The Sense of Reckoning by Matty Dalrymple Page B

ledger books at the big worktable in the hotel’s kitchen. The first time he had gone looking for them and peeked through the swinging kitchen door, his father had had his head in his hands and his mother had been distractedly smoking a cigarette, something she never did during the day. He had snuck back to his room hoping they hadn’t known he was there—there was something embarrassing about having observed his parents so unguarded and demoralized. A few days later, a truck had come and his father had helped a man load the piano from the now-empty dining room into the back; a few days after that the same happened with the old grandfather clock that his father had taken such pride in winding each Sunday.
    But this year business was better. The people his parents referred to as “the regulars”—some from so long ago he hadn’t even been born yet—were back. His father’s shoulders weren’t quite so stooped these days, and he moved with more purpose, although with an underlying wariness that reminded Chip of a squirrel eating at the bird feeder while keeping an eye out for the neighborhood cat. Even now, with his mother saying things were looking up, it was as if his father believed that only frantic activity would keep bad luck at bay. His only leisure was working in the wood shop in a shed behind the hotel, but even then his projects were almost always for the hotel: repairing a dining room chair or mending balusters broken by guests as they hauled their luggage up the steps to the guest rooms on the second and third floors.
    In fact, the only event that had elicited some enthusiasm from his father was the installation of the new elevator—he liked to brag that not even some of the fancy hotels in Portland had elevators yet. Chip longed to operate the sliding door and metal grate, to move the handle that sent the elevator up or down, but his father had made it very clear that the elevator was not a toy and implied that there would be dire consequences if he found Chip using it as such.
    His father had said “toy” with such disdain that Chip had begun to fear for his actual toys, and he had fashioned a hiding place for them—a wooden box he kept under his bed. It was possible to see under his bed from the hallway, so he had gotten a board from the workshop of the same color as the floorboards and had propped it up in front of the box. It wouldn’t withstand close scrutiny, but it provided effective camouflage from a casual glance.  
    He would feel better if he had his bear, Timothy—he could put him away before his father came to wake him up in the morning. He climbed out of bed, slid aside the board, pulled out the toy box, and removed Timothy.
    But even holding Timothy didn’t soothe him. His brain flickered from thought to thought, he couldn’t get his legs in a comfortable position, a seam of his pajama bottoms was digging into his hip. He looked at the clock on his bedside table—the big hand was on the two. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to one hundred several times then opened them again—the big hand was still on the two.
    He decided to go downstairs and get a glass of milk. His mother sometimes warmed milk for him when he couldn’t sleep, but she wouldn’t be up anymore and, since he couldn’t use the stove, he hoped cold milk would work just as well as warm.  
    Even though it was highly unlikely that he would encounter any guests, he pulled on his robe and slipped his feet into his slippers as his father had instructed him to do if he had to leave the top floor at night. He made his way as quietly as he could down the stairs to the first floor and through the hallway that led to the kitchen.
    He was just about to push the door open when he heard voices inside, low but strained. It was his mother, his father, and ...Uncle Edward? It sounded like they were arguing and Chip, who avoided arguments whenever possible, had turned to go when he heard his father’s angry whisper.
    “You