Chapter 27
27
Tatum
It’s been so long since I’ve been able to register the smell of my parents’ house. I’m never gone long enough to catch the baked-in tang of our existence—laundry detergent, essential oil diffusers, and that undefinable, elusive smell of family.
Even though it smells like me, like what I’ve always known, I can’t help but think of June, wondering what she’d label this. How would she try to bottle it up? Could she make a perfume of my life?
My mom and dad are in the kitchen, sitting at the table as I enter through the back door in the early-morning hours, much the same as our last meeting.
“I should have been here,” I start, diving into the heart of it. No more tiptoeing. No more avoidance. “It was immature of me to leave without telling anyone.”
“Yes, it was,” my mom chimes in.
My shoulders rise into my ears. I knew this would be hard, but I thought I might get more than two sentences into the effort before running into any difficulty.
“We shouldn’t have sprung the reunion on you without warning,” my dad interjects. “Carson has been sure to make that very clear to us.”
Here it is, their fight blooming within my own fight. I brace myself for it, pinching the space between my eyes to help myself stay centered. I almost miss the fact that my mom’s not taking a jab at Dad for cutting her off. She’s talking to me.
“We thought that the less time you had to know about it, the less pressure you’d feel,” she says. “You always take things so hard, and we didn’t want that to be the case this time.”
My thoughts scramble for purchase. Is it my need for the truth that’s bucking up against this statement, or is it my pride? I want to be defensive, but doing that would only prove the point she’s making.
“We hoped that you wouldn’t feel like you had to plan the whole thing yourself, so we tried to do it without your input,” Dad explains. “Everything was going well in that department until we lost the dang folding chairs.”
“Which were in the basement,” Mom says with a theatrical sigh.
“I swore I put them in the garage,” Dad tells her.
“Yet there they were, in the basement,” Mom adds.
“Honey, I didn’t remember putting them down there. Until they invent a way for me to recover my lost thoughts, I wasn’t going to magically figure out that that’s where I’d put them.”
“ This is why,” I say, pointing back and forth between them. Their friction has indeed arrived, just a touch later than I expected. “This is why I think I need to do it all.”
Saying this might be the most effective way I’ve ever stopped them from bickering. For a moment, I relish the silence it’s brought, the satisfaction of preventing the inevitable escalation.
“Nothing has ever been the same since we found out about the affair,” I continue.
These words are so dangerous, so taboo, that my throat gets parched, like my body is physically resisting doing this. But I have to. I can’t keep it in anymore.
“And you both know that’s true. But you don’t want it to be. You want to act like we’ve all gotten through it, that because it was so long ago, there’s no way it’s still affecting us now. None of us have gotten through it. You told me last week that I seemed unhappy. Disconnected. Maybe I am. And maybe this is why. Because when I look at what the two of you have become to each other, it terrifies me. What if that’s all there is for me? Someone who resents me way more than they love me but feels obligated to see it through anyway?”
My mom’s eyes go wide. I’ve startled her into something outside her usual composure, and she seems to know she’s flailing, because she looks around the room like she’s in search of something to grab. “I don’t resent your father,” she says finally. “It was just a very complicated situation. And it really was so long ago now.”
I swallow back my tears so that my parents don’t remember this exchange for my emotions. I want them to remember my words . “Yeah, which means it’s been a very long time of the two of you behaving like this,” I say. “You act like you’re constantly annoyed to be in the same room with Dad, and he pretends not to have a negative opinion of a single person, place, or thing, so that he never appears to be the one who’s making the mood sour.”
If they were quiet before, they’re completely muted now, not even daring to breathe.
“I’m not going to be your therapist and ask you how it is you think you’re getting through it, or point out to you all the ways you could do it better, even though I have my opinions on that,” I say. “But I will tell you that I’ve always made myself into whatever you two need me to be. I would’ve found those chairs in the basement and probably lied and said I was the one who put them down there, just to stop you both from politely accusing each other of it all week. I moved myself into the cottage Mom won’t touch. I fix everything Dad doesn’t understand so that Mom can’t get frustrated at his inability to change with the times. Both of you just admitted to knowing that I feel like I have to help you all the time. Why do you let me do that?”
