Once again, I feel sick with anxiety. I try to tamp it down with deep breaths.
On the third ring, the phone picks up.
“Hello?”
Jesus, I haven’t heard that voice in years.
I swallow down my nerves and say, “Hey, uh . . . Mom, it’s Halsey.”
I’m met with silence.
After a few seconds, I add, “Are you there?”
“Wh-why are you calling me?”
I squeeze my eyes shut as I answer, “Well, I tried calling Dad, but—”
“He’s dead.”
“What?” I croak out, my throat growing tight. My heart sinks to the floor, and I immediately sit down on the bed.
“He died a few months ago. Heart attack.”
“Why . . . why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Why do you think, Halsey?” she says in such a strong, menacing tone that there’s no mistaking the anger she still carries.
Why do I think? I have no idea.
I’d like to think that it would be important to relay news of my father’s death to me, but this family has fallen apart so tragically that I don’t think we know how to treat each other like decent human beings anymore.
“Mom, I know—”
“You know nothing, Halsey. You know absolutely nothing. And why are you even calling? Trying to open a wound that has barely healed?”
I press my hand to my eye as my heart races, laboring my breath as I try to wrap my head around both the disdain blistering from my mom’s mouth and my dad’s death.
A heart attack?
Was he alone?
Did the loss of Holden kill him?
“I don’t understand,” I mumble into the phone.
“What don’t you understand?” she asks.
For one, why do you hate me?
Why don’t you love me anymore?
Why has this family exploded into nothing?
Why can’t we find each other again?
Why does my mom hold such hostility toward me?
Shouldn’t she have unconditional love for me? I don’t understand why she doesn’t.
