After Ever (6 page)

Brian giggles at the word ‘butt’. Girlfriend #3 sits back and crosses her long arms, no doubt delighted with the sudden turn of events that has me in the crosshairs. My dad is not amused. His craggy eyebrows rise and fall, causing his eyes to narrow and squint.

“You need to apologize,” he grinds out.

My chin lifts. “Make me.”

He doesn’t like that. “I swear, Winnifred, if you don’t march yourself over to that table right now I’ll… I’ll…”

“You’ll do
what
?” I sneer. Under my shirt my heart beats rapidly. My palms are slick with sweat and I wipe them on my thighs. I have the crazy urge to smile, to laugh and hoot and holler, but I do none of those things. I have played the part of sullen teenager for so long I have turned
into
a sullen teenager and it is not difficult to maintain my composure.

“You used to be…” my dad starts to say before he cuts himself off and just like that, like a leaky faucet being twisted all the way to the left, his mask is back in place.

Desperation has beads of sweat gathering high on my forehead. I stand up and lean halfway across the table, bracing my arms on either side of the candles. “I used to be what, Dad? Used to be happy? Used to be nice? Used to be WHAT?” My skin burns hot. Everyone in the dining room is watching us now. Someone drops a utensil. It pings extra loud against the floor.

My dad clears his throat. “You used to be better than this,” he says.

Girlfriend #3’s gasp is loud enough to muffle my own. “Tom,” she hisses, shrinking low in her seat. I don’t spare her a glance. I don’t want her pity, of all people. Moving stiffly I walk over to the table with the woman and her husband.

“Sorry,” I mutter, staring a hole through their white tablecloth.

They are mortified that I have drawn attention to them and the woman speaks quickly. “It’s fine. No harm done. You can go back to your table now if you want. We accept your apology, don’t we Richard?”

“We accept,” he says hastily.

I turn around, but I don’t go back to my table. I walk right out of the dining room. This time my dad calls after me in a tight, controlled voice demanding that I come back and finish my meal. I ignore him. Brian yells my name. I ignore him too.

I ignore them all.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next morning I wake up alone. Across the room Brian’s bed is still neatly made, the green comforter pulled up tight over the white pillows. No one brought him in last night so I can only assume he slept with my dad and Girlfriend #3. It’s not hard to guess why.

Sunlight shines through the shades I forgot to draw last night. I close them now, pulling harder than I need too so the plastic swishes and clicks. It is another bright, clear day but when I turn on the television a grave looking weatherman announces a series of snow flurries in the forecast.

Snow. I’m sick of it already and I’ve only been here for three days with four more to go. I’m not even halfway home. It’s a depressing thought.

I dress sluggishly in leggings and a loose fitting t-shirt, both black, and wander down to the continental breakfast. It is served in a smaller room that adjoins the restaurant with a long counter filled with muffins, donuts, and pastries. I snag a donut, pour myself a cup of orange juice, and manage to grab a small table in the corner of the room. From here I can observe people as they walk in.

They come in twos and threes, sometimes fours. Small children rubbing their eyes. Adults smiling sleepily and heading straight for the coffee. Their voices hum quietly as they talk about how much fun they had the day before and what they plan to do today. How absolutely
wonderful
their vacation is. I stuff a chunk of donut in my mouth and chew in stony silence.

A man comes in. He is tall and thin, his long face drawn and unnaturally pale, even for winter. Salt and pepper hair sweeps down across his forehead. Wrinkles pinch up the corners of his eyes and form long grooves on either side of his mouth. This guy certainly isn’t having a wonderful vacation.

It makes me feel slightly better – misery loves company – until he turns and looks at me. Then I don’t feel good at all, not even a little bit, because I am staring at my own father.

“Dad,” I blurt, half standing up out of my chair.

His eyes, a shade darker than his hair, narrow. “Sit down, Winnifred.”

