Casting a quick glance at them, hoping my dad would get the message, I asked, “Can we talk about this later?”
“No, we cannot. We don’t keep secrets from each other in this family.”
Really? Because I distinctly remembered Rita being on the brink of giving birth before they’d told me I was going to be a big sister. As if I hadn’t noticed she’d grown a bowling ball in her abdomen.
“Besides, maybe the younger kids can learn something by seeing you be so irresponsible with your future.”
Wait…what now? “How am I being irresponsible?”
My father shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you move in with Sophia this summer. You always let her get you into trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble. And what does that even mean? You’ve always liked Sophia.”
“Of course I like her. She’s a nice kid from a good family. But she’s also headstrong, and you’ve always done whatever she’s said.”
I stared at my dad for a moment, unsure if I’d ever met him before. “Are you calling me a follower?”
“Now, now, let’s not put words in my mouth,” he said, his voice reaching a level of patronizing I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before.
“I was the chairperson of two different campus clubs this past year. I don’t think someone overseeing dozens of coeds would be considered a follower,” I argued, feeling the need to defend myself. I felt it especially noteworthy that I’d done a damn good job of running those clubs, considering I’d simultaneously been trying to dodge a sociopath at every turn. But the timing felt wrong to throw that tidbit out there.
“Right. And then you spend a few weeks with Sophia, and you’re giving all that up to move closer to her.”
“I’d already given those positions up because I’m graduating in December. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep them when I wasn’t going to be there for the entire year.”
My mind whirled through the past few summers: my dad encouraging me to stay on campus and take extra classes and take internships close to school during summer breaks. He’d been happy that I’d finish a semester early, thanks to all the extra time I’d put into my degree during summer sessions. But now that I thought about it, he’d been decidedly less enthusiastic about my intention to complete an internship closer to Sophia this year.
The opportunity had been a good one, so he hadn’t fought me on it, but he’d been curt in the discussion of my game plan for the summer, requesting I email him a list of what I needed from him. I’d thought he’d been busy with work, but had he been worried that the daughter he so clearly thought had the backbone of a Wheat Thin would succumb to some kind of bizarre peer pressure from a girl he’d known since she was three?
It was utterly surreal to stare at a man who’d been instrumental in not only my creation but also my entire upbringing and realize he had absolutely no idea who I was. It was also more than a little painful.
“Maybe it would be better if we tabled this for another time, Dennis,” Rita said, her voice somehow being both calm and condescending. The way she stared at me when she spoke made it seem as if she were implying I was the one who’d started this argument over her too-dry roast. Though I also could’ve been reading into it. Maybe the look was meant to be one of commiseration, but her face couldn’t quite get it right due to all the Botox she had shoved in there.
“I don’t think we need to table anything,” my dad said. “As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is over.”
His words made panic claw at my chest. “Dad,” I started, hating the way my voice broke as emotion clogged my sinuses. “I can’t go back to school.”
He looked at me for a moment as if he were trying to figure me out. “Why not? Did you get into trouble there?”
I took a deep breath. I hated that his first instinct was to ask if I’d gotten myself into trouble. Couldn’t I just be in trouble without also being at fault? I was an honors student, and I hadn’t ever had to call him to have him bail me out of anything. I’d never overspent on my credit card. I’d never done…anything.
But here he was, blaming me for something I’d done everything in my power to deal with on my own.
I swiped at my eye, willing the tears back. “No, of course not.”
He stared a moment longer. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”
I gaped at him. “Yeah, but it’s not what you think—”
My dad banged his hands on the table—not in anger, but more in a celebratory way, as if he’d guessed a punchline and needed his own cymbal clang. “I should’ve known. It’s always a boy. Let this be a lesson to you, Lila,” he said, pointing a finger at my ten-year-old sister. “If you want to have a successful future, you’ve got to keep your head on your shoulders. Being boy crazy won’t get you anywhere.”
I wanted to say that crazy boys wouldn’t get you anywhere either, but I’d grown weary of trying to explain myself to a man who simply refused to listen. Seemed like I was having quite a bit of bad luck with them recently, and quite frankly, I was fucking over it.
My dad had been there for me my entire life. He’d pushed me to be the best I could be, he’d celebrated my successes with me, and he’d encouraged me through my failures. Then I’d left for college. And it suddenly hit me that he’d been basically encouraging me to stay away ever since I left, suggesting I attend
