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“I love you too,” I say sarcastically as I follow.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, but do you have much room to talk? You left us. You fought with your brother, and you left us, Morgan. Swifts don’t abandon their family.”
My nostrils flare, teeth grinding together. “The way you were always there for us?” falls from my mouth. We shouldn’t be doing this. Not now. Now when he’s not well. But I can’t help it. He fills me with too much rage.
“I always took care of my family.” He tries to pull the chair from under his desk, but it gets caught. He tugs again but fumbles and can’t seem to do it. “Goddamn it!” Gone is the man who shook my hand in front of Rosie.
“Let me help you.” I walk over, but he shakes off my concern.
“I can pull out a chair by myself.” Whatever was hooked fixes itself when he yanks again, the chair almost falling before he rights it, and he sits down. His face is slightly flushed. He might look almost the same, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s not. “I need to get some work done. Your old room is ready for you if you plan to stay.”
That’s my dismissal. Any time things get real, it’s what he does—shuts down the conversation. We all learned it from him. I guess in a lot of ways, I’m more like him than I wanted to be.
I head outside, grab my suitcases, and bring them upstairs to my old room. It shares a bathroom with Rhett’s old room. Easton had been across the hall, Ella beside him.
I put my things away, then walk over to the window. My room faces the water, the dock. This is where I’d been, pretending to count, but had been on my phone, talking to Dusty, annoyed I had to play a dumb kids’ game of hide-and-seek with Easton and Ella. Angry that Rhett was off on some pre-college trip before he got to leave for Harvard.
I’d been so angry and selfish that I didn’t go and look for them. I sat on the bed while they waited in hiding spots for a brother who wasn’t coming…Ella climbed into the small boat, which tipped over, and she got trapped and drowned, while I pouted in my room…and no one knows. No one knows why I took so long to find them.
Nausea sweeps through my gut, the bitter taste of bile in my throat as I step away.
Don’t think about that, don’t think about her. Not right now.
Even though I’m on a leave of absence, I still check my work email and reply to a few concerns, before ending up in Mom’s room. The same bed is there that she used to sleep in, same white bedding that’s been washed over and over through the years. Dad moved into the second master bedroom downstairs after she died, with some excuse I don’t remember. All of us kids stayed up here with her ghost.
“You would hate what’s happened to us,” I say to the family photo sitting on her old dresser, while twisting one of the two rings that always grace my fingers. I’d gotten them from her. They’d belonged to her father, whom we never met. She gave them to me before they fit, but now that they do, I always wear them. “We would have found a way to be okay if we hadn’t lost you.” She would have held us together. She would have forced Dad’s hand more, and she would have helped me and Rhett through our shit. She never would have left Ella and Easton hiding, so my sister would be here, and East wouldn’t be dealing with whatever shit he’s dealing with.
Dad stays in his office all day. His workaholic ways seem unchanged even after the stroke. I don’t know why I’m here, the specifics of what I’m supposed to be doing. Does he still go into the downtown Birchbark office? Do I need to cook? Give him pills? He seems pretty self-sufficient.
I fuck around the house, shoot a text to Rob, then to Spencer, who messages back much faster than my boyfriend.
Spencer: Hey…good to hear from you. Is everything going okay?
He might not know details, but he knows something’s going on. I appreciate having him there, even if I’m shit at opening up to him. I haven’t given all of myself to anyone except Dusty.
Fuck, there it is again.
Me: About how I expected. Listen…I’m sorry for not being better at this whole friendship thing.
Spencer: What are you talking about? You’re a good friend. When I needed help creating the perfect night with Corbin, you’re the one I went to.
Yeah, I’m good at things like that, but we both know I suck at other shit. Fuck, just look at how everything went down with Dusty.
Me: You know what I mean, but thanks.
I make tacos for dinner because I can find all the ingredients. I hear Dad in his office on the phone, so I knock, poke my head in and say the food is ready, but he waves me off.
I find myself outside, sitting on the edge of the dock, staying at the house of an aging father who is still too busy for me, while telling myself I don’t care and ignoring any other option. Maybe a part of me used to want to be loved by him, but he’s killed it over the years. Or he’s still killing it.
I don’t know how long I sit here, stomach grumbling, but I’m not going inside to eat. I try not to think about what happened here. It was so long ago, so much has changed, but thinking of Ella is still a festering wound not only in my chest, but in the family. Losing Mom was the beginning of our disintegration, and losing our little butterfly girl was the last straw.
The dock creaks with a footstep behind me. There’s a whole list of people it could be—Dad, Rhett, Easton—but somehow I know it’s not any of them. It’s stupid to feel like I can tell by the walk, by the feel of the air around me and how tight my chest gets.
“Hey,” comes Dusty’s deep, gravelly voice. I’ll bet he has his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He always used to do that when he was nervous.
“Rhett’s not here.” It’s immature, ridiculous even, that I’m holding on to this so many years later. They’re not together. I don’t know if they ever were or if it had just been a one-time thing. Every time I think about it, my heart tells me it had been going on for years behind my back, that it’s still going on. That my own brother hates me so much, he took my best friend from me. It doesn’t matter what my brain considers. It’s not nearly as strong as that one organ in my chest.
“Fuck off, Morg. That’s not fair.”
