Jesus. I was expecting some prideful reluctance, not screeching rage. The last time I was subjected to her verbal lashing was in high school when I tried to sneak in at three in the morning.
“How else is it going to be paid off?” I respond. “Your daycare salary will not pay?—”
“I never asked you to help me,” she cuts me off.
“Because you are too prideful?—”
“I am not prideful,” Mom declares, and both Lara and I glance at her skeptically in response. “I am not.I never asked you to do this for me. Had you talked to me about this, I would have told you I plan on selling this house after your sister graduates from college.”
“And where is she going to live?” I ask sardonically. “In the streets?”
“Your sister is going to Japan,” Mom says. I turn to look at my sister in shock, and she immediately feigns interest in the grill. “She plans on teaching English.I’ll be moving to Texas, closer to your grandmother and Aunt Yesenia.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I’m telling you this now,” Mom says. “I don’t want to live in this house for the rest of my life. Once Lara is gone, I’ll be all alone here. This house is too big for just me and JoJo.”
For a moment, I’m beyond shocked to get my tongue to function. “I didn’t know this,” I finally manage. “I thought you loved this house.”
“I love my family and the memories made with them.” Her anger gives way to something mournful; her shoulders slump.“I didn’t think I had to tell my son not to pay off the mortgages. All this time, I thought you were saving to get more flight hours.”
Bewilderment flares through me. “You know about my license?”
“Of course, I know. I’m your mother,” she snaps. “Do you think Cameron would have paid for your lessons if I didn’t know about it?My husband would have never kept anything from me.”
I don’t know what to say. My ears are ringing. My chest feels tight. It’s as if the rug has been yanked out from underneath me. As if the air has drastically thinned in my lungs. “You were always okay with me flying?”
The reason why I pursued a job at Green Checks was because it’s safe. Boring. Reliable. Something I thought would make Mom proud, pay me well enough, and not keep her up at night.
“I wasn’t, but it was what made you happy,” Mom says. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.You used to be different. Adventurous. You’d come home with stories of all these exciting places you visited, and you were so happy.”
“How is that going to work out?How am I going to fly when I know it’ll destroy you and Lara if something were to happen to me?I can’t fly if it makes you unhappy?—”
“And the only other option is for you to be unhappy?” Mom counters. “Give up everything you wantfor us?Ethan, we never asked you to sacrifice your dreams for us.It breaks my heart to see you refusing to be happy because you put everyone else first. Because you think suffering is noble.
“But it is not noble, Ethan. It is selfish. For once, I ask you to do something you want to do. Stop thinking about how it’ll affect Lara and me. If you’re going to be selfish?” She hits me with a hard stare.“At least do something you know will make you happy.”
19
BARBIE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH
Just like thepast few days, I haven’t been getting much sleep, so I’m awake at five, staring at the ceiling, and preoccupied with my overactive thoughts. Well,thought.
I’ve got a one-track mind right now and it’s Ethan,Ethan, Ethan.
Trying to not text him as often as I did the last two months hasn’t worked out in my favor at all. My efforts the entire week were done in vain. All I’ve managed is missing him even more in the process.
I miss his dorky responses to my jokes, with him trying to out-lame me. I miss him telling me all the gossip at Green Checks because he’s willing to snoop on email chains for me now that I’m no longer employed there. I miss him so much that I’m not even offended by the captcha tests he sends me every night before he goes to bed—although I was never offended to begin with. I’d purposely select all the wrong squares.
I miss him, and now he’s barely even responding to my texts. He’s been too busy the last three nights to raise chickens with me on our virtual co-op farm.
I know he has his own life, but I… wish I could be part of it somehow.
Grabbing a pillow, I groan into it. My cat meows in protest from where he’s sleeping, curled up beside my head.
“So what if I’m technically in an unofficial long-distance relationship with Ethan? So what if he doesn’t know that he made me cry when he showed me the aquarium he built in the game for my character so she can be a marine biologist, too? So what if I want him here with me?
