Chapter 3 - The Five-Minute Melt
The streetlamp outside our car cast a pale, circular glow over the hood of my car. I buckled Lily into her booster seat, making sure the straps were snug over her red dress. She was talking about popcorn now, her voice small and excited, her mind already far away from the cold dining room.
“We can put M&Ms in it, right, Mom? Like we did for my birthday?”
“We can put whatever you want in it, sweetie,” I said, kissing her forehead before closing the rear door.
I walked around to the driver's side. The air was silent, save for the dry rustle of the oak leaves along the curb. I got in, started the engine, and let it idle for a minute to warm up the cabin.
Through the windshield, I saw the front door of the house fly open.
Mark was the first one out. He didn't have his wineglass anymore. He didn't have his shoes on, either; his stockinged feet hit the frozen concrete of the porch, and he stumbled slightly before catching himself on the iron railing. His face was white—not the flushed, red color of a man who had been drinking, but a pale, sickly grey that looked green under the security lights.
My phone, sitting in the cup holder beside the gear shift, began to vibrate.
The screen lit up with my father’s name.
I didn't answer it. I shifted the car into reverse and began to back down the long, curved driveway.
Mark ran down the steps. He was shouting something, his arms flailing, his socks slipping on the frost-covered grass as he tried to cut across the lawn to block my car.
“Claire! Claire, stop!”
The phone vibrated again. This time it was my mother’s number.
I let it ring.
I backed out onto the main road, shifting into drive. Through the side window, I saw my father emerge onto the porch. He wasn't wearing his coat. He was holding his phone in one hand, his head turned toward the house as if he were listening to a siren that only he could hear. His posture was gone. He looked smaller, his shoulders rounded, his face lined with a sudden, terrible old age.
David Mitchell had clearly opened the email.
And the IRS auto-acknowledgment had likely hit my father’s corporate black box server.
Mark reached the edge of the driveway just as I pulled away from the curb. He slammed his hands against the passenger window of my car, his face pressed against the glass, his eyes wide and wild with a panic that I had never seen in him.
“Undo it!” he screamed, his voice muffled by the glass but clear enough to make Lily gasp in the backseat. “Claire, please! You have to undo it! They’re going to freeze the accounts! The bank... the bank is already calling Dad!”
I kept my foot steady on the gas pedal. The car moved forward, pulling away from his scratching fingers. In the rearview mirror, I saw him drop to his knees on the frozen asphalt of the road, his hands on his head, his white socks staining dark with the dampness of the street.
My mother was standing on the porch now, her hands clamped over her mouth, her white holiday apron looking like a shroud in the yellow light.
“Mommy?” Lily asked, her voice hushed. “Why is Uncle Mark running in the dirt?”
“He’s just playing a game, sweetie,” I said, my voice calm, my hands steady on the steering wheel as we turned the corner, leaving the bright, expensive street behind us. “A game he doesn't know how to play.”
The phone in the cup holder didn't stop vibrating. It buzzed against the plastic, a continuous, frantic rhythm that felt like a dying pulse.
Mark.
Dad.
Mom.
Mark.
May you like
I reached down, switched the phone to silent, and dropped it into the glove compartment.
The road ahead of us was dark, winding through the quiet suburbs toward the highway. The heater was finally blowing warm air, filling the cabin with a cozy, dry heat. For the first time in five years, the air inside my car felt clean.
