Lilies and Lies by Mary Manners Page A

alone, scared of losing her home.”
    “It wasn’t a home…not like that. But maybe you have a point…I don’t know. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Gunnar squeezed her hand. “Anyway, that night something inside me snapped. I grabbed the old man’s car keys from the carpet, where they’d slipped from his pocket, and stalked off. Morgan ran after me, begging me to take him with; he’d witnessed the whole thing and didn’t want to be left alone at the house. Charlene was already long gone by this time, moved away to Knoxville and pregnant with Kyle. My arm was bleeding like crazy from where I’d sliced it along the window glass. I guess I was in shock, because I hadn’t even noticed until Morgan pointed it out. I didn’t even know where I was going, but I knew I had to get out of there. And I just couldn’t say no Morgan, not when I knew he had to be feeling as sick inside as I was. So we climbed into the car together and drove through the snow like a sliding hockey puck on ice as we headed toward the main road. Looking back it was crazy to even try to navigate through the storm, but we were young and stupid. My only clear thought was that I wished Carl would just disappear…go away and never come back.”
    “Oh, Gunnar…you were young and hurting. You didn’t know what to feel.”
    “I knew enough that I didn’t want to return to the mêlée. Sure, when Carl sobered up he’d probably be sorry and fall all over himself making empty apologies and promises, and things would be good for a couple days, maybe even a week or two. But I’d seen the cycle enough to know he was a ticking time bomb—sober never lasted more than a handful of days for him, and then the chaos started all over again.
    “Anyway, on my way home from work I’d noticed this abandoned old house in a pasture not too far from where we lived. It had caught fire that fall, was practically gutted but still standing. I guess the people who owned it were trying to figure out what to do with it. I don’t know. I got this idea that Morgan and I could sleep things off there…wait for the dust to settle and plan our next move. Anything was better than going home right then, with things so out of control. Honestly, I didn’t know how I’d ever go back there.
    “Like I said before, Morgan was only eleven and he was completely freaked out, shivering from the cold and the way my arm was bleeding. He’d seen too many shows on TV and he was convinced I was going to die. So I found an old towel in the trunk of the car, wrapped my arm as best I could and then pulled up some of the house’s floorboards, got a fire going in the rutted hearth. Smoke fanned over the room, almost thick enough to choke, but at least it was warm. We settled down along the floor, and I did my best to calm Morgan. Looking back, I realize it must have been so much harder for him, being the youngest. I can’t imagine how frightened, how helpless, he must have felt that night.
    “As my rage eased to a simmer uncertainty set in. I’d stolen Carl’s car. When he emerged from his stupor he would surely come looking for it, and that could turn ugly—fast. Morgan started to whine. He was worried about Mom back at the house all alone with the old man, worried about the car that was now in our possession. He was cold, exhausted, and hungry and, I suppose, just tired of it all.”
    “I guess I should have seen it coming. He’d just turned eleven—not even as old as Kyle is now—and it was all too much for him to handle. Instead of trying to ease his fears, I got angry. My nerves were frazzled, and I felt as if I’d stumbled into a pit there was no way out of. The harder Morgan cried, the more his whining fueled my temper. I was ugly to him, Maddie, so impatient. When his whines escalated to begging, I screamed at him to shut up, that we weren’t going back and that we might never go back. He just cried harder and said if I wouldn’t take him, then he’d find his way home on