AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ash
Irode my dad’s bike to mom’s house and that was my second mistake. The first was agreeing to come at all. But the tank was full, and it purred to life like it’s just been waiting for me, and once we were on the road, I very much wanted to just keep going. Anywhere. Nowhere. Just ride.
But my mother’s lips were a thin white line under her pointy nose as I parked in her driveway and even though she greeted me nicely enough, hugging me and kissing both my cheeks, she still hasn’t forgiven me.
My brother Lance’s wife has transformed from a skinny and awkward nerdy girl into a busty beauty. Back when he first started dating her in high school we got along pretty well, but now she looks right through me with her glassy eyes. And I can’t unsee the fact that she now looks almost exactly like my step-brother’s wife who always was a beauty. Their long straight hair gleams the exact same shade of gold.
As I predicted, mom’s house looks exactly like something from one of those home and garden magazines she’s obsessed with. There are at least three table cloths on the large dining room table, each more intricate and pretty than the last and somehow they match the cushions on the chairs perfectly. I’m glad I showered before coming here. Although nothing’s ever gonna make me not feel like I’m dirtying up her perfect house and life. It’s an old feeling and easy to ignore. But it’s always there.
The lawn outside the dining room window is like something out of a magazine too. I’m glad it’ll be dark soon, so I don’t have to stare at its perfectness anymore.
“So, what are your plans now that you’re out of the Army?” my mom’s husband, John, asks pompously.
“The Marines,” I correct him on impulse and more sharply than I should’ve. My mom’s face turns even more disproving as she glances at me.
“Right,” John says. “Maybe Don can set you up with something. He’s Senior Managing Director at Boone’s Construction now.”
“Not a CEO yet? I’d have thought that’d be a given now that you and Rose have a kid,” I say without thinking. The fact that everything about this dinner since the moment I got here has been worse than I imagined it would be is seriously grating on my nerves. Or maybe it’s just that I miss my dad. But it probably has more to do with John’s smug superiority, which seems to be getting worse with age.
“Would anyone like some more salad?” Mom asks. “I have more ready to go in the fridge.”
She mixed tropical fruit with the lettuce and it’s just not good. But I manage not to say it.
“Leave it, Mom, there’s still plenty,” my brother Rob says instead.
“What’s wrong with construction?” John asks. “It’s good, honest work.”
The emphasis he puts on the word honest twists my stomach into a hard ball. The thing about John is, he never liked me much, but only by extension to my father. He never stopped competing with him and of the two of us, I was the one around to take the brunt of it. I remember thinking he was a petty, small-minded man back when I was twelve years old and he never changed my mind.
“I’m sure Ashton knows what he wants to do,” Lance says in the exact same smug voice his father uses. There is no doubt in my mind that what he just said is complete bullshit. “We should let him make his own decision. He is a grown man, and a veteran to boot.”
This dinner was a bad idea. I knew that the moment my mother suggested it. I shouldn’t have come. And now my fuse is nearly burned down to the end.
“You’ve never been more right, Lance,” I say and stuff a forkful of the salad in my mouth. The sourness of the large piece of grapefruit does nothing for my mood.
“Besides, he’s still in mourning,” Lance adds. “We should talk of pleasant things.”
“We’re all in mourning,” my brother snaps, clearly meaning my mom as well, which does not sit well with John. The shadow that passes over his face is darker than the dusk falling over the back yard.
“So show some respect,” Rob concludes, only making it worse.
“I wish you’d shown enough respect to at least empty out his fridge,” I snap at him, since we’re all barreling towards an argument anyway and I wish we’d just get there already. “The whole damn house stinks like a pig sty.”
The looks on my brother’s and mom’s faces are nearly identical—indignant shock. They have that particular bullshit fakeness down to a science. Neither of them had much time for my old man, or cared for him very much—one of them left him and the other used every excuse he could find not to spend time with him. I remember how hurt my dad was over his oldest son, his firstborn, never wanting to spend time with him. I remember how much it pissed me off. Rob is not one to talk.
And right now, I should say anything more either.
So I push my plate away and stand up.
“Thanks for dinner, Ma, but I have somewhere to go.”
She nods her head ever so slightly, indicating I’m making the right decision here, but her eyes are sadder than I’ve seen them in a long time.
But I am making the right decision. The one I’m always making with this side of the family. Leaving them. Not poking too hard at their pompous, fake bullshit pretense of one big, happy family. They might be all I have left too call family, but we were never that. Not really.
I barely manage to grunt a goodbye to the rest of them as I stride to the door. I never spent a lot of time in this house growing up, but I can always find the door with no problem.
Whatever these plants my mom has growing in the front yard not only look coordinated, but smell that way too. Why did I ever think I could mend things? I could never live in a prim and proper place like this. It gives me the creeps, all these nice and pretty front lawns that hide bitterness, bullshit and unhappiness so well and yet not at all.
My dad’s bike—my bike now—is by the curb, illuminated by the copper streetlight that just came on. I can’t wait to straddle it and ride out of here and forget this dinner ever happened.
There’s nothing for me here.
