Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Rick asked.
I adjusted the phone against my ear with my shoulder while trying to cram my drink bottle and notebook into my backpack. “Don’t you start. I already had to talk June out of coming.”
Rick’s sigh was audible. “I just feel like I’ve been a rotten friend through all this.”
“Since when are you worried about being a rotten friend?” I smirked, already anticipating his reply.
“I’m always a good friend! Is this still about the time I wouldn’t let you babysit Hot Woodchopper’s pug? Because technically, that wasn’t my choice. And I didn’t think looking after small creatures was your forte. It requires, you know, a heart.”
“Ouch. Is this you trying to prove your friendship skills? Because you’re not off to a great start.” I scratched a sleeping Taco under the chin and slung my backpack over my shoulder.
“I’m confused, too.” He paused. “But my point is, I’m usually a good friend. I’ve been distracted this past month, that’s all. Not checking in on my Ri-Ri enough.”
“I’m officially going to nose-flick you for calling me that. And also, I don’t care. I’m glad things have got serious with Hot Woodchopper Man,” I said, aiming for sincere.
“Jeffrey,” Rick corrected.
“You said it first. Besides, Hot Woodchopper is way more visual.”
“It is,” he purred.
“Enough,” I snapped. “I’ve got to keep my head in the game.”
“Are you quoting High School Musical?”
“I don’t even know what that is. And no,” I replied. “Now leave me alone so I can go pry open the cage around my depressed father’s heart and force him to tell me all his secrets.”
“Geez, Ry… What if he’s mean to you?” Rick whispered, like Dad might overhear from another city.
“Then it wouldn’t be the first time. I’ll text you after okay, let you know I’m alive and not dying in a pool of parent-inflicted shame.”
“Video call me, okay?”
“Why? Want me to dance for you?”
Rick snorted. “We all know you don’t have the moves. It’s because your tone is good at telling lies, but your face is not.”
“Fine,” I groaned, then hung up in my usual fashion.
I was relieved I didn’t need to top up the oil for the drive to Dad’s. It wasn’t far, and the Vitz still had fuel from my recent escape-turned-return. One day I’d get that leak fixed. Today wasn’t that day. Today was for Olivia.
I’d rather get my wisdom teeth pulled out without anaesthetic than try to force my father to talk about something he didn’t want to. But even I had to admit his avoidance was flashing a neon sign right above his head. It would be stupid to ignore.
“Riley!” Dad’s surprised voice rang out as I pulled into the carport.
The noisy rumbling of the engine must’ve given me away.
He looked the same as last time—overdue for a haircut and shave, still in his track pants and green woolly jumper.
He didn’t squeeze himself between the door and the door frame this time though, resigned to the fact that I already knew what inside looked like.
Something Miss Lissy said on my last visit had been chewing at me the entire drive.
All parents keep secrets from their children.
Frustration bubbled in my stomach that I’d let something she said get to me.
Her talent, of course, was saying and doing things that burrowed into your bones like unwelcome parasites that affected the things you said and did.
Manipulation and control were a fine art that she had mastered.
“Dad, I really need to talk to you about something,” I said, stepping out of the car. I'd decided that being direct about my intention for being there was the best approach. His body visibly curled at what was probably his most unwelcome sentence. Closely followed by ‘could I borrow some money?’
I’d stopped asking that in my teens. I’d rather busk on the street than ask him for cash.
“You couldn’t have called?” he said, still half-turned toward the house.
“Since when did you start answering your phone again?”
His eyes narrowed, and he scuffed the ground with a socked foot. “Fair point. I guess I’ve been absent lately.”
“So here I am.” I smiled as pleasantly as I could while stepping inside.
I wasn’t here to upset him—I honestly didn’t think he could take it—but I wasn’t leaving without answers.
He started picking up bits and pieces as we moved down the hallway, adding them to the overflowing pile next to the kitchen counter.
“Tea out the back again? Sunshine’s holding out, might as well enjoy it while it lasts,” Dad muttered, nodding at the stretch of grey cloud blanketing the distant hills.
Nodding, I made my way to the patio to wait for him.
I was half hesitant to leave him in the kitchen in case he made a run for it and never made it out for tea.
