It’s quiet in our house, though the silence isn’t in any way comforting. I move about the kitchen, my steps sluggish and weary, as I pull up a stool in front of my mom. Both of us sit there, the exhaustion evident in our posture and our slackened expressions. I don’t know what to say to her. If I should ask her about my dad or what’s going to happen moving forward. And I think she feels the same way about me, wondering why I’m in such a morose state as if my heart is as broken as hers.
“We’re going back home.”
I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. “What?”
My mom’s grave and grim expression matches the level tone of her voice. But when she finally looks at me, all of that’s swiped away. The formidable way she said we’re leaving and the stone-like expression that said she means business. It’s all gone as she looks at me, as if silently asking me if she’s making the right decision. “We have to go back.”
I start to panic. “Why? Mom, why do you want to go back?”
I see her hands start to tremble and just how badly her exhaustion is taking a toll on her. The dark circles around her eyes, her chapped lips and sunken cheeks, her disheveled hair and the same clothes she was wearing yesterday. She’s been brewing over this. All night. She didn’t get a wink of sleep, and she’s come to this decision in the delirium of insomnia.
“I have to fix things. I have to talk to your dad and let him know that this was just a mistake.”
“Mom, what are you talking about? He ch?—”
“No, Everett!” she says harshly, shutting me down in an instant. “It was a mistake. It’s my fault.”
What the hell is she talking about? How is this whole situation her fault? I watch her as she convinces herself to take full responsibility for my dad’s actions. I see it in the way her eyes shift as she says the words, an underlying shakiness that accompanies them. I can tell she’s been repeating them to herself all night. I don’t know how to dispute her at this point. I don’t know if she’ll even hear me, let alone let me get in a word through the fog of her misconstrued blame.
“I should’ve never come back here,” she continues, her words not necessarily directed at me. “I gave him permission to be with someone else. Especially after he’d already done this, I should’ve known better.”
I realize then that this woman isn’t the same woman who raised me. The same woman who taught me to be confident and humble, always reminding me who I was and where I came from despite whatever challenges life threw in my direction. She would’ve never let me lose sight of who I was, no matter what. And she especially would’ve never let me shoulder another person’s faults when I was clearly the victim.
Now, looking at her, I see how weak she is. She let my dad shrivel her down into this broken version of herself, willing to take the blame for the sake of her marriage.
“We’re leaving tomorrow.” Her voice is cold, and the iciness of it drains all the blood from my body.
“What?”
She stands from her seat and walks off up the stairs. I follow close at her heels. “I got a flight leaving first thing in the morning,” she continues, not bothering to look me in the eyes as she tells me she’s uprooting me once again. “Pack what you can, and I’ll come back for the rest. Or I’ll send someone.”
“Mom, this is ridiculous,” I plead. I start to feel clammy and shaky. I don’t know what to do or how to convince my mom to change her mind. We can’t leave. We just can’t.
“No!” she shouts.
She turns to face me, a darkness cast over her features. It shadows the warm, loving woman who never raised her voice at me. Who used to laugh and play with me and hold me when I woke up in the middle of the night from a scary nightmare. “Everett, we are leaving. This is not up for discussion. I’m not going to stay here so you can stay out all night with your little friends while my marriage falls apart! You are just going to have to make this sacrifice!”
She ends her sentence by turning away and slamming the door behind her as soon as she walks into her room.
I’m dumbfounded. Completely speechless. I can’t believe she’d say that to me. As if I’m some martyr in this whole mess, taking the brunt of everything like I’m being punished. As if she and I aren’t the ones suffering after what my dad did.
I start to think of ways to work through this mess. How am I going to pack all of my things in less than twenty-four hours? And what about school? Am I just going back to my old school? Or finish out the year from home? My mom has to have thought about that before coming to this decision.
Or maybe…maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe I can convince her to let me stay. She wouldn’t have to worry about transferring schools, and it’ll only be for another couple of months until I graduate. I’ll be eighteen soon, in a little over a week, and I can be here on my own in this house. I can promise her I’ll be good, be on my best behavior. I can finish out my senior year and go off to college like I’ve been planning. And maybe once I fix things with Teeny, we can talk about her joining me up north. She hasn’t told me where she wants to go to school, and maybe we can have that discussion as soon as things settle at home.
I just need to talk to Teeny. Let her know what’s going on so…I don’t know. Maybe she can hold my hand through this? I can’t do this without her. I need her on my side.
I just need to talk to her.
* * *
I’ve been sitting at the curb between mine and Teeny’s house for the past two hours, waiting for her to come home, hoping I can get a minute with her. So I can tell her what’s happening and my plan. We can figure this out as long as we have each other. We’ll work through this.
My head jerks up when I hear a car pull into the cul-de-sac followed by the familiar rumble of the engine from the car Teeny and Josh share. She sees me as she pulls to a stop at the curb, and her eyes turn cold as she looks at me through the passenger window. I stand as she exits the car and hooks her backpack over her shoulder. She ignores me, beelining to her house, but I stop her.
“Teeny, can we talk?”
“I don’t really want to talk to you,” she says, her back turned to me.
