Page 46 of Sincerely, Mr. Braden

“I don’t get it,” I say. “Dad ruled us with an iron fist.”

Becca looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “He did not.”

“He did, too. Every night, Did you do your homework? Go clean your room. And anything I wanted to do got a no. You’re not going to a girl-boy party at fourteen,” I remind her. “If I had a dollar for every time he yanked the reins, I’d be rich.”

“That was just Dad being Dad,” Becca says. “The mistake was yours for listening and not arguing until you got your way.”

I sigh, knowing she’s right, which is why I argue with him now. I learned. It just took me longer than it took her. “Punished for being the good one. Par for the course.” A small laugh escapes, the first in days, and it loosens a knot in my chest. But as we eat without talking, the thoughts I’ve been trying to shut down about being like my mother creep in.

I glance at my father. I can tell he’s trying to hide the shakiness of his hand, and the weariness in his body as he slips another piece of something to Barney. I hear my father’s voice in my head telling me he’s fine, and for some cruel reason, it’s magnified by Seth’s silence.

The two most important men in my life have become impossible to reach. I can’t help but wonder if it’s my fault because I’m like her.

“Dad,” I say carefully. “When Mom was my age, what was she like? Was she happy?”

He looks up, squinting in annoyance. “What kind of question is that?”

“We’ve never really talked about her leaving, and I’m just wondering if she changed.” I try to keep my tone light, as if the question came to me out of the blue rather than haunting me forever.

He looks down at his plate with a huff. “Your mother always knew what she wanted.”

“Which was what?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond.

My heart hurts for him, because I know it’s a sore subject, but it’s not easy for any of us, and I need answers. “Were there signs that she was unhappy or going to leave?”

“Taylor,” Becca warns with a shake of her head.

“I just want to understand who she was and see if there were indicators we missed, or at least that I missed.”

“Then ask your mother,” my father grumbles.

“I should be able to ask you,” I say. “You lived through it with us. I want to know if you saw what we—or at least what I—didn’t.”

He stews in silence, his eyes locked on his plate.

“Dad, please?”

He eats a bite of lasagna.

“From what I remember,” Becca says, eyeing my father before looking across the table at me. “The only time she was really happy was when you were talking about traveling with her.”

“That was it?” I ask.

Becca nods. “That’s how it seemed to me.”

“Was she depressed? Because I don’t remember her that way.”

“No, I don’t think so. She just seemed distracted a lot. She wasn’t a super-attentive mother or the kind to show up for every school event,” Becca says softly, earning a narrow-eyed glare from our father.

Why don’t I remember that? Did I block it out?

My father’s jaw clenches. Barney pushes up on all fours and puts his chin on my father’s leg.

“Sometimes she’d come to school events,” Becca says, looking at me and pointedly not acknowledging my father’s glare. “But other times she wouldn’t, and when she didn’t, she’d shrug it off and say she had other things to do. When you pushed, which you did a lot, asking what other things she had to do, she never answered. She just said priorities in a singsong voice.”

That’s not me. That’s never been me.