“Chris?” I don’t particularly want him around, but I don’t want to ditch him here, either, and it’s not like he would be a jerk about it if he noticed me crying.
“Getting a ride with Karey.”
“Will you come over and talk to Connie for me? She loves you.”
“Pretty sure that would just delay the inevitable.” Melissa shakes her head. “But I’ll call in an hour and make sure you’re alive.”
I snort at the compromise. “Think the Lis would let me live with them for the rest of the summer?”
We reach Melissa’s car, and she rolls her eyes while groping in her purse for the key. “Drama queen alert.”
“You didn’t hear my dad on the phone. I’m almost certainly disowned.”
Melissa laughs and pulls out her keys, and I slip into the front seat, smiling a little sheepishly, my eyes watery but no longer watering.
“You’re fine,” Melissa repeats.
“I know, I know. I just need to avoid talking to Connie until Dad gets home.” I take a breath, my chest barely shaking. “It shouldn’t be big trouble.”
Melissa nods, but the words don’t feel true. Everything is big trouble these days.
4
“Hey.” Dad knocks on my door while opening it, one of those underhanded parental tricks designed to make it seem like they’re respecting your privacy when in fact they’re doing just the opposite. Dad knows a million of these tricks, probably from the parenting books taking up a whole bookshelf in his office. “How’s it going, kiddo?”
“Come in,” I say, only half sarcastically. I close the social justice Tumblr I was browsing and slide my phone in my pocket. “I’m fine.” I made it upstairs without saying a word to Connie, letting her rant until she paused for breath and then slipping into my room to hide out. “How are you?”
“Doing better.” Dad shrugs. His tone is casual, but he walks through the doorway and sits on the edge of my bed, which is sign number one that I’m about to get a talk.
“You’re home late,” I say, because I care about him and worry about him, and also because I’d like to derail this lecture if at all possible. “Is work okay?”
“You know, it was a really long day.” Dad releases an enormous sigh that blows his receding hairline even farther up his forehead and deepens his wrinkles.
Showing vulnerability is one of his tricks to put me at ease, and is sign number two that I’m in trouble.
“Sorry to hear that,” I say. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Can’t hurt to earn some brownie points.
Then Dad just sits there, saying nothing. This is the third and final sign.
Dad and I communicate best through silence. Every serious discussion we have starts off with at least five minutes of empty air space, and this one won’t be any different. We’ll sit here, and he won’t ask why I can’t try harder to be nice, and I won’t say that Connie has it out for me, and we won’t have the screaming match that could have been. Instead, Dad will start with something general and innocent.
Dad’s big on I statements. He’s big on empathy. All sneaky parenting tricks to make me do what he wants. We’ll talk about my behavior, and why it upset Connie, and what changes I can make in the future to avoid these problems.
But today, Dad doesn’t follow his script.
“You probably can’t wait to be off for college,” he says instead, which comes totally out of the blue and is also a you statement.
“Huh?” I’m excited, I guess. But I would never say I couldn’t wait to leave home.
“It will be better, I think,” Dad says, reaching up to loosen his tie. “The space will be good for you. For everyone.”
Ouch. What is it with everyone wanting space this summer? I cover my grimace by checking my phone. “Yeah, I’m basically counting down the hours, same as you.”
Dad doesn’t acknowledge my sarcasm or correct my assumption. “Have you put in any more job applications?”
I nod, but with enough of a scowl that he moves on.
“What were you doing at the park, anyway?”
“I was running,” I say. Dad is always bugging me to get outside more, be physically active. Summer used to be full of biking and trips to the local pool, but between me being a cranky teenager, Yasmín’s schedule filling up with camps, and Dad getting the new job, that’s all over. “Melissa was showing me this game people play, quidditch.”
“Well, that’s good,” he says. I open my mouth to squeeze in an explanation of why I left the house in such a hurry, but he holds up a hand. “Can we just try to get through the summer in peace, kiddo? I just want to have a nice couple of months. Can you hang in there?”
I think I nod. I think I smile and let him hug me while my brain is still processing.
“It goes so fast,” he says into my hair. And then he leaves.
Not fast enough, apparently. Can we get through the summer in peace? Hang in there. It’s perfectly obvious that Dad just wants me out of the house so I won’t cause any more trouble, won’t disrupt his calm family life.
Won’t upset Connie again.
It’s not like I’ve been a tragic outcast in my family since Dad got remarried. It took some adjusting, but we all smiled through the awkward moments until we settled into something comfortable, something good. Connie recommended all her favorite kids’ books, helped me build a replica Titanic for my fifth-grade history fair project, even gave me the period talk when Texas public education failed to answer my most pressing questions. We used to be on the same team.
And then suddenly I was fourteen and full of angst and nobody appreciated my mood swings, least of all Connie. I was fifteen and lecturing everyone about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Connie just wanted to throw away her empty shampoo bottles in peace. I was sixteen and wore the same pair of jeans until both knees wore out, and Connie didn’t understand why I wouldn’t put in a little bit of effort. Each new point of conflict blossomed into more clashes, and pretty soon Connie was sick and tired of my attitude and Dad was desperately trying to figure out why every conversation seemed to spin out into an argument.
Christmas break started as a silly argument. Dad was working late again, and Connie put up a new nativity set, and I pointed out that it totally whitewashed the three kings. Connie said it didn’t matter, and I argued that representation always matters, and then things spiraled. And soon she was yelling that I wanted to ruin Christmas with political correctness, and I was yelling that she could uphold systemic oppression as much as she liked but it wouldn’t keep her safe from its consequences because, as much as she might want to, she couldn’t make herself white.