I’ve always liked Kate. We never hung out much because she was married, but we had fun whenever we did hang out.
We lose track of the time until Jordan checks his phone and says, “Okay. It’s four thirty already, guys. We need to get back to work if we’re gonna be at Mom and Dad’s by six.”
“Okay,” Kate says. “Scott, you think you can handle some boxes? I can help Mikey with the sofa and the rest of the furniture.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one helping with that?” Jordan asks.
“Wouldn’t want you to hurt your pretty hands,” Kate teases as she pushes to her feet and starts toward the kitchen. On her way, she stretches her hand out and smacks the glass horse she mentioned previously so that it falls. As it hits the floor, it shatters, the pieces scattering across the floor.
“Oops,” she says, a wicked smirk spreading across her face. It’s the sort of smirk I’ve seen on Mikey when he seems particularly pleased with himself.
“Holy shit,” Mikey says.
“Good girl,” Jordan adds before we all get back to work.
16
After we drop the furniture off at the storage unit, we head to Mom and Dad’s with the remainder of Kate’s things she’ll need while staying there.
I white-knuckle the wheel.
Just thinking about dinner with my parents is stressful as fuck. I’m only at their house for brief periods like this—holidays and special occasions, this definitely counting as the latter.
I don’t like staying here long, but I know it matters to Kate and Jordan, so I do it for them.
When we enter the front door, Mom and Dad approach. Mom hugs Jordan and Kate before they move on to Dad. Mom wears a white blouse and jeans. Last time I saw her, her hair—dyed so it’s nearly black—came to her shoulders, but now it’s in a pixie-do. And although she’s smiling, I can see the uneasiness in her expression and feel her tension as she hugs me. She’s wondering the same thing as I am: will I be able to control my temper and keep from going off on Dad?
She doesn’t get it like he does because she doesn’t test and pick and push. She knows what she did was wrong, and as bad as it was, I still consider his treatment so much worse.
Dad makes a friendly smile. His head that used to be full of the same dark hair as me and Jordan has turned white. He wears a cream-colored polo tucked into a pair of light gray slacks that he has his hands in. He has a crease between his eyebrows—one that becomes more pronounced the longer we’re around each other, like being around me is stressing him out.
While Mom and Dad seem relatively calm and collected in this moment, even as they greet us as calmly as they can, I sense their disdain for one another. It’s something I’ve never been able to shake since I had to spend so much of my life witnessing it—Mom filled with silent disapproval for what Dad did, like she’s using it as leverage for the rest of their lives, and Dad constantly on the defensive, as though he’s a moment away from shouting that he never did anything wrong.
Kate hands Roger to Dad, who makes faces at him. “Oh, haven’t you grown up big in such a short time!”
As much as I wish I could allow myself to fall for this charade, I can’t get the old arguments out of my head.
The fighting. The bickering. The anger.
Most of the times, they can put on a good performance, at least for a while, but then there are the times where they get into fights. And even worse, when it was just the two of them in their room having their screaming matches. It can be about anything, but I feel like it all goes back to that dark time in our family’s history with the unresolved issues that linger between them.
Sometimes, I want to put my hands over my ears because I can still hear them like they’re right down the hall from my condo spewing their hate for one another—both so wrapped up in the heat of their passionate hatred for one another that they can’t hide it from the rest of the world.
And then, of course, there were the arguments I had with Dad. Those were epic, and I’m not ashamed of having been responsible for many of them because I’m still mad as hell, and I feel like I have every right to be.
Even though I can’t escape this, at least I know that I don’t have to put up with it for long. As soon as we get back to Jordan’s place, he can help me release this tension through a good fuck.
We unload the remainder of the shit from the U-Haul into the house, packing most of it in the upstairs bonus room where Kate will be staying. It was my room initially since I was the oldest, and it went to Kate after I moved out. Jordan never stayed there since Kate lived at the house for freshmen year of college, something she makes a point to tease Jordan about while we’re packing boxes in there. Once we’re finished unloading the truck, we head downstairs into the dining room where Mom has a dinner of steak, mashed cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts waiting for us. She’s gotten out the nice china—a set of white plates with silver curly designs around the edges. Glasses of water are set beside wine glasses at each plate. Jordan’s already agreed to drive the moving truck back to the rental company where we have his car to get back to the house. He won’t be drinking, which is good because I could use a little alcohol right now.
That would be a nice escape. But knowing me, the alcohol will make me more likely to start a fight with Mom and Dad, so maybe I should just leave it alone.
I sit by Scott on the opposite side of the table from my parents. I intentionally positioned myself here hoping it’d create less tension and that it’d be easier for me to bear being around everyone.
I can’t tell if Scott’s tense because of his neck or if he’s worried about how I’m going to handle dinner, especially after everything I told him. I can’t say I’m feeling too good about it, but I’m going to do my best to keep my cool for everyone’s sake.
Kate and Jordan sit on either end of the table acting as physical barriers between me and our parents. Roger sits in a high chair glancing around the room, his eyes wide like he’s in awe of being in a new place.
Mom keeps the conversation moving, which she’s good at. She asks Jordan about his trip to Belize and Kate about how work’s going. She avoids mentioning the reason Kate has to move. She’s never been the sort who liked to talk about uneasy subjects, but particularly if they were ones that would drag out her own issues.
