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Up the stairs, I make my way into my bedroom where I close and lock the door and bury my head into a pillow. The only thing I trust with my sobs.
And I cry in private until I hear the cars outside and know they are home.
My stepfather and his two sons.
CHAPTER 2
Can you make it feel like home if I tell you you’re mine?
The lyrics float above me as I stare up at all the green glowing stars on the ceiling. Lana Del Rey is where I turn when I'm really lost because knowing someone else is miserable too is relieving in some sick way.
There’s a solid knock at my bedroom door.
I have my own floor, and they give me a wide berth. That leaves just one person it could be now that Mari is back in France.
“Sylvio?” I call out the name of the man who runs this house. I don’t know what title he has because I’ve never heard him addressed as anything but his name. He cooks, orders groceries, wraps gifts, he doles out directions to the gardener and pool man. He does it all. I suppose he’s like the chef and house manager.
Sometimes he comes to my room and lets me know when he’s made something sweet. Despite the fact that I’m utterly rotten, sour, and as Mari called me,bitter—I have a sweet tooth and Sylvio knows how to sweeten me up, he says.
But the voice that crashes against the door isn’t that of the aged Italian man with silver wingtips and too many gold rings.
“Cherry.” His voice sounds like money and power, rigid with intention.
“Glenn,” I say his name back to him because I’ll die a cold, painful death before I answer back sweetly.
“Come down to the kitchen. We’re having a family talk.”
Family talk. My eyes roll reactively, instinctively as the irony of the phrase makes me bark out a laugh. Family. That’s not what we are. He is more of a warden than a stepfather, and he may have loved my mother and I at one time but it’s clear that ended the day she died.
“Cherry,” he says again, anger throttling his impatience. And even though I’d never admit it, the fierceness in his voice when he gets angry always makes my heart rattle, just a little. “Get the fuck downstairs.”
Though he can’t see, I roll my eyes again as I throw my legs over the side of the bed, straightening my crumpled dress before standing. Smoothing my hair down, I make my way to the door, but when I pull it open the only trace of Glenn is his cologne.
Downstairs, I find my twenty-seven-year-old stepbrother Max, his twenty-five-year-old brother Conrad, and their father–my stepfather–Glenn.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve lived with the three of them for the last fourteen years–they are unfamiliar to me in the most important ways.
Do I know what they smell like, the brand of coffee they prefer, the food they eat, the TV shows they record, the dumb shit they say to one another when they’re angry, how much they tip their employees, and how they vote? Yes.
Do I know anything about them, really? No.
Glenn was a widow when he married my mother. I was four when they got married, and five when she was killed. We didn’t move, I didn’t go stay with some long lost grandmother. Glenn simply hired someone to live in the house and raise me.
Then, he and his sons went on to live in the same house as if I simply… didn’t exist. I was Mari’s to raise and that was clear.
“What?” I ask, hands on hips with a defiance so powerful it almost leavesmerattled.
Like anyone ignored, their lack of attention or care birthed and nourished a deep hatred inside of me. Around age twelve, I stopped trying to be loved. I hardened. I met their coolness and neglect with anger and insubordination. As time went on, I got worse. I broke rules, I dressed provocative, I went out, and I came home whenever the fuck I felt like it.
And that fucking heartless asshole didn’t even have the nerve to say anything to my face about any of it, either. He told Mari, and made her hand down rules and guidelines. I don’t know why that made me hate him more, but it did. Like I wasn’t even good enough for his punishment.
“Now that you’re eighteen, it’s time for you to come to work at the firm.”
Max cracks his knuckles, and Conrad drinks from an open can of beer. Glenn stands with his back against the refrigerator door, looking down at his toes.
He’s delivering this news like someone died.
Because that’s what I am to them—the dark cloud hovering over them reminding everyone of the life theyalmosthad. The life where my mother was here and unified us with her love and warmth.