It’s more than a question. It’s a plea. A cry.
“You’re right.”
Hearing my mom say this feels impossible. Unbelievable. I have to blink three times to make sure it’s real.
“We haven’t been the same in a very long time,” she continues. “But I really do love your father. I wouldn’t have stayed if that wasn’t true.”
“I love your mother too,” my dad says, tears in his eyes. “I don’t…We don’t want to make you our therapist right now, but we are aware that we still have problems. We just didn’t realize how much those problems were stopping you from living your fullest life. We love having you around, but I can see how we’ve been selfish. We’ve let you do more for us than is necessary.”
“It’s okay,” I say involuntarily.
“It’s not,” my mom insists. “And I’m sorry we made you think you had to do that.” She’s weepy now too, each word coming out a little gurgled and uncertain. “It may not seem true, but we really are trying.”
“Part of why we wanted to do this week with Ben was to get better at looking the tough stuff in the face,” Dad explains. “What I did to our family all those years ago was inexcusable. And I’ve never really known how to address it with you kids. And then to find out I have another kid. I knew I couldn’t hide forever from this. So this was my way of trying to take ownership. But I can see that there’s still a lot more room for improvement.”
It’s hard not to feel like all of this would have been different if we’d said this so much sooner. But I know now we couldn’t have. That what I’ve been through this week in New York—and what they’ve been through here in Trove Hills with Ben—has made this possible.
“It’s hard for me to accept that I’m not the one with the answers,” I say. “That even after all this time, I can’t solve this alone. That maybe I can’t solve it at all.”
My mom comes over to give me a hug. “I’m sorry you ever felt like you had to solve it,” she says.
We’re both crying now, our tears dampening each other’s shirts.
“And I’m really sorry I wasn’t here,” I tell her.
Dad joins in, kissing my forehead as he holds us both. “It’s okay,” he tells me. “We just missed you. That’s all.”
“I missed you too,” I reply, meaning it. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you both. Please tell me there are some items still left on the activity list.”
“Of course there are. We’re doing an escape room today,” Mom says.
“Consider me in,” I say, laughing through my tears.
···
I pull my phone out of my pocket to text the group chat.
Tatum: Did you know Trove Hills has an escape room?
Nya: Where?
Tatum: It’s in the same strip mall that used to have the Dominick’s. By the vet.
Emmett: That sounds fun. We should do it when we’re home for Christmas.
Tatum: I’ll let you know if it’s any good.
Emmett: Hahahaha you don’t need to check it out beforehand. Save it for us!
Tatum: I can’t. I’m on the way there right now.
Every person in the chat reacts to this with question marks, emojis, GIFs.
Nya: I’m sorry. Aren’t you falling in love with June Lightbell in New York City right now?
I explain to them what happened with Laney, careful to avoid all mention of what June asked me right before I came back here. The group chat accepts my decision to return home, but it does nothing to stop their questions about June. The last they heard, June, Dawn, and I were all going to see a musical together. I’ve lived so many lives since then.
Right now, I want June’s question to be only mine to answer. I can’t have their opinions just yet. I already know what they’ll want—our group chat is called We Don’t Live in Trove Hills , after all. Of course they’ll want me to leave.
I drive Eleanor to the escape room. Seeing her in person, you would never know the state of her home. Or the sadness of her life. If I’m bursting at the seams, she’s sewed herself together so tightly she appears seamless. Infinite and unbroken in her composure. But I know her secret. And seeing as she’s spent the last week with my family, she knows most of mine.
It’s a weird kind of intimacy. It’s like she’s another sibling of mine, added to the mix somehow. But it goes beyond that. She’s like the inverse of me come to life, and it’s hard not to feel like our life swap wasn’t born out of some kind of cosmic coincidence. There is something we both need in each other, or from each other. I can never repay her for what the time spent in her place has given me.