I didn’t trust his desperation to avoid any conversation below surface level to keep him here.
The lawns looked freshly mowed again, and I decided I needed to go next door to thank Charlie for his help.
Depending on how this conversation went, that was.
I also gave myself snaps for my completely ordinary idea to thank a person for helping my dad.
It wasn’t often my social cues pinged at the right moments.
June would be proud. Or paranoid. She seemed to think we were still in a competition in which one of us would be crowned best daughter.
I however, had submitted that role to her a long time ago.
“Lady Grey today,” Dad said, balancing the kettle, two cups and a couple of tea-bags in one hand. “I hate the stuff, but it’s all that’s left.”
“I’m not fussy,” I replied, grabbing the kettle and pouring for both of us. I left mine black, looping the tea-bag string around the handle, trying not to think of the way it always reminded me of a tampon.
He took the cup, leaned forward on his knees, his eyes on the deck. He looked as if he were physically bracing himself for impact.
A pang of guilt coiled inside me at his discomfort, but I braced myself too. My shoulders back and my chin high, like he’d taught us to do when faced with someone who might otherwise make us shrink on the spot.
“Dad, I need to talk to you about Bellamy Children’s Home,” I said, and I all but heard his breath hitch in his throat. I waved my hand towards him before he started with any bogus illness. “I need to talk to you about it, and I’m not leaving until we do.”
He huffed out a sigh, and I watched his shoulders lift and droop while he leaned back in his chair with his gaze on the polycarbonate patio cover.
My grey eyes raked over his matching ones.
Although his and June’s had always been a little darker than mine, they were still one of the things that made us family.
Josh had had brown eyes like our mother.
“I never wanted to talk about this stuff,” he grunted.
“I understand that, but that’s not a choice you get to make for the rest of us.” I refused to shift my gaze from his. I’d stuffed my sympathy for him into that vault in my brain that used to hold all the things I didn’t want to think about, and I was glad to see it still worked for some things.
“You saw how it affected your brother.”
I dipped my head and hesitated, but if I was going to piss him off with this conversation alone, I might as well say all the things I’d needed to for years.
“I wonder if it was the place that affected him so much, or not being able to talk about it with his only living parent he found hardest.”
Dad flinched. He hadn’t been expecting anything but sarcasm or kindness from me.
I didn’t blame him for Josh’s overdose—only Josh could be responsible for that.
But if he’d been able to talk to Dad, to get an apology or even an explanation…
maybe things would have been different? I don’t know exactly what haunted him, and we’d never know now.
“Look, I didn’t know what it was like when I sent you kids there. I’ve told you before. I came and got you all as soon as I got a whiff of what could be going on.”
That comment struck me as I’d never known why he came back to get us at the time that he did.
“How’d you find out?”
He crossed his arms and looked out onto his tidy back lawn. “Something in the paper. An opinion piece from a parent.”
I nodded for him to continue, and his eye roll reached the ceiling before he stopped himself.
“I didn’t know if it was true. It said something about corporal-style punishments.
I know that stuff was acceptable to some people during that time, but it didn’t sit right with me.
Not after everyone had lost mum.” He cleared his throat to cover the break in his voice as he acknowledged her.
Poor Dad—this was already well beyond his comfort zone.
But I was getting more out of him than I ever had before, so I wasn’t stopping now.
I tried to soften my expression as I looked at him. I was supposed to feel grateful that he came back for us—but I still wished we’d never been sent there in the first place. It was hard not to feel angry.
“Do you know what happened to us?”
Dad looked me in the eye, and I saw the weight settle in his gaze.
“I know a bit,” he said. “Josh wrote me a letter once. I still have it if you want to read it?”
The idea of a letter from my brother gave me a thrill of excitement, as if receiving a message from beyond the grave.
That didn’t last long, however, as I remembered the content.
Olivia’s had been hard enough to read, and I wasn’t in a place to deal with more without losing my sanity.
I was coming to terms with the fact that I might need help to deal with my trauma soup.
It had set up camp in my consciousness, overcrowding my mind with its waving red flags demanding notice.
I had a feeling the island might sink if I added anyone else’s suffering.
I shook my head. “Not today. But I’d like to in the future—if that invitation stays open?”
Dad nodded.