Skeletons Out of the Closet

by M. Katherton

  I kept to myself at home that night, not up for explaining to Mom why I was down and giving her the satisfaction of thinking she was right about Ryan getting what he wanted then leaving. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should have listened to her. If I lost Ryan, I would really be friendless now. Kendra was gone for good now that she had transferred schools and made it perfectly clear in her tweets that I was essentially dead to her. I felt desperate enough that I even briefly considered texting Emelia. However, while I still had a number saved for her in my phone, I hadn’t texted her in two years. Maybe she had changed her number and even if she hadn’t, she probably deleted mine. I decided not to risk it. Just because she sat by me at the bowling alley didn’t mean she wanted to rekindle our friendship.

  After putting on my pajamas, ready to call it a night early since I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, my phone buzzed on my nightstand after being silent all night. I thought it might be Paige texting to ask about the English homework as she often did or maybe my dad texting to check in but instead, Ryan’s name showed up on the screen. The message contained a simple hey. Unsure what his motive was for texting, I sent back a reciprocal hey.

  A few minutes passed without response. Though Ryan wasn’t always a prompt texter, I worried I had dead-ended the conversation and debated about sending a follow-up, but as I contemplated what to say, I got another incoming text from him.

  Sorry for being a jerk today. Just been thinking about a lot. You did nothing wrong. Just been in a weird place.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, glad he hadn’t suddenly decided I wasn’t attractive enough for him or that he was going back to Laurel. I sent back:

  It’s okay. Sorry if I pushed too hard.

  It’s okay. I’m thinking about going back to Maryland after I graduate but nothing’s for sure yet.

  I would miss Ryan if he went back. If he did, it would probably spell the end for our relationship but even if he stayed, I didn't know if we would stay together after he graduated.

  I’ll miss you if you leave but I support whatever you choose.

  I left my phone on my nightstand while I went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, figuring the conversation was over. However, when I returned, I found one more text.

  What if we skip the bowling alley this Friday and you come over to hang out instead? ;)

  The text made me grin at my phone. Ryan still wanted me.

  Friday, March 22nd, 2019

  I texted Dad that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the bowling alley, worried if I didn’t show up without explanation that he would think I was avoiding him. He assured me it was fine and that he would be in touch soon because Caroline wanted to have me over for dinner one night to get to know me better.

  I headed over to Ryan’s about 6:30, shortly after Garen left for the bowling alley. We ordered a pizza, watched Ted, and of course, cuddled and had sex again. I was able to enjoy it more this time as I wasn’t so preoccupied by the fact that I was finally having sex. As much as I loved watching my dad bowl, I would consider forgoing it again if it meant I got to spend Friday nights alone with Ryan. Just as the credits rolled for Ted and I didn’t think anything could ruin this night, I got a text from my mother.

  COME HOME. NOW.

  My heartrate skyrocketed. Maybe something happened to one of my siblings, maybe something was wrong with Ross, maybe my grandpa had another heart attack. I jumped up and grabbed my keys off the coffee table, alarming Ryan.

  “What? Did I do something?”

  “I just got a text from my mom.” My voice waivered. “Something’s wrong. I need to go.”

  Ryan’s duplex was about a ten-minute drive from my house but I drove twice the speed limit and cut the time in half. I burst in the front door, expecting some sort of medical crisis, but instead Mom sat stewing on the couch.

  “What’s going on?” I treaded, not sure why she had summoned me home after barely being gone for two hours.

  “What the hell is this?!” She hissed, holding up the Valentine’s Dance picture, the photobooth strip of her and Dad, and the polaroid that Maddy took at his birthday party. My stomach dropped. “First you steal and hoard photos from my past and then you have your own photo with him! I know it’s not photoshop! What the hell, Jessica?!”

  “What were you doing in my underwear drawer?!” I accused, knowing I had been extra careful to not ask her to do my laundry the past few months and not sure why she would have been snooping around my room.

  “I bought you condoms and wanted to put them somewhere Macy and Spencer wouldn’t find them! Then this is how you repay me! I’ve spent the last seventeen years loving and caring for you and then you go behind my back and get in touch with that asshole! I’ve never felt more betrayed in my life! Not even when he told me to abort you!”

  “You shouldn’t have kept him from me! Then I wouldn’t have gone behind your back!”

  “I was just trying to protect you! He didn’t want you! If he’d had his way, you wouldn’t even be here! Yet you still went to him! I decided to keep you and gave you everything but apparently that’s not good enough! It’s disgusting!”

  “But he’s different now! I just wanted to meet him for myself!”

  “Maybe you should ask him to take care of you, feed you, pay for your car and save money for college! Because I’m done!”

  “Vanessa, stop!” Ross refereed, coming down the stairs where I imagine he was probably trying to shield Macy and Spencer from the chaos. Mom ignored him, squinting at me like a cat ready to kill a pesky mouse.

  “Get out of my house! I don’t want you here!”

  “She’s not going anywhere! Stop being ridiculous!” Ross intervened, putting his hands on my shoulders.

