“For us,” Gianni reminds her.
“Eliza, if you need to go, you go,” I smile. “And I’ll take the other two home.”
“You’re going to come to the house?” Bella asks slowly.
“Sure,” I say with more whimsy than I actually feel.
“But what if Dad is there?” she asks.
My thoughts exactly. I haven’t seen him in… years.
But I keep a strong lip. “Then he is.”
We pull up to the small white house. For a moment, I only stare.
It’s not as white as it used to be. The shutters are hanging a little loose, and the sidewalk leading to the door is overrun by bushes and vines, most of which look half dead.
“We haven’t really kept up on the place,” Bella admits as I put the car in park. Then she looks at her brother. “I think that’s your job.”
“I’m a mechanic, not a botanist,” he snaps back.
“That’s not what botanists do, idiot,” she snorts.
“It really doesn’t matter.” I undo my seatbelt and open the door. “All I care about is you two and Eliza. Frankly, the yard can rot.”
As can our dad.
“You’re coming inside?” Bella asks.
“Of course,” I answer as casually as possible, considering that I feel like I am going to throw up.
It’s an odd mixture of feelings swirling around in my stomach right now. I haven’t been here in a long time, and most of the memories I have of this house aren’t good ones. First there was yelling and fighting, burnt grilled cheeses and birthdays that came and went like any other day of the week. Then, when she was gone, there was the scent of cigarettes. And alcohol, stale and sour and consuming. Whoever said vodka doesn’t have a smell has never been breathed on by a man who is passed out on the couch with enough of it in his system that it seeps out of his pores.
We walk across the gravel and I glance at the open garage with a small smile. Gianni’s car is in there. It’s a hotrod he’s been working on and, while I know it doesn’t run yet, it looks great.
But the smile drops as soon as we walk inside.
The home is… filthy.
Not messy in the sense of laundry hanging around or dishes in the sink. It’s run down, with peeling paint and stains on the carpet that hasn’t been replaced since I was little. There’s a pile of mail about a foot high on the counter and the windows are tinged with yellow. But there’s also a container of Clorox Wipes and a bottle of bleach. Good intentions from Eliza, I assume, to keep the place as livable as possible.
“Sorry about the mess,” Gianni says, shoving his hands in his pockets as he rolls back on his heels. He must have seen my face drop when I walked in.
“Don’t be sorry about anything.” I force my words through a plastered-on smile, hoping they sound sincere.
I’m the one who should be sorry.
Sorry that they still live like this while I live somewhere that feels like another world. Sorry that it got this bad. Sorry that I don’t do more. Bella must sense it too, because she starts picking things up in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Gianni gets a call from the body shop and has to step outside. It allows me a moment to look around.
I step into the living room, noticing the fireplace mantle is bare other than a couple empty bottles of whiskey and some tacky Christmas decorations that look like they’ve been there for three Christmases. There used to be family photos there. A photo of Mom.
I swallow back the memory. I knew it would look like this. Feel like this.Smelllike this. I guess I just didn’t know it would be this bad.
“Nora?”
The voice sends a chill up my spine and I actually jump, spinning around to find that the lump on the couch is not in fact a pile of dirty laundry.
It’s my dad.
