Chapter 8
Ross
I love this feeling.
The feeling you get when you walk into a room, knowing your opponent has completely underestimated you as a nepo baby with zero actual business skills, so you play right into the role they’ve pigeonholed you into…
until the time is right. And then you bust out of that cage and show them that you’re capable of more than they ever imagined.
“What?” Dad sputters.
“Courtney,” Mom says gently.
“Holy shit, she was right,” I hiss. I know that tone, it’s Mom’s ‘you won, now take your foot off the other guy’s throat’ tone she used whenever my siblings and I would fight as kids. “I wasn’t sure one way or another, to be honest, but I trust Court, and she was right. What the hell, guys?”
Mom and Dad look at each other, an entire conversation held in a single glance.
That’s why we didn’t believe them. No matter how obvious the signs were – and to be fair, they basically waved neon red flags in our faces – I simply couldn’t foresee a world where the two people who have shown me what love is, didn’t love each other anymore. They live and breathe for one another.
Which is why, after our initial panic and with some further thought, we realized that Mom and Dad were up to something. They wanted to make us think they were on the verge of divorce. The question is… why?
And perhaps most importantly, how could we use our ‘they don’t know that we know’ knowledge to best benefit?
That’s how we came up with this planned, fake confrontation of our own, though Abi’s tears were admittedly Oscar-worthy. I didn’t know she could cry on command and I’ll have to remember that for the future if she ever pulls out some crocodile waterworks to get her way.
“We missed you,” Kimberly sniffles. Real tears – or at least I think they’re real, but who knows now - are openly falling down her cheeks and Dad goes to her side, kneeling down to wipe them away with his t-shirt.
But then he sends a withering glare over his shoulder at us, as if it’s our fault she’s crying.
“What?” I question innocently, as if I’m completely oblivious to the screws Courtney was turning to get this whole shitshow parade going.
“I hate it when she cries. It guts me every single time.” Dad is soothingly rubbing Mom’s shoulder and when she nods that she’s better, only then does he sit on the arm of her chair, keeping a hand on her back the whole time.
“Explain,” I order Dad.
Once upon a time, I could not have spoken to Dad like this – demanding, ordering, challenging him.
But those days are long gone and our relationship is different now.
We’re not peers exactly, because Dad is in an entirely different stratosphere as far as experience goes, but there’s a respectfulness between us that goes both ways.
“Well, as Kim said… we missed you,” he starts, glancing at Mom for a cue on what to say. “We thought you three might -”
“It was my idea!” Mom blurts out. “I didn’t know what else to do.
We never see you anymore and I thought we’d have a nice dinner to reconnect.
I didn’t expect you to actually think the worst. How could you think we’d get a divorce?
” she accuses, somehow managing to make me feel guilty despite her and Dad being the masterminds behind some harebrained, fake break-up scheme.
She lays her hand on Dad’s thigh – a bit too high for my preference – and looks up at him, whispering, “How could they think that?”
“Yeah, how could we think that? When it’s exactly what you were trying to make us think?” I ask, aiming for unswayed by Mom’s theatrics but landing closer to bitter.
Always the voice of reason, Courtney offers, “You could’ve invited us for dinner?”
“We have,” Dad reminds her. “All of you, individually and as a group. Court, you said you were working on the Penn project and Kaede was on a scouting trip overseas that we didn’t even know about.
Abi, you and Lorenzo were helping Maisie with her science fair project.
Ross, we offered to take everyone out after Aldo’s piano recital, but you said you had work to do. ”
“We understand you’re all so busy. We do,” Mom rushes to add, trying to soften Dad’s clipped tone. “We just miss you.”
“So you thought faking a break-up was the best way to get us all together?” I summarize. “After being disappointed in us -” I look at each of my sisters, but include myself in that group, “for pulling some sort of ‘faking it’ deal ourselves.”
“Turnabout is fair play?” Mom offers, not sounding like she believes her own bullshit.
“I’m disappointed in you,” I tell them, meaning it… but only partially. Still, Mom and Dad both flinch. Keeping my voice steady, I continue, “For pulling a stunt like this and thinking, for one second, that we would believe you. Damn amateurs.”
The insult freezes time.
“We are not amateurs,” Dad argues.
“Oh, Kimberly’s not smiling,” Abi says in a faux high-pitched voice that’s supposed to be an impersonation of Karl. “Morgan’s so busy, he hasn’t even noticed.”
“I’m watching my figure,” Courtney adds in the same tone, mimicking Dad. In her own voice, she tells him, “You don’t even like strawberries! You were eating around them and nearly gagged when you accidentally ate one.” Her laugh is threaded with glee.
“Strawberries are disgusting,” Dad counters and a shudder works through him. “All those seeds.”
“You should’ve gotten a salad without them,” Mom offers helpfully.
“Or not gone to these lengths just to have a family dinner,” I suggest instead. “Do you even want Violet to redo the guest bedroom?”
Mom smiles genuinely at that question. “Actually, yes. It was supposed to be a ploy, but her sketch of what it could be was really beautiful and I would love to have her special touch on the space. But there’s no rush since I’m not using that room.” She smiles up at Dad, her eyes shining.
“You’re not sleeping with your pickleball partner?” Abi clarifies.
“Eleanor?” Dad recoils. “She’s seventy-two and can run circles around the best of us.
I’m not sleeping with her, I’m scared of her.
I’m lucky she got stuck with me as a partner and am doing my damnedest to keep up so I don’t embarrass the hell out of myself for being the reason we lose the quarter-finals. ”
“So, no divorce?” Courtney asks, wanting full clarification and a plainly stated answer to hold against them later, if need be. There will be no opportunity for plausible deniability on her watch.
“No,” Mom and Dad both say, eyes locked on each other. “We’re good. Really good,” Dad adds, winking at Mom and I swear she blushes.
“Ugh, my lunch,” Abi mutters, but she doesn’t mean it.
Mom and Dad are what we all strive to be – ridiculously, deeply in love with one another, even after all these years.
Maybe more importantly, after all the shit we’ve put them through, they still want us around.
We’d each be lucky to have half the love in our relationships that they do after a marriage as long as theirs.
“Now that that’s settled, we already had dinner, but I’m sure Karl wouldn’t mind serving us some dessert?” Mom suggests as if the entire last hour didn’t happen.
No apology for the fake stunt?
No acknowledgement that we knew what they were up to the whole time?
Okay, actually, knowing Mom, if we dig too deeply into what they did and what we did, we’ll end up being the ones apologizing, so maybe letting things die down is the better play. Gotta know when to fold ‘em, a wise man – aka, Kaede - once told me.
“I need to get home before bedtime,” I say, remembering that Violet putting the twins to bed still isn’t as easy as we’d like it to be despite them being older.
Courtney elbows me in the gut, hard. “We’d love to, Mom. And while we’re all here, maybe we can coordinate our schedules to get a full family dinner, with spouses and the kids, on the calendar?”
Mom clasps her hands beneath her chin, her eyes bright and shiny. “Really?”
“Of course, Mom,” Abi answers.
I glance from Mom to Courtney to Abi, confused about what in the hell just happened but feeling like we all got played by a pro - Mom. When I meet Dad’s eyes, he’s fighting to hold back a laugh, and lifts a brow like ‘what’re you gonna do?’ and I realize that he’s right.
Mom might’ve pulled a ‘fake break-up’ scheme to get us all running to her side, but I can’t argue with her results because here we are. And apparently, we’re all going to dinner in two weeks… at Mom’s favorite restaurant.
All of us, together.
For real.