“Oh, no, no, it’s okay! Hold on, Elle,” Linda said, picking up the tiny dog and holding it out after me even though I was already at the door. “If being the dog is tradition, you should absolutely be it. Here.”
“I don’t need your charity,” I spat, wheeling around. “You know, you can’t just barge into our lives like this, spend the holiday with us, play board games with everyone, and act like you’ve been here all along. Because you don’t belong here. And it’s pathetic how hard you’re trying.”
“Elle!” both my dad and June shouted. I heard one of them jump up.
Matthew said, “Don’t mind her, Linda. Teenagers, eh?”
I made sure to slam every door on my way outside. I heard heaving footsteps tromping after me but didn’t turn around, not until my dad shouted, “Rochelle! You stop right there, young lady!”
I did, crossing my arms and turning back around just before I got down the path to the beach. It was already dark out, and the outside lights on the turquoise pool water cast eerie patterns across the patio, the house, even my dad’s face.
Which was a pretty furious face.
I stood my ground, arms crossed tight and brow furrowed.
“What was that all about?” he demanded.
“What are you talking about? You know exactly what that was about!” I objected and jabbed a finger back at the house. “You know I’m always the Scottie dog, Dad. It was Mom’s token. Every time we played. Every time. And you were just going to let her have it? What, should I give her the watch Mom left me for my seventeenth birthday, too? Should we get all Mom’s clothes out of storage in the attic for her, let her use Mom’s favorite mug with the pink stars on it?”
He sighed, taking his glasses off to clean them on his shirt, pausing to rub his eyes before putting them back on. “Elle. It was just a Monopoly piece.”
“It was Mom’s Monopoly piece. This is our last summer here. The Flynns are selling the place and…and we’re off to college, and when are we even going to have a family game night like this again? She shouldn’t even still be here. It’s a family game night. All the guests went home ages ago.”
“Now stop it. That’s not fair and you know it.”
“Fair?” I scoffed, my eyes bugging. “You want to talk about fair? What’s not fair is the way she’s just…just…just suddenly around all the time, trying to force herself into our lives! You got her to pick up Brad from camp, she’s been to the house cooking dinner with you guys, she’s been hanging out with Matthew and June. She was in our house, acting like she belonged there, acting all…chummy with me, and I can’t stand it. I know you like her, and I’m sorry, but I don’t. And I think it’s selfish of you to force her into our lives like this.”
I watched my dad’s face turn pale, the way he blinked in total shock as he digested it all.
And I kept my arms folded and gritted my teeth, because I didn’t regret a word of it.
He was forcing her into our lives. It wasn’t as though I didn’t want my dad to be happy, but it was too much, too fast. Linda wasn’t part of our family and I hated that she was acting like she was.
I hated that she’d been getting on so well with June and Matthew all day. I hated that she’d been talking to Rachel and Amanda in the kitchen earlier, and they had been chatting so happily back, with friendly smiles on their faces. I hated the way she’d “snuck” Brad an extra brownie, like it was their little secret, like he was five years old and she could win him over with some baked goods—and I hated that Brad was already so won over by her, calling for her to join in, and had she tried our favorite potato salad, and had she seen all the photos in the hallway, and she was still picking him up from camp in a couple of days and taking him for pizza, right?
I hated that everybody else seemed to have welcomed her in so easily when she didn’t belong.
By now, Dad had recovered enough to stand up a little straighter, his cheeks turning ruddy. “Selfish? Are you serious, Elle? You and Brad have been my number-one priority your whole lives, especially since your mom died. But you’re both old enough now, and after I got to know Linda, I realized maybe it was time I stopped putting part of my life on hold. Jeez, Elle, I know I haven’t always been around a lot, but that’s because I took a job I didn’t want in order to earn more money to help you go to a better school, to give you and your brother a better life.”
He was breathing raggedly, so heavily I could hear it from even a few feet away, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen while I stood there slack-jawed.
“And don’t talk to me about selfish,” he went on. “I asked her to help out with Brad so much to give you more free time this summer! So you could spend it gallivanting around with Lee, doing all those bucket-list things and spending time with Noah and your friends. Do you have any idea what a big step that was for Linda—for me to ask her to suddenly be part of my kids’ lives like that? Looking after Brad, looking out for you?”
“I…”
I’d had no idea. I’d just always assumed he hadn’t met anybody he liked, that he’d found it hard to move on from my mom; I didn’t think for a second he’d actively decided to put any kind of dating life “on hold” for us.
And I knew he found his job exhausting. I knew he worked long hours sometimes and occasionally had to spend a night away or do something for work on a weekend, but he never said. Whenever we’d ask him about work, he’d just smile and say, “Oh, you know. Same old, same old, bud!”
It’s not as though I didn’t know he was, you know, human, with his own thoughts and feelings, but he never let on. About any of it.
“I’m not trying to force her into your life, Elle,” he told me, his voice serious and weary. “I was hoping to take things slow. Give you guys a chance to get used to it, I guess. That’s why I took a while to tell you. But with you being so busy this summer, it just…happened. And Brad really seems to like her. And Linda likes him, too. She treats him really well. And she’s desperate to get to know you better. I’m not…For God’s sake, Elle, it’s not like I’m trying to replace your mother. Nobody could do that. But don’t stand there and call me selfish, and don’t take it out on her. If you’re going to act like a child, Elle, I’ll treat you like a child. But I would like to think that you’re old enough now that we can have this conversation like adults.”
“You never said” was all I could manage. “The…the job and”—ew—“dating.”
“Of course I didn’t! You were just a kid, Elle! You’re my kid. Those weren’t your burdens to bear. It was bad enough I needed to rely on you to help out with Brad so much and with chores around the house.”