog.
"Five minutes," my father said now. "She'll cave by five."
At fourteen I sat down to one Thanksgiving dinner with them.
Dani switched my cola for a glass of pesticide, and I rolled on the kitchen floor for five minutes before I screamed for help.
They sent me to the hospital in a taxi and finished the turkey.
After that I spent every holiday somewhere else.
Colin Beller had said nothing the whole time.
He was thirty, my fiancé for eight months, and he ran the wireless company that owned half the towers in this county.
Now he pushed back his chair and picked up his coat.
"Where are you going?" my mother asked.
"I'm taking the bet the other way," Colin said. "Tara won't call tonight at all."
He grinned at the clock on the wall.
"The tower that covers her field is ours. My assistant sent a maintenance notice this afternoon. After midnight that whole stretch goes dead."
I stared into the black and could not move.
Dani shrieked and threw both arms around his neck. "That's why you wanted the field! Colin, you're evil!"
For eight months Colin had never let me drive past that field.
He said drifters slept there, and wild dogs, and that he couldn't stand the thought of me out here alone.
Tonight he had put me in the middle of it and gone home to laugh.
Around the table they cheered.
My father poured Colin a drink. My mother wiped her eyes.
I stayed very still.
My phone buzzed against my palm with the company email I had been dodging for a week.
The subject line said: Myria office transfer, final answer needed.
I had put it off because Myria was an ocean away, and I could not picture a holiday without them.
Dani was still laughing. Colin was still hugging her.
Nobody at that table was my family, and I finally understood it.
I typed a single word with my thumb.
"Accepted."
I hit send with two minutes of signal left.
Then my mother lowered her voice, and I heard something that was not part of the joke.
"Vernon, is the vial still in your desk? Saturday's the night."
"Locked up," my father said. "Right after Colin's toast, nine o'clock."
"Keep your voice down," Dani whispered. "Her line is still open."
"Her mic's muted," my mother said. "She can't hear us."
I had heard every word.
At midnight the screen went black, and I was left with a stick I'd picked up by the fence and a field I could not see.
I started walking toward where I thought the road was.
Somewhere out in the weeds a dog barked.
I noticed I was not afraid of it.
Saturday was my engagement party, and the toast was at nine.
Whatever was in that vial, somebody at that party was going to drink it.
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