This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (10 page)

Funny how finding the lockbox

Helps me find a way to

Forgive Dad for something

He hadn't really done.

I feel my heart's door

Becoming hinged

Again.

So that maybe

I might be able

To open it again sometime.

Maybe sometime soon.

“The proper tool for the proper job,” is what Dad always says. A flathead screwdriver is not the proper tool to open a lockbox, but when you don't have the key to a box you want to open
—
a box you need to open, you have no choice
—
you try to pick the lock, but it's impossible, so you have to find the proper tool
—
the key.

My mission: to find the lockbox key. I will stop at nothing to find it.

Dear Mom,

Even though I don't remember what it was like when you were here, I feel like something's missing now that you're gone. Like the feeling you have when you get your hair cut real short after having it long. You keep touching your neck and the back of your head wondering if you'll ever get used to how different it feels. I don't think I'll ever get used to how different it feels without you.

Dad takes good care of me. But a dad is not the same as a mom. It's like the difference between riding in a beat-up old Jeep instead of a brand-new fancy car. Both can take you where you want to go, but the ride just isn't the same. Because having a mom would make all the difference in the world.

I found the box that (I think) has some of your things in it. I'm hoping I'll find out more about you when I open it. Maybe if I know more about you, I could be more like you. Being like you might make me miss you just a little bit less.

♥ Love,

Ratchet (Rachel)

P.S. Did Dad call me Ratchet when you were alive?

(If Dad read this, I bet he'd be sad.)

Maybe it was the thought of that lockbox locked up tight inside the bay window seat. Maybe it was my heart wanting so badly to forgive Dad and give him a second chance. Maybe it was the growing ache inside me for something.

But it didn't matter what it was that made me ask the question. It didn't matter because Dad said, “Ratchet, leave well enough alone,” when I asked him about the lockbox.

“But, Dad
—
” I started to say, but never finished because he interrupted with, “It's nothing that concerns you. You hear me?”

And I felt my anger closing the door again on forgiveness.

The mute button

Has been pressed.

Again.

Every day

Life is still happening
—

Eating meals,

Fixing cars,

Sneaking off

To build go-carts

With the boys,

But the sound

Between Dad and me

Is turned off.

I'm not sure if he

Even notices.

Maybe

It isn't an accident

When the jack slips

And Dad screams,

“JACK IT UP!

JACK IT UP!”

And I do,

Right away!

But it's too late.

Blood is everywhere.

Dad's thumb,

Crushed.

I'd been lowering a car with the floor jack. To rest it on the jack stand. Something I'd done hundreds of times. Even so, Dad had reminded me, like he always does, “Take it slow...Take it slow...” And I
did
take it slow. At first. But then something happened. Did my hand slip? Did the car slip? Or did I go too fast? On purpose? Because I was mad. So mad at Dad.

But now I see him

Holding his hand,

The hand that knows how to

Tighten bolts and loosen screws,

Squeeze pliers and connect hoses,

Remove gaskets and stretch oil rings into place

Without even looking.

The hand that knows how to do everything.

He's holding it out like it's on fire.

And I'm crying,

“Dad, Dad,

I'm sorry,

I'm sorry!”

“Hurry!

Get the first aid kit!”

And I do.

Ripping it open,

Fumbling through it,

Finding some gauze,

And watching my hands shake

As I unwrap it.

“Ratchet, it's okay.

It was an accident.

Don't worry,”

Dad says as the white gauze turns bright red

As blood seeps into its woven strands.

And now my tears

Come from somewhere else.

A place so deep,

A place so deep

I never even knew it was there.

And I feel myself breaking from the inside.

Later,

Dad's stitches

Hold the skin

Between his thumb

And index finger together,

But it tears my insides apart.

Seeing it

When he changes the bandage

Makes my chest

Feel tighter than Dad's skin looks.

And my head throbs every time I think about what the doctor said. “Stay out of the garage for at least a week. This thing gets infected, and you'll
really
be sorry.”

I am much sorrier than that already.

I knew why I was sorry, but for some reason, Dad seemed sorry too. I'm not sure about what, but he told me to tell the boys it was okay to build the go-carts in our garage.

