Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

Oh boy.

I could tell by the shift in Dad’s tone.

Here we go.

As ever, Mum was there for it.

“If that’s the case, why don’t you take your daughter’s and attend this brunch?”

“Because I never liked Chad Head, but my daughter wanted him, so I put up with him. Now he’s proven himself to be what I thought he was all along, and I’m not going to toe the line simply for the sake of appearances.”

Toe the line.

Mum’s voice was rising. “It’s not for the sake of appearances, Ned. It’s for your daughter.”

Dad collapsing back in his chair.

“For God’s sake, explain to me how it helps Blake that I pretend I think that brainless twat is worth my time, or hers. I’m not surprised Rix saw him fucking another woman. He’s barely above an unneutered lapdog, rutting against the furniture.”

Dad holding the table.

“I cannot believe you said that about Chad. He’s a Head!”

Toe the line.

“Good God, woman, listen to yourself!”

The Helena and Edward Show is fucked up, baby.

Mum was opening her mouth.

“Stop it!” I shouted.

Both of them looked to me.

Rix crowded me.

I stared at my parents.

“Just stop it. Can you not see how awful this is? How ugly it is?”

I focused on my mother.

And kept going.

“Mum, enough. I cannot even begin to imagine how it would be helpful for any of us to pretend we’re okay with Blake settling for a man who would betray her that way ever, much less on the eve of their wedding. It’s lunacy not only that you expect Dad and me to show, but that you’d have any part of it. Dad’s not going. Rix is not going. I’m not going. And frankly, you should not go. The united front this family should make is that we’re behind Blake, and we don’t think it’s all right for a second that someone treat her so unconscionably. Honestly, take Dad up on using his assistants to cancel. There’s still time.”

“If we cancel, people will know Blake and Chad are having issues,” Mum retorted.

“They are!” I cried. “Just last night, he was caught fucking another woman!”

“Baby,” Rix murmured, his hand flat and pressing on the small of my back.

That felt comforting, but I shook my head to him.

“Rix, no.” I turned to Mum. “And while I’m sharing my truth, you and Blake have got to stop dumping all your garbage on Dad.”

I heard Dad make a noise.

I ignored it because Mum’s eyes were dangerously narrow.

“If you still love him and want his attention, then tell him and see where he’s at with that and maybe see a counselor. If you don’t love him, and this is for spite, please, God, for all of us, especially Dad, get a life.”

A rod slammed right down her spine, and she snapped, “I do not still love your father.”

“Then leave him alone. For God’s sake. Live your life. Let him live his. Can you think for one second what it’s like to be your daughter, the product of both of you, and watch you be so incredibly nasty to each other all the time?”

“Alex,” Dad murmured.

I turned on him. “You too. You try to avoid it, but it doesn’t take long for you to fall right in. What’s it going to take for you to stop doing it, Dad? A heart attack?”

“I’m in perfect health, darling,” he said quietly.

“Well I’m not, mentally,” I returned. “I’m fed up with all this tired, regurgitated shit.”

“Alexandra, you—” Mum began.

Rix cut her off.

“Alex said a lot you need to process. How about you all let things lie as they are and take some time to do that?”

“I barely know who you are,” Mum sniffed. “Why on earth would I do what you say?”

“Because you love your daughter?” Rix asked by way of answer.

Mum’s chin clicked down.

“Why don’t we all take a moment, move this out of the hall, perhaps have another cup of coffee…Helena, I have tea, and discuss how we’re going to support Blake through this,” Dad suggested.

“I have one hundred and fifty people coming to brunch in less than two hours, Ned. I don’t have time for tea,” Mum bit.

Dad sighed.

Mum looked among us and remarked acidly, “I can’t believe you’re all abandoning me like this.”

“Mum,” I whispered.

She homed in on me. “Especially you, Alexandra. This is your sister.”

Rix pressed closer, and I knew he was going to say something.

Dad got there first.

“Helena, go.”

“Ned—”

“Enough, just go.”

“Blake will not thank any of you,” she bit out.

The defeat came back for Dad.

In his tone.

“Of course she won’t. And it saddens me how obvious it is how we managed to raise a girl with such abysmal manners, a failure that I fully participated in it, but you still don’t see it.”

“Always the last word,” she sniped.

Dad looked to his shoes.

She glared at him, at me, at Rix, back at me, then she twirled and marched out.