Page 69 of Ominous: Part 1
“Met any boys?” Dad coughs as he asks the question, lowering down the foot stool of the recliner by leaning over and grabbing the wooden handle on the side.
I bite my bottom lip, staring at the carpet, thinking of my phone in the passenger seat of my car. Mom said my dad wasn’t getting any younger when I complained about his invitation to come over when she picked me up from school. The invites are so sporadic, it feels like I’m bending over backwards to accommodate him.
I’m not, of course. He doesn’t live too far out of the way, in a subdivision where most of the lawns are overgrown and no one cares if you park a car on the side of the road for days or weeks at a time.
A lot like the trailer park.
Nothing like Eli’s subdivision.
“No,” I lie to my dad. I lift my eyes to find him staring down at his chewed fingernails. I’m hit with the realization we share the same bad habit.
He knows about Shoreside. Mom told him. He never talked to me about it, and I’m grateful.
I squeeze my fingers tighter, my chest aching, and I’m not sure why.
We’ll always be like this, won’t we?
Pretending to connect, keeping everything surface-level?What was it about me that made you not want to parent? To let it all go?
I glance at the photos on the wall behind his head, something I’ve avoided doing since I sat down.
The frame is too small for the space, and it’s a collage. I find it hard to believe he did it himself, and I wonder if one of his three sisters helped him put it together. Aunts I never speak to.
There’s a photo of me on his lap when I was a baby, with lighter hair. A lot of it, even then, no smile on my face, a Mickey Mouse shirt that hits my chubby thighs.
Beside the photo of me, there’s another of a boy.
He’s older than me in the picture, but I know he’s younger, currently. Eighteen months younger, Dad tried to hide that secret from me and Mom for a long, long time.
In the wrinkled photo behind the glass of the frame, my half-brother is playing with a toy car, only the side profile of his face visible. A shock of red hair, his lips curved into a smile.
Maybe that’s why he lives in this house, and never comes by when I’m here.
He’s happy. I was born sad.
Dadcanparent. He’s keeping a teenage boy alive who watches this TV. Sits on this couch. Dad knows how to make it work, somehow. He just… can’t do it with me. There were excuses over the years. Split custody between him and his former mistress, she lives not far from here, so Jonah iscloser,and I spent most of my life at the beach, a full ninety minutes away.
Then there were the times Dad lived in places not suitable for a little girl to visit, in his words. But Jonah, younger, more fragile, it was okay for him.
I swallow the knot laced tight in my throat and stand, wanting to get to my phone in the car.
I’d drive to Eli. I’d meethisdad. I just want to see him and get the hell out of here.
A flicker of sadness passes over Dad’s face as he stands, too, towering over me.
He bends down to hug me, and I don’t have to make an excuse. We don’t need to, do we? We’ll always be this. Surface. More alike than we probably want to admit, we can’t find the words, the ways to connect. Mom invades my bubble. Hugs me when I don’t want it. Eli keeps space between us, but he won’t let me too far out of his sight.
Dad doesn’t know what to do with me, because he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Please don’t let me wander, Eli. Don’t let me go.
Pathetic thoughts, desperate, the same ones I had at Shoreside.Fear of abandonment. Perhaps some kind of mania.Words from the school nurse, a recommendation to my mom to get more help. Help I refused.
I bite my cheek to bring myself back to the present.
Dad’s touch is light, and he backs away quickly, because I don’t bring my arms around him. I can barely stand the scent of his cologne, despite the fact it’s pleasant.
I just feel itchy, and maybe more than my aversion to touch; I feel the heaviness of his pity.He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s sorry.
