Free Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham

looked through the dining-room window, but couldn't see Billy in the back yard. Maybe he'd gone to bed; maybe he was walking around the neighborhood. She took milk from the refrigerator, and was setting a saucepan on the burner when her father came in.
    “Hi, Daddy,” she said.
    He stood in the doorway, looking at her as if he'd known her once, long ago, but couldn't quite recall her name or the circumstances of their acquaintance. Had he been drinking?
    “I couldn't sleep,” she said. “You want to have a glass of milk with me?”
    “Susan,” he said.
    “Sit down,” she said. She pulled a chair out for him at the kitchen table.
    “How are you, Susan?” he asked. “How is school?”
    She knew this tone of voice: the careful articulation, the suave, earnest formality. When he drank, his accent returned.
    “School's fine, Daddy. Well, school's school. Sit. I'm just going to heat this up, it'll only take a minute.”
    He leaned carefully against the refrigerator. His face was ardent and innocent as a boy's. He still wore his work clothes, his white shirt and somberly striped tie. He could beat Billy up, stomp out of the house to get drunk, and return hours later with his tie perfectly knotted.
    “You are gonna be queen of the prom,” he said. “Sweetheart, I am so proud of you.”
    “Homecoming, Daddy. The prom's in the spring. And as of tonight I'm just a princess. Rosemary will probably be queen. She grew up here. She's got about a trillion friends at school.”
    “You will be queen,” he said. “Yes. Oh, yes, you will be chosen.”
    The milk started bubbling around the edges, and she swirled it in the pan. “It's not like Elizabeth, Daddy,” she said. “There are a lot of really pretty girls here. You can't imagine how they dress.”
    She sucked in a breath as if she hoped to pull her last sentence back into her mouth and swallow it. Don't complain to him about money, not when he's like this. But his face didn't change. He continued looking at her with moist, unfocused eyes.
    “Princess,” he said. “They are gonna make you queen. I promise.”
    He was big and dangerous and full of love. What would happen if she wasn't chosen?
    “It's a big honor just being one of the princesses,” she said. “Now sit down, Daddy. The milk is ready.”
    She wondered where Billy had gone. He wouldn't kill their father, she knew that, but if he came into the kitchen now and acted a certain way there was no telling what their father might do.
    “You're somethin' else,” he said as he lowered himself onto a chair. “How's everything? You happy? How's Todd?”
    “Todd is Todd,” she said, pouring the steaming milk into two mugs.
    “School is school and Todd is Todd,” he said. “This does not sound so good. This does not sound like happiness.”
    She set a mug on the table in front of him. “Don't listen to me,” she said. “Everything's great. I guess I have a touch of se nioritis, or something.”
    “Huh?”
    “Oh, senioritis. A desperate urge to be done with school just about the time you've reached the top of the heap. It has medical science baffled.”
    He nodded. He looked into his milk. “Your brother and me, we had a little disagreement tonight,” he said.
    He wanted so much. He could do such damage.
    “I heard,” she said. “I wish you two wouldn't fight like that.”
    “Don't tell me. Tell him. You want to know what he called me?”
    “What?”
    “He called me a pig. A pig.”
    “Oh, Daddy.”
    “Like what he calls the police. He called me a fucking pig, excuse the language. That's how your brother talks these days.”
    “You have to ignore him sometimes.”
    “Your mother, she told me to get out of the house—”
    His voice was filling with emotion, a clotted sound. His face was darkening.
    “She gets upset,” Susan said. “She's high-strung, you know that, these fights are too much for her.”
    “I guess so. I guess that's true. You know a lot, don't you? Only eighteen, and you