WHEN he got home, he quickly inked two more names into his black book. Anderson and Barbara. They deserved nothing better.
This exercise had become a kind of psychological relief for Matthew...his own secret way of getting back at all of them. This new ‘punishment’ book of his pleased him a lot. It pleased him so much that he created a special place for it on his shelf of Spider-Man comic books, Spider-Man models and detective novels.
“Matthew, Matthew, Mom’s arguing with Nora,” Stephanie shouted from his door and he closed the book. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing?” Matthew replied, getting up. He failed to see the book’s edges beginning to smolder as he followed Stephanie out of his room and closed the door behind him. Now Nora’s voice was audible from down below since she was shouting. Her mother appeared to be trying to reason with her in a lower tone of voice.
“I won’t, Mom,” Nora repeated angrily. “He’s not my brother and we all know that, and lest we forget, I lost Leonard because of him?”
“Don’t you think Leonard must be a fool to have left you because of him?” Lora pressed on and this peeved her daughter.
“I don’t think so, Mom,” Nora denied vehemently. How could her mother understand? It was all more complicated than just Matthew’s adoption. Patricia’s trick had contributed immensely to her losing Leonard, but she didn’t want to mention this, because it would implicate her in no small manner. “Leonard is . . . under pressure from all this. He’s really trying to . . . understand it all,” she rather pointed out.
“I feel you, dear, but you must apologize to Matthew,” her mother reiterated. What’s gotten into you, Nora?”
“I won’t, Mom,” the sixteen-year-old screamed, freaking out, and stalked away. “He’s not a Quentin and will never be.”
“Nora’s angry,” Stephanie observed beside Matthew and he sadly nodded.
“She’s a misfit,” he unconsciously told her.
“Who’s a misfit, Matt?”
“Dunno,” he confessed. “Anybody can be one anytime. Anderson was one today and I put his name in my black book.”