I do as he asks and watch in confounded amazement as he takes the seat opposite mine. He sits straight in his chair, so straight his spine doesn’t touch the back, and lays his hands with his fingers evenly spaced on the table. I can’t help but glance down at his left right finger and my stomach does the same funny flutter it always does when I see the simple gold band that encircled his finger for thirty two years is gone. There is still a faint mark, a sliver of skin whiter than the rest in the shape of a circle, but it is fading with every passing month. By spring it should be gone all together.

“I went to your room. You were not there,” he says, his speech every bit as proper as his posture.

I slouch in my chair and just stare at him. What happened to the man who used to forget his own car keys? The man who picked me up in one arm and Brian in the other and swung us around until we couldn’t walk a straight line? The man who thought plaid shirts and socks with sandals were coming back in style? It’s not this man. This man matches his shoes to his belt. Tucks in his shirt. Never forgets anything. I don’t recognize this man. I don’t recognize my own father.

“I was hungry,” I say finally. “So I am came down to get something eat.”

My dad looks down at his hands and takes a deep breath. When he glances back up his expression is even more tightly controlled than before. “Your behavior last night was inexcusable Winnifred,” he says.

Winnie!
I want to shout.
Call me Winnie! Like you used too. I was your Winnie Bear. I don’t want to be Winnifred. Don’t make me into a Winnifred.

“I apologized,” I say instead.

“You embarrassed Trish. She was very distraught.”

The last piece of donut I was holding in my left hand crumbles. My throat tightens up, making it hard to speak. “I don’t give a shit about her,” I say scornfully.

“Something you have made no attempt to hide. Really, Winnifred, when are you going to grow up?”

So says the man dating a woman who still wears miniskirts and has a poodle named Fifi. “When are
you
going to grow up and start dating women your own age? Doesn’t it gross you out that she’s young enough to be my sister?” It is a struggle to keep my voice level.

With my mother it was a drag out, end all, screaming match to the bitter end. Slamming doors, throwing things, the whole lot. But my dad is a lawyer. His mind is analytical; his every word designed to cut deeper than the last. If I want to have a chance of standing up to him, of being heard, I have to remain calm. Something I have never been very good at.

“Trish is a goal oriented woman who knows what she wants,” he counters.

I snort. “Yeah, she knows she wants your money.”

“Winnifred.” The cool note of warning in his tone is unmistakable.

“It’s
true
,” I insist. “Only a blind person couldn’t see it.”

“I do not believe you have the best judgment when it comes to these matters. You have yet to accept a single one of the women I have seen socially.”

“Why do you have to see anyone socially?” It is a childish response. I can’t help it. Sitting here, talking to this stranger, I feel like a five year old trying to reason out the most basic of questions. Why is the grass green? Why is the sky blue? Why do you hate your daughter?

“Your mother has been dead for a year and a half. It is perfectly acceptable for me to begin dating again. Really, Winnifred. You should want me to be happy.” He frowns, as if
I
am the bad person. As if
I
am the one who has shut my family out.

I rest my elbows on the table and look down between them, studying a small chip on the wood surface. “I do want you to be happy Dad,” I say truthfully. “Just not with Girlfriend – er, with Trish. I really don’t think she’s good for you. And, newsflash, she’s not exactly great stepmother material. I mean, the evil stepmother from Cinderella looks like Mary Poppins compared to her.”

“Unfortunately, due to your recent behavior your opinion does not carry much weight with me.”

“How can you
say
stuff like that?” I whisper, aghast.

His eyes cut straight through me. “You will need to apologize to Trish,” he says, ignoring my question entirely. “Her feelings are very important to me and you’ve hurt them with your outlandish behavior.”

What about my feelings, Dad? What about me? Your daughter?

“No way in hell,” I say.

My dad rubs his chin and sighs. He looks tired, more tired than a forty seven year old man should ever look. If this is his ‘happy’, I would hate to see him miserable. “You will do as I say, Winnifred.”

“Or what, you’ll ground me?” I scoff, beyond caring now. I was stupid to think he would actually listen to me. My dad might not have his nose pierced or wear eyeliner, but he’s changed just as much as I have. It’s the people like him you have to look out for. The ones who are different on the inside. The ones who make you hope they’ll go back to the way they were before because on the outside they don’t look any different, but underneath all that shiny sameness they’re just as broken as you are. Sometimes even more.

