“What’s going on in here?” My mom enters the room and drops her plate onto the pile in the sink.
My dad and I exchange glances, neither one of us wanting to say a word. Dad strolls over to my mom, pecks her cheek and says, “Your daughter has something to tell you.” He swings his arms behind his back and moseys out of the room.
Jerk. I think to myself.
“What is it, Tessa?” My mom stands a few feet in front of me, and I can’t help but stare down at her tattered slippers, the tip ofone of them partially chewed away, compliments of Boozer. Her eyes drift over my face, studying my features, the worry line on her forehead deepening.
“It’s about school.” I blurt.
She walks away from me, sighing heavily before turning on the faucet and grabbing the sponge. The dishes clank and scrape into the dishwasher as I lean against the counter beside her to finish telling her the big news. “I’m going to wait to start. I need to be fully healed and mentally prepared for college. I’m just not right now. Instead, I’m going to work and save up for a house. Grandma’s car’s just sitting out there, I figure I might as well use it.”
Her hand stops circling the plate she’s scrubbing, and her eyes meet mine. “Contessa, I’m only going to say this once. Don’t throw your life away on some meaningless job that doesn’t pay you squat. You are a smart girl who could go anywhere, be anything. Don’t get sucked into a shitty job because you don’t have your education.”
She called me by my whole name, that’s how I know the level of seriousness this conversation is. “Mom, I will go back when I’m ready, hopefully by the spring semester. I just know that as of right now, with everything that has happened, I’m not ready to take on college.”
“So, you’re staying here, using your grandma’s car to go to work and saving up for a house, am I hearing you right?” Her hand circles the same plate that she had already cleaned before dropping it in the dishwasher.
I hesitate before saying, “Kind of?”
She shakes her wet hands into the sink, grabs a hand towel and dries them aggressively. “Well, when you get this job, since you’re seemingly taking over your grandmother’s car, you can pay for the insurance and gas. Maybe in a year or two, you’ll have enough saved and be ready to be out on your own.”
I roll my neck. “A year or two? No, Mom. I’m planning on moving out before then. Like in a month or two, when I have the job and enough to pay the first month’s rent and security deposit.”
“Absolutely not, young lady.”
She storms away from me, entering the living room, and I stomp after her. “Why not? Jessie moved out when he was eighteen.” I cross my arms, my foot tapping on the floor. I can feel the heat rising in my face. Pushing my mom too far isn’t something I usually dare do, but this is something I really want, and I’m going to need her and my dad on board to help me.
My mom points to my dad when he stands. “Sit down.” He grimaces and lowers his ass back down on the couch.
Mom turns to me, her voice shrill and rising by the second. “Your brother is not only well-trained in martial arts, but he’s also self-sufficient, has been working since he was thirteen, bought his first car by the time he was sixteen, and never relied on us for anything. If he wanted it, he got it himself. You, on the other hand…” She wags her finger at me. “…have had an accident where someone was killed, gone to multiple parties and come home drunk throughout the years, don’t have two nickels to rub together and are constantly asking us to help you with this, that and the other. Not to mention you can’t even cook grilled cheese without smoking up the kitchen, or boil Ramen noodles without overcooking them. You’re not ready, Contessa.”
She’s right. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Jessie has been gone for four years now. He left and never looked back. Now, he lives in Tacoma and works as an engineer, making a ton of money.
“Well, I’m eighteen, and you can’t stop me,” I rebut. I mean, it’s true. I can walk right out the door, the state considering me an adult, and do whatever the hell I want.
If my mom’s head could rotate 360 degrees, it would. Her cheeks rise to a shade of red I’ve never seen, and my dad sitsbehind her on the couch, his fist covering his mouth, trying not to laugh despite my error.
“Who do you think you are, young lady?” She yells, her finger poking me in the chest. “I brought you into this world, and I can take you the fuck out. If I say you’re not ready, you’re not fucking ready. Now take your mouthy ass up to your room.”
She knows I hate it when she calls me a young lady. When will she treat me like an adult? I clench my fists, my face prickling with blind rage. “Fine!
I turn away from her and storm upstairs to my bedroom, slamming the door. A framed picture of a woman reading falls off the wall and shatters when it hits the floor. It only takes my mom a few seconds to respond. She throws my bedroom door open, her eyes wild. “You want to slam doors in my house; you won’t fucking have one.” She stomps out of the room, and I hear her thundering steps barrel down the stairs and the tell-tale sound of the kitchen junk drawer clanking open. The steps are heavier on her way back up, the sound like that of a hundred elephants stampeding toward a fresh watering hole. She stops in my doorway, pulls my dad by his sleeve into the room and says, “Do it,” before placing a flathead screwdriver in his palm.
My dad lowers his head and nods. She disappears, and the sound of her angry footsteps grows further away as she retreats to the first floor. The screwdriver tip digs into the pin on the hinge, and with a quick pop of Dad’s palm, it comes loose. He removes all three pins and pulls the door off its hinge, leaning it against the wall in the hallway.
“Come on, Dad, this is ridiculous.”
I reach for my door, and the top of my hand stings with a sudden slap. “Oh, no, you don’t. This is your doing, so you’re going to accept it and leave the door where it is.” He puts the three pins in his back pocket, a small smile playing on his lips. “You know what happens if you mouth back to your mother.Hell, I don’t even mouth back to her. Word of advice, let her cool down for a bit, then come down and apologize.”
“But, Dad, I can do this. I can be on my own.” I open my top dresser drawer, remove the three hundred and eighty dollars I made at the craft fair and slap it on top of my dresser. “Look, I already have almost half a month’s rent.”
“Where did you get all that?” he asks, picking it up and counting it.
“The craft fair.”
He organizes the bills by denomination and returns them to the dresser. “From making those death nature things?”
I drop the money back in my drawer and close it. “Yes.”
