YOU SHOULD WONDER WHY IT WAS SO EASY TO BELIEVE
31
Nate : Your random feeling of the day?
Prudence : I’m sad Nuri’s leaving already.
Nate : I’m sure you’ll see her soon.
Nate : You could go see her on your own now that Jack has a whole team looking after him.
Prudence : Maybe.
Prudence : I’m not sure I’m ready. Letting him take the plane alone from Seattle while I was driving was stressful enough.
Nate : It was different then.
Prudence : I know, I know.
Prudence : What about your random feeling of the day?
Nate : Hm…
Nate : I got a hard-on in the middle of Walmart.
Nate : Buying sunscreen.
Nate : The female cashier noticed and I worry she might have thought it was for her.
Nate : The sultry look she gave me was a little awkward.
Nate : I hope she doesn’t track me using my loyalty card.
PRUDENCE
I’m sitting crossed-legged on my bed, locked in my room, biting my fingernails, and staring at my phone. Waiting. Jack is writing downstairs, and I told him I was going to join him shortly so we could write and draw together. We haven’t spent a night storytelling in a while…
And instead of spending time with him, I’m hiding here, waiting for a call that I’m not so sure I want to answer anymore. I mean, do I really want to know what the hell is going on back there for Tham to try to call me? Do I want to talk to him? It seemed like he doesn’t know the reason we’re not welcome home anymore. But is Nuri right? What if Tham is actually lying and manipulating me into doing whatever he wants like he used to when I was a kid?
I’m seriously considering turning my phone off and pretending like I never agreed to talk to him when it starts ringing. A video call.
Why the hell would he want to video call?
I take a deep breath and inhale slowly through my nose, my eyes closed, in hope that my face will relax and he won’t notice the deep frown that was pulling on my face for a good thirty minutes.
And I accept the call.
My face appears first, and I drop my gaze, waiting for the circle to stop spinning and his face to pop up in its stead.
And when it does, he smiles.
Not one of the sneers he used to do when we were younger and he was always at my throat. An actual smile.
It would be a lie to say that he hasn’t changed. It’s been about seven years, and it shows a little. In the way his eyes crease at the corner with the—disturbingly—warm smile reaching his eyes, the expressions wrinkles on his forehead, the few white hairs in his beard and the side of his perfectly styled hair.
“It’s so good to see you, Prudence,” he says, and I’m surprised that he actually sounds like he means it.
“Is it?” I ask, my voice croaking a little.
His smiles wavers then, and my heart clenches in my chest. “Yeah, it is. I’m—How are you? So you’re in California, now?”
I force a smile, relieved that he can’t see my free hand shaking on my lap. “Yeah. We are.”
He nods, maybe waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t. I’m just staring at his face, so familiar and foreign at the same time.
“Julie and I are still in Aspen,” he says and I just nod. “It’s practical. So mom and Dad can spend time with the kids and stuff. Mom is the stereotypical grandmother,” he chuckles. “It’s almost scary. She makes so much Jam and bakes so many cakes, you could put her in a commercial or something.”
I force a smile, my throat tightening. I don’t recognize my mother in the woman he is describing. My mother is cold, distant, and judgemental. Not the baking grandmother, playing and running around surrounded by happy grandchildren.
“The kids asked about you the other day,” he says, his eyes darting to the side for a short second before going back to face the camera. “They found a picture of you and Jack in the attic.”
He pauses then, and I still don’t talk.
“And they asked me why they never saw other pictures of the two of you before. Why the only picture of you was stashed in a forgotten drawer in a forgotten chest, in the attic. And I had no answers.”
My throat bobs, struggling to swallow through the knot settled there, the rising need to cry.
“They didn’t show the picture to mom and dad. Just stole it and brought it home to ask me. And I had no answers . Because Jack stopped showing up during his fourth year of college. But you kept coming back for a little while. And it didn’t hit me at the time because we’ve never been close, but mom and dad never acknowledged Jack’s absence. All of his pictures disappeared from the family house. And you were always so angry, so sad, when you were here.”
He pauses, and I pray that the single tear sliding down my cheek is not showing on his screen.
“And that single photo was hidden in the attic. The kids don’t remember you, because you stopped coming home when they were too little to have real memories, but they were curious about you and—”
“Does this conversation have a point?” I ask flatly, the quiver in my voice barely audible.
