“So you want this?” I ask, seeking confirmation.
“Can’t you fall back in love?” Fenna asks. “I fall in and out of love with songs all the time.”
“It’s not the same, Fen,” Ties grits out.
“Your dad and I are better as friends.” Mom chokes up and sips her water. “Things won’t change that much. We’ll stay in the house, and your dad will get an apartment.”
“But why did you fall out of love?” Fenna presses. “You don’t even fight.”
“It’s hard to fight with someone who isn’t home,” Mom replies flatly.
Now I understand why Dad didn’t take off right after my performance. He’s always working, and even when he’s home or has time off, he’s still half at the arena, with the team. Even now, his phone buzzes, and for a moment, he pats his pocket before dropping his hand, like he thought about answering it.
We might get a few weeks of vacation with him in the off-season, but he still takes calls and schedules meetings. The rest of the year, he isn’t around much.
“My schedule made it difficult,” Dad explains.
“I’ve felt like a single parent most of the time.” Mom’s voice cracks, and her sad eyes shift to me.
She and I were always in it together, taking care of everything. We were a team while my dad was away. Did I set the wheels in motion when I went to university and left Mom on her own? I’ve been home less this semester with the demands of my courses and dance.
My heart shatters, and I direct my anger at my dad. “You could have tried harder. If you’d been around more, maybe Mom would still be in love with you.”
He doesn’t disagree. Doesn’t tell me to watch myself. Doesn’t do any of the things he would if it was the locker room and one of the guys gave him lip. He nods. “I should have made more of an effort to find balance between my career and my home life.”
“But you didn’t, because you love the Terror more than you love us,” I finish for him.
“That’s not true, Tally,” he argues.
“Isn’t it, though? Why not make a change if you knew it was a problem? You had to know how Mom felt before it got to this point.”
Mom isn’t a pushover. She couldn’t be with three kids and virtually no help raising us.
“It’s not that simple?—”
I cut him off. “But it is. You put the Terror ahead of us, and now you’re tearing our family apart.” The pain of it makes it hard to breathe. What will the holidays look like? What does this mean for the future? For Fenna, who just started high school, and Ties, who starts university next year? How will I make it through finals when the foundation of my life is suddenly crumbling?
I hate that I’m focused on myself, but couldn’t we have gotten through Christmas before they dropped this bomb?
“We still care about each other, Tally, but I need to live my life separately from your father,” Mom reasons.
“I don’t want Dad to move out!” Fenna pushes her chair back and rushes off to the bathroom.
Mom follows, leaving me with Ties and my dad. My brother looks unsurprised, and Dad looks defeated.
“You pushed Mom to do this. Why couldn’t you have put us first? Why did you have to be married to your job instead of your wife and your family?” I mean for it to come out as anger, but instead I sound like I’m pleading, on the edge of tears.
“I know you’re upset?—”
“You have no idea how I feel,” I bark. “You just shredded this family and broke all our hearts in a public restaurant.”
Here he thought we couldn’t run away from the conversation. Or make a scene. I’m not in the same position as my siblings, though. I don’t have to stay and listen to excuses and try to hold myself together. I spent my entire childhood and teen years playing second parent to Ties and Fenna. I helped get them ready for school, made lunches, did all the things Dad might have doneif he’d been around. And he praised me for it. Told me how much it meant to him and my mom that I was always willing to step up. They both did. It made me and Mom extremely close. Maybe too close. If he’d just stepped into the shoes he was supposed to wear, maybe we wouldn’t be falling apart.
“Fuck you.” I push away from the table and sling my purse over my shoulder.
I’m frustrated that I feel guilty for not staying to help my mom take care of Fenna and Ties. But I’ve done that my entire life, made up for my dad’s absence without even realizing it.
“Tally, honey…”
