I pivoted off the bed as Dad rolled over, blinking at me through eyes still hooded with sleep. He looked older then I remembered and thicker in the jaw.
“Emmeline?” he said, his mouth a stunned hole. He elbowed his way upright. “Carol!”
“Mom!” I added, rubbing my eyes again like he might disappear. Through all of my traveling back and forth through time, I’d come to know when something bizarre was really happening and when it was a dream. This was legit.
Feet thundered up the stairs, and Mom appeared in her bathrobe, her wiry blonde hair flying in all directions. Ruby scampered over to me, her wagging tail a whir of silver.
“You’re back,” Mom said to me. “Did you…” She breathed at Dad. “How did you…”
He slid his bare feet onto the frayed carpet, revealing loose cotton shorts, an old university T-shirt, and a round belly. “I’m confused. You said that Emmeline was missing again.”
“She was, I…” Mom couldn’t speak right, and I felt responsible.
“I wasn’t missing,” I clarified in my Tudor nightdress. Dad gawked at me, but mostly at my face. “I told you that I was in Tudor England,” I said to Mom. “Even though you’ll never believe me, it’s where I was, and I’m not going to lie about it anymore.”
Dad scratched his upper back, the side of his nose, and his forearms. It wasn’t bed bugs; he’d just never been comfortable in our family. What was Mom thinking when she invited him to stay over?
“Where is your special friend Nick?” she asked me in an apprehensive voice.
“He’s back in his time,” I replied like that was normal. “The Catholics are planning a rebellion, so he traveled to the north to deal with it. I thought I’d pop home in the meantime.”
I fought the urge to burst into raucous laughter. If I wasn’t careful, Mom or Dad could have me locked up. They both stood and gaped at me.
“Do you still have your key?” Mom said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You know that’s not how I got here.” I sank into the edge of the creaky bed and yawned. I never slept well during a trip through time. “What are you doing here?” I asked Dad in a small voice.
“I told him you’d disappeared again, so he came over,” Mom cut in. “We called Paul and Livvy in England to see if they’d heard from you, given this whole British obsession.”
Paul was Dad’s cousin from Clacton-on-Sea. We’d stayed with him and his wife Olivia back when we lived in England, which felt like a thousand years ago.
“I’d had a bit too much wine to drive,” Dad added quickly, his cheeks tinting pink. We both knew that Mom’s stalker tendencies didn’t need to be encouraged. Instead of escaping home to his girlfriend, though, Dad asked Mom if she could leave us alone for a few minutes. “I’d like to have a talk with Emmeline.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll finish making tea,” she said, a decades-old infatuation still visible in her eyes.
Ugh, Mom.
When she left, Dad flopped into my squeaky desk chair. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me in your bed.”
“I don’t really expect to see you period.”
He slumped lower into the chair and crossed his arms. “Your mother has been worried about you. For her to even call and ask for my help, I knew it had to be serious.”
I decided to ignore that one. “Did you expect time travel to Tudor England?” I replied lightly, hugging my knees. I was just so over faking everything.
Dad puffed. “It’s because of me, isn’t it? We don’t see each other enough, so you’ve concocted an absurd history story because you know I admire history.” He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes twinkled like he’d guessed the stumper in Jeopardy.
The laughter finally arrived, straight from my mouth to Dad’s face. “Are you even serious?” I said. “You think I’d go through all this because of you? Just to entice you the eleven miles it’d take for you to visit me once in a freaking while?”
His whole body stiffened. “How could I visit you at this house? Do you know your mother once sent Nina threatening letters?”
“Oh please, do you think I give a toss what your teenage girlfriend thinks?”
“Do not speak to me like that!” Flecks of green blazed through his amber-colored eyes, reminding me of Nick when he was fired up.
More stairs thundered before Mom burst in again. “Is everything alright?” she said.
Dad stood up, snatching his jeans and shirt from the back of the chair. “It seems that Emmeline is back and healthy, which is the most important thing, but I need not sit around and listen to abuse.”
“Abuse?” I countered.
My lips pressed together as if it might stop the pressure of my welling tears. This was so classic Dad…to make it all about him. I felt bad about insulting his girlfriend—who was in her twenties and definitely not a teenager—but he needed to take some responsibility.
“Marty,” Mom pleaded as he marched to the bathroom and shut the door.
She shot me a fed-up look like this was all my fault, which was ridiculous. Dad throwing a hissy fit over something selfish...Mom acting like she had any power to soothe him—it was all too familiar. I’d seen the same thing a hundred times before Dad left us.
“Why did you even call him?” I said, striding past her to the stairs. I needed water and something to eat that wasn’t a roasted animal drenched in rich sauces.
“I called him because you’ve been acting like a complete lunatic,” she replied, following me downstairs to the kitchen. “All this nonsense about time travel disappearing tricks…sneaking away while I wasn’t looking and pretending you’re some magical fairy.”
There were two mugs on the counter and an open packet of chocolate cookies. Dad could only drink tea with something sweet in his hand, even if it was early in the morning. I couldn’t help but think my ‘lunacy’ was the excuse Mom had been waiting for to draw him back into her life. She’d even stocked the cupboards with actual food.
She flicked the lever on the electric kettle and watched me pour myself a bowl of cinnamon crunch. I’d forgotten the euphoric taste of sugary cereal. Yet, while it filled the hole in my stomach, it didn’t touch the one in my heart. Had Nick arrived in the north yet? Was he in danger? Was he already missing me, too?
“Your college sent a letter,” Mom said flatly, reaching to dig out an envelope from a pile of bills. The ‘UAL, Central Saint Martins’ logo was stamped in the corner.
It had already been opened, and I fished out the letter, my tummy clenching. It was an approval to defer my first year in the Bachelor of Arts in Jewellery Design course. All the letter needed was my signature and it’d be a done deal.
“A deferral?” I said with confusion, scanning the note for more information.
Mom poured steaming water into her chipped mug. “I spoke to them a few weeks ago about the health challenges you’ve been facing and convinced them to arrange a deferral for one year. If you sign the form, I can send it back to them.”
I stared at her and then again at the letter. A tight coil in my chest that I hadn’t even realized was there snapped free. Studying jewelry design at Central Saint Martins had been my dream before Nick Tudor popped onto the scene and derailed me with his invitation to become a sixteenth-century queen.