Compound Fracture: Chapters 27-30

It strikes me that he’s probably never heard the word used as an identifier instead of a slur.

The railroad spike sits on the windowsill like a talisman.

Dad walks — limps — the gravel road to Main Street and then half a mile down the road between McLachlan and Pearson, where Uncle Rodney’s auto garage sits in the midst of a few trees.

“Used to say, oh, I’m making sure my daughter can do everything herself, and be all progressive.”

“Oh, Dad,” I say, propping myself up on the fender.

Probably some news article, bypassing digital paywalls on the New York Times.

“You know, I love this country. I’ve always had a lot of faith in it, even when it does the wrong thing. And there’s been a lot of wrong, ain’t there? Internment camps, Vietnam, Iraq; we could sit here all day. But despite everything, I still believe, here”—he points at his chest —“that it’s the best country in the world.”

We weren’t gonna fall for some egotistical asshole making fun of disabled journalists and treating women like shit, right?

My hackles raise instinctively, and by the looks of it, so do Dallas’s — they pick their head up, stare across the counter.

Dallas pushes me down in the booth and drags a chair over so they can sit straddling the backrest.

The waiter brings out two glasses of water, and I grab mine to postpone responding.

“I ain’t honest,” I retort; not honest enough for it to be something to point out, at least.

Her curly hair is pinned back, and beaded chains dangle from her glasses, every inch covered in chunky jewelry and cat-themed paraphernalia.

I sit up immediately, but Dallas wrinkles their nose at her and says, “No pleasantries?”

Handing them over would be dangerous, and shortsighted, and one hell of a bad idea.

Amber blinks; her equivalent of bowling over with surprise.

The silhouette of Mrs. O’Brien’s dead body against the flames.

I can’t figure out what a “they” is supposed to look like, but that would be rude to say, so I flounder for something else.

Mom worries her bottom lip, staring intently out the windshield as we turn out of Pearson and onto the long, winding road back up to McLachlan.

She seems hesitant to call it a haircut.

Yeah, sure, it was designed for the American Revolution, and some leftists have used it over the years — the #ShootBack movement after the Orlando nightclub massacre, that sort of thing — but mainly it’s weird conservatives these days, the kind of conservatives that go “Actually, I’m a libertarian” as if that ain’t conservative with a shiny coat of paint.

I just don’t like new things, let alone new things that are, supposedly, deeply unpleasant.

I don’t really know what normal human interaction is because the Abernathy name kinda taints everything.

A pissed-off teenager getting into a fight, not meaning to, taking a swing and regretting it as soon as he realized what he’d done.

He forgot to shave today, and the stubble scrapes against my cheek.