My Family Abandoned Me in the Woods novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: In Front of the Valley

My father sat on the edge of Nolan's couch with a wool blanket over his shoulders and both hands around a mug.

He did not drink from it.

He stared at the floor between his boots.

"I'm sorry I'm here," he said. "I'm sorrier I wasn't there yesterday."

"You were there, Dad."

"I was. I drove the second car." His voice cracked. "I watched you stand in that lot and I kept my mouth shut, and I went home and ate turkey."

Nolan stayed by the stove with his arms folded.

I sat on the cot, across from my father, with the whole length of the room between us.

"Why did you walk up here?" I said.

"Because your mother doesn't know I'm gone. She thinks I went to bed."

"Okay. Why?"

He lifted his head.

He looked ten years older than he had in the lot, and his eyes were red.

"I need to tell you how it started, Callie. Trevor."

"I know about Trevor."

"You don't know it started in March."

I went still.

"Brooke came to dinner with a phone full of ideas," my father said. "She said the views on the family videos had gone flat. She said the audience wanted something real, a story that ran all year. She wanted a wedding."

"A wedding."

"Yours. She said you were the only one who would never question it." He swallowed. "She had already picked the man. She told your mother he'd play your fiance, and when it was time, he'd leave you at the altar on camera, and she'd comfort you in front of everybody."

"And Mom said?"

"Your mother said it would be the best thing that ever happened to you. A story. A little attention."

I laughed.

It sounded awful.

"And you?"

"I said it felt wrong." He looked at his hands. "I said it once. I didn't say it again."

Nolan crossed the room and set another log in the stove, so quietly I almost didn't notice, and stood a little closer to me than before.

"Thanksgiving was supposed to be the dress rehearsal," my father said. "Five buses and the empty lot. She wanted your face when you saw it. She wanted to cut it into a trailer."

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