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Ty stood there with those outrageous freckles, like cheetah spots, with snowflakes drifting down from that bloated gray sky, and the juniper trees behind him, the ground dusted with snow like the powdered sugar on Jenny's beloved pound cake. Another dang lump in my throat. I just nodded, then opened the kitchen door.

The house was cold, dark, and empty.

I found chicken thawed out in the fridge and ready to fry, potatoes to peel, boil, and mash, and a freezer bag of our garden corn. Here I was alone with this new kid, unchaperoned, but all we did was talk and cook. That guy knew his way around a kitchen.

It was so dark out, the stars filled the sky. Jenny’s pound cake was cool now, flipped out of the pans, dusted with powdered sugar, and adorned with a few pine cones and evergreen sprigs. Jenny had always loved the little blue berries of our junipers, so I added those too.

What were the chances Mom and Dad had found her and she’d come bursting through that door?

I had the table set and everything keeping warm in the oven when Ted finally yipped the news of their return. It took forever for the van door to slide open and footsteps to sound on the driveway. I flung open the door and saw why. Their arms were laden with Jenny’s clothes on hangers, her coats, and piles of stuff visible inside the van. I held the door and looked hopefully at them for news, but their eyes were downcast and they marched past me without a word. I moved to the van to help unload. Ty took over the door holding, while Ted nipped at Buddy every time he barked and kept him from getting underfoot.

Up the creaking wooden steps, up to Jenny’s room with her stuff, and finally, the hand washing and the scrape of chairs across the wood floor of the kitchen. “This is Ty,” I announced. “Ty Chrsytie. He gave me a ride home after school.”

I wasn’t expecting them to smile big like Ty’s grandpa and insist that he stay awhile, but I had hoped they would do more than look right through him.

“I’m not hungry,” Mindy said, and she flew up the stairs. As she stomped to her room, the floor boards shook and the ceiling light quivered over the kitchen table. I glanced at Mom, expecting her to yell something at Mindy, but she just shook her head at the ceiling, moved to the doorway, and stood her hand on the wood trim, unmoving.

“Ah, it was a pleasure to meet you,” Ty said. “I best be getting back to Grandpa now.”

Was Ty invisible to everyone in the house except for me?

“Let me send some dinner with you.” I turned my back before anyone could shoot me a disapproving look and grabbed some glass containers with lids from the cupboard. “I’ll get the dishes back from you later. There’s plenty of chicken. Butchered by yours truly. Your grandpa will love it.”

Don’t look, don’t look, and I didn’t, and Mom and Dad said nothing.

“Here.” I took a knife and sliced up the backside of Jenny’s cake. She wasn’t here for it, after all. It was alwasy best fresh and warm out of the oven with crispy, caramelized edges. I’d baked two layers, the small one on top, so I scooted the whole top onto a plate for Ty, then rearranged the evergreen sprigs on the bottom layer.

“Kris, no,” Ty tried to protest. I steered him out the door. His backpack had never left the car. He’d worn a hoodie and no coat. I carried the cake on top of the containers packed with chicken, potatoes and corn. There was still plenty left in the kitchen. He opened the passenger door and I deposited his carryout on the floor.

“You earned it. Thanks again, and send your grandpa my regards.” That was an old fashioned phrase, one I hadn’t used before. “Make that my warmest regards.”

“You gonna be all right?” Ty asked.

I nodded. “See ya tomorrow.”

Bennett tradition was to watch and wave until a visitor had driven out of sight. I shivered, not having donned a coat, and stood with Ted at my side until that black Mustang turned onto the blacktop and the red lights receded.

Then I went in to face the music. Another detention.

“Good dinner,” Dad mumbled as I took a seat at the table.

Mom didn’t look up from her plate.

“I guess nothing new turned up all the while you were gone?” I pleaded, hoping against hope.

Dad shook his head.

