Page 73 of Double Apex

“Girls,” Mama scolds, lifting a steaming pan of striped bass from the oven, “put those darned screens away or I’ll lock them in the liquor cabinet.”

Mama’s a teetotaler, and the liquor cabinet has always been where anything that causes bad behavior goes: fought-over toys, the Tamagotchi Aislinn wouldn’t stop staring at when she was seven, my textbooks sometimes, flavored lip gloss (which she said was “trashy”), Dad’s rare packs of Swisher Sweets.

Hard truths and unpleasant thoughts are “locked in a cabinet” with Mama as well. I thought we’d circle the wagons over Mo’s illness—maybe she’d even call me to talk one-on-one sometimes, rather than just when someone pulls her intotheircall—but it hasn’t happened.

I’m not sure if that’s awkward or a relief. But any time I’ve tried in the past few months to make direct reference to Mo’s cancer, she scowls and flaps a manicured hand, protesting, “Land’s sake, can we focus on the positive?”

I look up now from where I’m slouched at the breakfast bar on the kitchen island, going over DiL simulator data on my iPad. Aislinn is at the far end, typing on her phone.

“Put away ‘those darned screens’?” I can’t help but sass. “I’m working, Ma—not playingMinecraft.”

“And I’m…” Linn glances up, and I know that look, that pause. She’s going to give Mama a half-truth and is crafting it to fit within the parameters of Technically Not a Lie. “It’s a message from my boss at Charles Schwab.”

Aha. So she’s sleeping with him.Gotcha, you prissy little twerp.

I study her from the corner of my eye, and she catches me doing it and gives me an impatient look—green eyes wide, straight bleached-white teeth gritted in an attempt at fierceness. Her perfect honey-blond eyebrows would be indignantly high if it weren’t for the Botox. (Who gets that shit at thirty?)

I smirk before sliding my focus back to the iPad.

“Y’all are on family leave and shouldn’t be working,” Mama insists, hands on hips in her polka dot Hedley & Bennett apron.

“Daddyaskedme to look at this,” I say. “I don’t know about Linn’s excuse.”

“Oh, get stuffed,” my sister mutters.

“Aislinn Augusta Morgan!” Mama snaps. “Language!”

“I meant like a turkey—not something rude.”

I snort. “You don’t think stuffing bread cubes and celery up my ass would be rude?”

“Phaedra Harriet Morgan, really now?” Mama clucks her tongue.

It just figures that not only did Aislinn get our mother’s flawless C-cup tits and teeth that grew in straight without two years of braces like mine, but she got middle-named after our mother’s hometown, whereas I—the lucky firstborn—was afflicted with a middle name honoring a dead grandmother I never met.

Mama stabs a potato to test it. “Phae, wake your daddy and tell him supper’s on. Linny, set the table.”

“Why does she get the easy job?” my sister whines, and you’d swear we were in middle school again. I’m always amazed at how being around our parents infantilizes us.

I flop the cover on my tablet closed and head across the big living room to the deck facing the ocean, where my father is napping on a cushioned lounger. The ocean breeze ruffles his thick, wavy chestnut-and-silver hair, and yesterday’s Sunday crossword is mashed on his stomach under one giant paw, pen on the deck beside him.

I pause to watch him relaxed in sleep, carefree. I hate to drag him back into the world where he has terminal cancer.

I examine his face. Objectively, I know he’s older, thinner, sick, tired. But I lack the ability to see him as anyone other than the person who carried me on his shoulders through the crowds at the track when I was little. I always felt like some powerful queen borne over an ocean teeming with life, and the mingled sound of engines and people was the roar of the tide.

With him gone, I won’t be a queen anymore. It occurs to me with sudden horror that all these years of adulthood—as educated and skilled as I may be—I’ve only felt confident because I knew if thingsreallygot fucked up, my dad would be there.

His dark eyes open and slide my way, accompanied by an impish smile.

“Take a picture—it’ll last longer,” he quips. With a groaning stretch he scoots up in the lounge chair.

“Sorry to bug you,” I tell him. “You seemed happy, sleeping.”

“Happier now because I’m looking at you.”

I sit on an Adirondack chair, rotating it to face him. “Mama’s got supper ready.”

He nods, taking my hand as he gazes out at the ocean.

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