by Heather Long
I held both of their attention now.
“I loved it. I loved having my best friends right there. I loved spending time with her. I loved that Frankie relaxed and we talked. I know you think we’re all too young. But we’re not getting married…”
“How would that even work?” But even as Mom asked, Dad caught her hand and shook his head. She sighed. “Sorry, sweetheart. I worry.”
“I think that’s in your contract.” Moms were supposed to worry about us. I just wished Frankie’s mom hadn’t defaulted on hers. At her quick smile, I nodded. “Like I said, we’re not getting married. We’re not taking anything for granted or lightly. We’ve had a lot of discussions. School is important. We all have goals, we’re all keeping those in mind. But it’s more important to us that we stay together. If that means we don’t go to a first pick school, because our second or third pick has not only the classes we need but the added benefit of all of us attending? Then that’s where we go.”
“All right, so no football.” Mom gave me an expectant look, and I nodded. “You’re going to pursue your music more vigorously.”
I nodded again. “That’s the plan. Depending on how things work out, I thought I might minor in business or accounting. Something I can use to pay the bills while I work on my music.”
“And in a few years, you graduate. Then what?”
“Then we do what other graduates do—we work on getting jobs and into our careers.”
“What if—”
“Mom?” I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. “I get it. You’re worried. I can’t answer every single possible scenario with anything other than—we’ll work it out. Together. I’m not planning for failure, though. We’re a team, the five of us. That means sometimes one of us will sacrifice something for the others. But that doesn’t mean the end of the line, it just means getting creative so that once they get what they need, the others get it too.”
Dad had gone curiously quiet, so I looked at him after I squeezed Mom’s hand and sat back in the seat.
“Sir?”
“The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.”
I frowned, and even Mom gave him a look.
He shook his head. “Why you won’t bring Frankie here—the axe forgets, but the tree remembers. Our choices bothered her before. You don’t want them to bother her now because she has enough cuts to heal over.”
I nodded once.
“We’ll put the axes away.”
“Joe…”
“We’ll put the axes away, and we’re going to respect your choices.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he advised. “We’ll respect your choices, but you’re going to respect ours, as well. We love that girl. Maddy’s never done right by her, my worries about her mental health and emotional stability are honestly earned.”
I couldn’t argue that, except…
“But I’m not her psychologist. You said she is seeing one.”
One nod.
“Then I’m going to work on putting that hat away and just try to be her friend.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I told him honestly. “I think she would, too.”
“Good. If she needs any help at that emancipation hearing, I’ll be glad to lend my expertise.”
I grinned. “I really appreciate that. I think we have it covered, but if it becomes an issue, I’ll let you know.”
“Excellent. Now, family dinner nights, we’ll set one aside, and you can bring Frankie and the boys over. We should all get used to that. I think a couple of times at least before graduation. But I would like you to bring Frankie weekly if she’s free.”
“I’ll work on that.”
After that, the air at the table relaxed some as talk shifted to their work and some things they wanted to do around the house. A couple of the projects would eat up a few weekends, but we could probably get it done and still leave me time on other stuff.
“You should draft your brother boyfriends in to help, that will make everything go much faster,” Mom suggested as Dad and I cleared the table. I wasn’t the only one who paused to stare at her, and she gave us a look. “What? They aren’t your boyfriends, but you’re all dating the same girl, and if they want to call it sister wives when it’s the other way, I think brother boyfriends fits.”
I wanted to argue that so bad, and at the same time, I wanted her to never ever mention that around the guys.
Coop would have a field day.
“We’ll work on it,” Dad promised me. “The terminology. Just…understand the feeling is there.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
“Anyway,” Mom continued as she rinsed the plates we stacked up. “If we draft your brother boyfriends into helping, you could fix the siding in no time and then get that new workbench finished up. Archie is good with tools, right? Maybe he could look at the lawn mower.”
By the time I was able to excuse myself to go to my room, I’d begun to regret ever mentioning this to my parents. They’d gone to the den to do research on poly-family dynamics. In my room, I checked my phone for the first time in hours.
Archie was back at the apartment. Frankie and he were tucked in for the night. Coop had gone home, much to his chagrin and complaints. Jake was giving him shit, and Frankie had flipped them off twice in the group chat before she’d stopped answering all together.
I sent her a quiet, private message. I wasn’t too worried about her not seeing it tonight. Like I’d told Coop the other day, she really needed him right now. She also needed Archie. That was how this was going to work. We all had our needs, and some of us would need more than others at different points.
My phone buzzed with her response, and I chuckled.
Frankie: How did dinner go? It ran late.
Me: We talked, a lot. You up for a family dinner here next week?
Frankie: For real?
Me: Yes, for real, Angel. Though, forgive Mom. She’s working on understanding terms to address our relationship.
Frankie: Um…do I want to know what that means?
So I told her. The laughing and crying emojis made me grin. Finally though, I had to ask, because we’d been chatting for nearly an hour.
Me: Where’s Archie?
Frankie: Sound asleep next to me. He was exhausted when he got here.
