Page 43 of House of Lies

“I haven’t heard from you in weeks.” Not a hello, or a how are you? He lost his manners years ago…right around the time Rebecca divorced him.

“I’ve been busy.” Something itches between my shoulder blades, and I turn to glance down both ends of the hall. Sometimes, when I’m cleaning the individual rooms, the emptiness of this place really gets to me. It’s like being in a mausoleum. Well, cleaning one, anyway.

“Too busy to call your old man?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I snap. “And I’m kinda busy right now, too. So just tell me what you need. Money? A place to stay? Because I can’t help you with either.”

Dad sighs. “A father can’t call his own daughter without an agenda?”

“I mean, it’s possible, but since it hasn’t happened in my lifetime yet, I’m gonna go with no.”

Another sigh, this one sounding irritated. “I lost someone too, Ada. When your mother left?—”

“Sure, Dad,” I cut in, all my anger and frustration boiling over. “But you lost her over five years ago. Forgive me if I haven’t resigned myself to the fact that I might not see her ever again.”

As soon as I say it, I have to do some hasty arithmetic in my head, doubting myself. But it’s true.

Close to five years ago, my mother divorced Thomas Monroe.

I don’t think she had a choice.

His gambling had cost our family everything, and his drinking had obliterated their relationship. We went through hell in those last couple of months. It was so bad that I would wonder back then if my mom wouldn’t have dodged a bullet, listening to her parents instead of eloping with my dad.

But then I wouldn’t have been born, and the childish, selfish part of me can’t accept that as a viable outcome.

“I didn’t call you to get yelled at,” Thomas says.

“Then why did you call?”

He’s silent for a moment. “I want to see you. Can I? I’ll pay. I thought we could have lunch or something. Where are you living now? I can meet you someplace close.”

“I’m not at home, Dad.”

“Oh. At work then? Are you still at that diner on the corner of?—”

“You want to know where I am?” I cut in, glaring at the ornate fireplace at the opposite end of the room. “I’m busy cleaning some rich jerk’s mansion in the middle of nowhere.”

“Are they at least paying you a decent wage?”

My jaw drops. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? The money.” I haul in a fiery breath. “No. The wages aren’t decent. The owner’s a fucking asshole. And I know you only called me to beg for money, so this call is over.”

I stab the screen of my cellphone, ending the call with a vengeance, and shove it back in my pocket. Then I let out a long exhale.

I’d feel bad about everything I just said…if this had been the first conversation between us that ended so badly. I was always close with my mom, but Dad never had time for me when I was a kid. He had a demanding job, so I didn’t blame him.

Not at first, anyway.

But as the years ticked by, it became apparent that he just wasn’t interested in me. He’d take off work to spend long weekends away with Mom. They’d have date night every other day of the week, and he’d whisk her away to their bedroom right after supper on the nights they stayed in.

But he never attended my recitals.

He never helped me with homework.

He was never my dad.

Until after the divorce, when he figured out he could manipulate me into giving him money. When Mom found out, she put a stop to it immediately, and I felt like an even bigger fool when she told me where all that money was going.

Not for groceries.

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