Free Threshold by Caitlin R. Kiernan Page A

her father’s name printed neatly across the top and enough zeros that at least they won’t have to worry about paying the rent for another month. “As long as my mother’s new therapist keeps telling her it really is all her fault that I turned out this way, I figure we can expect a steady trickle,” and Sadie takes a sip of her drink before she puts the check safely back inside her purse and snaps the little coffin shut again.
    “Well, it’s reassuring to know that at least one of us isn’t burdened with a conscience,” Deacon says, and Sadie punches him in the arm, not hard but he groans like she’s broken a bone, groans until she leans over and kisses his shoulder.
    “Jesus, you guys are making me sick,” Sheryl mutters. “You know how long it’s been since I even had a date ?” and Sadie sticks her tongue out at the bartender, tongue the color of milkstained bubble gum, and then turns back to Deacon.
    “I saw your friend Chance at the post office today,” she says, and Deacon sips at his fresh beer, and “How’s she holding up?” he asks; Sadie shrugs and stirs at her drink with a red plastic swizzle stick.
    “Beats me. She was buying stamps. You know she doesn’t like talking to me.”
    “I don’t think Chance much likes talking to anybody these days, baby. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
    “No, I’m pretty sure she thinks weird rubs off,” Sadie says and lays the swizzle stick on her napkin, stares at Deke with those unreal blue eyes like something in a taxidermist’s shop window, eyes like glass, and “She’s a very detached young lady.”
    “Yeah?” and Deacon watches her in the mirror, watches her between the liquor bottles. “Well, I expect you’d be pretty detached too, Little Miss Pickled Sunshine, if you’d been through all the shit Chance has been through lately.” And she doesn’t say a word, no response but another shrug, Sadie’s eternal answer to a whole messy world of things she’d rather not think about.
    Deacon runs his fingers through his short, mousebrown hair, not quite pissed at Sadie yet and hoping he didn’t sound that way because now she’s pouting, stirring aimlessly at her drink, and her lower lip looks like something a yellow jacket stung. But sometimes her callous goth-girl shtick is hard to stomach, sometimes like now, and suddenly Deacon feels very old and very tired, all the hell he’s caught, and he honestly can’t imagine how Chance Matthews is alive, still walking and talking. Someone like that almost enough to make you believe in bad luck or karma, the fucking sins of the father, someone like that enough to keep things in perspective.
    “You didn’t have to yell at me,” Sadie says, almost whispers, and “I didn’t yell at you, Sadie,” Deacon says, and now they’re talking to each other through the mirror, too bad his parents never figured out this trick. It might have saved a lot of broken dishes.
    “It’s not my fault she doesn’t like me,” and that’s enough to light the short and ragged fuse that’s never far beneath Deke’s skin, enough to get him up off the bar stool and moving towards the door. Forget the beer, forget Sadie, because he really doesn’t want to be anywhere near her or anyone else when the bomb in his head goes off.
    But she’s already calling after him, still hasn’t learned when to let him go, when to shut up and sit it out until the shit blows over. “What the fuck did I say, Deacon?” she asks, raising her voice and Sheryl’s watching them both now, starting to look a lot more worried than she did about the fat man. Her smokedusty eyes doing all the talking, and Just keep walking, Deke, she’s trying to say without opening her mouth, Just keep on going, and she’ll get over it, and you’ll get over it, and nobody gets hurt this time. But Deke stops halfway to the red door, and “Every goddamn thing isn’t about you, Sadie. This isn’t about you.”
    “I never said it was,” and god he