Chapter 57

Three days had passed. Mark was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of his truck. His creaking and groaning, and he kept glancing in the rearview mirror as the music played. He could see the perfect little shingles on the perfect little dollhouse sitting in the bed of his truck. He continued to drum his fingers, trying to sing to the radio louder. He pulled up to the dump, and he went to throw it off the truck, when the man working at the dump said, “hang on! I’ll take that dollhouse.”

Mark frowned and lied. “It’s covered in cat piss.”

The man wrinkled his nose. Mark threw the dollhouse with as much might as he could, so the man would see it shatter in the pile of junk. He looked visibly discouraged, and trudged off.

But even as Mark saw it shatter, the dollhouse slowly started to repair itself. Surely would take a few hours, but eventually that dollhouse would stand sturdy and strong inside the dump. But Mark had a plan for this to, and he ripped opened his garbage bags and dumped them on top of the dollhouse. Rotting food, old papers, anything else he could dump on top of that he did. For anyone to find it, they’d have to dig through shit to get there. Maybe that would be enough of a deterrent.

He climbed back in the car and he thought to himself that he still wasn’t sure that his little family was going to be okay. Beth hadn’t spoken since they’d gotten back home. Coralina seem to make up for it, by being extra bubbly.

And Kelly was in a foul mood. Her throat was still covered in bruises from his big hands. Gratefully she was keeping it covered, because it broke his heart to see.

But he still felt like a shitty father.