Breathe

Chapter 23

Lucie

The noise of clinking silverware was a cacophonous song in our dated kitchen, bouncing off the mustard-colored walls. Tonight, Mom had made her version of beef wellington, which was less like beef wellington and more like steak cloaked in soggy bread. Mom thought she could cook, had always thought she could cook, even if that was far from the truth. The rest of our family just had to suffer through it.

As we ate, my eyes drifted towards Dempsey's seat, which had been empty for almost six months now. I sighed, tearing my gaze away. It was strange, how my brother's death had been a time of loss, and yet the opposite. If I hadn't been looking for him, Vinny or Cian wouldn't have come into the picture. Where would that put me now, I thought, if I'd never met them?

"How is it?" my dad's voice snapped me from my reverie.

I looked at him, his eyes holding that same congenial gleam that had never seemed to leave Dempsey's. "Well," I said, "it tastes like beef wellington?"

"Why is that a question?" Mom cut in. "Are you not sure it tastes like beef wellington?"

I stuck my fork in my mashed potatoes, and when I let go, it stood straight up. Mashed potatoes were not supposed to be as hard as stone. I frowned at my plate. "Well, you tried your best, Mom. I'll give you that."

She blew a raspberry at me, which I returned, and both of us kept raspberrying at each other until finally my dad got sick of it. The noise grew so loud, even, that it nearly drowned out the ringing of the home phone. All three sets of eyes zipped to the receiver, hanging on the wall beside our Frigidaire. When Dad got up, I shook my head at him and made my own move towards it. Anything to get away from the soggy bread-covered steak. I loved my mom, but like I said, she just can't cook.

I pressed the phone to my ear. "You've reached the Monteith residence, and no, this is not a fancy answering machine. Who's this?"

"For not being a fancy answering machine," said Vinny into the other line, "you sound a lot like a fancy answering machine."

"Not a bad skill to have, I guess?" I replied. I glanced back over at the dinner table, where my parents were observing me just as furtively. Trying my best at being inconspicuous, I slipped around the corner, tugging the cord with me. I lowered the volume of my voice. "So, what is it? Is something wrong?"

"Why do you assume I'm calling because something's wrong?"

I scoffed. "I don't know. Maybe because there's a lot of things wrong about our lives."

He didn't deny it, merely sighed so loudly that I heard the signal rattle in my ear. "Lucie, I want to do something insane tonight."

"Insane?"

"Absolutely crazy," Vinny added. There was a certain mischief in his tone that I hadn't heard in a while, and yet, it was comforting. "So positively stupid I might—I probably—will regret it later."

"And?"

"And I need you there."

I paused. "This is ridiculous, Vince."

"Didn't I say that already?"

"How are you coming to get me?" I responded, and when Vinny made a small grunt of triumph, I shook my head. "Nuh-uh. I haven't agreed yet. I just asked how you're coming to get me. You don't have a car, or a license, or any federal record that you exist anymore, really."

"I exist," he said weakly.

"Not on paper."

"Fine," Vinny admitted in a huff. "So I didn't think that part through. I forgot I can't just show up anymore. Regardless, I'll get there—and then we go."