Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash

to sift through the detritus is too strong, and so she relents with a sigh, turning back to Luke’s papers and her own unanswered questions. “But have your dad walk you out to the garage, just in case the reporters are still there when you leave.”
    In the kitchen, I grab the car keys from a hook over the phone, my fingers closing around the sharp metal. As I pass the den, I can see my father sitting in the huge leather chair he loves, his feet up on the ottoman. He has a drink resting on the arm of the chair, the whiskey mostly melted into amber-colored water, the glass sweating onto the worn leather the color of an old saddle. He’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, the blue one with the letters
MIT
emblazoned across the chest. My dad went with Luke for a campus visit last October, and when they came home, Luke was as animated as I’d ever seen him, waving his hands excitedly at the dinner table as he described the campus, the town of Cambridge, with its picturesque squares and efficient train system—the blue line, he called it—how you could hear bells ring out in the mornings, and students sat in cafés drinking tiny cups of espresso. Not like high school, he said, where either you were a dumb jock or a loser. He described the colors of the falling leaves—redder, more vibrant than Wisconsin’s, he said—how the air smelled of smoke. Intoxicating. He actually used that word, rolling it around in his mouth as if even the syllables themselves were luxurious.
    I stand in the doorway, waiting for my father to notice me. Bob Dylan is playing softly on the stereo, his nasal twang reverberating off the walls. The CD case sits discarded on the floor beside my father’s chair:
Blood on the Tracks.
His eyes are trained on the ceiling, so I clear my throat, which I notice is slightly sore, and he blinks twice, then looks up at me, his face impassive. “I’m going out for a little while,” I say, holding up the car keys as what? Evidence?
    She always wanted evidence that we were some happy family . . .
    (Weren’t we, Luke?)
    â€œNo, no,” he says, struggling to his feet and weaving there for a minute. “You need to stay here.” He’s trying to sound dad-like, authoritative, but he’s so blitzed, it would make me laugh if it weren’t so sad. If you’d asked me a few days ago, I would have told you that my father was not the kind of guy to dive for solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. But here we are, and this, like everything else that’s happened the past two days, makes me feel like my life has been hijacked, like everything I knew about the world has been an utter lie. Including my parents. Maybe
especially
my parents.
    â€œIt’s okay, Dad,” I say softly. “Mom said it was okay. I’ll just be gone for a little bit.”
    He still looks unsure, so unsteady on his feet that I wonder if he’ll fall over without me there to prop him up.
    â€œWhy don’t you just walk me to the garage so we can make sure the reporters aren’t there when I pull out?”
    â€œReporters,” he mutters. “Yes, yes, let’s get you taken care of,” he says in a falsely jovial tone of voice. He reaches out and musses my hair, the way he’s always done since I was a kid, his palm lingering on the top of my head. His eyes are rimmed with purple, and his clothes smell stale, as if he’s been wearing them for days. His hand moves down to cup my cheek, and I feel the calluses on his palm from afternoons playing b-ball with Luke in the driveway, back when Luke would still play with him. Back when Luke still cared about things like sports.
    When I get into the car and open the garage door, clicking the remote, the driveway is blessedly empty, and I sigh in relief, watching my father in the doorway, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his eyes vague and unfocused. Miranda stands in the