Me: He okay?
Frankie: I think so. It’s just been a long few days.
That it had.
Me: Get some sleep, Angel. I love you.
Frankie: Love you too.
Flopping back on my bed, I stared up at the ceiling and started to laugh.
Brother boyfriends.
Only my mom.
Laugh a Little Too Loud
“It’s not about whether I want to know who he is…not really.”
“Why would you say that?”
I tugged at the loose string, toying with the frayed end. “I’ve never had a father. It was always just Maddy and me. I didn’t really think about the fact I didn’t have one until first or second grade.”
“What happened to make you question it?”
“Father’s Day. Coop wanted to make something for his dad for Father’s Day, and he wanted me to help him find some stuff to do it. Anyway, it was normal stuff. It must have been second grade.”
“Okay.”
I shook my head. “I just—Jake was here. We didn’t meet Jake until second grade.” I could almost see the three of us. It was after the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. Jake came over every day because we had the pool and his place had sisters. Including baby sisters. Coop only had Trina, but the three of us could run around on our own as long as we stuck together.
“We were always in and out together, hanging out, playing, but on Father’s Day weekend, they were both busy and I asked Maddy about why we didn’t celebrate Father’s Day.”
“What did she say? “
A laugh worked its way free. “That it was just her and me. We didn’t
need a father. Either of us.” I glanced at Erin. “Weird, right?”
“I don’t know, do you think it’s weird?”
I exhaled and then stared up at the ceiling. “Looking back, now? Yes. Then? No. The guys never really asked me about my father, I think they thought he was dead maybe. Or maybe the fact I never brought him up. It’s…how do you talk about someone who doesn’t exist?”
“Parental relationships are more than genetics and blood.”
“Oh boy, do I know that. But there were four DNA tests, and one was positive. She wanted Mr. Standish to believe it was him. It wasn’t about me knowing. It was about him knowing. She didn’t seem to care what it did to my relationship with Archie. To be honest, I kind of wonder if she even knew Archie and I were involved. Or would she have tried to stop it if she had known?”
Ugh. The thought gave me a headache.
“And now that you know it’s not him, it means you still have a potential bio donor out there.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to know if you want to meet him.”
Well, that was something. “I want to laugh. Because this is like my own damn soap opera, only it’s not my storyline, I’m just getting jerked around in hers.”
“Then laugh.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Laugh,” Erin advised me. “Laughter and tears are both cathartic. If you want to laugh, laugh.”
A chuckle escaped me, and I shook my head again. “What if I want to find this guy, but it turns out he’s no better than Maddy? I mean, she told me once my father didn’t want me. Another time, she said he told her to get an abortion. Another time…” I curled that frayed string around my finger. “Each time it came up, her story changed.”
Maddy had always said she’d wanted me. Her. No one else had wanted me, and I should be damn well grateful for it.
“What if you find him, and he’s none of the things your mother has described?”
What if…
Chapter Eleven
Don’t Forget to Remember Me
Coop
The last week had been crazy. I’d been trying to spend more time with Trina when she wasn’t blowing me off. I’d even taken her out with me while I worked a delivery shift. That had been a fucking joy. The icy silence punctuated by bitchy comments. Sign me up for more of that. But it wasn’t my first rodeo, and I did what I could.
Now, sitting outside of the family therapy office while Mom and Dad talked to the therapist, I scrolled through my phone. Trina hadn’t said much when I picked her up from school, and she’d said even less during the session. As much as these sessions were about helping her address her anger and getting all of us to talk, I had to wonder how much good they could do her until she was willing to be helped?
She released a long sigh. And I didn’t look up from my phone. Social media wasn’t that interesting, but sometimes, Jake and Archie posted pics of what they were working on. Not always specifics, but the tools they used or something equally vague. Couldn’t hurt to look for clues.
Another heavy sigh escaped Trina, and she shifted her weight. I didn’t glance at her or smile. I got it, she wanted my attention. Well, she needed to use her words. Not that I could miss her exaggerated complaints. At the same time, she’d been pretty much in the treat me like crap category, so I wasn’t feeling a lot of intense sympathy, even if I understood the actions.
The hardest thing in the world to do was not reward bad behavior. Then again, I wasn’t going to let her ghost me either. Learned that lesson with Frankie. I drew back and let her set the terms last summer when I should have pushed.
So here we sat, and I endured these sessions with Dad for her sake. Maybe it would help me to get my anger into perspective. Maybe not. Who knew?
“Coop?”
Still not smiling, I glanced up from my phone. Jake and Archie were being less than helpful in my quest to figure out what they were up to. “Hmm?”
“Do we have to wait here?”
Shooting her a look, I studied her a bit. She had her head down, and she seemed intent on picking at a seam in her pants. One foot tapped and the rest of her kept shifting subtly in her seat. “Nope,” I said, rising. “Texting Mom to let her know we’re going to grab food and we’ll see her at home.”
