Chapter 37 #2
“I see some things never change,” Mom observed as I flapped a dish towel in front of the oven while Gage opened the back door to let the fresh air in. “You know, your sister made the most incredible salt-baked red snapper when I was out there last month. Her talents know no bounds.”
“Unlike Zoey, who knows no talent.” Dad guffawed at his own joke.
Gage took a threatening step in his direction before I jumped in front of him and held the dish towel in front of his face like it was laced with chloroform. “How about we go to Angelo’s for lunch instead?” I suggested brightly.
“So where’s Kirk?” Dad said my stepfather’s name like it tasted like a cat hair ball smoothie before shoving half a breadstick into his mouth.
Mom didn’t even look up from the chicken parm she was carving into minuscule pieces. Brinsley was too busy taking pictures of her Italian salad to participate in the conversation.
Jessie had seated us in the middle of Angelo’s dining room with Wes as our server. On our left were the Story Lake Warblers. On our right was the entire high school cross-country team, including Darius.
“Kirk is at our grandson’s spring choral concert. Little Theo stands next to a boy who has a solo. The first two shows were wonderful. I hated to miss it today, but we can’t have Zoey feeling left out again,” Mom said pointedly.
“You wanted to go to a repeat of a first-grade chorus concert?” I asked, certain I’d heard her wrong.
“Of course. I love showing my support for my family.”
“You left in the middle of my volleyball quarterfinals because you said the gymnasium ventilation was drying out your eyes,” I pointed out. “You told another mom to tell me to take the subway home. I sprained my knee, and my coach had to take me to a walk-in clinic.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You were fine after a few weeks,” Mom said, waving a hand in my direction.
“Yeah, Mopey,” Dad said through a mouthful of pizza.
“Here she goes again, Gage,” Mom said with an exasperated eye roll. “I don’t know how you put up with her. Everything’s always a competition. Theo’s seven years old, Zoey. You don’t always have to be the center of attention.”
Gage put down his beer. And I could tell just by the clink of glass on the table that he was about to say something.
I reached under the table and grabbed his thigh. “The important thing to remember here is they’re just people. They honestly don’t know any better,” I whispered to him.
“They’re about to,” he promised darkly before turning to my mother.
“Let me get this straight, Adrienne. You’re here to celebrate your beautiful, accomplished daughter’s birthday, to see her new home and meet some of the people who are important to her.
But you want her to know you’d rather be in an auditorium listening to a bunch of tone-deaf kids sing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’?
” His voice was deceptively friendly, and no one but me seemed to notice just how dangerous that was.
“Actually, it’s a religious school so they mostly stick to Jesus loving them,” Mom said, missing the entire point. “Now if you want to talk accomplished, you should meet our daughter Carla.”
“She’s a biochemist, you know. And she can cook a hell of a lasagna,” Dad explained, lifting his beer in a mock toast. “Not like this one. She just came out wrong.”
Gage’s thigh muscles tensed under my hand, and I squeezed harder.
“Carla’s never forced us to put our lives on pause to celebrate her. Zoey on the other hand…” Mom was on her third glass of wine, which made her twice as loud as usual. One more, and the entire restaurant would know everything she was thinking.
“Oof,” Dad agreed.
The only time my parents were in sync was when it came to discussing what a burden I’d been on them.
“This kid never stopped crying as a baby. For the first four months, nothing but screaming at the top of her lungs like she was on fire or something,” Dad said.
“I believe it’s called colic,” I explained to Gage.
“Okay. This is a joke, right?” Gage asked, draping his arm over the back of my chair and dragging it and me closer.
“The joke is on us. We used to have to leave her alone in her room crying for hours because none of us could take the noise,” Mom remembered on a laugh. “You were just so needy.”
“That’s me,” I said lightly. I’d gotten used to the barbs and complaints. They were easier to deal with than the idea that none of us were capable of a real relationship.
“Remember how she couldn’t get herself out of bed in the mornings?” Dad said, slapping the table.
Mom rolled her eyes. “Ugh. We got so tired of making sure she was ready for school, we just stopped waking her up.”
“Sounds like you were just tired of parenting,” Gage said.
“Please don’t,” I begged him.
“What’s that?” Dad barked.
“No more breadsticks,” Brinsley said, slapping my father’s hand away from the basket.
“Remember that time she got lost at the museum and had an absolute friggin’ meltdown?” Dad said to Mom.
