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pleased with herself.
    “Do you think Matt is the one who keeps calling and hanging up when he gets the machine?” Maggie asked. It had been bothering her. She knew Kurt hated leaving messages, and it drove her crazy, playing back the tape and hearing all those hang-ups.
    “No, I don't think so,” Anne said. “It's not his style.”
    Suddenly Maggie heard her dad's truck pull into the driveway. That wiped the smile right off her face. He'd bully his way into the conversation, turning it into some big thing about a Democrat in the Governor's Mansion and how they were ruining the economy, when all he'd want was the excuse to drink beer and listen to his own voice. Her mother ran her ass off all year long, twelve months without a break, but her dad had the romantic notion that he only had to work when the sun was shining and the roses were in bloom.
    “Excuse me,” Maggie said to Anne. “I'd better get to my homework.”
    But it was too late. Big Belly Beardface lumbered through the kitchen door, not even bothering to wipe the snow off his boots, and practically pushed her away from the refrigerator. He pretended the maneuver was a hug, but it was just an offensive play to get to the Bud.
    “A lot of water damage,” he said to the air in general. “Smoke damage, water damage, the whole nine yards. We're looking at a healthy thirty grand.”
    “How long will it take?” Anne asked.
    He narrowed his eyes, gazing at the ceiling. He shuffled his boots and looked at the floor. Then, as if only a beer would make sharp his powers of estimation, he reached for a long neck.
    “Anne?” he asked, holding a bottle in the air.
    “No thanks.”
    “We're probably talking April, beginning of May.”
    “You're going to work in the winter?” Maggie asked.
    “Sure, Princess. Why not? If there's work we'll do it no matter what. And there's work to be done down at Grandma and Grandpa Fitzgibbon's, that's for sure.”
    It's weird, him calling the big house Grandma and Grandpa Fitzgibbon's, Maggie thought. They've been dead for twenty years. They died before they even had grandchildren. Her father was full of shit. She'd believe him working in the winter when she saw it with her own two eyes.
    “April. That's not too bad,” Anne said. “Guess I'll look for an apartment till then.”
    “That couch lumping up your back?” he asked, trading his empty for a fresh bottle.
    “No, the couch is fine,” Anne said. “Thanks for letting me stay. I know it's a pain, having someone take up residence smack in the middle of the living room.”
    “Hey, no bother.”
    No kidding, Maggie thought. Like he even knew Anne was there. She'd pull out the couch after he went to bed, and she'd make it up hours before he'd rouse his rotund hide.
    “Princess, how about doing up a frozen pizza? Mom's got some in the freezer. Smelled her cooking 'em last week. Pesto, something yummy like that.”
    “They're for Valentine's Day,” Maggie said. “She said everything in the freezer is on order for dinners and stuff.”
    Her father grinned, his red lips plumping through his thick brown beard. “Damn kids. Show no respect. Never mind.”
    He threw his parka on the kitchen chair, for someone else to hang up, and he headed down the cellar stairs to get his own stupid pizza. Anne was watching Maggie, waiting for her to say something, but all of a sudden Maggie had to get out of there. She felt so furious, she had the urge to break something. So it really confused her, the fact that her eyes were stinging, the way they did when she was about to cry.
    She left the kitchen without another word to Anne. Damn it, she thought. Shitfuck. Upstairs, she slammed her bedroom door shut. She grabbed her pillow and yanked both ends, wanting to rip it apart. Maggie was boiling mad, and tears were burning her cheeks.
    In the midst of her tantrum, she realized it wasn't her father she wanted to pull apart, but Anne. Anne, who had seemed to have the best life, a family so