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I curl my fists to keep my eyes from tearing up.
It’s not very professional, is it, to watch your boss with his baby and cry from the sheer beauty of it.
Before I can do much else, my vision is blocked because Tara emerges from the living room. “Oh good, you’re here. Your maid said it would take you hours to get back. Which I guess was the wrong estimation. Also, I hate the coffee she made. You clearly need new employees.”
I leave then.
I turn around and dash inside the kitchen, and make for the side door like I’m trying to run for my life. And I am. Because I don’t think I can stay in this house for a second longer.
I don’t think I can hear whatever response he’s going to make.
Not without bursting into big fat tears, and I’m not doing that.
Not in front of him.
So I’m going home, where I can cry to my broken heart’s content. Professionalism be damned.
CHAPTERTEN
My mother believes in being free.
Free living. Free loving.
Free, free, free.
I myself am the product of a ton of free loving between my mom and this man at the commune who wanted to be involved in child making but not child rearing. My mom didn’t mind; by the time she’d found out she was pregnant with me, she was already with another man: Richie.
Richie was a good guy who stepped up to raise meandgave my mom the next two of her children, both girls: Amethyst, or Amy, three years younger than me, and Cypress, or Cy, four years younger than me. When Richie wanted to go live in the Himalayas — I really don’t know where he went but Mom always said he went off to climb mountains and walk a different path in life, and the Himalayas always sounded really cool in my head — Bowie entered. He was mostly okay, too stoned to care about us children. But he showed up whenever our mom made him. And he was the one to give my mom her last two children, both boys: Forrest, who’s twelve, so seven years younger than me, and Bear, who’s nine and therefore ten years younger.
Bowie lived with us for quite a while before he went away too. I don’t know where because all Mom said was that he got clean and he got bored, and he wanted to move on. While I was devastated when Richie left, I didn’t feel anything about Bowie. It was the opposite for my mother though. As in, she felt heartbroken over both. And so I stepped up to take care of my mother and all my siblings.
And I’ve always been okay with that.
I’ve been okay with the chaos, the mayhem, the sheer noise that comes from living in such a large family.
I’m not okay with it tonight though.
I’ve been home only an hour but I’ve had to put out a fight between my brothers twice, I’ve had to find a piece of jewelry that Cy swore she had on just this morning, and I had to help Amy put the finishing touches on her art project that was due yesterday.
God.
Why did I come home?
I should’ve gone to a park or something. Maybe a coffee shop. I should’ve broken down sobbing on the sidewalk. All I needed was a little bit of privacy, and any of those things would be a lot more private than my circus of a family.
Actually, why did I ever think that living at home instead of at the dorm – which had been an option for me – would be a good idea? Yes, I’m saving a ton of money and yes, this way I get to be close to my siblings so I can look after them but I’ve had enough.
When the door to my room bursts open — God, I need to fix that lock — for the tenth time, I call out from under my blanket where I’m hiding from the world, “If you take one more step, I swear to God, I will lose it, okay? Cy or Amy or Forrest or Bear, whoever is at the door right now. Just leave me alone for five seconds. Is that too much to ask?”
“Are you going to count to five, or am I?”
At the low, gravelly voice, I snap up on the bed and shove aside my blanket.
And think to myself that this isn’t real.
That he isn’t standing at my door.
Not only because it’s impossible that he’d be here right now when I just left him with Tara, but also because I don’t even think he fits. Or if he does, it’s barely. His shoulders are almost spanning the entire breadth of the door, and his head’s grazing the top.
