The Release

She heard her mom walking back in her direction and Lucy darted out into the hallway, phone in-hand, and tripped over the line of luggage—set up like soldiers marching off to war.

“Mom,” Lucy said and brandished her phone like a weapon. “Have you heard about all of this? Now they say that someone poisoned our water. The water! Mom, someone thinks that people are going to die from this! Like…actual humans now? Mom! This is serious.”

Maxine put her hand on Lucy’s phone and pushed it down toward the floor. “I already talked to your dad. He says there’s nothing to worry about. If we needed to worry, he’d know Lucy.”

“He’s not here?” Lucy gripped her phone tighter. His absence made her anxious—her father was a masterful voice of reason, a beacon of calm. He never used profanity.

“He’s meeting us at the airport. Some meeting he couldn’t get out of.” Maxine made an attempt to scoot around Lucy, but she remained rooted, legs outstretched, hands across her chest. “Fifty-minutes Lucy. Fifty-minutes.”

“Mom,” Lucy repeated. She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Mom.” Then just, “I’m scared.”

For a brief second, she thought she saw her mother’s own fear flicker across her face, but then her mom smiled and leaned in, kissed her on the forehead, and moved her out of the way. “Look, maybe some sicko poisoned all the pets. And I hope they catch him, or her, and throw them into the far reaches of hell...but when it comes to disasters, I trust your father. By the time we land in paradise, we won’t be thinking about any of this fear mongering. I haven’t had a vacation in six years...six years! So. Get.” She swatted her hand against Lucy’s backside and with a nod took off grabbing one suitcase with her.

Lucy watched her mom walk out of sight and then ducked back into her room and shut the door; she dialed her father’s phone without thinking. She needed to talk to him, needed to hear the reassurance herself. It rang and rang before her dad finally picked up.

“Morning sweetie,” her dad said as he picked up the phone. Before Harper arrived, Lucy was the only girl in a house of smelly, fighting, dirt-loving boys. Her father doted on her, but he never called her princess, never made her feel like she was special just because she was a girl; he always said awkward things like, “Hey, darling, I just wanted to let you know that I’m so proud of you for your eighty-six percent in math class. You’re trying so hard.” It was like he read a chapter in a parenting book about raising strong, self-confident daughters and followed it to the letter. It would have been more helpful if he had read a book on how to deal with painfully self-aware and awkward daughters with moderate ambitions.

“Dad? Have you seen the news? Mom is all on some Seychelles-inspired happy-juice, but Dad…Dad. This is ridiculous. Are we actually just going to pretend that this isn’t happening? Did someone poison the dogs, Dad?” She took a breath.

“Lucy—”

“Does that mean that someone poisoned all the animals?”

“Please, Lucy—”

“It’s a big deal, Dad. And why aren’t we talking about it? And why did you have to work today? Didn’t your job give you this vacation as a reward? Can’t they let you actually have the day your vacation starts off from work?” She flopped herself back down on the edge of her bed and bounced her knee in agitation.

“It’s okay to be worried, sweetheart,” her father’s calm voice said back to her. “I think the news is worrisome. But you are not in danger. I am giving you my word. And, as an added bonus, reason number fifty-two why I’m glad we don’t have pets.” He chuckled, but then trailed-off. “Darling, I’m sorry. But I don’t know what you want me to do. You have a limo to the airport in a bit. Focus on that for me.”

“Can’t a poison that hurts animals also hurt people?”

Lucy’s dad drew in a quick breath and then let out a sigh. “Yes. It’s very possible.”

“Then how can you say—”

“My sweet girl,” her father was quiet for a beat. “I don’t know anything that could help you here and I have to go. I do. I have a plane to catch too. Okay? See you at the airport. Vacation of a lifetime. Right?”

She grumbled into the phone a defeated growl. “Fine. The rest of the world will be in shambles,” she glanced down again at her phone and scrolled through some new articles, “with some new strain of flu virus? The news is saying that...Dad?” There was no answer.

Then he said, “Lucy. Make sure you get in the limo so you don’t miss the plane. Go help your mom with the little ones. Turn your phone off. Start daydreaming of scuba diving. I’m hanging up. I love you.”

Lucy waited for a long moment to see if he had really hung up—but she heard the distinct click and saw the flash of their call time. He was not a dad well suited for her panic and worry; Lucy knew that if there was reason to worry, her father would tell her in calm, well-managed tones. She pushed the fear aside and grudgingly rose to her feet.

Out in the hallway, Ethan nudged her on his way to the bathroom. She turned on him. “Have you seen the news this morning?”

He yawned. “Yes,” he answered.

“Aren’t you worried?”

“No,” was all Ethan replied before shutting the door with a deliberate slam.

Paranoia was a trait that Lucy had inherited from her deceased grandmother. When she was alive, her mother would always sit the two of them together at the di

Everyone else treated grandma like a senile pet, but Lucy loved to hear about the bears that sneaked through her apartment at night and delivered the poison for the “agents” and how her husband, a grandfather that Lucy never met, was the actual inventor of the microwave and that the government stole his plans and set “that Percy Spencer up as a puppet.” When Lucy repeated the story, her father rolled his eyes. “My father did not invent the microwave. He had no knowledge of radar technology. I respect that Grandma wants to idolize him, but my dad was a mediocre scientist at best.”

Grandpa King’s lifelong goal was to prove the existence of time travel, but Grandma King said he failed. “A life’s work down the drain,” she would sigh. “I know because if he had figured it out, wouldn’t he have come back to visit me? I could go for a visit with a younger man right about now.” Then Lucy would blush and motion that Grandma was wearing a piece of fruit on her chin, which the old lady would brush to the floor and then say with disdain, “If your parents had a dog, they wouldn’t need a vacuum.”

When Grandma died peacefully in her sleep one night, Lucy mumbled something about wanting to inscribe on her tombstone: “Poisoned by bears.” But the rest of the family was vehemently against the idea and Lucy was outvoted.

As Lucy dressed for the day, she cha

With great reluctance, she began to pack her carry-on—a gift from her mom for Christmas one year. In the embroidered bag, she tossed in some books and her writing journal. But when she went to her backpack to retrieve her mountains of class work, she found a math book and nothing else.

With dread, Lucy tore through her room. But her homework was nowhere in sight. “Idiot,” Lucy mumbled and slapped her forehead. A locker drop before last period and then the distracting text from Ethan had resulted in her leaving two weeks worth of homework at school. Granted none of it actually mattered; but that was not the point—if one of her teachers had asked her to say the alphabet backwards while performing an interpretive dance, Mama Maxine would make sure it was completed before any fun was had.