4 BACK THEN – August
Caribou, Maine
WILLOW MOORE
Age 17
“We’re not having this conversation! It’s Ellie’s birthday!” my mom shouts, the familiar octave present only when she’s around my dad.
“Her birthday ended twenty minutes ago!” my dad yells. I haven’t seen them endure each other’s presence since the divorce. I invited him to my 17th birthday dinner back in March and he said he wouldn’t come. His exact words: not if your mom is there. Now August, he’s willing to stomach my mom for Ellie—his little bundle of princess joy.
I don’t think I ever fit into what he wanted me to be. His words over the years have been etched into my head.
If you liked more girl things, you’d have more friends, Willow.
If you actually went to a party like a normal girl, you’d have more friends, Willow.
If you wore more makeup and made an effort, you’d have a boyfriend, Willow.
If you stopped watching superhero cartoons, you’d have a boyfriend, Willow.
Every girl your age has one.
But mostly I hate that he left in the first place. I hate that he just walked out on my mom and broke my little sister’s heart and tore through their lives, even if he’d already been tearing through mine.
He just said, “I can’t live with your mother.” And as a teenager, I’m not privy to the details I guess, but the lack of them has only made hate fester more for him than it has for her.
I hate that his leaving caused my mom to cry every night for three months. I hate that Ellie asked repeatedly, “When’s daddy coming home?” I hate that I was the one who had to say the truth over and over, and I had to watch tears roll down her cheeks every single time. I hate that he wasn’t here to stomach their hurt—that he never woke up to it, never went to sleep to it, the way that I did. When I look at my dad, I only see the man who has hurt me by hurting the two people I love most.
“Willow?” Ellie whispers again, tugging on my wrist. I look down at my six-year-old sister, her eyes wide like saucers. And she mutters, “Can you tell them to stop?”
I fix her plastic crown that droops to the left. “Only if you wait here.”
“I will. I promise.” Then Ellie jumps onto my bed and plops down beside my laptop. I notice a Barbie doll in her hand. It must be new.
I leave her quickly, my bare feet on the old carpet, and I squeeze down the narrow stairs towards the kitchen.
“We’re not talking about this here, Rob!”
His tone lowers to a heated growl. “Yes we are.”
I stop short of the kitchen, able to peek beside the doorframe. The yellow linoleum floors are half littered with wrapping paper and pink balloons, the trashcan stacked with dirty paper plates. My mom hangs onto the kitchen sink, her knuckles whitening.
I only spot this much outward emotion from my mom when she’s not noticing me or forgets I’m here. Though after the divorce, I’ve seen this side of her more often. On a normal day, she’s sweet and subdued. Rarely heated. Almost never angry. She tries to bottle most dark sentiments, something I’ve learned to do.
As I creep from the corner, I gain a better view of my mom.
Just forty, she has kind eyes, a smooth pale complexion and rosy cheeks, but her usual put-together persona cracks beneath welling tears. She stands opposite a middle-aged man with light scruff, narrowed eyes, and a Miller Lite shirt. And I mentally take sides—I take hers, even if I’m supposed to remain nonpartisan.
I see him.
I see him hurting her.
I see him causing her these tears.
My mom who never asks more of me—when what I am is subsequently less.
I clutch onto the doorframe, watching as my dad crosses his arms over his burly chest.
He says to her, “We’ll never finalize this fucking divorce if your lawyer keeps putting this off.”
My mom inhales a shaky breath. Her nose flares and she fights tears again, straddling more sadness than rage.
No. Tell him to fuck off, Mom. Tell him you don’t want him. I bite my tongue, hoping she’ll stand up for herself.
“Please, Rob…” she cries. “Just come back home.”
My stomach is queasy. I just want her to kick him out, to grow the strength to rip apart the thing that causes her pain. Come on, Mom. You can do it.
I wish I had the bravery to help her, but my feet cement to the floor, weighed like shackles of tar-filled balloons.
Through his teeth, he sneers, “I’d rather burn in fucking hell than be with a woman who spent over seventeen years repeatedly lying to me.”
A chill races across my arms, and I swallow a lump.
“It has nothing to do with you, Rob.” Her voice trembles, and then tears burst forth in a guttural cry. It pierces me through the chest, and I stagger one step. I’m blown back.
Meanwhile, he just stands there.
He just watches in disgust.
How could he—
“You abandoned your son,” he says so passionately, so soulfully and hatefully that his face turns blood-red.
And I go utterly cold.
“Your fucking son,” he repeats with glassy eyes. “The one that I knew nothing about!” He points a finger at his chest. Vibrating—he’s vibrating in anger and pain.
I’m shaking with it too.
I don’t understand…
My dad licks his lips and adds, “How does the fact that you saw the father of your son on twelve separate occasions for two decades, not affect me?”
No.
I rock back.
He’s to blame.
Isn’t he?
He has to be.
Tears crest my eyes as I try to block out the truth. No.
Think about it, Willow.
I don’t want to. It’s easy believing one way for so long, to put all of my emotions in this one drawer that makes the most sense. It hurts having someone yank open the drawer and dump out its contents, destroying what I know is real.
She’s my ally.
She’s my confidant and my friend.
She’s my mom.
She wouldn’t lie. She wouldn’t abandon anyone. She’s my mom…the person who spent five hours helping me with a science fair project in eighth grade—who took me to the midnight showing of Avengers, even though she had work early in the morning.
She’s kind-hearted and loving. She’s sweet-tempered and generous.
I can’t imagine her abandoning a puppy, let alone an actual person…her person…
It’s not real.
And then my mom says, with staggered breath, “I never saw his father after the day the baby was born…” I can’t tell whether this is true or not. She plants her eyes on the ground in shame, never meeting my dad’s gaze.
“You’re lying again,” he grits.
“I’m not!” she screams at the floor. “Those were checks from him, but it’s been twenty-four years since I last saw him. He had his assistant fly out…and give the checks to me. Five years ago was the last one. I’ve told you this. Please, Rob—” She tries to grab onto his forearm, but he jerks away. She catches air and then grips the sink counter for support again.
I lean my weight on the doorframe, my glasses misted with tears, and I take them off with trembling hands and rub them on my green striped shirt. I try hard not to make a noise, but my nose runs…I wipe that with my arm—shaking.