Page 58 of The Story of You
I wanted to ask him why he bothered to make it look like I had a choice if I didn’t have one. I didn’t because it would anger him. Another voice inside asked if that was true. My mind was inventing other stories, maybe his anger—inspired by the most innocuous of things—was fabricated too. I decided to test him with something safer. “I don’t want to be a doctor anymore, sir.” I made sure to keep my voice even. I was polite. The sir was genuine.
He swallowed down his wine. “Good, lord. Is this a teenage thing? Some teenage kind of rebellion? I thought we skipped that with you?”
“Rebellion? No. I just don’t want to be a doctor.”
He frowned and there was no sign of aggression, yet his anger was a loud pounding force in the air. I could still count on one hand the three times he’d gone overboard. Two of the times could have been written off as a harsh strapping—in those days, it was what was acceptable for the punishment of teenagers—and the third time he’d only grabbed me roughly and had been careless with how he’d let go. An accident. All of it stuff I could handle and heal from.
What was I so afraid of?
The way he made Darius vanish without a trace.
Still, it was all just feelings. There was nothing tangible. It was as made up as anything else that was happening.
I waited long seconds for something to come. A slap. A punch. A threat. All that came was the strictness he’s always maintained since I was a boy. “Your mother and I saw to it you’d be a successful surgeon like me, as my father was, and as her father was. You’re going to med school, Silas. Accept that.”
Arguing further would have been unproductive so I didn’t.
He wasn’t done. “You could show a little gratitude. I’ve done a lot for you. I’ve kept the rumors about you at bay. I’ve kept a roof over our heads even through the hard times. I’ve invested in your future so that you might provide as mightily for your children someday.”
I felt so small. “You’re right. I am grateful, sir. I’m not thinking straight.”
I still run through these conversations in my mind. I still find nothing inherently wrong with what was said to me but at the time I felt so much animosity leaking from him.
His talk of rumors chaffed. I didn’t know there were rumors. I wanted to ask, but I also couldn’t bear what the answers might be, so I didn’t. I could guess. I was probably the crazy Randall boy making up hallucinations about his runaway brother.
Father finished his wine. “I haven’t punished you in a long time. I think you need something to remind you to appreciate the freedoms you have. When we get home, you’ll submit your car keys to me. You can earn them back. I’ll allow trips if you need to get things like groceries and things for Oliver, but you’ll remain at the house otherwise.”
My stomach churned. That car was my only freedom. While I didn’t have any official rules there were unwritten ones. If I wasn’t up in time to send Father off with breakfast and coffee, I was in trouble, therefore, my wake-up time was six-thirty am. Leaving the house before I had enough chores done was never worth it, and chores were the priority before Oliver and I could head off on an adventure. No matter where I went during the day, I had to be home by five to prepare dinner, so it was ready for Father. He expected it on the table for six whether he was home or not. If he didn’t come home, going out wasn’t an option. He expected me to be there to warm it up and serve it to him. If he did come home, he asked too many questions about where I was going with Oliver so close to his bedtime and so it usually wasn’t worth it unless I could think of a rock-solid reason I needed to be out. Ergo, my “curfew” was five pm even though it had never been officially given.
I stared at Father with my mouth gaping for several solid seconds before I finally replied, “Yes, sir” because there was nothing else to say.
* * *
Silas
It was two weeks before Father decided I’d earned back the privilege of my car. In some ways it was easy—I’d already learned to be perfect—but I was always taking a test I didn’t know the rules to, and I was on edge the whole time. I didn’t know what he wanted to see before he deemed me worthy of getting my car back. I wanted it badly. I lingered at the fucking grocery store with an eighteen-month-old just to be free of the house.
I would have preferred his strap.
When he returned my keys, I was relieved—for a while I worried, he’d never give them back.
The punishment worked. I thanked him more. I was quicker to serve him. Even stuff he didn’t ask for. I called him at work when I knew he’d have a break to ask him how his day was. When he got home, no matter what time it was, I greeted him with as much of a smile as I could muster. In the morning I served him coffee; at night I served him scotch. I was the perfect fifties spouse.
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten about Darius. I was less focused on him as I became obsessed with pleasing Father. Darius’s voice was still in my head. When I’d wait up for Father on the nights he went out with Ivan I’d hear, “Go to fucking bed, Sye. You’re not his god damned boyfriend.”
“Fuck you, dickface,” I’d reply to a non-existent Darius.
When I’d drag myself out of bed for six-thirty in the morning, tired from being up late with a sick or cranky Oliver I’d hear, “Tell him to make his own damn coffee. You’re his kid not his fucking wife.”
“Yeah, you take the shit for it,” I’d say. But Darius wasn’t there. Maybe I had gone nuts.
Darius’s thirteenth birthday came and went. I made a black forest cake and ate it alone with Oliver—Father was out with Ivan and didn’t seem to care that his runaway son turned thirteen today. Or if he did care, I wouldn’t know. He never talked about Darius. He rarely talked about Mama.
Oliver turned two that May. I made him strawberry shortcake.
“Baba,” he said. “Sticky. Napkin.”
He waved his tiny hands at me. It was just the two of us. I hadn’t found a real reason to smile in a long time, but Oliver could always find ways to pull one from me. A lot had happened in two years, but I’d do it again for Oliver. He was something special, I knew that since I first laid eyes on him. “Well, that’s what happens when you don’t use your fork as I showed you, Eaglet.”
