Chapter 21
twenty-one
The front door squeaks open to the scent of beer and Febreeze, piles of clothes pushed up against the couch and walls. An empty handle of vodka and beer bottles strain the top of the trash can in the kitchen, and Dad’s legs are propped on the broken coffee table.
Rage is a surprisingly overwhelming emotion. I’m glad it’s not something I feel very often. Still, it provides the courage needed to do something I should have done years ago. The moment my father is in my sights, I stomp toward him.
“Dad.” He stirs. When one eye pops open, squinting, I put my hands on my waist. “You told Chase he was fine to drive Finn to his lift? After he’d had a drink?”
His other eye opens, but he doesn’t respond. Matteo sidles up behind me. Dad looks him over, then frowns. “Wha…?”
“Did you or did you not tell Chase that he was safe to drive after allowing him to drink with you—something that is completely illegal by the way.”
“It had been over half an hour. He was fine,” he grumbles. He isn’t slurring, which is a sign he’s slept it off. At least somewhat.
“Get out.”
Dad’s head snaps up, scanning my face to see whether I’m being serious. “What?”
“Get. Out. I have given you a pass for years because I was so desperate for you to return to the person you used to be, but I am done. You are enabling one of your sons and putting the lives of all your kids at risk in the process. You may not care about that, but I do.” My voice has risen, loud enough that Hazel comes rushing out of our room, eyes wide.
Chase appears almost as shocked from where he stands against the sink in the kitchen.
“He was fine! Totally sober,” my dad claims.
“Not sober enough because he scraped the car and almost took away Finn’s chance to get out of this hell.”
My father looks around. “Where is Finn?”
“Get up. Grab your things. You are no longer welcome to come back when it suits you, sober or not.”
He shoots to his feet, a few inches taller than me. If Matteo didn’t step right beside me, it might have been intimidating.
“You have no right! This is my house.”
Hazel scoffs.
“Really?” I respond. “When was the last time you made a payment on it? Whose name is on the lease? Whose name has been on the lease for the last six years?” When he doesn’t respond, I cross my arms. “Mine. Because I’m the person who takes care of us.
I’m the person who wakes up every day with the knowledge that people are depending on me. So get the hell out.”
He glares at me for a long moment. “Where will I go?”
“I don’t care. I’ll drive you to wherever you disappear to for weeks at a time and you can stay there.”
Positive he has more to say, I stand my ground, staring up at him so he knows how serious I am. Rather than respond, he plods his way to his room, hopefully with plans to pack a bag.
I let out a long sigh when his door shuts, my body falling against Matteo’s. It’s only late morning yet I feel I’ve lived an entire day.
“Why don’t you let me take him? You do what you need to here,” Matteo says, nodding toward the kitchen, where Chase still stands.
“That’s too much to ask of you.”
“I won’t do you any good here anyway. Let me handle it.”
When I finally agree, I watch Dad reluctantly get into Matteo’s car with a suitcase.
I try to prepare myself for another reckoning, one with Chase, but I can’t get a handle on my emotions.
Desperate to get out of the house, I tell Hazel and Chase I’ll be back, then find my way to my elementary school.
A distant monument of the part of my life where everything changed.
Tucked between two-story brick buildings and a line of trees sits the playground.
It’s winter break, but I can almost hear the little shrieks of laughter as kids run around and skid down the blue-green slides, getting stuck in the summer heat, the friction almost unbearable.
Sunlight bounces off the metal bars of the jungle gym, the smell of mulch hanging in the air like they recently added wood chips for cushioning a few days ago.
Sitting on a creaking swing, my legs move back and forth, breeze rushing through my hair.
I feel like a kid again, hands wrapped around the rubber-covered metal chains that attach the swing to the wooden frame.
If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine what it was like when it was my sanctuary.
The place I looked forward to going to every day to get away from all the chores at home. The place I met Austin.
The place where teachers worried about my home life because I was “too mature for my age.”
That home life is coming back to bite me in the butt. I’m realizing that I don’t know what I’m doing. Hazel asked to feel like an equal instead of an obligation, and I tried to give that to all three of them, so why does it feel like it backfired?
It’s not Hazel or Finn, obviously. The problem is, and has been for a while, Chase.
