Mark came in from the back, looked at Kenny’s books, and shrugged.
“She’s upset,” Mark said.
“I can hear she’s upset,” Kenny said.
“You can’t blame her for being upset,” Mark said. “The last time one of us left home, he went missing. And you know she’s convinced Chester is dead.”
“I’m convinced Chester is dead,” Kenny said. “But that’s not the point. I mean, for God’s sake, Mark. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Can’t do what? Live with your family? Lots of people live with their families.”
“It’s not the living with them I don’t like.”
Mark looked away. “It’s not an unreasonable thing to ask. That you be in school, I mean. You can’t just lounge around the house and not do anything.”
“I don’t lounge around the house and not do anything. I’ve got a business. I’m not selling drugs, and I’m making more than enough to live on my own. And if she doesn’t want me to do that, then let’s cut this crap about school and stop treating me like I was six.”
Mark looked at the floor. Kenny wondered what it was his brother thought about all the time. The hallway was all polished up and pretty the way their mother liked it. It had some kind of long-haired carpet on the floor, and little pictures of kittens in frames on the walls. The place made Kenny claustrophobic.
“Maybe,” Mark said, “you should give up the fancy cars and come to work in the business.”
“They’re antique cars, not fancy cars,” Kenny said. “And the business wouldn’t pay me enough money. Never mind the fact that it wouldn’t stop all this crap about school. Look, all I want to do is concentrate on my own business, open a showroom somewhere, expand the Web sites, do what I have to do. And not go to school. There’s no point to it.”
“There’s always a point to school,” Mark said.
He looked so smug, Kenny wanted to hit him.
Then the door at the back of the hall opened, and their father came in. Their father was the largest man Kenny had ever known. He was six foot three if he was anything at all. Chester had been tall like that. Kenny was not.
Stew Morton came down to where Kenny and Mark had faced off, and looked at Kenny’s books. Then he looked anywhere at all except at Kenny’s face.
“Your mother’s crying,” he said.
“I’ve been trying to talk to him,” Mark said.
“Nobody needs to talk to me,” Kenny said. “I’m not going to do this anymore, Pop, that’s all there is. This is the last of school, I really mean it. I’m going to finish this course. I paid for it. I can’t get a full refund. I’ll finish it. But that’s it. I’m done.”
“It’s not school your mother is crying about,” Stew said. “It’s you. Moving out.”
“I won’t move to the damned trailer park,” Kenny said.
“How do you think she feels? I’m not asking you to stay forever. She doesn’t want you to stay forever. She just wants you to stay until it’s cleared up.”
“It’s been twelve years,” Kenny said. “Maybe you have to accept the possibility that it’s never going to be cleared up. There are cases like that, Pop. There are cases that just don’t get solved.”
“This one will get solved,” Stew said. “She’s got the FBI interested.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Kenny said. “She’s tried them before. They just aren’t going to come across. They can’t even do it unless they can prove a crime has been committed and that it had something to do with crossing state lines. We don’t even know a crime was committed here—”
“Your brother wouldn’t just run off without telling anybody,” Stew said. “And he wouldn’t have left all his things in that trailer. Your mother talked to him at eight o’clock on the night he went missing, and he was going over to that woman’s house—he was going—”
“Yeah, I know. He was going over to see Darvelle. I was here when all this happened. And it’s beside the point. I’m not going to school anymore. That’s the end of it. And I’m not going into the business. That’s the end of that. And if you can all live with both those things, that’s one thing, but if you can’t, you can’t.”
“Your mother won’t force you to go to school anymore,” Stew said. “I’ve talked to her about it.”
“You talked to her about it before,” Kenny said. “She lets up for a few weeks until she thinks the crisis has passed, and then she’s right back at it. I’ve found a place over in Morris Corners. I can move in on the first of September. I’m not going to live in Chester’s trailer park.”