Elizabeth
Isat in the living room with my laptop on top of my blanket, reading emails from the day and trying to catch up. My mother was mindlessly watching some HGTV show, Tara was upstairs listening to music—probably texting Brock as well—and my father was in the house office, doing the same thing I was.
Only fifty more emails to go. And then I can go to bed.
And do this all over again.
Just like I’ve been doing all over again since I came back from Cornell.
I looked at the next email. It was from someone in HR, asking me if I’d finished up all the hiring paperwork for the labor force out in Santa Maria. Just another thing to do.
And then I got a new email from, of all people, my father.
“Office.”
That was all it said in the subject line, and it had no body text. It didn’t ask me to come, nor did it even contain any punctuation. I suppose my father set a good example for getting to the point.
He was great.So great.
I stood up. My mother didn’t say a word as her eyes remained fixed toward the TV but not really on the programming. Though she also worked at NME Services, I never understood why she remained there; she never looked happy, always looked burned out, and only seemed to stick around to please my father.
I hurried over to my father’s office, where he was hunched over at his laptop. With his glasses on, his hair slick back, and a white Oxford shirt, he always looked the part of CEO.Too bad he doesn’t often look the part of dad.
“Hi, Dad, you wanted to—”
“Sit down,” he said.
I did so without another word. I sat and waited patiently as he typed away at an email, never once looking up at me. I understood. He was a busy man. A busy, busy man.
Who seemed to never appreciate anything we did.
“How’s the work at Santa Maria going?” my father finally said, though he only looked up at me for the briefest of moments before he looked back at his computer.
“It’s going great!” I said, trying to project optimism. “We had the team come out and lay out the infrastructure today. That’ll be a three-week process, but as far as initial days went, I’d say it went pretty well! Aren’t you proud? This was your—”
“Of course, of course,” he said.
He wasn’t listening anymore.Someday, I’m going to make you happy.
Not that I’m sure why I’m bothering anymore. Tara seems to be able to let it go.
If he understands…
“Aren’t you happy we’re continuing work out there?” I said. “Especially after what happened last week when Tara worked late.”
“Oh, yes, thank you for reminding me.”
He can say a good thing once in a while.
“I’m taking Tara off the project. You’re running it alone now.”
My jaw literally dropped. Was he serious?
Of course he was. I couldn’t ever recall my father making a joke. Even on Christmas, one of the few days he truly stepped away from his job, he said nothing humorous. It would literally be a first if he made a joke about something work-related now.
“Why?”
“We saw that she was looking up other jobs on LinkedIn on her work computer,” he said. “It seems clear she is looking for new work. When combined with the fact that she is moving out of this house, it is obvious that she no longer has an interest in helping the business I built from the ground up. I have no use for someone who does not want to be a member of this team.”