Ok. Nobody felt like talking. Fine. I wanted to know what was said all afternoon and into the evening, but there was a bright side to this awful silence. No lectures about my detention!

Nobody asked me about my detention. Not a single question about Ty was asked, either.

Silence wasn’t such a bright side after all.

At school the next day, Ethan was standing too close to the little blonde bimbo and gazing into her eyes. Screw him. I managed to shut out the world and focus on Geometry and history. Lit class, though, about sent me into my third detention. Mrs. Schaffer was having us read Emily Dickinson.

APPARENTLY with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.

The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God.
Emily Dickinson (1830–86) Complete Poems

Well, thank you, Mrs. Schaffer.

The sun proceeds unmoved. That was rich. It was perfect. It was exactly how my life moved. God and his angels just watched, nodding with disapproval, while nature, bullies, frost, assassins, Lexi-bitches and misnamed Angels tried to steal what joy they could from me. Well, they couldn’t have it. I would be strong. Brave. Of good cheer. And I’d remember not to punch anyone’s light out today.

But boy, oh boy, did I feel like aiming a fist into Mrs. Schaffer’s face for this cold, heartless reminder of my sister who was gone and the world just continued to revolve without her.

Ethan might have looked my way. I didn’t return his glances. He had started his day hovering over Lexi, and I would go find Ty Chrystie and wear my brightest smile.

At lunchtime, Ty was across from Breanna, the adopted Asian girl who was as cool and mask-like as he was, now that I thought of it. I sat beside Breanna. Nothing new there. She was gazing intently into Ty’s eyes. Now, that was new.

Good God, it was some kind of conspiracy against me.

I listened for the thread of their conversation. Monstrous moonshine. What the heck?

“It’ like looking for a paw print on Mars, as Zagier put it, and finding one, so we know that the animal who left its print was there,” Ty said. “Now, researchers have to find the animal.”

Breanna nodded eagerly. “The string theory that would illuminate all these deep connections.”

What deep connections?

I crunched into my carrot sticks, listening, not really grasping anything. Breanna seemed to notice I was on the outside looking in and not seeing much. “There’s a geometry that produces the physical effects we see in the real world,” she said to me, her expression going neutral again. “Physicists are getting closer to finding it.”

“Ok.”

My mind detached and I revisited the conversation I was having only yesterday with Ty in his old black Mustang. I blanked out in Mr. Cook’s office, and Ty said he’d been there. What did he mean by that? And where were his parents? His grandpa used words like miscreants. Don’t risk getting in trouble on their account; they weren’t worth it. Maybe not, but I resisting the urge to hit them was getting harder all the time, not easier.

Without being part of the conversation, I was free to worry about Mindy. She wasn’t late for the bus this morning. She wasn’t eating. None of my chicken last night, nothing much this morning. And Mom didn’t say a word to her about it. For Mindy, not talking was also out of character. Jenny was getting to all of us, but I seemed to be the only one who hadn’t gone into zombie mode.

What was up with Breanna, all animated and interested in Ty? I knew Lexi couldn’t have put her up to it.

After school I made it to the bus on time and stared out the window all the way home instead of catching up on more Emily D. Stupid Mrs. Shaffer. I would find some choice words to say about the happy flower beheaded at its play.

My stomach clenched. Jenny. Where are you, Jenny. Could physics and string theory somehow carry my thoughts to you and get you to call home? Be strong, Jenny. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with, don’t melt down and go soft like Mindy. Fight, Jenny. Fight.

Moonshine. That reminded me of a song Mom liked by The Moody Blues. It was called “Under Moonshine.” I’d have to look for it when I got home. I only remembered this:

The world keeps turning
The grass still grows green

---

and

You must stand tall
With your feet on the ground

---

But I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet when I got off the bus and Ted was there, but not Buddy. His pen was empty.

Buddy was gone.

[source: photo mine]
March Madness!!!! Day 16 - Prompt: Moonshine
March Madness!!!! Day 17 - Prompt: Ceiling

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