Page 29 of Suits and Spark Plugs

With the compliment came the now familiar twist of wanting to please him, while knowing his words meant nothing.

“What’s on your mind?” He read my expression, as he always did, before he turned to start cooking on the griddle. It irked me that he could still read me, as though he had any right to know what was going on in my mind.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk to him about. Anger, resentment, confusion, and a ball of hurt all lodged in my mind, making it impossible to know where to start. Did I hurl accusations, or was I grateful for any scrap of attention he threw our way? All those things I promised myself I’d say when I had the chance were frozen on my tongue. I hated myself in that moment for being too chicken to do anything other than stare at him.

He glanced at me while the spatula hovered over the sizzling pancakes. “Oh, that’s right. I meant to give you some money to help with school. Don’t let me forget, and we’ll take care of it tonight.” He smiled, flashing the one crooked tooth in the front that always gave him a boyish appearance, even though his hair had started to gray. “Tell me about this Blaine you’re dating. Mom says he’s a real ‘upper crust’ kind of guy.”

Like a fool I sat at the table, unclenched my jaw, and spoke with all the emotion of a robot as I told him about Blaine, leaving out the parts about my mixed feelings. I already knew how my dad felt about love. He was firmly in the “love at first sight” camp, having sworn that’s what had happened when he’d met Mom. Unfortunately for him, I now knew that love at first sight didn’t mean it would last, and he was the last person I was going to take relationship advice from.

Mom and Sadie wandered in before I had decided where my emotions were. Relieved, I stopped talking. Mom was smiling indulgently at all of us, happy with her little family all together. Dad, as always, was the heart of it all. Laughing, teasing, and telling us stories. All the while I tried to tamp down on the fury over the fact that it was all a show, that nothing was actually normal anymore. I could hardly look at my mom, with her glowing eyes and her posture straight. How could she be eating this up?

As the week progressed, it became apparent that Dad hadn’t just popped in for some random twenty-four hour visit. My worries about my family deepened. Rather than carrying on cheerfully like we had the first morning, Mom and Sadie fought and harped in a way they usually didn’t. Sadie and Mom had always been close, and now it was me, desperately playing peacemaker for them. I vacillated between hoping this arguing and stress would open Mom’s eyes, and an underlying fear that it would drive Dad away permanently—a situation I both dreaded and wished for. My chest was like a block of ice, but Dad pretended it wasn’t happening. I was so entirely consumed with slapping Band-Aids on everything that I did the bare minimum on the jobs that I absolutely had to do and totally cut out studying.

The stress of it all finally wore me down so deeply that I got sick the day after Dad headed back to the oil fields, without giving me any of the promised college money, and without any real farewell. He wafted out of our lives the same way he’d drifted in. The money I could manage without, but the empty promise made my throat ache. It was painful to have such mixed emotions about someone the way I had about my father.

A cough settled deep in my chest, my head was on fire, and my throat felt like sandpaper. I snuggled on the couch, wrapped in the now-ratty pink and purple afghan my Grandma Phelps had given me for my eighth birthday, and flopped my head down on a pillow.

“I’m going to be really upset if I get that cold, Liv,” Sadie said to me when she passed through the family room on her way to the kitchen. “I have a dance competition coming up, and I can’t be sick.”

Mom joined in from the doorway where she was putting on her coat to head to work. “Maybe you should quarantine yourself to your room for a couple of days.”

I shot them both daggers. “When you two get sick you don’t stay away in your rooms. You ask me to make you soup and you sit here and watch TV. Where’s my soup?”

Mom’s lips pinched. “I don’t know what to tell you, Olivia. I have no more sick days, and Sadie is too busy to cook and clean.” It wasn’t like Mom to be callous, and the cut of her words was made harsher by the knowledge that they were coming from her own place of heartache.

“I manage to find the time,” I murmured while misery tried to seep out of my eyes.

“Just stop whining and go upstairs.” Sadie came from the kitchen with a box of crackers and a container of orange juice. “Here.” She put them roughly down on the couch next to me.

I coughed hard, hunching into a ball. Sadie just pulled a face at me. I stood and gathered the items she’d brought into my arms. With one last look at them I stumbled up the stairs to my room. At least it was quiet up here. For now. I had no doubt that once Mom left, Sadie would invite some friends over.

I was going to have to call in sick. I never called in sick, but I couldn’t serve people food like this. I was going to have to cancel my date with Blaine too. Luckily I’d cleaned the mechanic shop the day before, so I wouldn’t be forced to also contact Connor.

I shot Blaine a text letting him know I was sick and we’d have to reschedule. I was thankful for that, for once, he didn’t push but instead responded with a brief “okay.”

Kelly was worried when I called her cell. “You’re never sick.”

“I know,” I said in a scratchy voice.

“You sound awful.”

“A dragon is alive in my chest right now.”

She made a “poor you” sound. “You’re pushing yourself too hard, Liv. You need to rest.”

“Nature is forcing me to rest.”

“Do you want to move in with me? Get away from everything?” Her voice was sincere, and it made me start to tear up again. Kelly was the only person who knew how my last week had gone and how deep my worries had become.

“I can’t afford to right now. I’m working to pay for school, and every penny counts. I’m lucky that at my age I can still crash here and eat for free.”

“You’re not crashing for free, and they aren’t doing you any favors. You’re earning your keep, and they’re scared to let you go.” Her words were harsh, words that only a lifelong friend would ever dare say.

I closed my eyes against the headache that started at her truth bomb. I didn’t want to think about it. Everything hurt too much. “I’m hoping to be back tomorrow. Can you cover my shift today?”

“Better plan on me covering tomorrow too.” Her voice sounded resigned. “You’re the only person in the entire world I’d pull a double for.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

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