Deep Betrayal

a lumpy, basement-worthy couch, her head in Scott Whiting’s lap. The two had been an item since sophomore year. “Beach?” they both suggested in unison.
    I couldn’t help but watch as Scott twirled a lock of Colleen’s dark brown hair around and around his finger. She looked up at him, her lips pulling into a small smile as he took off his thick glasses and curled his body to kiss her. For a second, I thought I could feel it myself. The soft meeting. The momentary heat. Voyeuristic, I know. But there it was.
    “What do you want to do, Lil?” Rob asked. “Does the beach sound good?” He dropped onto the futon next to me and swung an arm around my shoulders.
    “What? Oh. Yeah. That sounds good.” I let him leave his arm where it was. It was graduation after all.
    Phillip laughed. “We’ve got the Hancock seal of approval. Beach it is!”
    “Are you going to Square Lake?” Sophie asked, her small feet tripping silently down the carpeted stairs. “Can I come, too?”
    “Of course,” I said before anyone else could answer. I slipped off the futon onto the floor and pulled my sister into my lap. The baby-powder scent of her made me homesick. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered in her ear.
    “Me too,” she whispered back. “It’s been really bad without you.”
    The shine in her eyes brought on the guilt. All this time I’d been focused on me . How alone I felt. How worried I was. Why hadn’t I ever considered Sophie in all of this?
    She might have been completely in the dark about what had gone down with Dad, but she was still left with the fallout of the mess I’d made.
    “Let’s get something to drink,” I said. She crawled out of my lap, and I led her outside through the sliding-glass patio door. I grabbed two bottles of water from a cooler and screwed off the top for Sophie, passing her one.
    “Y’know you could have called me. Or got on the phone when I called Mom.”
    “Mom said you were busy with finals and I shouldn’t bother you.”
    “Well, school’s over. Start bothering me.”
    Sophie peeled at the label around her bottle and pouted her lips. Her once-curled hair flopped in the humidity and clung to her neck. Finally, she said, “Did you see Dad’s face?”
    “Yeah. He looks old.”
    Sophie kept peeling and picking.
    “Sophie, tell me.”
    “He’s acting weird. I watch him from my window. Every night he’s down at the dock. After Mom goes to bed … he gets down low, like he’s going to get in the water. Then he stands up and comes back to the house. Sometimes he’ll turn around again and touch the water, and then he pulls back like it’s biting him or something.”
    My arms stiffened at my sides. “Has he gone in?” I asked, dreading the answer.
    “No. It’s like he really, really wants to, but he’s afraid. Doyou think it’s because of me falling out of the boat that one time? Is it my fault?”
    I inhaled and let it go slowly. “Don’t be silly. And I wouldn’t be too worried, Soph. You know Dad can’t swim. He’s probably trying to get over his fear, and he was looking to do that in private. You probably shouldn’t tell him you’ve been watching.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t. When he’s not at the dock, he’s in his room.” She dropped her voice lower. “I think he’s crying. He hides it from Mom, but I can hear him. Last few times after church, me and Mom will go to the car, but he stays on his knees for, like, an extra ten minutes. Sometimes more.”
    My first reaction was that it served him right for sending me away, but that quickly gave way to pity. Even if he’d allowed me to stay, what help could I have been to him? He needed someone who could actually explain things. He needed Calder.
    There it was again. Where the hell is he?
    A drop of water hit my arm, and I glanced up at the slate-colored sky. “Let’s get in,” I said. “It’s starting to rain.”
    With the crack of thunder, the elegant graduation party turned into a refugee camp. The wind shook the house, and the lights flickered. All the adults came down to the basement as the sky went prematurely dark. Rain lashed at the windows and when lightning lit up the sky, we’d get a look at the backyard trees, twisting and arching like a landscaped yoga class. No one wanted to venture out onto the roads.
    Instead, we all hunkered down around the television,watching the giddy weatherman gesture at the Minnesota map. A big red patch covered the metro area with the words Tornado