Covetous

Covetous- Chapter Three

“So how did it go?” drifted dad’s voice from upstairs as soon as we got in the door. He was barely audible over the faint hum of the machines in his room.

“Fine,” said Kaitlyn. She then proceeded towards the kitchen, where she would find our mother and begin to pore over the details of everything that she had done that day, including any interesting prospects in the male department.

I went up the stairs two at a time and turned left at the top. At the start of the summer, dad moved into the guest room with all of his hospital equipment. There wasn’t enough space for it in the master bedroom, and mom was always grumpy because she couldn’t sleep with the noise. I liked it when he moved; the guest room is right beside mine. I walked in and sat down on the end of the bed, pushing Kyra out of the way. The ball of fur hardly even reacted when I moved her.

“Learn anything new?” he asked.

“Come on, it’s the first day. All that happened was… actually, I can’t even finish that sentence, the day was so dull,” I said with a small smile.

He wouldn’t let up though, so I ended up going over everything that happened. I liked how he laughed with me when I told him about Miranda and her issues, and how he listened patiently when I complained about the people in my law class. We were still talking when mom called up for dinner.

“Are you ok to get down the stairs?” I asked him. Some days were better than others. He would have a burst of energy, and then he would be drained for days.

“You bet your bottom dollar,” he replied. “My power nap did me well.”

I stood up and offered my arm. His grip was weak. It worried me, but I wouldn’t let it show. Gradually, he sat upright, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and began to rise. He was unsteady. I placed my other arm around his back.

When he was standing, I handed him his cane, which he started to refuse before I gave him a pointed stare. Slowly but surely, we walked towards the stairs. I stayed one step ahead of him, and between the railing and me, he made it down. Kyra waited patiently at the bottom of the stairs for him, her black and white tail swishing across the hardwood floor.

The look of relief on mom’s face when she saw him come into the kitchen made me wonder just how bad things had been today. Dinner that night was long. Dad tried to keep up appearances. He smiled and joked and asked Kaitlyn about her day, but he hardly ate anything. I noticed. So did mom. Kaitlyn appeared to be ignorant that there was anything going wrong. She was busy thinking about the upcoming cheerleading tryouts.

We were cleaning up the dishes when the phone rang. Kaitlyn jumped and ran to get it. She returned a few moments later with an annoyed expression.

“It’s for you,” she said, almost incredulously. How dare I receive a phone call?

“Ello?”

“There has been a new development,” said Simone. I didn’t say anything, so she continued. “So, you know how Miranda was super on edge today? Well… there seems to be a new boy in town.”

“Seriously? What grade are we in Simone?” she started to say something. “That was rhetorical. But you’re actually calling me to dish about a new guy that Miranda has a thing for?”

“That’s the thing. He’s in my Bio class last period and wow. I mean, honestly, six feet of wow. And you know me Lex, you know that I don’t get boy crazy, but, wow.”

“I can’t listen to this. I have chores to do. So, unless you have something that you actually need to talk to me about, then I have to go.” She didn’t reply; I hung up.