Jude glanced over as he finished his last bite.“Miranda, you always outdo yourself with dinner.”
“I do love to cook,” she said warmly.
We talked about everything and nothing during dinner, just a lot of mundane stuff, which was fine.Except I kept waiting for them to drop whatever it was they wanted to ask me.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore and cleared my throat.“What is it, Mom, Dad?”
“What do you mean?”my mom asked.
“Mom,” I warned, frustrated with her attempt to be vague.
“We had an argument with your brother,” my dad said flatly.
“An argument about what?”I pressed.
“He doesn’t appreciate our…” My dad paused, and my mom cut in, “Supervision.”
“Supervision?”I prompted.
“Maybe 'expectations' clarifies it better,” my dad offered.
“Well, what are the expectations?Blake’s on probation, and it’s not a joke,” I pointed out, my tone sharp.One of my hands was twisting together in my lap under the table.Jude reached for it and gave me a reassuring squeeze.I swallowed and took a breath.
“Well, that’s the rub.We don’t feel like we can do this,” my mother said.
“Do what?”
“We feel responsible for him,” she added.
I looked between them.“You’re not responsible for him.The only thing you’re responsible for is blowing off what happened to him, which was the first of many dominoes that led him to where he is now.”
My dad’s face pinched, a flicker of shame in his eyes.I wasn’t one to think shame was productive, but in this case, they’d let all of us down, and most especially my brother.
“Kendall,” my mom protested, her voice hushed.
“Mom, Blake was brutally assaulted.It was horrible, and everybody just swept it under the rug.”
My mom’s eyes went wide.“I didn’t do anything.”
Ignoring her comment, I pressed ahead, “So the part of his life that had been good for him, playing football, disappeared.Because why would he want to do that again?That’s where he was assaulted.Nobody got charged.Nobody even got put in detention at school.Blake dropped off the team, and life carried on.He dealt with that by becoming the party boy in high school.”I shrugged.“He might as well drink to forget.Everybody else pretended like it never happened.”
My mom looked stricken, and my dad’s eyes were pinned to the table.Jude squeezed my hand again.
“We didn’t mean—” my mom started.
“Mom, I get it.The world doesn’t like to deal with this stuff.One of the guys who was the ringleader in assaulting Blake and others has gone to jail repeatedly since then.”
“How do you know?”my mom asked.
“Because I looked it up.He lives in Anchorage.He’s got a rap sheet for one assault after another.He’s a fucking asshole.The world doesn’t do anyone any favors when this stuff happens.But he was the star on the football team, so the school wanted to look the other way, and you guys went along with it.Blake paid the price, and I paid the price.”
“Honey—” my mom cut in.
“Mom, I’m not saying my experience was Blake’s, but I’m the one who has to take care of everything.Starting in high school, I was the one Blake would call for help when he got too drunk to drive home.We’re just lucky he hasn’t gotten into harder drugs yet.”
“She’s right,” my dad said, his gaze rising from the table.
My mom glanced at him, wide-eyed.“Mark!”
