by Ciara Smyth
Shut up.
“You want breakfast?” Oliver took a pan from a copper rack overhead and set it on the stove.
“Oh, I’m having fried caviar and oysters for lunch, so I’ll pass.”
“Is that what you think rich people eat for breakfast?” His mouth twitched.
“Loren Blake is asleep on your stairs, by the way. You might want to check on that.”
“I know. She drank her body weight in tequila last night, so I felt bad waking her.” He sighed. “I suppose I could move her to the couch.”
“You’re a regular hostess with the mostess,” I said on my way out the door.
Standing on the doorstep, I took my phone out to text Dad. There were two messages from last night.
DAD
Saoirse where are you?
DAD
Jesus Saoirse you could tell me you’re going out.
SAOIRSE
221 Holyden Park. Need lift. Bring food.
To be fair to him, Dad didn’t talk on the drive home. He handed me a bacon sandwich wrapped in tinfoil and let me eat in peace.
As soon as we parked in the driveway, he pulled on the handbrake and breathed in deeply through his nose, closing his eyes. A sure sign that he had serious things to discuss. I rolled my eyes and stared out the window, waiting for whatever it was he needed to tell me before my hangover had a chance to wear off.
“You’re old enough to make your own decisions. I don’t lock you in your room or stop you from going out. You don’t need to sneak around. If I can respect you, then you can do the same for me.”
“Did you spend all night coming up with that speech?”
“Jesus, Saoirse, you can be so damn difficult. You’re not a child, you don’t get to act like this anymore.” He took several more deep breaths, to let me know how patient and put-upon he was for having to deal with me. “I’m guessing you need to sleep it off, so go do that, but this evening we’re having dinner and we’re going to talk about it.”
“About what?” I said brightly.
He ran his hands through his hair and when he spoke his voice didn’t sound as firm.
“You know what I mean. The wedding. There are . . . other implications, OK? Things I need to talk to you about.”
“So tell me now.”
“Not like this. You’re hungover. You smell like a brewery, and you need to get some sleep. “Oh, and . . .” He paused there and the silence was like the moment in a horror film before the guy in the mask jumps out and stabs you in the gut. “On Friday Beth is coming around for dinner. You will be there.”
“Thanks for the invite, but I’m not interested.”
“Get interested,” he said. “You will be there. You’re behaving like a stroppy thirteen-year-old. Your mother would be ashamed.”
The words nearly winded me. I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would break.
“You know, Dad, I wouldn’t worry about it. In a few years, I’ll have forgotten your name and you and Beth can shove me in a home with Mum and get on with your lives.”
He didn’t say he would never do that. I wouldn’t believe him if he did. He didn’t say anything at all.
I got out of the car and marched inside, slamming the front door behind me. Up in my room, I dove under the covers. Though I was exhausted, it took me ages of tossing and turning to fall asleep. I didn’t hear him come inside.
See, this is the thing I haven’t really said yet. My mum didn’t leave my dad. She didn’t abandon me. She didn’t shack up with a motorcycle gang member or a pen salesman. She has early-onset dementia. Last September Dad decided he couldn’t look after her anymore and she needed to go into full-time care. She is fifty-five and she sometimes can’t remember how to wash herself. She forgot my name a long time ago. Do you think your mother can love you if she doesn’t know who you are?
The other thing is that these types of dementia are often hereditary. There’s no way to know for sure, but there’s a good chance it will happen to me too. Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a timer over my head. So now you know why I don’t care about going to some fancy school like Oxford. Why there’s no point in getting into relationships with girls who might actually like me back.
I’m waiting for the day my brain catches fire. A spark that will slowly burn everything important to ash.
4.
When I woke again it was still bright, but the light had that hazy late-afternoon quality, and when I checked my phone it was after five. For a moment all I felt was sleepy and thirsty, until I downed a liter of water that Dad must have left by my bed. Then I remembered a lot of things at once. The pain in my knee came first. Then my butt. Then Ruby and the memory of us on her bed. It felt like someone was tickling my stomach from the inside; flashes of sensation came back to me as if they were happening right then and there. Her brown eyes and her blue freckle, my hands on her waist. The taste of her lips. The sensation of her fingers trailing down my bare skin.
Should I be allowed to think of her that way when I had a nagging feeling I hadn’t treated her right?
I shook my head. That was a mistake. It felt like a bunch of ball bearings were rattling around in there. I was overthinking it. Last night was fun, and I was being really full of myself if I thought for some reason that Ruby wanted to be my girlfriend because we kissed and she invited me to a dinner. We didn’t even know each other.
When I got out of a long shower, where I definitely didn’t think about what it would be like if Ruby was in there with me, thank you very much, how dare you imply such a thing, I could hear Dad clattering around the kitchen making dinner. I stood on the landing and sniffed the air like a curious dog. I did not like what I caught a whiff of. Nothing. It smelled like nothing. My father is not a terrible cook, but he isn’t a good one either. Everything he makes tastes like unseasoned Styrofoam.