I don’t know why my dad changed so much. I think part of him died with Mom. Just wilted away inside of him and turned to dust. At least, I hope that’s the case because if it isn’t that means I’m the one who is irrevocably broken. I’m the one who is damaged beyond repair. I’m the one no one can love.

“Trish said you would respond this way,” he says.

“Good for her.”

“I did not want it to come to this Winnifred, but there are going to have to be some drastic changes.”

I sit up straighter as tiny alarm bells sound in my head. “What kind of changes?” I ask suspiciously.

“It has become increasingly apparent that you are a bad influence on your brother. The way you act, the way you talk, the way you dress…” he pauses to stare pointedly at my mouth where I slipped in a new lip ring before coming down for breakfast. “Brian has been coping amazingly well with losing a parent at such a young age and I do not want –”

“Have you
seen
his hands?” I ask incredulously.

He ignores me. “I do not want his progress to be impaired. That is why Trish and I have made the decision to send him to a private boarding school.”

A private boarding school? Are you NUTS?

It is for the best, Winnifred.

No, it’s what is best for you and Girlfriend #3, not Brian.

You know what? You’re… you’re right. What was I thinking, letting that woman talk me into this? I could never send Brian away. He needs you.

That’s what I’ve been trying to say all along!

My Winnie bear, you’re so smart. I love you so much. I know things have been tough and I haven’t been there for you or Brian, but from now on that is going to change.

I love you Dad.

I love you Winnie.

“You can’t do this.” My fingers grip the edge of the table. I have the sudden, wild urge to flip it over onto my father, to let him know what it feels like to writhe beneath the weight of something too heavy to handle, but I don’t. Of course I don’t. That would be crazy.

“The application was sent in this morning. Your little stunt at dinner last night was the last straw. Trish and I discussed sending you away, but you only have one year of school left and then you will leave for college. When you are gone, Brian will come back.” Something flickers in the depths of his eyes. Regret? Sadness? Compassion? It is gone before it has time to take hold. “This is for the best,” he says calmly.

“No, it’s what is best for you and Trish, not Brian! He
needs
me, Dad. Can’t you see that? You can’t just send him off by himself! He’ll be terrified.”

“Your brother will adjust,” he says. “This is not a discussion. The decision has been made. When school resumes Brian will be attending Briarwood Academy in Connecticut.”

My heart beats so fast inside my chest it actually hurts. Of all the things I imagined my dad doing, it was never this. I never in a million years thought he would try to hurt Brian.

“Send me away,” I say impulsively. I lean across the table until my fingertips are almost touching his carefully folded hands. “Send me to some private school. Let Brian stay home. He has friends. He loves his teacher.”

For one frantic, heart pounding moment I think he is going to change his mind. But then he slowly pulls his hands away from mine and shakes his head.

“No. The decision has been made. I am sorry this upsets you Winnifred. Perhaps you should have considered the consequences of your actions.”

“I HATE YOU!” The three words burst out of me like bullets, each one fiercer than the last. My dad jerks back as if I have struck him. His face whitens, then floods with color.

“This is exactly the type of behavior I am talking about,” he says, his tone coolly disapproving. “You need help. When we return home I am finding you a therapist. It is something I should have done a while ago, before you escalated this far. I blame myself for that.”

Blind rage goes hand in hand with sorrow and tears burn down my cheeks. “Mom wouldn’t want this,” I whisper hoarsely.

He looks away. His mouth opens. Closes. Silently he stands and tucks his chair back under the table, refolds the unused napkin he places automatically on his lap when he sat down, and walks away leaving me to face down the stares of curious onlookers alone.

When I get back to my room I see immediately that Brian’s things have been moved out. I wonder how my dad thinks he is going to keep us separated for four more days. Girlfriend #3 has watched Brian for all of two hours before she came running back to me, slapped a fifty in my hand, and took off to the mall. My shoulders jerk in a little shrug. It’s not my problem anymore.