Chapter 1 - The Tongs
My name is Reid Callahan.
I was twenty-seven years old when my five-year-old daughter screamed beside my father’s barbecue grill.
Until that moment, I believed the worst thing Walter Callahan had ever done to one of his grandchildren was scare them.
He was loud.
Strict.
Old-fashioned.
The sort of sixty-year-old man who said things like:
“Children need to know who’s in charge.”
I had heard that sentence so many times growing up that eventually it became background noise.
My daughter Lily did not grow up with the same background noise.
That should have mattered more to me.
The barbecue happened in my parents’ backyard outside Worcester, Massachusetts.
Big suburban lawn.
Wooden deck.
Above-ground pool.
Swing set my father had built when my sister Erin’s son Mason was four.
Folding tables under white canopies.
Twenty-three relatives.
Adults drinking beer.
Children running through sprinklers.
My father behind his oversized gas grill as though it were a command post.
The whole thing was supposed to be ordinary.
My parents hosted a summer barbecue every July.
My mother Denise made too much potato salad.
My sister Erin criticized my parenting.
My father burned at least one hamburger while insisting he never burned anything.
Family tradition.
Lily wore a pale blue spaghetti-strap dress because she had attended a friend’s birthday party that morning and refused to change.
Ballet flats.
Hair tied in two messy braids.
She had brought a stuffed rabbit but abandoned it somewhere near the patio within twenty minutes.
Mason was eight.
Sports shorts.
Red jersey.
Sneakers.
He and Lily had known each other their entire lives.
Sometimes best friends.
Sometimes sworn enemies over things like whose turn it was to use a pool noodle.
That afternoon they had been chasing each other around the lawn.
I left for perhaps fifteen minutes.
Firewood for the fire pit.
My father insisted the grocery-store bundle was overpriced, so he sent me and my cousin Jack to grab wood from the stack behind my uncle’s house two streets away.
When I returned, I carried six split logs against my chest.
I heard Lily before I saw her.
A scream.
High.
Sharp.
Not a tantrum.
Pain.
I dropped the logs.
One landed on my shoe.
I barely noticed.
Lily stood beside the grill.
Her right hand extended.
My father held long stainless-steel barbecue tongs.
The jaws glowed faintly from the heat because he had left them resting too close to the burners.
He jerked them away from Lily’s small hand.
She screamed again.
I ran.
“Dad!”
Walter turned.
I shoved him backward with both hands.
Hard.
He stumbled against the grill cart.
“What the hell—”
I scooped Lily into my arms.
“Get away from my daughter!”
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
Her whole body shook.
“Daddy.”
“I’ve got you.”
She clutched her right hand against her chest.
I tried to see.
“Baby, show me.”
“No.”
“It’s okay.”
She cried harder.
My sister Erin rushed over.
Not to Lily.
To Mason.
He sat near the edge of the patio with a scraped knee.
Erin crouched.
“Oh my God, Mason.”
He looked more frightened than hurt.
There was blood on one knee.
Surface scrape.
Nothing major.
Erin looked toward Lily.
Then me.
“Your brat ruined everything!”
I stared.
“What?”
“She shoved Mason.”
“I didn’t!” Lily screamed.
Erin pointed.
“They were fighting over the ball.”
Mason said nothing.
My mother Denise stood near the picnic table.
Fifty-five.
Casual pants.
White summer top.
Arms folded.
Cold.
Watching.
I lowered myself onto one knee with Lily.
“Let me see your hand.”
She finally opened it.
A red mark crossed the side of her palm and two fingers.
No charred skin.
No catastrophic injury.
Still unmistakably a fresh thermal burn.
I looked up at my father.
He had set the tongs down beside the smoking grill.
Calmly.
As if we were discussing spilled juice.
“What did you do?”
Walter looked at Lily.
Then me.
“She needed to learn respect!”
Everything inside my chest changed.
“What?”
“She lied about pushing Mason. Then she reached toward the grill after I told her not to.”
Lily cried:
“No!”
Walter ignored her.
“You baby that kid until she thinks every adult is optional.”
I stood.
I moved Lily behind me.
My cousin Jack was close enough that I said:
“Take her.”
Lily grabbed my shirt.
“No.”
I turned.
“Stay right behind me, okay?”
She nodded.
I made sure she was away from the grill.
Away from Walter.
Then I punched my father.
One hard right hand.
His head snapped sideways.
Walter stumbled backward.
Lost balance.
Fell onto the grass beside the grill.
The family screamed.
Someone shouted my name.
My mother:
“Reid!”
Children scattered.
I stood over him.
My hand already hurt.
“Touch my daughter again, die!”
The sentence came out before judgment.
My father rolled onto one elbow.
Blood appeared near his lip.
He tried to rise.
I kicked the barbecue tongs across the lawn.
Metal skidded through the grass.
Then I grabbed Walter by the front of his dress shirt.
He glared into my face.
Still defiant.
“Take your brat and get lost!”
My anger became frighteningly calm.
Then a smaller voice spoke behind us.
“He did it to me too.”
I stopped.
Mason had moved away from Erin.
His face was white.
He pointed directly at Walter.
His hand trembled.
“He did it to me too.”
I slowly turned back toward my father.
May you like
And my mother’s face drained completely of color.
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