  “Really?! You’re gonna take her side?! You’re the father figure for most of her life and that isn’t good enough for her! She wants her ‘real dad' even though he’s an asshole! You’re being ridiculous!”

  “That’s not true!” Ross defended, his support making me burst into tears. He had every right to take Mom’s side and throw me out but he didn’t.

  “Fine! If you guys are gonna go all Brady Bunch on me then I’ll leave!” She retorted, grabbing her purse from the coatrack and storming out the door, leaving the pictures that had blown everything up on the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry!” I sobbed to Ross.

  “Shh. It’s okay.” He assured, wrapping his arms tightly around me. “She’ll get over it. Just give it time.”

  “I ruined everything!”

  “No, you didn’t. It’s okay.”

  Ross let go of me as feet pattered down the stairs. Though Mom and Ross usually tried to avoid fighting in front of my siblings, she was loud enough that I was certain they heard the whole thing. Macy held Spencer’s hand as he cried, trying to be the brave big sister though I noticed her lip quivering too.

  “What happened?” Spencer wailed, letting go of Macy’s hand and clinging to Ross. “Why did Mommy leave?”

  “It’s okay, honey.” Ross picked up Spencer and balanced him on his hip though he was seven and almost too old to be carried. “Mommy’s a little upset right now. She’ll be back.” I didn’t know how Ross was so certain she would come back though. Mom had cut my dad off at the flip of a switch. She would do the same to us if she wanted to.

  Macy came over and wrapped her arms around me as I sat on the couch, which only made me cry harder since usually she thought she was too cool to hug me. I usually avoided crying in front of my siblings at all costs but it was too late now. I sobbed and sobbed and Macy leaned her head against my shoulder and rubbed my back as if it was her job to look after me.

  Ross calmed Spencer down and suggested we put on a movie though I escaped upstairs to my room because I just wanted to be alone. I just sat in bed, staring up at the ceiling, too distraught to read a book or watch TV. Ross came to check on me after he put my siblings to bed around nine.

  “How are you holding up?” He asked, s
ympathetic as ever though I had possibly ruined his life. If it hadn’t been for me, if Mom had an abortion like my dad wanted, Mom could have had her happy family with Ross. Instead, I was here and I destroyed everything.

  I just shook my head. Ross was a great person and had done an exceptional job being my father figure for over ten years now. He had always treated me like his own even though he had two beautiful biological children. It wasn’t that he wasn’t enough. Ross meant so much to me. I just wanted to know where I came from.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head again. Instead of pushing like Mom usually did, he nodded acceptingly.

  “Okay. I’ll be downstairs if you change your mind.”

  As he started walking away, I blurted out, “thanks for sticking up for me! And I’m sorry that I ruined everything!” then I burst into tears once again, stinging my swollen eyes.

  “Jess,” he soothed, running his hands through his neatly styled brown hair. “You didn’t ruin anything. It’s not your fault.”

  “If she would’ve just got an abortion then you guys could’ve had your perfect family and I wouldn’t have ruined everything!” I blubbered, wiping my wet cheeks on the sleeve of my black t-shirt.

  “Jessica, don’t say that.” He scolded gently. “You’re a valuable part of our family and it hurts me to hear you talk like that. And it would hurt your mom too.”

  “She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t. She’s just upset right now. That really caught her off guard. But I promise she’ll get over it. She loves you too much not to.”

  “I don’t know.” I sniffled.

  “She does. It’s gonna be okay, I promise. I know it seems really bad, but it’s gonna be okay.”

  I nodded though I still didn’t believe him. Then he left me alone, suffocating in my purple room that Mom had spent hours painting to surprise me for my thirteenth birthday and sitting on the bed she had saved up for months to buy me. Another wave of guilt hit me. I couldn’t be in here. I crept next door to Macy’s room where she still had a lamp on and was reading a book.

  “Can I sleep in here with you?” I whimpered once she noticed my presence. She nodded without question and scooted over in her twin bed to make room for me. I expected her to keep reading but instead she stuck the cat printed bookmark in her book and placed it on the nightstand.

  “What happened with Mommy?”

  “I can’t talk about it.” I whispered, knowing Mom would really never forgive me if I gave my nine-year-old sister a detailed recap of our blowout.

  “Why does she hate your dad?”

  The blunt question caught me off guard though Macy was a queen eavesdropper and it shouldn’t have surprised me on how clued in she was on the situation. I couldn’t tell her anything about the abortion and why Mom actually hated him so much so I just shrugged.

  “Do you think she’s gonna come back?”

  “I don’t know, May.” I answered honestly though Ross would have told her everything was fine and not to worry about it. “I’m sorry.”

  Macy stared down at her pink bedspread for a minute as if she was going to cry then blinked a few times before glancing back up at me. “I hope she comes back.”

  “Me too.”

  We sat quietly for a moment. Macy had a dance competition tomorrow and needed to be well rested and I couldn’t let my selfishness of not wanting to be alone interfere.

  “You need to go to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

  Macy nodded and reached over to turn off her lamp, then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Jess. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I whispered, tearing up at her compassion.

