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I wish people would stop asking me that. I wish they’d stop assuming the worst in me, and for once just say, “Hey, Adi, how are you?” Except in this instance, she’s not wrong to ask what I’ve done.
“Hey, Sarah. How’s things?”
“Fine. We’re all fine. It’s late, and I’m about to go to bed, so can we cut to the “what you need” part of the call, please?”
In some moments I hate my family. And I often wondered throughout the years whether I was adopted or not. I’m so unlike the rest of my family that it feels as though I was dropped in with them, maybe even by aliens.
Sighing, I bite my tongue. Literally. It’s the only thing that stops the retorts from spilling out of my lips when it comes to my older sisters. “I need some advice.”
She snorts, as though she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Okay. I’ll bite. Advice on what?”
Sometimes she can be a real bitch. This was a bad idea. I don’t want to ask her for advice. My sisters never make it easy for me. They’re far too busy being perfect in their perfect lives with their perfect jobs and husbands and kids that they don’t have time for the dysfunctional reject little sister.
“I have a friend who just got placed with an eleven year old autistic child. He’s struggling.” It’s much easier to ask for help when it’s for someone who isn’t me. Maybe she’ll even buy it.
She sighs. “What have you gotten yourself involved in this time, Adi?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to help a friend.” It’s half true. I am trying to help a friend, and a child, and myself.
“So you randomly have a male friend who got landed with an eleven year old neurodivergent child, and you’re just randomly asking me for advice?”
I stay quiet, scrubbing a stubborn ketchup stain off a plate in the sudsy water.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, I—”
“Addison.” Her clipped tone tells me she’s had enough, and I’m on her last nerve. Never takes much. “Either give me the whole story, or I’m hanging up. I have no interest in helping yourboyfriend. Whoever he is.”
“What? No. That’s not what this is, Sarah. Not at all. He’s...” I groan. “He’s my employer.”
“Your... employer? He works in the fashion industry?”
“No. He...”
He said he had a day job but I have no clue what Thor does. And if I tell her he’s a bartender... she’s going to look down her nose at him, I just know it. Fuck it. I steel my spine. There’s nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to where Thor works. No matter how my prissy sister may react. “He works in a BDSM bar.”
There’s a long pause on the line. “He works in a sex club? He’s single?”
“Yeah.” I see where this is going, but there’s nothing I can do to derail the train. At least she didn’t say something shitty about kink, or the fact he’s “just” a barman. My sisters are both doctors, they both married doctors, and I’m sure all their kids will grow up to be doctors.
As well as being a Grade-A bitch sometimes, Sarah is also an elitist. I’d make excuses for her, or say she doesn’t mean to be. But the truth is, she probably does. She’s just a shitty person. And once again I wonder why the hell I even called her.
As a woman in my thirties, I sometimes wonder why I still keep in touch with them at all. But it’s not completely terrible all the time. Holidays are my favorite. And at the end of the day, they’re family, it’s what you do... right?
I think my sisters get so mad because everyone knows I’m Daddy’s favorite. He’s soft on me. Not that he’d ever stand up to Mom, but it’s why Mom always “deals with me” and my mess ups. Daddy would just fix everything and pretend like nothing ever happened. But my sister both have Mom on their side, and it’s never felt like I’ve had her on my side at all.
Right now, however, I’m enduring this painful conversation with my sister for Matthew. That’s all that matters.
It’s for Matthew. It’s for Matthew. It’s for Matthew.
“So who watches the kid while he’s at work at night?”
Here it comes.
It’s for Matthew.
My silence seems to be all the answer she needs for a hot minute. And I’m almost sure she’s not going to make me say it out loud.
