So, I washed my hands and went to the closet in the hall where Mom kept the cleaning supplies, not like she used them—that was what the cleaning lady was for—and dug out whatever I thought might help.
Then, as I entered the living room to get started, Dad came down the stairs.
Smoky was struggling to escape his arms.
Dad looked right at me as his hand gripped the front doorknob. “Remember, Maxwell, this isyourfault.Youare the reason your dog will die, and one day, you’ll thank me for this lesson.”
Then he opened the door, stepped outside, and slammed it behind him. My sisters screamed and cried for the entire twenty minutes that our father was gone.
I never shed a tear.
***
I never went back to baseball practice after that. Dad said he wouldn’t waste money on extracurricular activities when I obviously couldn’t handle my responsibilities at home.
I never cared much about baseball or any sports really. I had been forced to join the local team because Dad said so.
“Boys should play sports,” he always said. “Helps them to grow into men who can follow the rules.”
And don’t get me wrong; I didn’t totally hate it. It was kind of fun, and it was something to do away from the house. Plus, it gave me a chance to hang out with a coupleof kids my age outside of school ‘cause it wasn’t like Dad ever let me have friends.
But even still, I always felt like there was something better to do.
Like reading.
I loved reading.
I didn’t really have any books of my own. Dad didn’t think they were worth money unless they were for educational purposes. But he approved of the library because the library meant learning, and if there was something Dad liked more than a clean, orderly house and God, it was good grades.
But to my father, reading was something not to be enjoyed, but endured, like you would anything else you had to do. It wasn’t forfun; it was just a tool meant to help you succeed further in life.
So, I never told him Ilikedto read. I never told my father much, but especially not that. He would ask what I did after school, and I would tell him I went to the library. He assumed it was to study—he never asked for confirmation—and I figured, as long as my grades were kept up, he would never suspect that instead of studying, I was hiding in worlds that existed only between pages and within my mind.
Narnia. Middle earth. Oz. Wonderland.
I became friends with hobbits and fauns and lions, tigers, and bears—oh my! I stifled my laughter and hid my tears and clutched my hand to my aching heart as I devoured the words. But more than anything, I was desperate to find a place where I belonged. Somewhere far, far away from Massachusetts and the house I hadgrown up in, that looked so big and nice and beautiful on the outside, but inside, it was anything but.
Dad had no clue. He saw my report cards and remained indifferent at the rows of A-pluses, and that was as good as it was going to get. His indifference was his approval, and it was as close as I would get to him being proud.
But then a handful of years went by and my fourteenth birthday rolled around. A friend of mine—a kid named Ricky Tomson—who had spotted me reading in the local library, handed me a book between classes.
"Hey, Max. Happy birthday," he said.
"This is for me?" I asked, turning the book over in my hands.
It was a big black hardback with swirling gold decorating the cover and spine, and across the front, a twisty, fancy-looking font readDracula.
Ricky nodded. "My mom took me to the bookstore, and I thought it looked cool. It's about vampires, I think."
I was familiar with the story, but had never read it. I pulled off my backpack to tuck the book inside with so much care that you'd think it was the most precious thing I'd ever touched.
Actually, come to think of it, it probably was.
"Thanks," I said, my voice so tight and full of wonder that I thought I might cry.
A friend had never given me a birthday present before. I'd never had a birthday party. The most my birthday had ever been acknowledged was with a little cake from the grocery store and sometimes my choice ofdinner—if Mom remembered—and I definitely didn't celebrate with classmates.
Honestly, I was surprised that Ricky even knew when my birthday was at all.
