Private (Private 1)

P R I V A T E

97

My heart thumped. I had read about parents’ weekend in the

It was Sunday evening and all the girls on my floor had gathered Easton Handbook, but I had blocked out its existence. I couldn’t in the common room to watch some random reality show. It was all imagine my parents here any more than I could imagine them on

they had talked about all day. I had never seen it before and that was Mars. I also couldn’t imagine them making the drive without my

the subject of at least half an hour of incredulous conversation after mother bitching and whining the entire time. Why my father

dinner. Now I was finally going to see what all the fuss was about.

actually thought it was an attractive idea was beyond me.

Couldn’t wait. Really.

“I’d better go,” he said. “Mom wants to eat dinner.”

I plopped down on the loveseat next to Constance, who had

“Okay,” I said. Now I saw her sitting there as well, glowering at saved me the space. As soon as the first commercial appeared,

him over a tray of gray meatloaf.

Lorna turned from her spot on the floor. She was seated on a pink

“She says hello,” my father said.

silk pillow she had brought down from her room.

No, she doesn’t.

“So what do you do on Sunday nights?” she asked me. She had

“Okay. Bye, dad,” I said.

some kind of smelly blue mask smeared all over her face,

and her

“Love you, Reed.”

curly hair was up in two buns at the top of her head. She looked like

“You, too.”

some kind of comic book villain. The Blue Terror.

I hung up the phone and took a moment to catch my breath. It

“Read, mostly,” I said.

was amazing how each phone call pulled me back there so entirely.

Missy scoffed and Lorna rolled her eyes. These were their two

To that misery, that fear, that darkness. Each time I spoke to my favorite affectations. At any given moment you could find one of father, I had to recompose myself. Remind myself that I wasn’t