“That way you can use our tools when you help them,” Dad said.

Somehow he had known all along that I had been helping the boys. It made me think he might know other things too: like how bad I felt about dropping the car. It made me feel good to think he knew that, but if he somehow knew that, did it mean he knew there was a chance the accident hadn't really been an accident? If he knew that, I knew my sorry would never be enough.

Dad couldn't work in the garage, so he was inside making phone calls. Talking to anyone who would listen to him go on and on about Moss Tree Park.

Dad had found paperwork on Herman Moss's other parks. He thought that was proof that there had to be the same paperwork for Moss Tree Park, but something
—
something not so ethical, as Dad put it
—
had happened to the Moss Tree Park paperwork. Dad kept telling people that “someone,” probably that crooked excuse we have for a mayor, and his buddy, Pretty Boy Eddie, decided to take matters into their own hands because they're so greedy and all they think about is money. Of course, the city council members, who are all friends with both of them, didn't see it that way.

Dad kept saying in this weird ominous voice, “You can run, but you can't hide, especially not from the Good Lord. The truth is going to come out.”

Every time I looked at the big bandage on Dad's hand, I felt like his voice was for me. I couldn't listen to that voice of doom anymore, so I was out sweeping the garage. Singing along with a Beatles song trying to let the lyrics fill up my head.

Then I heard someone else singing too. I turned around, and there was Hunter.

“I thought
I
was the only one who knew all the words to that song,” he said.

I didn't know what he was doing here.

“I know we don't have another class until the weekend,” he said, “but would you help me figure out how to get the keepers on the valves in my engine?”

It took me one nanosecond to say yes.

I yelled inside to Dad that I was going to Hunter's.

Hunter and I spent the next hour in his garage taking things apart, and step-by-step, putting them back together. Once we got it all back together, Hunter looked as happy as I felt. But that wasn't the best part. The best part was that our hands touched three times.

When we finished working in Hunter's garage, we used the hose on the driveway to wash our hands.

“Thanks for all your help, Ratchet,” Hunter said.

“No problem,” is what I said out loud, but what I was saying in my head was, “Are you kidding? I should be thanking you for asking me to help.”

That's when my hand slipped, and I squirted water right in Hunter's face.

“Hey!” he said, acting all mad.

“Sorry,” I said.

I couldn't believe I'd gotten him so wet.

Hunter wiped the water out of his eyes, but then he laughed, grabbed the end of the hose, and pointed it right at me. I yanked it away from him and sprayed him again. He ran to the front yard and turned on the other hose lying in the bushes.

“Take that!” he yelled as he aimed and fired.

“Oh, yeah,” I said as I picked up a nearby garbage can lid and held it up like a shield.

“Not gonna work!” Hunter yelled, squirting his hose high into the air so it arched like a fountain over the top of my shield.

“I'm soaked!” I screamed as the water poured down on me. I dropped the lid and squirted my hose right at Hunter, drenching him from head to toe.

“What about me? Do I look dry?” Hunter asked.

Both of us kept squirting our hoses and running around trying to dodge the spray raining down on us.

When we were out of breath, and there wasn't a dry spot on either one of us, we called a truce.

Just then Hunter's mom came out on the driveway.

“Hunter, is that any way to treat a girl?” she asked.

“Oh, Mom,” Hunter groaned.

As I walked home leaving a trail of water on the sidewalk, all I could think was I hope it's exactly how you treat a girl if you want her to be your friend.

Dad had not only agreed to let the boys work in our garage, but he said he'd help them when he had time. I thought working with Dad again would help soothe my guilt, but the first thing Dad did when the boys got there was hold up his bandaged hand. I couldn't look at anybody.

“Doesn't matter how good you are with the tools or how much you know about engines. What really matters?”

The boys all mumbled the word “safety” because the safety rules were the first thing Dad had taught them, and now thanks to me, he had a great excuse to review them.

“Accidents like this can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

As Dad told the story of me “accidentally” lowering the jack too fast, I felt as if the weight of a semitrailer truck filled with the heaviest load it could possibly carry inched closer and closer to my chest getting ready to crush my soul.