My stomach dropped. I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. When Dad had bad news or was about to say something I really wasn’t going to like, I was Lumi girl. Not Lumi, kiddo, or the dreaded sweetie, the sugary pet name to Beau’s Champ, when he wanted something from us and knew we’d balk. In this moment, I was reduced to his Lumi girl, and I could feel the walls closing in on me as my body stiffened.
“Dad,” I barked quietly, voice hardening. Contemplating pulling over in this mushy muck, snow steadily pelting my windshield, I was not about to get into an argument with dear old in the middle of this and risk crashing.
No, I could handle this. I was fine. I’m an adult after all. We could be adults about this. I hoped...
The last time he called you Lumi girl was to tell you Mom was dead. He’d said it with such a wooden tone, I had hope when the same wasn’t reflected this time.
“What? Tell me?” I was still barking. I couldn’t help it. He dragged crap out, like he didn’t want to say it or wasn’t prepared to deal with me and my reaction. I was going with a bit of both. I’d never met such a passive aggressive man in my life.
I’d dated enough losers close to it, but none quite matched father dear.
Dad liked to think he ruled the roost, and I was sure his wife let him think that, but Bethany ran the show. His next words confirmed it.
“Beau cancelled. Carrie is pregnant again, and hasn’t been feeling well.”
“Uh-huh…” Get on with it. What’s that got to do with anything? Carrie preggers, there was really no surprise there. Beau treated her like a broodmare. Every pregnancy, she insisted this was the last one, but Beau would just smirk like he knew better. Why he kept knocking her up when he was never around to father the progeny he’d already brought into this world, I had no clue and it was none of my business. They wanted an army of mini Damiens and live out The Omen, more power to them, but I wasn’t about to be left to tend to that satanic brood like a built-in babysitter every family get-together. I shuddered at the idea. Hire a nanny, if you need the help. I was there to visit with family, and I’d visit the shit out of them, not let Beau boss me around like he did his wife. He could kiss this big butt and get himself one of his demon-children-approved free haircuts on that. Hah.
Dad cleared his throat several times gruffly. “And Bethany and I were talking…”
He was going to milk this until I was gripping the steering wheel like it was his cowardly neck, wishing Mom was here, wondering why the hell I did this to myself. Every year I asked this same thing, risked stressing myself into a damned heart attack with this toxic-people-gathering to snipe and peck and make snide remarks about what I wasn’t doing with my life. Trying to have a career first before settling with Mr. Not So Perfect and popping out a million minions that acted as crude as this invisible potential husband, and be as miserable as the rest of them, was not the end of the world or some sign of impending permanent spinsterhood.
Why—I always begged the question.
I wasn’t bitter about not having a family, or my want of one someday. I didn’t have my head so far up my ass to think settling and settling and settling was going to make me happy. I wouldn’t be any happier now than how miserable I’d be rushing to keep up with the family’s whackadoo, insane ideals.
I’d have a family and husband someday, and it would be everything. He’d be my everything, and our kids would know they were loved, and they’d be raised with a present mother and father that wanted them to be decent human beings, damn it. In that, I’d settle for nothing less.
“Dad,” I prompted, my voice softening with the ache of that part of my life I’d put on hold, not necessarily for a career bettering move, but because it had just never happened for me.
Hadn’t happened for me, yet—that small, flare of hope flickered like a tiny flame struggling to keep lit.
“So, we were thinking, as you don’t always have fun at these things-”
“I never said-” I started to argue, then stopped myself. What was the point? He and Bethany had already discussed this and decided. They had spoken. It was done. The woman was an evil Ugnaught. She kept getting plastic surgery to keep up with the Jones like she did, she’d look like one eventually, too.
Muzzling the growl I wanted to let loose, I tried again. Dad spoke in facts. You couldn’t argue facts. “She told the boys I didn’t love them, that that’s why I wasn’t around all the time.”
“No. No, the boys were mistaken. That wasn’t-”
“Roy asked point blank, “Why don’t you love us, Lumi? Mom says you don’t come around because you don’t love us enough?”” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask who says messed up crap like that? Just what was wrong with his wife? But I said none of it. The words died, bitter on the tip of my tongue. The urge to chew gum as if to rid myself of the taste had me glancing around the console.
Dad was quiet for so long I wondered if he’d lost connection or hung up. “Well, that’s not what he meant,” he said finally.
His Bethany could do no wrong. He knew what he’d married, he just didn’t want to admit it.
Fine, he wanted to live in fantasy land with his witch of a wife, fine with me, but when did it become this weird affair to push his first two children completely out of his life? Was sweet Bethany jealous?
“Why did you even invite me?” I wondered aloud. I had a sneaking suspicion Beau had not in fact canceled but Dad had canceled his trip for him. Dad paid for it, so he, much like Beau’s extreme version of Dad’s manipulative, underhanded tactics, would cancel it first and then tell him.
Pulling over, I glanced at my phone. Picking it up from its holder, I shot off a text to Beau.
Surprisingly, Beau responded right away. “Bitchany wants a white Christmas sans us clinger-ons. Dad caved.”
Ah. And there it was.
“Why didn’t you tell me to stay home, why have me come all the way out here if I’m not welcome?” I got that blunt edge from Mom. She never put up with any of Dad’s shit. He’d never have tried to pull anything like this with us if she was still around. Mom wasn’t a witch like wifey number two, never had been. It was like he’d picked someone the polar opposite of our mother.
That weird depressed feeling that nagged at me whenever the holidays rolled around had me taking a few deep breaths. If I got emotional, he’d think it was for him. At this point, he could kiss my rump right along with the rest of the jerks I was done dealing with.
“Sweetie, you know I’d love to see you,” Dad spluttered.
“But your wife won’t let you?” I quipped. “Right.” I bit out the word. Shaking my head, I turned on my blinker and got back on the road. “I drove how far to get to this bullshit shindig, and am in fact just pulling into this rinky dink town, and you think to call me now to change plans, because Witchany can’t handle being called out on her crap? And you can’t handle knowing your wife is a bitch to your other children. You remember us? Your other kids? You have a baseball team of demonic grandchildren from the other one?”
“Bethy is pregnant again,” Dad blurted.
I swerved a little, my arm jerking the wheel. “I’m sorry, what?” In my late thirties, I was big sister to three children under ten, and soon another. Dad was pushing seventy. Bethany was ten years older than me. I had no words.