My outfit from last night lay in a wrinkly heap on the floor and I threw it into the laundry, picking an almost identical ensemble for dinner. If all you own is black jeans and black tops then you never have to worry about what to wear. I didn’t bother trying to tackle my hair. It’s long and thick and takes years under a hair dryer to dry. Besides, although I pretend like I don’t care about such things, in fact, my hair looks its most fabulous when I let it air dry. It’s deep brown and goes halfway down my back. My mother used to trim the fringe when it got out of hand. She was really good at stuff like that. One Sunday a month she’d collar me. Right, you, time to do your fringe, it’s so long I don’t know how you see out of it. I’d protest but I’d always end up in the same place, on a chair in the kitchen with a towel around my neck. She’d snip the split ends and little clumps of my hair would fall into my lap.
I let my fringe grow out a long time ago. It’s a small thing to lose, but I’ve been losing something small every day for years and years and they all added up to something really big.
Dad had his happy face on when I limped downstairs. I tried to muster up a smile, a gift courtesy of the vague guilt I felt for throwing Mum in his face, even though he did it to me first. I’m too good for this world.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, sticking my fork into a piece of unseasoned, grilled white fish. We ate in silence. I could tell he wasn’t mad about earlier. He probably felt guilty about what he said too, but neither of us are the type to actually apologize. We sweep it under the rug.
The rug had got awful lumpy.
There was a time when we were close, when things were easy. Dad is ten years younger than Mum and he was always the “fun parent.” They used to argue about it. I overheard Mum complaining more than once that she always had to be the “bad guy.” She’d roll her eyes at us when we’d hog the sofa and watch horror movies or when we’d play along, with life or death seriousness, to bad game shows. We had in-jokes and shared playlists. Now I think Mum might have felt left out of our silly club. She was always wound so tight and we made her stay in that role instead of inviting her to play. But even though I’m ce
rtain Dad believes I’m the one who pulled away from him, he’s the one who put these huge boulders between us. I couldn’t climb over them if I tried. And I didn’t have the will to try.
When our plates were mostly empty, he shuffled in his seat and coughed.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “So.”
“So?”
“So I need to talk to you about things.”
I pushed back my seat and took my plate to the kitchen. Dad followed but he hung back in the door frame.
“Look, I really don’t want to hear about it.” I leaned against the dishwasher, keeping a safe space between us so I wouldn’t strangle him. I’d had such a good time last night—I didn’t want Dad spoiling the delicious hangover of having kissed a beautiful girl with a conversation about how he’d found a great new wife to replace his old broken one. “I’m going to uni soon and I’ll be living there. I won’t be here anyway. Do whatever you want.”
I was still unsure about going to Oxford, but in the pro-con list in my head, Dad marrying Beth was tipping the scales in favor of getting the hell off this island. Maybe when I’d gone he’d have a new daughter too. One without the faulty genes. Sometimes I thought about calling Izzy and asking her about Oxford. She has this incredible way of making everything seem simple. If I talked to her I knew she’d say the perfect thing and I would realize what I should do. She should be a therapist like my mum. I thought about it, but I never called.
“You’ll be home on holidays,” he pouted. “You need to get to know Beth. You can’t pretend she doesn’t exist.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
Dad ignored that.
“We want to have the wedding before you go away. We’ve set a date. The thirty-first of August. Lucky Oxford starts that bit later than most universities, so there’s still plenty of time for us to get you sorted before you leave.”
The silence was so complete I could hear the neighbors’ cat meowing outside. It made me think of Ruby. I’d rather be climbing over another eight-foot wall than having this conversation.
“I know this is a lot of change,” Dad said when he realized I wasn’t going to respond. “You’ll like Beth when you get to know her.”
He actually said that with a straight face.
“Is she moving in here before the wedding?”
Before I move out was what I really meant. I didn’t think I could bear seeing her replace all of Mum’s things with hers. Watch her fill up Mum’s side of the wardrobe. Sleep on her side of the bed.
Dad became very interested in chpping a bit of paint off the doorframe.
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” The strain was starting to show on his face, like a sweaty cop on the bomb squad who’s unsure which wire leads to certain death. “We’re going to have to move.”
For a moment, I thought he meant him and Beth, and I had a glorious image of me swanning around this house by myself.
“We’ve looked at a few places, but we don’t want to decide on one without you.”
“Are you serious?” I heard myself shout. “This is not fair.” The words came out even though I knew they were childish. Even though nothing about this had ever been fair. I stormed past him into the living room. He turned to face me but stayed on the other side of the room.
“Saoirse—”
“This is my home and you’re going to sell it so you can shack up with your new wife somewhere there are no memories of Mum. Is that what she wants or is that so you don’t have to look at Mum’s stuff and feel bad?”
Look, I realize this is the exact opposite of what I was thinking a second ago, but I’m a complicated person, OK? I have an endless capacity to be annoyed by anything Dad does. I didn’t want Beth to move in here, and I didn’t want Dad to move out with her either.
Dad hung back in the arch of the kitchen. When he spoke, his voice was tired and I almost felt sorry for him. But not quite.
“I don’t know how you can think things like that. It’s not like that. We have to move.”