I see his eyes close and he seems to take a breath. I doubt he wanted to call me about a probably old picture that they forgot to throw away.
“Dad’s in the hospital.”
I say nothing. We stare at each other through the barrier of our respective screens. I let a minute pass, waiting for him to explain further. He doesn’t.
“I fail to understand why that would concern me.”
He sighs at my cold tone. “He’s still your father.”
“Sure,” I chuckle dryly. “I’ll send flowers.”
“He had a stroke, Prudence. He’s been in and out of consciousness for two days. It’s a big deal and if you just—”
“Well, boo—fucking—hoo, Tham. What am I supposed to do, cry for the bastard? I’m sorry, but I can’t. I won’t pretend anymore. I’m not happy that happened, but I won’t shed a single tear for that poor excuse of a human being.”
I’m not sure if the screen is frozen or if I actually managed to shock him so much that he’d lost the ability to speak. Unfortunately, that small blessing doesn’t last.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Are you serious?” I scoff in disbelief. “I struggle to believe that you don’t know what happened. You haven’t seen Jack for ten fucking years! And none of you thought to ask daddy dearest why Jack was suddenly out of the family picture? Why me, the only one who actually cared about him, decided that I was done with them too?”
“Of course we asked!”
“Then how the hell do you not understand?!” I yell back.
“How am I supposed to? Dad said Jack didn’t come back here because he hated all of us! That he somehow blamed us for his disease! And with you glaring at us all every time you came back, it was not a surprise when he told us you felt the same and decided to stay with him!”
My jaw drops. My heart is beating a hundred miles a minute and my palms feel clammy against my thigh.
That’s the excuse our father gave everyone? That our mother stood behind? That our siblings believed ?
An hysterical giggle leaves my throat, the sound sharp and loud in my ringing ears. And I can’t stop. The giggle turning into a full-on laugh.
“What’s so funny?” He asks, very clearly annoyed by my reaction.
But I don’t stop. Can’t stop. I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, almost struggling to breathe. I laugh because I can’t cry, won’t cry for them. Not anymore.
“Wow,” I say, taking a breath and wiping my eyes. “How dumb are you all?”
“Excuse me?”
“No, I don’t think I can forgive. Jack might, someday, but I won’t,” I say, shaking my head. “Dad lied. Jack never blamed you for anything. Any of you. Our dear father disowned him and told him to stay away, to never come back home.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m not? Ask the perfect grandmother of your children, then. Ask her how she stood next to him and did nothing when he told Jack he was no son of his. That he deserved to be sick. That none of you wanted to see him again and he would have preferred him to die than be gay .”
Tham rears back, lips parted, eyes open wide. The surprise on his face impossible to fake.
“Ask her. Because she was there. She did nothing and said nothing. Ever the perfect submissive wife for him and coldhearted mother to us.” I pause, fighting the pressure behind my eyes. “So no, Jack did not blame you for anything. He’s a fucking soft-hearted saint who wouldn’t have hesitated a second to pick up the phone if any of you called him in the last ten years. No matter that dad told him you all hated his guts for being gay. But none of you did. None of you questioned for a second the excuse dad gave you. And for that, you don’t deserve him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care .”
“And yet, I am!” he says, his voice hard. “I’m—none of us had any idea. And that actually explains… A lot. Why mom always goes out of her way to convince us not to call any of you. I mean, when I tried from the hospital yesterday she nearly ripped the phone from my hands and started blabbering about you not being allowed to come to the hospital because it would upset dad even though they complain all the time about you never coming back and never joining our group calls.”
“Then why did you call me anyway?”
“Because I—” He stops, darting his gaze on the side for a moment as I hear children running and Julie laughing behind them. He had a three and a one years old the last time I saw him. They must be all grown up now. Maybe he even has more. “I needed to talk to you. To know if it was true.”
“It’s a little late to question it.”
“It is, but I did. We all did, from the start, in our own way. Naveen buys all of Jack’s books. I don’t know if he reads them, but they’re all in his office’s library. Hidden from mom and dad, but there nonetheless. I still have all your creepy drawings from your Bones’ phase and Jack’s little short stories in a folder. Amy keeps listening to the True Crime podcasts you guys traumatized her with when you were teens, even though she hates feeling scared.