“Oh thank God,” she said in a rush and grabbed her bag from the floor. When had Sis started carrying a purse? It was weird ’cause Frankie mostly stuck to her wallet that was just like mine and used her backpack. Shaking that off, I pushed open the door for her and hit send on the message. We all had our phones off in session, so they’d get it after they were done. Considering how frosty it had been between them, that might take a while.
Once we were in the car, she reached for her phone, even as the Bluetooth system picked up mine and started on my playlist. The number of Torched songs on it might have climbed recently, but at least Trina didn’t complain. She didn’t look up as I pulled out of the parking lot, her attention on the phone.
I slanted a look at her when we were at a traffic light. The first week we’d started these sessions, she’d been talking nonstop. The more we went, the more distant she grew. Clipped. Downright bitchy at times. My little sister knew how to be a brat, but this was different. This was like I was being punished for something, only I didn’t know what that something was.
Yeah, fuck that. I did that with Frankie last summer, let her dictate the where and the when. Let her shut us out when she’d been hurting. At the next traffic light, I turned us around and headed back the way we’d come. There was a Mexican restaurant that Trina loved. An all you can eat buffet and endless sodas.
Frankie discovered it—because Frankie—but she’d introduced me and Trina, and it had become Trina’s top pick whenever we asked her about going out. Sis didn’t even look up from her phone until I parked, and then she frowned.
“Why are we here?”
“Because we’re going to get food and talk.”
“What if I don’t want to talk?” The belligerent tone in her voice dared me to fight her.
“Then we’ll sit at a table and stare at each other while we eat. Just chew your food with your mouth closed.”
“I don’t want to eat.”
“Get out of the car, Sis,” I ordered. I got out, and she continued to sit there, all mutinous. Oh, fuck my life. Opening the passenger door, I glanced in. “Out. We need to eat. You like this place.”
She sighed and dragged herself out of the car like I was killing her. Holy fuck, fourteen wasn’t that long ago. I did not remember being this dramatic.
Frankie would have socked me.
Inside, I paid and then went through the buffet line and loaded up. Trina didn’t get as much as usual, so I got extra and I grabbed chips and queso. She filled our sodas and got diet for herself. I grimaced. When had she started drinking diet?
Adding it to the mental list of things we needed to talk about, I let her choose the table since I’d chosen the restaurant. She picked one of the quieter booths on the side where the tall backs gave us an illusion of privacy. Once we were seated, I dug in while she moved the food on her plate more than actually ate it.
True to my word, I waited her out.
“You’re really going to sit and stare at me while I eat?”
“I’m staring, but you’re not actually eating.” I pointed to her plate with my fork. “You keep moving your rice from one side of the plate to the other.”
The baleful look in her hazel eyes made me shrug.
“I notice things, Sis.”
“When you want to,” she muttered.
“Okay, what have I not noticed that you’re clearly pissed at me about?”
“If I have to tell you, then clearly you haven’t noticed things.” She made a face, and I leaned back in the booth and kept staring at her.
It took fifteen minutes, but she cracked.
“Stop,” she said with some force. “Now you’re just being creepy. How does Frankie put up wit
h you?”
“You should see what she does when I won’t tell her what’s wrong,” I pointed out. “All I do is stare. She’ll start singing.”
“You like her singing.”
“The worst, drunken and repetitive songs ever over and over… It’s definitely a form of torture.” I grinned. “We could try that if you want.”
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
I chuckled. “You’re lucky I’m not Archie, or I’d take that challenge. Now, eat and tell me what’s going on with you.”
She scowled at her food, then stuck a fork full in her mouth. Two more bites later, and she tried to wash the food down with a sip of her diet crap. The grimace on her face had me grabbing her drink and mine.
“Hey…”
“I’ll be right back.”
I dumped her soda and got her a regular one, even as I refilled mine, and then I carried them back and set hers in front of her. “I’m trying to lose some weight.”
“Right, well, run more or something if you want to burn a few more calories, not that you have a lot spare there, Sis. But don’t drink the diet stuff if you hate it.”
“Run more? That’s your suggestion?” She glared at me. “Not all of us are Frankie. We can’t all be human garbage compactors.”
Not an unfair assessment. Still… “Be nice. She isn’t the one you’re pissed at.” And after that scene in the parking lot, I had zero tolerance for letting her vent in Frankie’s direction. “You’re scapegoating onto her to avoid whatever it is you don’t want to talk about. If it’s a weight thing, I’ll listen, but you’re adorable, Sis. And you’re not fat. Not even close.”
“I barely have any tits or ass.” The rise of her eyebrows dared me to contradict her. “In fact, I don’t have a shape at all unless square is a shape.”
“Square is a shape, and you’re not a square.” I skipped right past the rest of it. “You’ll get there. Every girl is different, but starving yourself is not going to give you curves.”
“I’m eating for fuck’s sake,” she snarled and then stuffed another couple of bites in her mouth. I dipped a chip in some of the lukewarm queso. Her scowl deepened and then vanished as she slumped in the booth. “You are such a pain in the ass sometimes.”
