Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

“Sorry, Dad,” Will said under his breath, pausing for a moment, as Daphne looked as though she was about to cry, and they continued eating in silence, while Tyla chatted to break the tension, and Daphne ate her mashed potatoes first, keeping her eyes on her plate. They were used to his outbursts, but it made dinner more stressful than pleasant when he was like that. It happened a lot, more and more these days.

“How was school today?” he asked them, looking pointedly at his son. In second grade, Daphne wasn’t likely to have much to tell him about her academic accomplishments.

“It was okay,” Will answered for both of them, and avoided his father’s gaze.

“How was the math quiz?” He remembered.

Will hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t escape his father’s interrogation, and if he lied it would be worse. Tyla hated it when he put Will on the spot like that. Lately, he had developed a stammer, and his teacher had suggested speech therapy. “Not so good,” he answered in barely more than a whisper. Will resembled his father, with the same handsome blond looks. Daphne had dark hair and green eyes like her mother.

“What does ‘not so good’ mean? What did you get on it?”

“A fifty-five, Dad,” Will said, his eyes brimming with tears. “I got an F. I didn’t understand it. I have to meet with Mr. Joppla tomorrow after school.”

“Didn’t you work on it with him before?” Andrew said to Tyla, turning his laser beam eyes on her. “What the hell do you do with them? He’s in sixth grade. This is serious.”

“I tried. I don’t understand the way they do the math now either,” she said quietly. “We really did work on it, Andrew. He might need a tutor,” she said cautiously, suddenly feeling too sick to eat. The kitchen was bright and cheery, and the dinner was delicious, but when Andrew was in one of his moods, no one could eat. He was spoiling for a fight tonight.

“We had math in school today too,” Daphne said gently, trying to distract their father to give her brother some relief. “And reading,” she added. Andrew didn’t bother to answer her, and continued to harangue his wife about how irresponsible she was, and said that maybe she needed a tutor more than Will did, if she was too dumb to figure it out. He told Will that all he had to do was pay attention in class. He was smart enough to master the material, so obviously he was just lazy.

“He’s not lazy, Andy. He’s first in the class in English. He got an A+ on an essay last week. Math just isn’t easy for him.” Tyla tried to intervene on his behalf.

“And what’s an A on an essay going to get him? A job as a schoolteacher? He needs to work on math and science. I’m not paying private school tuition to have him flunk a math quiz.” There was dead silence at the table. They knew better than to answer him when he was on a rampage, and he was getting there.

The plates were still half full when Tyla cleared the table. She had made brownies and served them with ice cream for dessert. Andrew’s cellphone had vibrated with messages all through dinner. He glanced at them, but never responded while they were eating, unless the hospital was calling him in for an emergency, which wasn’t the case so far tonight. Will almost hoped they would call him back in. He knew his father would hound him all night about the math quiz.

The children asked permission to leave the table. Tyla gave it to them, and they scampered up the stairs, whispering to each other. Tyla saw Daphne give her brother a quick kiss to make him feel better.

“You have to stop being so hard on them,” she said softly, as she sat down next to him, after she’d removed their plates.

“Why? Do you want an idiot for a son? Do you want him to wind up a plumber like your brother?” he said nastily.

“My brother is dyslexic, and he makes a damn good living,” she said in defense of her younger brother. Andrew didn’t like her family, and viewed them with contempt.

“It’s your job to see that Will studies and gets decent grades,” he said accusingly, checking his messages again.

“I do it with him. Math isn’t his best subject. He’s gifted in English, and he loves history.” Andrew ignored her to answer a text, and then he looked at her more calmly for a minute, but there was a light in his eyes she didn’t like. She knew where it led.

“It’s my job to put them in good schools. It’s yours to see that they learn something.” She didn’t argue with him, she knew better. She was about to tell him again that he needed to go easy on Will. He had come home twice in the last week with severe stomachaches, and Daphne had started biting her nails. They all knew that Andrew had a fierce temper. He controlled it at work and with his patients, but he took it out on them. All the pent-up rage that had been gathering momentum throughout the day was unleashed on them as soon as he got home.

Tyla had just opened her mouth to speak when the house started shaking. It felt as though someone had picked it up and was shaking it from side to side, and then up and down. The lights flickered and went out. There was a hideous groaning sound, like a beast about to eat them, and Tyla could hear Daphne scream as she started to run out of the kitchen toward the stairs. Andrew grabbed her arm to stop her and yanked her back. He hurt her arm when he did it.

“Get under the table!” he shouted at her as she pulled free of him, and ran upstairs to her children. The house was still shaking when she got upstairs. Will was holding Daphne tightly in the doorway, while she continued to scream, and Tyla reached them, and held them in her arms until the shaking finally stopped. Daphne was crying, and there were tears swimming in Will’s eyes. It had felt as though the house was going to fall down, and they could hear dishes smashing in the kitchen, as they fell out of the cupboards and crashed on the floor.

“Get down here!” Andrew shouted at them, and the three of them walked cautiously down the stairs. The house had stopped shaking, and the groaning sound was receding, but they could still hear it.

“I smell gas,” Tyla said as she walked into the kitchen. It was dark in the house, and Andrew found a flashlight and shined it on them. It was pitch black outside, and the old wooden house was creaking loudly as it settled after the earthquake.

“I need a wrench to turn the gas off. What did you do with the tools?” he asked her. He looked startled but not frightened. “Stop crying,” he said to Daphne, as Tyla pulled her close. She was shaking.

“I don’t know. I think they’re in the garage where you put them.” He pulled open the front door, and they could see wires shooting sparks in the street, and people gathering with flashlights. He told Will to come and help him in the garage, and Tyla held Daphne’s hand as they walked outside. People were talking to one another and everyone looked shocked by the force of the quake, and panicked as an aftershock brought another wire to the ground across the street.

“Where the hell did you put the wrench?” Andrew asked through clenched teeth when he came back to them, with Will trailing behind him, looking scared. He wasn’t sure what was worse, his father or the earthquake, or the pitch black outside, and the live wires across the street. “I can’t turn the gas off without one,” he said to Tyla.

“I don’t use it,” she said quietly, trying to calm Daphne, “maybe we don’t have one.”

“Well, we’d damn well better find one before the house explodes or catches fire,” Andrew said, as people began coming out of their houses and walking into the street.

Daphne started to wail then. “Our house is going to burn down, and I left Martha inside.” Martha was her favorite doll, and Tyla didn’t dare go inside to get her, in case something fell, or the house exploded from the leaking gas.