I place the teakettle down and wait for it to scream.

Twenty-Three

Cora

Today only Dad is waiting for me in the hall when I get out of my appointment.

When I asked him why Grams didn’t come, he told me he wanted some one-on-one time with me. On the drive to Dr. Randall’s office, my stomach knotted and I wondered if he was going to ask me about all the time I’ve been spending with Quinn, but he didn’t.

We rode in silence, listening to news on the radio. Dad turned the channel when they started talking about a shooting that had happened at a mall in North Carolina. He didn’t look at me, just pressed the buttons on the steering wheel and the radio switched to Top 40 hits. I almost said something, but by the time I got up the courage, we were parked in front of the strip mall.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says as I walk out of Dr. Randall’s office. Dad hands me my corduroy jacket. It feels strange to call it mine when it used to be Mabel’s. It’s light brown and patterned with faint white flowers. It’s big on me, but I started wearing it a few days ago when the weather turned colder.

I slide the jacket on and follow Dad back to the car.

“How about tonight we go somewhere else for dinner?”

I was really looking forward to egg rolls, but I say, “Sure.”

Dad keeps the radio on the Top 40 station as he drives. It’s pretty funny to watch my dad with his thick round-framed glasses and tweed blazer listening to a song about partying on the beach.

“Do you like this music?”

“Huh?” he says.

“This song. Why are we listening to it?”

He gives me a sheepish look. “Oh. Sorry. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to protect me, you know?”

His sheepish look deepens.

“From the news,” I go on. “You didn’t have to change it before.”

His eyes look sad. “I changed it more for me than for you.”

I don’t press the subject. I lean back in my seat and try to enjoy the next song, which is also about partying. I wonder if these are the things Mabel was talking about when she said, “You just don’t get it.”

He parks the car in another strip mall. The main street area of Chestnut is cute, but outside of that we’re surrounded by lots of parking lots and strip malls.

I follow him as he walks toward a plain-looking restaurant called Aladdin’s. The name is written in golden cursive script, and inside the window, I see booths that are decorated with bright red vases filled with plastic flowers.

“I was craving shawarma. What do you think?” He’s wearing the same sheepish expression that he had on earlier in the car.

“Shawarma sounds good,” I say as Dad pulls open the door to the restaurant.