Fly Away Girl

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Tyler

***

Being awoken on a Sunday morning by yelling is probably the worst thing is the world. To me, at least. There you are, enjoying a satisfying late morning slumber, when bam! Yelling. I'm a little confused as to who Dad is talking to, but after a bit of eavesdropping I realize that he's speaking to Mom over the phone.

On the bright side, today I find out why my mother moved so suddenly.

Well, Dad finds out. But any living being within a twenty mile radius can hear him screaming at her over the landline.

Harper and I just have to listen. One of the few activities that we enjoy doing together is eavesdropping. We're pretty good at it, too.

We wrap a t-shirt over the mouthpiece to dull any noise that we might make before pressing the speaker button, and our mothers voice crackles alive via landline.

"I don't know what you're so angry about," she's saying. "You still have plenty of money for you and your new little family to live on. Spencer and I just took what we need for a practical life."

"Practical is not a six thousand square foot beachfront property," Dad roars from downstairs.

Gabbana pads into my room, whimpering, and Harper hops off my bed and crosses to comfort her.

"There's really no need to raise your voice, dear."

Dad takes a deep breath, and when he resumes speaking his voice is calm and smooth as honey. "You seem to have forgotten the fact that what you and Spencer did with my money is illegal. We both know that I'm not above suing you."

"That'll take years." Mom doesn't sound the least bit worried.

"Illegally transferring funds to overseas accounts...I'm guessing a minimum of five years. Not to mention that the money wasn't yours to begin with."

Something clicks in the back of my mind and I somehow make sense of the argument. What I put together is this:

Spencer and my mom have illegally been transferring my dad's money to an overseas account, probably in Australia. Once they had enough, they immediately moved to Australia.

My mother is a criminal.

Vain. Arrogant. Self-centered. Boastful. Proud. Rude. Snobby.

These are all words that I wouldn't hesitate to use when describing my mother.

But criminal?

It feels criminal to even imply.

Is she capable of stealing? Probably. But she doesn't seem like the type...

Sometime during my debate against myself, Dad hangs up the phone.

"What do we do?" I'm surprised at myself for asking the question.

"I don't know. Pretend like we didn't hear?" Harper pets Gabbana fervently.

I nod. "Yeah. Okay."

Together, we go downstairs. Dad is sitting alone in the kitchen, calmly sipping from a coffee cup and checking his email on his laptop.

"Hi Daddy," says Harper. "Everything okay?"

He looks up. "Yes. I was just having a talk with your mother."

Harper breathes a sigh of relief when she notices that Dad has returned to his typical calm and collected self.

"I'm going to walk Gabbana," I say abruptly.