  Saturday, March 23rd, 2019

  Macy’s Hello Kitty alarm clock startled me awake around eight AM. She got up to get ready for her dance competition, more self-reliant than most nine-year-old kids. I fell back asleep, exhausted from waking up several times during the night then struggling to fall back asleep. Ross woke me up probably about an hour later, informing me he was taking Macy to her dance competition and asked if I could look after Spencer for the day. I forced myself out of bed, afraid of what destruction the seven-year-old could do if left unattended for too long.

  I found Spencer downstairs at the kitchen table, chowing down on a bowl of Trix cereal and drinking a glass of pulp-free orange juice. Even after hearing Mom lose her mind last night, he still got up and ate his cereal like any normal day, exhibiting true resilience.

  “Hey Jess!” He chirped as I sat across the table from him with my cup of coffee in hand.

  “Hey. How’d you sleep?”

  “Good.” He answered, spooning a bite of Trix into his mouth. We sat silently for a few minutes, a little peculiar for being in the vicinity of Spencer since he always had something to say. Just when I was about to break the ice and ask him what he wanted to do today, he piped up with, “Are Mommy and Daddy getting a divorce?”

  Spencer’s kindergarten best friend Lucas moved away last summer after his parents got divorced and his mom chose to go to Oklahoma to be closer to family. This prompted Spencer to ask Mom a lot of questions about what divorce was and why it happened. Now he worried it would happen to his parents too.

  “No, they’re not.” I answered reflexively, now guilty of the same candy-coating Ross did last night.

  “But why did Mommy leave? Is she going to Oklahoma?”

  “I don’t think so. She doesn’t know anyone there. She just got really mad at me and Daddy.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged, the memories of last night making me feel emotional again. I kept my game face on for Spencer though. If I broke down, he would too. Therefore, I decided my best option was to distract him.

  “Wanna do something fun today? Maybe go to the park or get ice cream?”

  His brown eyes lit up like he had won a life-supply of toys. “Can we do both?”

  I nodded, figuring that even if I was miserable, I could at least do whatever I could to make my little brother happy.

  Half an hour later, I sat on a bench at our neighborhood park watching Spencer play on the playset with another little boy he had quickly befriended minutes after arrival. When I checked my phone, I found an unread text from Ryan.

  Just checking in. You okay?

  Ryan might relate to my situation as his parents had divorced when he was young. He didn’t talk about his dad often but from what I’d gathered, they only saw each other a couple times a year and did not have a close relationship. Regardless, it was too much to explain through text and I just wasn’t emotionally ready to talk about it yet. Therefore, I replied with a simple,

  Doing the best I can. Mom found out about my dad. Talk to you about it in person on Monday.

  I put my phone back in my pocket and when it vibrated again, I expected a response from Ryan. However, instead the name on the screen was “Jay”, my dad’s decoy name. Now that Mom knew, I supposed I could change it to Dad now. The damage had been done.

  Is there a night this week that you’re free for dinner? Caroline has a good lasagna family recipe she likes to make. You like lasagna?

  My dad had no idea how my world had crumbled last night. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go from here. I didn’t know if I should keep investing in my relationship with my dad or abandon ship and try to fix things with my mom. If I kept hanging out with my dad, I would at least have one biological parent in case Mom bailed on me forever. However, if I put things with my dad on hold, the drama with my mom might blow over faster. I needed more time to figure things out so I completely voided Dad’s dinner invitation and responded with a question of my own.

  A lot of stuff happened. Can I call you tomorrow?

  A few minutes passed with no response until Dad finally replied,

  Of course. Is everything alright?

  I typed out at least five different responses ranging from briefing him on what happened to changing the subject back to lasagna. I ended up erasi
ng them all and settling on,

  Not really. But don’t worry about me. I’ll call tomorrow. I have to babysit today.

  Dad responded telling me to let him know if there was anything he could do, which made me feel emotional again. I was so glad we were finally in contact after seventeen years but maybe Mom had a point. I didn’t know if Dad would be willing to step in as my primary caregiver if Mom flaked on me. I didn’t know if he would be willing to let me move in with him, Caroline, and Taylor or if he would pay my car payments or save money to help put me through college. I think he liked getting to know me but also liked not having to financially support and provide for me. He had his own family now. I doubted he wanted to become the fulltime parent of his high school mistake.

  Sunday, March 24th, 2019

  There was no word from Mom on Saturday. She would have to come back to the house before tomorrow morning since all of her work clothes were here but I didn’t know if she would stick around. I figured she was staying with her parents or Kathleen but maybe she had gone off to start a new life in California or Nebraska or Michigan. She’d change her name so we would never find her, become a barista or wedding planner, and pretend Ross, Macy, Spencer, and I never existed.

  I called my dad around two o’clock. All day I had rehearsed what I would say but still felt like I was going to puke as the phone rang. He picked up after a few rings, greeting me with a casual “hey Jess,” like I had called to chat about sports or the weather.

  “Can we talk?” My voice waivered.

  “Of course. What’s going on?”

  I opened up my mouth to tell him that I thought we should cool things down for a while since Mom found out but instead I just started sobbing.