Now that I’ve dealt with my father, I roll Chase’s words from earlier over, hoping to glean what exactly he wants from me.
Would he have traded the solidarity of taking care of the twins for starvation?
Is the latter truly better than the former?
And other than driving them places, it’s not like he does much to take care of them now, so what’s the problem?
It’s infuriating knowing everything I’ve done for them, for him, is now being used as a vessel to show all the ways I failed.
I don’t know how long I’m on this swing, but after the sun has moved significantly overhead, a head of light brown hair appears between two buildings. A few moments later, Hazel slides onto the swing beside me.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
“Hey.”
“Finn called. Said the lift went really well. He’s on his way back now.”
That’s one thing to be thankful for, I suppose. I should offer to go pick him up so he doesn’t have to take a rideshare, but I’m at my limit.
Hazel must recognize that because she continues, “Matteo got back a while ago, and only fifteen minutes later, he got in his car to find you. I convinced him you needed more time. Figured your first breakdown would probably last at least a few hours after years and years of keeping a lid on it.”
Confused, I look at her. “Breakdown?”
She smiles teasingly. “Or are you here to enjoy the view?”
I snort.
“Can I say something and you not get mad?” she asks timidly.
“Sure. Why not? Pile it on.”
She frowns before staring out over the playground.
“You don’t know everything that happened after you left.
Chase did a lot of raising us while you were working, and since you left…
” Her shoulders slump. “He changed when you left. Got more withdrawn. Finn and I were still young, so it took me a long time to realize it wasn’t just the struggle of taking care of us on his own.
He missed you. A lot. You were his best friend, and then you were gone. ”
All the fight building inside me whooshes from my lungs.
One of my biggest insecurities with my siblings is that I can’t be as present for them as I’d like because I’m so focused on the financial aspect of taking care of them.
I assumed once they were set on the right paths, we could get back to how things were before.
But maybe Chase is right. I haven’t let myself so much as breathe the last few years to keep them from dealing with what I did, but did they ever ask for that? Did I ever wonder what they might want?
“What am I supposed to do, Haze? Quit the tour?” Just because it’s the thing I do to keep my family together doesn’t mean I don’t love it. Quitting would leave me with a gaping hole in my heart.
“Nobody expects that. But you could call occasionally. Tell us about what’s happening in your life.
Make us feel like you want us to be a part of it.
When I said I wanted to feel like an equal, getting a job was only one piece of that.
I want to feel like your little sister, not someone you have to take care of. ”
“That’s a two-way street,” I protest. “I’m always hesitant to call because of how busy you all are.”
Hazel chuckles good-naturedly. “We’re busy? Del, have you seen your schedule? Half the time, I only know where you are because I look at the tour schedule. I never want to bother you, and especially when you’re traveling, I never know when to call.”
Clarity slips behind the veil of insecurity I’ve clutched to myself for so long. I turn away from her. “It’s so simple yet we’ve all been dancing around it for years, huh? Me not wanting to bother you all. You all not wanting to bother me.” We share a laugh.
“I’m proud of the way you handled Dad. I know that was probably hard for you since you got to see him differently than we did.”
Making my younger sister proud for something I probably should have done eons ago to protect all of us is odd, but it’s also nice to hear. Like validation that I did the right thing, even if it was a decision driven by my heightened emotions. “Thank you.”
We fall into our own thoughts, swinging slowly side by side.
A few minutes later, I say, “I’m sorry. I lived in the caretaker role your whole lives. I was terrified to step out of it for fear that once I did, none of you would need me.”
Hazel smiles at me kindly. “We’ve always needed you. The way that we do has just changed over time.”
The words are a comfort, especially after so long believing otherwise. “Yeah.” Our legs move in tandem, pushing us one way, then pulling us the other. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Chase. Is he still upset with me?”
“When I left, he seemed more upset with himself than anything else. Before today, he was only hurting himself. I think knowing he could’ve ruined Finn’s life flicked a switch in him. I also think seeing you finally handle Dad made him realize how serious you are.”
I dig my heels into the pebbles to stop my momentum, standing slowly. I can’t put this conversation off forever.
“We’d better get home then.”
Sahar’s Bad Berlin Bagels
Harper