“None of us were truly ever able to let go and erase you from our lives. We always wondered if we knew the whole story and what happened for you guys to suddenly hate us so much you couldn’t even see our faces anymore. But mom and dad don’t know any of it, and we keep quiet when we’re with them. For all these years, even though we thought you guys hated us, we could never let go.
“So, I’m sorry. I know you don’t care, but I am. And Naveen and Amy will probably be as devastated as I am to learn the truth, but we can’t change the past, Prudence. We can only make sure to be better. And I know, if you let us—”
“It’s not up to me, Tham,” I sigh, barely over a whisper, the fight gone from my voice. “I was hurt but it’s nothing compared to what Jack went through.”
He set his phone on something then, before sliding both his hands over his face, the same gesture he always did when he was getting frustrated with something.
“Our family is fucked up,” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “I know that now. Even back then, the way they treated Jack and you, it wasn’t okay. I hate that I didn’t notice before, but I do now, and… Shit, I can’t even fathom how they could just erase Jack from their lives and lie to us about it.”
“Maybe you should ask yourself why you believed them so easily.”
He frowns. “What?”
“When they said you didn’t want to see him again, that you hated him too. You should wonder why it was so easy to believe. Because unlike you, we had no doubt that it was probably true.”
I can see it in his eyes then. He knows. He knows why we believed what they said so easily. He remembers that even if he apologized when I was about eighteen for the way he treated us before, they’ve all been nothing but awful to us for years. That apologies don’t erase all scars.
“Look, I’m glad we got to clear the air. I don’t know what you expected when you told me about the stroke, but I don’t plan on coming home to see him. We have our own lives, and we’re happy. Jack is finally happy.”
“Don’t you think he should be able to make the decision himself?”
“Absolutely,” I nod. “But you called me, not him . And that’s my answer. Feel free to call him. If he decides to come see our father, then I’ll come with him. But it won’t be my choice, because as far as I’m concerned, I won’t put any work into a relationship that’s already broken beyond repairs.”
He nods, just a slight tilt of his head. I don’t know if he will actually call him or not. But I said what I had to say and even if it hurts, it feels good to close a door that’s been left ajar for too long.
I know now that our parents lied. To us, and to them. And maybe someday, things will get better between all of us. Maybe those relationships, unlike the one with our father and mother, aren’t too far gone. That it’ll take time, but we can actually learn to all be siblings, without all the fights and drama that we had before.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. If they told the truth, things would have been vastly different,” he says, his voice soft, the sounds of the kids playing a little farther away. “I don’t want to speak for the others, but I wouldn’t have cared. Gay or straight, sick or healthy, Jack would still have been my annoying little brother that I never got to really know. And I wish we were raised differently. Maybe then, I would’ve been better. Maybe then, you would have doubted them when they lied.”
“Yeah, well, our parents are kind of shitty.”
He chuckles, the sound a little dry. “Yeah. I think none of us were actually happy back then.”
“Why do you still hang around, then?”
He pauses for a few seconds, looking lost in thoughts. “I’m not sure anymore. But for all their flaws as parents, at least they’re doing better being grandparents.”
“If you say so,” I shrug.
And here comes the awkward silence, where we both stare at each other through our screens, not sure if we should end the call or say something else.
“Well, I need to go,” I say, deciding it’s better to just be done with it than wait for him to make up his mind.
“Sure. I—It was good talking to you. I’m glad you told me the truth, and I’ll… I don’t know. I’m supposed to see everyone tomorrow at the hospital. Is it okay if I tell Naveen and Amy?”
“If you want to. We thought they already knew anyway.”
“Good,” he pauses again but speaks before I can press on the hang off button. “I’ll call Jack. And I’ll call you again. Just to catch up. Would that be okay?”
Would it?
“Maybe in a little while. I think I need some time.”
He nods again. “Okay. Well, I hope we get to talk again soon.”
After a few more awkward nods, I hang up the phone, dropping it face up on the bed.
I won’t tell Jack. Not yet. If they want him to know, they’ll call and tell him themselves.
Tonight, it’s about us spending time together. Storytelling like we’ve done a million times before, when it was just the two of us. Him working on a story while I draw whatever comes to my mind and we exchange about it, giving each other challenges and ideas.
Tonight it’s about us being siblings.