Me: I asked him not to. Family dynamics are… complicated.
Ayla: I understand that more than you know.
Ayla: When did you last hear from him?
Me: His last text was about 2:30 p.m. central time. I got a voicemail around 5:00.
Ayla: It’s like him to go radio silent. Well, actually silent. But it’s not like him not to respond. Hold on.
Sixty seconds pass as I pace my childhood bedroom, the carpet squishing under my feet and between my toes in familiar comfort.
Ayla: Any clue where he could be?
Me: No.
Ayla: I tried calling and I’ve sent a text. I’ll work on things over here and keep you posted.
Me: Thanks, Ayla.
Keeping myself busy, I find Dad on the back deck with a cup of coffee. It’s already too warm out here for any hot beverage, but old habits die hard apparently.
My Diet Coke will have to do. That and one of Mom’s breakfast biscuit sandwiches.
I fall into the chair next to my dad and with no preamble he starts. “Don’t bring home a guy like Billy, okay?”
I suck in air at the wrong time and biscuit lodges in the back of my throat. I choke and sputter, coughing in an attempt to dislodge the now-too-dry food.
“You okay, Lo?”
I shake my head only to realize I meant to nod, then wave him off. Holding up one finger, I take a deep breath through my nose, calming my autonomic nervous system for the second time in a handful of days, allowing myself to breathe and my throat to open.
My eyes are watering and my throat scrapes against itself, but I didn’t aspirate a breakfast sandwich, so I’ll call it a win.
“I take it you don’t like Billy?” I shouldn’t want to know. But my own situation is dancing under my skin and I have to ask.
“I just—” he starts but interrupts himself with a long sip from his mug and a faraway look in his eye. “It’s hard to think of you kids as adults. We were married and had Strider by the time we were your age. But when it’s your babies, it’s hard to rectify accomplished adult-you with the pig-tailed you I taught to ride a bike. Somehow, you’ll always be a little girl, even if you’re a PhD and living a time zone away. Same with Sam. I look at her”—he takes another sip before staring into his mug—“and see the scared girl I dropped off at kindergarten. She was alwaysbrash, but that morning… That morning, she held my leg and asked if I would make her go.” He shakes his head as if erasing the memory. “It broke me. It absolutely broke me. Mom had a shift at the hospital, and no one would trade, so it was just me. Strider had gotten on the bus here and I drove Sam to school and, to do the right thing by her, I had to pry her from my leg and told her she would love it.”
“Newsflash,” my sister starts behind me. “I hated it.”
Dad bobs his head deeply. “Broke my heart, you did. Came back crying. You were miserable for the whole year.”
“I don’t think I was made for traditional schooling.” She takes a seat on Dad’s other side.
“I don’t disagree. Now.” He emphasizes the word. “But they didn’t talk like that thirty-some years ago. There was ‘school’.” He uses his hands like he’s framing a box. “That was it. You were bigger than those walls, Sam. We should’ve understood that.”
“Dad.” My sister takes a deep breath. “Billy and I are heading to the justice of the peace in a few. We decided before we got here. Would you and Mom like to be there?”
Just like that, boom goes the dynamite.
40
wedding-ish
Liam
What is that sound? What is that feeling?
Oh, fuck my life.
