Free And One Last Thing... by Molly Harper Page A

and I need bail money’?” I asked.
    Samantha grinned. “Urn, neither of those.”
    “Fair enough.” I nodded.
    “You’re going to be one of those ‘interesting’ clients, aren’t you?”
    I arched a brow at her. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

8 • Doubly Screwed by the Fourth Estate
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    It was starting to feel crowded at the old home place.
    Daddy returned from his reunion a few days after Mama and he was less thrilled to have one of the baby birds back in his empty nest. Other than repeated inquiries as to whether I would need extra boxes when I moved out, he refused to discuss anything with me. If I came into a room, he left it. If I happened to catch him long enough to ask him a question, he answered it in as few syllables as possible. I’m pretty sure the only reason he ate at the same table as me was that Mama refused to serve his meals anywhere else. Daddy was smart enough to know he couldn’t survive on his own cooking.
    Daddy was never what you’d call a hands-on father, but he’d never been so distant. When he was disappointed in us, his usual MO was to tell Mama and have her relay the message. Even when Emmett finally, quietly, came out to my parents, Daddy told Mama to tell my brother to be careful. And that was about it.
    Daddy seemed to be employing more of a scorched earth policy these days. I think he believed if he made the situation uncomfortable enough, I would give up this whole silly divorce and go back to my own house. He was particularly irritated by the way Mama had managed to insulate me from the phone calls, the insistent visitors, Wynnie’s repeated efforts to talk some sense into me.
    “You’ve got to quit coddling the girl,” I heard him grumble through their bedroom door on one of my nightly wanderings around the house. “She needs to face her own music. Personally, I don’t blame Wynnie and Jim for being pissed. Or Mike. Do you know what kind of jokes they’re making about Mike and Beebee down at the golf course? And Lacey? I just don’t understand what was going through her head when she did this. We didn’t raise her to -”
    “To what?” Mama demanded. “To stand up for herself?”
    “To make a damn fool out of herself,” Daddy countered. “How would you feel if somebody wrote this sort of thing about one of our kids, Deb?”
    “Keep your voice down,” Mama hissed. “And our kids wouldn’t be sleazy enough to cheat.”
    “Well, if Emmett does cheat, he’d better not tell Lacey about it; God knows what she’d do.”
    “Walt, are you upset because you’re embarrassed or because you want her out of the house?”
    “Well, she’s never going to leave if you keep stuffing her with pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches!” he cried.
    “Oh, she’s not even eating them,” Mama said. “She doesn’t eat anything. She doesn’t sleep. She just wanders around the house all night, which is why you should keep your voice down!”
    I backed away from the door. I didn’t want to hear any more. I was going to have to leave the house, soon. Besides the loser factor, I couldn’t stay at my parents’ house, causing tension and problems for the two of them. There were enough failed marriages in our family.
    As I watched my parents’ marriage from a newly enlightened adult perspective, I noticed little things about them I hadn’t before. Little things, like when my dad got my morn a glass of water, he ran the tap for a while, to make sure he was getting her the coldest, least faucet-tasting water possible. Mike used to just stick a glass under the tap.
    My parents had that something. Something Mike and I didn’t have. I didn’t know what it was and that was what was driving me insane. I’m not going to say Mike was a total monster. I mean, there was the year that he got me an air purifier for my birthday, but only because I’d mentioned that the