Mom groaned. “My God. You could hear her sobbing all the way from the African mammal exhibit.”
“‘Where’s my mommy? Where’s my daddy?’” Dad mimicked in a near shout. He and my mother burst into raucous laughter, drawing the attention of everyone in a twenty-foot radius.
“I was four,” I said. “Needless to say, by six, I could read a subway map and find my way home.”
“And don’t even get us started on the teenage years. It’s not too late to run, Gage. No one would blame you,” Mom teased.
I was getting sympathetic looks from the cross-country team.
Gage pushed his chair back from the table and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Excuse me for a minute.”
My heart sank. I wanted to dissolve into the carpet.
“Oh boy. He’s already on the run,” Dad said, nudging Brinsley, who dropped her phone on her salad. “She chased that one off fast.”
“You know what? I think it’s time we give up this little birthday tradition,” I suggested.
“Oh ho!” Dad chuckled.
“Nice try, Mopey. We wouldn’t dream of it. Not after the guilt trip you laid on us. No, ma’am. We’re stuck with you, so you’re stuck with us,” Mom said.
“‘You’re bad parents,’” Dad said in another over-the-top whiny impression.
“‘Parents who love their kids don’t forget their birthdays every year,’” Mom mimicked. “Meanwhile, who was the one who never remembered her homework or her class schedule or her locker combination?”
Everyone in the restaurant was staring at us, at me. I felt like I was experiencing one of my “naked in public” nightmares in real life. Only instead of everyone knowing I forgot to wear pants, they all knew I was unlovable.
“There was actually a reason for that. All of it,” I said, picking up my water glass.
Dad snorted. “Shyeah. It’s called laziness.”
Brinsley put down her phone and blinked like she’d just woken from a long nap. “I’m not comfortable with you talking to your daughter that way. That’s the way a before talks, not an after,” she said.
“Sorry, Brinsley,” Dad said, immediately contrite.
She looked at me and gestured for me to go ahead.
I cleared my throat. “Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“Oh boy, here we go again. What did we do wrong this time, Zoey?” Dad asked.
“Besides drop my cake, forget my presents, and blame me for your divorce?” I quipped.
Brinsley, confident that I was going to stand up for myself, picked up her phone again.
“I didn’t forget your present. Your cake is your present,” Mom insisted.
“And I’m going to get you a gift card to a gas station. It’ll be in your email tonight. Or maybe Monday,” Dad said.
I laughed. “Oh my God! Guys, can we please call time of death on this thing? None of us wants to be here. I’m sorry for being fourteen and thinking I’d want to celebrate my birthday with you.
I don’t want to do this anymore. In fact, I don’t think it’s healthy for us to be around each other.
And the reason I was ‘so difficult’ is called ADHD, and if I’d had a diagnosis earlier, my entire life could have been easier. Maybe yours too.”
But they weren’t listening to me. They never were.
“Honestly, if it weren’t for all the stress you caused us, I think we might have lasted a few more years. Don’t you, Richie?” Mom said.
They’d taken me out to my sister’s favorite restaurant the day after she left for college and told me they were getting a divorce.
“You shouldn’t talk about that in front of my girlfriend,” Dad said, gesturing toward Brinsley like she was the Stanley Cup.
Gage returned, stowing his phone in the pocket of his sweater.
“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. You three are going to leave.
Now. I paid the bill. Consider it a parting gift.
On your way out, either you’re going to apologize to Zoey for being the most comically selfish parents in the history of modern parenting or you’re going to promise not to contact her again until you can at least pretend to behave like supportive parents. ”
“Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do?” my father blustered.
“I’m Gage Fucking Bishop, and this woman you spent the day being a narcissistic asshole to is someone very special to me.
She should be someone very special to you too.
But since you’re incapable of the bare minimum of human decency, I’m not allowing you to ruin her day for a second longer. Now get the fuck out of here.”
I would have said something, but I’d temporarily lost the power of speech. My mouth hung open like a puppet with its strings cut.
“But what about my food?” Mom demanded, holding up her plate.
“Take it to go,” Gage said through clenched teeth.
Wes reappeared at that moment with three takeout containers. He tossed them down in the middle of the table. “I’d tell you to have a nice day, but I really hope it sucks,” he said to them.
I clamped a hand over my gaping mouth. If my family had punished me for this long for something I’d said at fourteen, I’d be paying for this for the rest of my life.