“Did you know this escape room is going to be ghost themed?” I ask her. “We’re investigators breaking into a haunted mansion.”
“That should be interesting,” she says. “I like ghosts.”
“Do you like actors dressed as ghosts committed to scaring you no matter what it takes?”
“Guess we’re about to find out,” she says. “By the way, have you talked to June today? She sent me a picture of my cats a little bit ago.”
“I haven’t,” I say, hoping to sound neutral on the subject. “But the investors bought into her company. She’s still figuring out all the logistics, but it looks like she’ll be joining you over in New York very soon.”
“Of course they bought in. June’s very good at what she does,” Eleanor says.
This assessment is so direct, stated as fact, that I get secondhand flattery. Eleanor’s opinions hold real weight. She doesn’t say things without meaning them.
In the gap I don’t mean to leave, the pause that says I have a personal stake in this, Eleanor picks up on it. “Are you guys—”
“We’re friends,” I say, cutting her off before she can finish that question.
“Got it.”
Eleanor has developed some new secrets here too. I could tell last night that she didn’t want me to ask her about Carson, so I didn’t. She’s offering me the same courtesy in return.
We arrive at the escape room. Carson’s driven over with Laney. Her knee is wrapped up, and she’s on crutches. They’re waiting out front when we park.
“We better fucking dominate this,” Laney says in greeting, picking up one crutch to wave at me.
“See? Now that’s trash talk,” Eleanor tells her.
I give Laney the hug she doesn’t show she wants. “We’ll absolutely demolish this escape room, I promise.”
Our parents arrive next, offering apologies for running behind.
Then a man who really does looks like a variation of my dad put through a time machine and sprinkled with someone else’s nose and chin walks up to join us.
My brother.
I stretch my hand out to shake his hand. I’m afraid if I hug him, I’ll cry, and I’d like to not establish myself as the emotional sibling in any more ways than I already have. “I’m Tatum.”
“The one and only,” he says warmly. “I’m Ben.”
“I hear you’re my brother.”
“That’s what they’re saying around here these days.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
What do I say to him that fills in the gaps? How can we cross the wide chasm of time that we’ve spent apart? Will he understand the story about the trip to Wisconsin when Laney threw up three times on the car ride over, and everyone had to wear our dad’s clothes for the rest of the drive? Is it uncomfortable to share all the memories he didn’t get to experience?
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be bad at this,” I tell him.
“The escape room?” he questions. “I’m actually pretty good at them. It’s just puzzles really.”
I laugh. “No. Knowing you.”
“Oh,” he says, blushing. “I don’t want to be bad at knowing you either. So that makes us even, I think.”
“He’s not as good at pickleball as he thinks he is,” Eleanor informs me. It’s a perfect tension breaker. Everyone laughs.
“You should see him bowl,” Ben’s wife offers.
“Don’t bring bowling into this,” Ben warns, and it’s so deeply strange to see a piece of myself in the way he squeezes his lips together.
All this time, there has been more of me walking around the world than I’ve known about. Yet another person who shares some of the idiosyncrasies that must be embedded in our DNA.
When we get inside the escape room—or, pardon me, the haunted mansion—I find myself gravitating toward Ben as we puzzle our way through the dark, moody house. He laughs at not just my little quips and asides, but my reactions to the supernatural effects as well.
It’s fun to amuse him. It reminds me of when Carson, Laney, and I are all sitting at our parents’ table after Thanksgiving dinner, eating one final reheated dish. We’ve all decided to be on our best behavior, telling old stories and making each other laugh like we’re getting paid by the joke. Ben might be treating this reunion in the same way—a special occasion where he needs to be in top form—but there’s also a newness to our dynamic, coupled with some kind of common understanding that makes us get along. It’s simple, really. We like each other’s presence.
Near the end, surely close to solving the mystery at the center of the escape room experience, Ben and I get tasked with figuring out where the headmistress of this haunted house has hidden her prized jewel necklace. We return to her bedroom, where Ben and I search for the clue we both know must be here.
