Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [100]
“Jessie . . . ,” my dad began. But I ignored him and kept going.
“You do this all the time! You have this annoying habit of doing things behind my back, like clearing out my room or buying this new house. And when I don't act all grateful for this thing I never wanted or asked for, you turn around and play the martyr saying, ‘But I did it all for yooooooooouuuuuuu. . . .'”
“Enough!” my dad barked. My mom's face was in her hands. She has a fiftysomething's hands. There's very little you can do to take years, let alone decades, off your hands.
“I've had enough, too,” I said, and I stomped upstairs to the guest room that my mother has staged in a style that she describes as “city-country,” which reminds me of Shania Twain every time she says it, which is a lot. I flopped onto the dusky rose coverlet covering the white-painted brass daybed, gazing up at the lights twinkling on the wrought-iron chandelier. I thought about Martha Stewart's daughter and how, at that moment, I was jealous of her. I daydreamed about a world in which my mother was incarcerated and it was a very peaceful place.
A few minutes into my reverie, I heard a knock at the door. It was my dad.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” I said. Though I couldn't imagine what he had to tell me. We've never been very communicative, but we hadn't exchanged a word since the assassination attempt.
He ducked under the chandelier and looked helplessly around the room for somewhere to sit. All the furniture was so tastefully distressed that I couldn't blame him for doubting whether it would support his lanky frame. I scooted to one side of the daybed and he sat down on the other.
“You've really upset your mother.”
“I know. But can you see how she has upset me?”
He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his head. “I told her to buy the books.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
“Thanks for trying, Dad,” I said. “Really.”
“Do you know what she said?”
“That Christmas gifts come in boxes?”
“No,” he said. “She said that you've been working so hard at school that you deserve some R&R.”
I sunk into the velvet.
“But doesn't she see that one day of pampering won't do squat to relieve the stress of buying books? Or food?”
“No, she doesn't,” my dad said matter-of-factly. “Your mother didn't go to college, and she doesn't understand what you're taking on.”
“But I've tried to tell her!”
“She's tough to get through to these days. Menopause is making her crazy.”
And then he went on to say that my mother is going through wild hormonal swings that are making her very difficult to live with.
“She's almost as moody as you were in high school.”
And instead of being insulted, I felt a touch of pride. My dad's comment not only implied that I had matured since then, but that he had noticed the change.
“I worked my way through college . . . ,” my dad began. And just when I was expecting another life lesson about the school of hard knocks, my dad handed me a check for $250. “I know how hard it is. I'm proud of you. And so is your mother, even if she shows it in strange ways. I hope this helps.”
“It does, Dad,” I said, tearing up. “It really does.”
And before I even got the impulse to hug him, he was up off the daybed, but not before cracking his head on the chandelier.
“I hate this damn thing,” he muttered.
Getting that check depressed me more than not having it at all. Because when my dad walked out, he left a lonesome void that no one else would fill. I was surprised by how much I wanted him to stay and talk to me about his college life that I know nothing about. It's so strange how you can spend so much time with the people responsible for your very existence, yet know so little about them. Then again, how much do we ever know about anyone? Why should our parents be any exception?
No wonder suicides spike around the holidays. I've never felt more alone