Free Shadows Burned In by Chris Pourteau

tell you that the school
monitor—”
    “Did he call again? Am I going to find a message from him
telling me that you’re holding up the class again?”
    Elizabeth closed her mouth as her heart sank. She had been
so excited to tell him, so full of certainty that he’d call her over to him and
give her a big hug and tell her how proud he was of her and how he’d known all
along she could do it and that if she tried, she could do anything she set her
mind to. That’s how fathers talked to daughters in the 3V stories she’d
experienced. But now she kicked herself inside for picking the wrong time, for
not reading him better or talking to Mom first and finding out his mood. It was
all wasted, all her effort for the day, and the words from the monitor that
would never come again in a million years would fall on deaf, angry ears now. All
because she was an idiot and had chosen the absolute wrong time to tell
him.
    Stupid, stupid, stupidstupidstupidstupid—
    “Well?”
    “I-I . . .”
    “And now you’re making it worse because you’re paralyzed,
you big baby,” said her 3V voice, imitating Michael. “Now he’s mad, and
you’re gonna get it!”
    Elizabeth’s eyes began to well up.
    “Spit it out, girl!”
    “David!” Susan stood in the kitchen doorway. “Elizabeth, go
to your room,” she said evenly, trying not to sound too harsh to her daughter,
but hoping her tone would short-circuit any more fury from her husband. “Go on.
I’ll bring you dinner in a little while.”
    Elizabeth turned around quickly and ran back down the
hallway and into her room, sobbing her frustration.
    David sighed. “Jesus, Sue, am I going to find another
message from the monitor? Am I going to have to take more drastic steps by
cutting off her—”
    “You know, David, if you’d listen instead of talking all the
time, you might find life more pleasant,” said Susan, her voice rising as she
spoke. She didn’t want it to happen, but her emotions took over, and she
slipped into the rut that communication between them had become. “I know we would!”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    Susan walked into the living room as she spoke and it
spilled out of her, a snowball picking up speed as it rolled. “Her monitor
called today all right, but not to tell us how bad she was doing. He
called to tell us how much she had improved since yesterday. ‘She must’ve spent
all evening studying yesterday,’ he said. But you didn’t let her get that out,
did you? You assumed she was having trouble again, and when she came to get a little encouragement from you, you squashed it! Jesus, David, you’re such a
self-centered bastard!”
    She turned back and walked into the kitchen to finish
dinner, leaving her husband to wonder why he was such an ogre for wanting his
daughter to be successful in life.
    And that made him angry.
    “Now wait a minute, don’t you walk away from me . . .”
    The evening’s match had begun.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
    She’d thrown herself face down on her bed, burying her tears
in the comforting softness. She clenched the pillows in her fists, hurt and
defeated. Elizabeth had tried so hard to please the monitor, and when she’d
achieved the unachievable, she’d just known her father would smile at her for a
change, open his arms to her, tell her how proud he was of her, not yell at
her. How hard was that? How much was that to expect?
    Her frustration gave way to anger as she thought about how
hard she’d worked, how long it had taken her to memorize the formulas and apply
them under the monitor’s strict and exhausting makeup exam. He seemed to
conspire against her, to set her up to fail, as if he and her father had an
agreement that the monitor would do everything in his power to obstruct her.
And her mother! What did she do to help? Occasionally Mom would take up her
cause with Dad, try to explain to him what Elizabeth was feeling and how hard
the move had been for all of them, but then