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“Yours,” Mama said.
Great. Just what I wanted to hear.
“Lucky me,” I said. “Are you here to take down the person who set my house on fire?”
“You’re telling us this wasn’t you?” Daddy asked.
“It wasn’t me. I don’t light candles,” I explained.
Of all people, they should have known I wouldn’t do something like this. But then my parents were always more concerned with their work than they were with me. Ask them about the latest supreme court case, and they’d recite it by heart. Ask them my birthday, and they’d at least get the month right.
“Honey, come sit down,” Mama said, and directed me toward the large table in the breakfast nook.
It started off great. Because every great situation started with a prompt to sit down. Though after having the house catch fire, I wasn’t sure how this could get any worse.
I took my seat, with both my parents sitting across from me. It was like a middle school parent-teacher conference all over again.
“We have some concerns,” Mama started. “You’ve been directionless for too long. And maybe that’s our fault for giving you too much freedom, but it’s time to settle down.”
“What’s wrong with freedom?”
“Too much of it is unhealthy,” Daddy explained, pushing up the frame of his glasses on his nose before folding his hands in front of him. “You’re becoming reckless. We turned a blind eye to taking an extra year of college. I mean, it’s fine. You were still searching for what you wanted to do in life. But where did that get you? What did you end up with?”
“Honey, seven changes to your major?” Mama leaned across the table and stared me down, a look of pity and confusion in her face—as if she were addressing an addiction I had rather than my choices in education.
“Five,” I grumbled.
She shrugged. “Like that makes it better.”
“What’s the point?” I asked. This was clearly some sort of intervention. Though what they wanted me to get out of it was beyond me. Usually in these types of things, it was about the person quitting something they couldn’t stop. How was I supposed to stop being me?
“That’s what we want to know,” Daddy said. “What’s next? What do you plan on doing with your life?”
“I don’t know.” I flicked a hand into the air. “Don’t I get some time to think it over?”
“You’ve had five years.”
“That’s insane.” They were crazy. Who was expected to know their life’s purpose after only five years? Just because they always knew what they wanted to be since they were ten, didn’t mean the rest of the world worked that way. “There are plenty of people who don’t know what they want to do with their lives until much later in life.”
“Yes, but at least they try different things in between that time,” Mama said. “You’re not going to know what you do and don’t like until you try out a few things first.”
“I’ve had jobs before.”
“For like three weeks.” Daddy turned to my mother, squinting in an attempt to hold onto some distant memory. They stared at each other like that for a moment, as if one held the other half of the missing puzzle piece. “Actually, have you ever had a job longer than a month?”
“I think...once.” This was getting me nowhere. What did it matter what I did with my life? We were rich. We’d always had money. I was never expected to be anyone other than myself. So why now? Why all these changesnow?
“This is what we’re talking about,” Daddy explained, his voice climbing another note higher. “You’ve lived this fantasy life for too long. It’s time to grow up.”
“There’s no rush,” I shouted back. “I can live off of my inheritance. Grandma left me with more than enough to live comfortably until I’m dead.”
Daddy glanced around the house, his eyes resting on the smoke stains on the ceiling. “Which, if yesterday’s debacle is any indication, will be sooner than later.”
Here it was. The real reason for this conversation. I was given a house and couldn’t even take care of it for a day. Whether it was my fault or not, I’d never hear the end of it. “It was an accident. One I didn’t create.”
“See, that’s another problem.” Daddy shoved one accusatory finger in my direction. I resisted the urge to crumble like a child back in elementary school. “Take some responsibility.”
“For a fire I didn’t cause?”
