He widens his eyes on me. “I forgot a Hufflepuff was in the room. Cover your ears next time.” Silence lingers in place of where we’d normally smile.
Severity strains like a wire threatening to snap.
I walk that taut line and ask, “Why are you letting her affect you that much?”
“You don’t understand.” My dad’s words punch me right in the gut. Hurt swirls with built-up rage—rage towards my grandmother, and I don’t know where to land.
“What don’t I understand?” I ask. “You’ve been MIA every other fucking night. You both look like shit. You’re fighting more than I’ve ever seen. Because of her.”
“Be glad that you don’t get it,” my dad replies. “I’m happy for you. I am, truly.” His words are like razor blades, meant to bypass me, but I’m just a casualty in their wake.
“I want to understand,” I retort. “Where I’m standing, you both have gone through worse.” I look between them. “You have a son who’s tried to commit suicide multiple times. You’ve got a daughter who’s been bullied to hell and back. You’ve got another one who’s so fucking independent, she’s pretending she’s forty-years-old when she’s fourteen. None of that has ever set you back.”
“Our kids make us stronger,” my mom says, confidence emboldening every word. “Even when we doubt ourselves during hard times, raising you all brings us the sort of happiness we never thought we deserved.”
My dad adds, “Our parents make us weaker.”
Make.
Present tense.
Veins pulse in my flexed biceps. “You’ve pretty much kept us at a distance from her for years. If she’s this toxic, isn’t it better to just cut her out completely?”
My mom shrugs, pain in her glassy eyes. “She’s my mom.” She shakes her head, like she’s upset that she’s even crying. “It’s not that simple. She’s apologized, and I have what I have because of my parents. They gave me everything, and in turn, the ability to give you all everything…” Her voice trails off, like she knows the retort to her own words.
Like she’s trying to remember how she defeated the guilt and doubt before.
It seems easy to me. To shovel this rotted, decaying root from the ground and fling it into a fucking ocean a hundred galaxies away from my family.
I’ll do it. Even without a shovel.
I’ll use my hands, my body.
Until she’s long gone.
But I hear my mom’s words: it’s not that simple. And my dad’s: I’m happy for you. I am, truly.
I glance at him. He’s all solid ice on the outside. Unable to crack. “I’m never going to understand,” I say to him.
“No, you won’t,” he says into a nod.
Because I wasn’t raised by someone like that. Manipulative. I can’t imagine my parents ever guilt-tripping me into thinking that I owed them anything.
My mom and dad bolster my accomplishments as my own. Never make me feel indebted to them. In any way. And I’ll never understand just how difficult it must be for my mom to untwist the vines that’ve snaked around her for decades. From birth.
I think about short-term. Just about this summer leading up to Capri. Today is the last day of April, and we still have a couple months to go before the wedding. That’s two more months of Grandmother Calloway hassling my mom and dad.
Kicking them down.
Making them feel like shit.
But I can take that stress away.
I know I can.
I’m in control of the guest list. Farrow and I—we’re the ones who didn’t extend an invite to her in the first place. We created this massive doomsday, and I can end it right now.
“If it’s easier,” I say, “we can go ahead and invite her—”
“Maximoff.” My dad stakes me with the worst glare. “Did the first five seconds of this conversation apparate from your mind? Because I know you’re not blatantly ignoring what I told you.”
“Dad—”
“You can’t fix this.” His tone is stern, tensed. “You can’t change anything. Like your mom said, we’re dealing with your grandmother.”
“Are you going to relapse over this?” I ask.
His eyes go wide. “Have you forgotten everything I ever told you?”
I don’t know—that fucking hurts. “What?”
“I’m always going to be an addict,” he says. “I’m going to relapse one day—”
“I know that!” The room is a swirl of colors. I lose focus to the pain pulsing at every nerve-ending in my body. “You’ve told me that over and over. A thousand goddamn times.” He’s been sober for over twenty years. Twenty years. “But if you relapse, and I could have done something…”
My dad pulls away from my mom. Just to cross the room, and his hands rest on my shoulders. He’s searching my narrowed eyes, as though he’s hunting for the pain. Because I don’t cry.
I can’t.
“Listen to me,” he says. “You are not responsible for me, Moffy. If something happens to me, it’s going to be because of me. Do you get that?”