“We have to put the headmistress’s portrait on top of her dresser!” I wish I could say I figured this out through the clues we’ve received, but really, I just notice a slight fade to the wooden surface atop the dresser, the same size as the portrait sitting crooked on the mistress’s nightstand.
“You’re totally right,” Ben says, grabbing the portrait and putting it where I’ve directed him.
The locked drawer pops open, offering us a key.
“The jewelry box!” I say, charging into the closet. The key fits in the lock, and the lid opens, revealing a necklace with a giant ruby in the center and bulbous pearls along the chain. It looks straight out of a game of Pretty Pretty Princess.
Ben lets out a whoop of appreciation. “Nice job!”
It’s so sincere, so openly appreciative, that I feel the same kind of regret that bowled me over in New York when I learned about Laney’s leg. I should’ve been here for more of this.
“I’m really sorry I missed most of this week,” I say to him.
He picks up the ruby necklace, and we head back to the living room, where the rest of our team has been reassembling the ghost’s skeleton.
“Carson said you went to New York,” Ben replies. “That must’ve been awesome.”
“I only went because I was afraid to meet you,” I admit. “Like I thought it would mess up my family somehow. It was shitty of me. I regret it. You’re a great secret brother.”
He laughs good-naturedly, something I’m coming to understand is part of his personality. “You know, I didn’t take it well either when I found out that my dad wasn’t my biological father. So I get it.”
I think again of how June defended him that first night at the bar. She’d seen this somehow, had the foresight to empathize with him before she even knew him. My heart aches just remembering it. She was right. More than I even understood then. Ben went through something even deeper than what we’re experiencing on our side. My dad is his birth father, but he’s not the man who raised him. He’s not his actual father. And for most of his life, he had no clue.
Seeing him with this new perspective, I reach out and hug him. He responds to my hug with a sweet little puff of surprise.
“Aw, Tatum,” he says. “It’s okay. I swear. I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life too.”
“Like what?” It’s hard to imagine a guy like him doing anything wrong. He’s so unfailingly nice in every moment, in a way that seems truthful too. Just good to his core.
“For one, I didn’t speak to my wife for ten years,” he says. Hearing himself, he backpedals. “Not when she was my wife! God. Sorry. It was years ago. It’s a long story.”
“A story I definitely need to hear.”
As if summoned by this mention of her, Ben’s wife, Dee, finds us in the hallway. “Are you guys seriously having a heart-to-heart while holding Mrs. Weathermaster’s special ruby necklace, which you know good and well is the key to unlocking her skeleton and bringing her back to life?” she asks, exasperated. “We’re on a time crunch here!” She grabs the necklace from Ben’s hand and runs into the living room.
Dee places Mrs. Weathermaster’s necklace around the bones they’ve managed to turn into a decent-looking skeleton.
The lights begin flickering, and the room fills with smoke. It’s all pretend, and I’m priming myself to crack another winning joke to Ben. I scan for him, realizing that every other person in the room is reacting to this final show with genuine awe. Unclear if this is a bit or not, I spend more time watching them than I do watching the apparition that now appears, also known as an actor in a costume, dressed up in gaudy clothes to play the role of Mrs. Weathermaster. She tells us what her husband did, and how we’ve succeeded in freeing her spirit, but we must release her from the mansion altogether so that his ghost can no longer torture her.
All the while, our group begins forming pairs. My mom stands with her back pressed into my dad’s front. Ben puts his arm around Dee. And Carson, I notice, lets Eleanor peek over their shoulder. I go for Laney, of course. She and I have always enjoyed being the bratty little sisters who can mock everyone else. But seeing the room of partners, of people paired together with someone they’ve chosen, I wish again for June. And for that version of myself I found in New York.
In the end, it’s Eleanor who figures out how to free Mrs. Weathermaster. We make it out of the escape room—ghost of Mrs. Weathermaster included—with only minutes to spare.
Overflowing with excitement, Ben and Carson hoist Eleanor up, as our whole group chants her name.
“Eleanor, you’re truly one of us,” my dad says proudly.