Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

h, which forced him to wear his pants way too low on his hips.

Other boys might welcome the excuse to look cool, but not Mark.

When she asked him, "Is this really a problem? Isn't this more stylish anyway?" Mark looked at her rather coldly and said, "Dad would never have wanted me to wear my pants like this."

Mark never pulled the "dad" card except when it was true. Reuben would have disapproved. "Pull your pants up, son," he would have said. And Mark would have said, "I will, sir, but it really hurts when I do."

And then Reuben would have said something like, "What, you think you've got such big balls now that you need to have more room for them? You running out of ball space?"

And Cecily would have said, "Reuben, please don't teach him to be crude."

And now she wished he would say "balls" or whatever he felt like saying, just so he was here to say it.

How can you wipe your eyes when your hands are covered with citrus-scented Dawn?

People had been right, after Reuben was killed—when enough years passed, you don't cry every single day. You can think of him without crying at all. But then sometimes it hits you, all the things he's missing, all the things that their children needed him to do and say, and he would have said it, he would have done it, he was a great father, and he was cheated out of all of it because some ideological maniac who served as his secretary for years suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot him in the eye.

Their little civil war ended up amounting to almost nothing, though it certainly didn't look that way at the time. It was a terrible danger—states and cities were seriously trying to join the revolt. It could have destroyed the country. And Reuben had somehow become a pawn in their game. He was sacrificed like a chess token.

Well, he had never been a chess piece in this house. He was a father. In the outside world, Reuben had been—what, a knight? What would a brilliant special ops officer be if they were inventing chess today? He was certainly not a king—that was Averell Torrent. But the game of chess was set in that outside world. Inside their home, there were no games.That's what so many people didn't understand about life. The real world is the one within the walls of home; the outside world, of careers and politics and money and fame, that was the fake world, where nothing lasted, and things were real only to the extent they harmed or helped people inside their homes.

And there Cecily stood with the suds drying on the mixing bowl, and with tears drying on her cheeks because she was no longer thinking about Reuben, she was thinking about what was wrong with the world.

With other people's worlds. There was only one thing wrong with her world, and that was Reuben's absence.

Mark was no longer mowing—the back lawn was done.

In fact, he was standing in the kitchen, by the door to the laundry room. "You zoned out again, didn't you, Mom?"

"I was having philosophical moments."

He came up and, with the damp hand towel, wiped her cheek.

She took the towel from his hand and wiped the other cheek. "Well, you caught me," she said. "Somewhere in there I thought of your father and the absolutely stupid reason why he isn't here with us now and I think I was conducting my side of an argument and the sad thing is the people I'm arguing with would never, ever listen to someone like me or ideas like the ones I believe in so it's a complete waste of time."

"Dad is here, Mom," said Mark.

"Well, in our memories, of course," said Cecily. "Except J.R, he was too young when your father died."

"We tell him stories," said Mark.

"I was watching you out the window," said Cecily, "and I was thinking that I'm just not going to be able to teach you how to be a man."

To her surprise, Mark slammed his fist down on the thin part of the counter in front of the sink. Some water splashed. "I don't need you to teach me to be a man."

"Oh, you already know it all?" she asked, more surprised than snippy.

"Dad already taught us how to be a man before he died," said Mark.

"Not everything."

"You wouldn't know," said Mark.

"Because I'm not a man?"

"Because you weren't his child," said Mark. "So you didn't watch him the way we did."

"Maybe you're right," said Cecily.