I waited for more information with an expression Dad refers to as my “Carrie” face. The one that looks like I’m about to set the room on fire and watch everything burn. (Word of advice—only watch Carrie with your friends. You think, sure, it’s just another horror movie, but the real horror is watching the period scene with your dad.)
“We remortgaged the house when we split the assets. So your mum would take half to pay for her care and you and I would be financially protected. But it’s been too expensive. I don’t get as much freelance work as I used to and our savings are wiped out. With you moving out next year, it made sense to downsize.”
I hate hearing this. He sounds like he’s trying to convince me that this is an entirely practical decision, devoid of any emotional baggage, and I’ve heard that before.
I remembered hearing them talk about it before they told me they were getting a divorce. I know you’re thinking Well, it’s not an affair if they’re divorced, Saoirse, but it wasn’t meant to be real. It’s only for money reasons, they said. We aren’t breaking up, they said. We love each other very much, they said.
I hid behind the kitchen door watching them through the crack. I listened behind doors a lot back then. They were talking money again. Some waffle about protecting the house as an asset. It was Mum’s idea actually; her care cost money. She probably wasn’t envisioning him shacking up with someone new.
“You’re not going to one of those state places,” Dad said, pounding his fist on the island. “We’ll take care of you.”
“God, Rob, please just kill me if it ever comes to that.”
“Don’t say that, love, it’s not funny.”
Mum got out of her seat and approached him. I could see her face as she put her hands on his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye.
“I’m not joking. I’d rather die than have you or Saoirse feeding me, cleaning me. I don’t want her spending her life taking care of me.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m too pretty for prison and I just don’t think our thirteen-year-old daughter has the upper-body strength to strangle you,” Dad said. I could hear a weak smile in his voice as he tried to lighten the mood.
She kissed him then, and I looked away. When I looked back she was burying her face in his neck, and I could tell she was crying.
I could never talk to my parents about what was happening then. About all the things I’d overheard or guessed or figured out. Mum tried to talk to me sometimes. She told me we could talk about anything. No feelings or thoughts were off-limits. I always told her I was fine. I didn’t want to make her sad when I knew how sad she was already. The day I heard about the divorce, I ran down to Izzy’s house and cried on her bedroom floor while Hannah rubbed circles on my back. Once I could breathe again, Izzy made us popcorn and gave us each a hairbrush and we sang along to Mamma Mia! When I went home, I could tell my mum I was OK and I could almost mean it.
The kitchen looked the same now as it did then: same island, same big clock on the wall that we forgot to put forward when the time changed, same broken tile by the dishwasher. It felt different, though. It didn’t feel lived in, all chaos and cooking smells; it felt neglected, empty. And this time I was on the other side of the door for the hard conversations.
“I don’t see why you have to marry her,” I said, changing tack. I hated hearing all the stupid financial stuff. Like Mum’s disease boiled down to how much it cost us. “Why do you have to keep changing everything?”
“Saoirse, I love Beth. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” He said it like he thought I’d finally understand. Like it would make everything clear.
Words didn’t mean anything to him. Words like love or marriage or we’ll take care of you.
“The rest of your life?” I shook my head. “Isn’t that what you told Mum too?”
5.
I sat in front of the mirror, grappling with an eyeliner pencil and grumbling to myself. I couldn’t believe Dad
was making me meet the woman he’d been cheating with for the last year.
OK, we can argue about the technicalities if you want. Yes, Dad is technically divorced, and he can’t exactly have a normal marriage with Mum, but other people do it. Other people stick by their partner when stuff like this happens. I’ve seen it on TV, read articles about wives and husbands who spend the rest of their lives caring for their spouse even if they’re in a coma or something. The bottom line is Dad is too selfish for that.
I wasn’t putting makeup on to impress her or because it was an important event or anything. Because it wasn’t. And it’s not like I had anywhere else to be that night. I wasn’t going to Ruby’s birthday. I’d basically forgotten it was even the same night. I put the perfume and eyeliner on for myself, all right?
The last week had been awkward, to put it mildly. But Dad and I were used to that. It was a pattern we’d perfected. We’d have a blowout and we wouldn’t talk for a couple of days. Then silence would turn to “Pass the salt,” and by the end of the week, we’d be shouting answers at a game show together. It’s not like in the movies where you storm out and never speak again or you have a huge meaningful conversation and work it all out. You just get on with it until it isn’t so raw anymore.
He really pulled out all the stops for dinner, as much as was possible for him anyway. He was in the living/dining room lighting candles on the table when I went downstairs.
“This is false advertising, you know,” I told him, kneading my thumb into a scar on the palm of my hand. A nervous habit. Not that I was nervous about anything. “Is this woman marrying you because she thinks you do things like light candles and use napkins?” I lifted a Halloween-themed napkin with black cats on it from the table and turned it over in my hand. Dad laughed and it sounded grateful. I don’t know why I was humoring him, but it might have had something to do with the gnawing feeling in my stomach that had kept me up all night. I guess I felt bad about what I’d said. I mean, it was one hundred percent true, but the look on his face when I said it kept popping into my head.