Page 141 of Again, In Autumn

“You told me not to go out with him, so we were meeting in secret. I liked not having you and Dave around to judge us or watch.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Why do you think I would even care?”

“You clearly care.” I gesture toward her.

“I would not have cared, then,” she snaps. “You were too wimpy to tell the truth, so you’re just trying to blame it on me. You always blame me for stuff I didn’t do.”

I make the sound of disbelief. “You told me it was our ‘special sister summer’! If I had told you about us, you would have blown your lid!”

“If I said that, I didn’t mean it seriously.” She looks at me with pathetic disgust.

I swallow. “You give me orders and boss me around and expect things of me. I’m always so worried about your emotions that I do whatever you say! I have sacrificed so much of myself for you. I could have missed out on loving that man!”

“That’s right, I’m demanding, I forgot that’s how you see the world.”

I try to remain as calm as possible, but anger bubbles up anyway. I throw my hands out and yell, “I shouldn’t be expected to find your kid when you can’t see him! Or take him to the bathroom when you can’t be bothered! Or come on a family vacation because you’re too scared to be around your husband!”

She mirrors my movement, but she’s full of pure confusion. She doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.

I continue, “I only came that summer because you told me to. You made me cancel my cruise!”

“Okay, this narrative is getting old, Vienna,” she says dismissively.

“And I’m only here this week because you asked me to be here,” I beg her to understand. “But it’s not just your fault, I should have stood up for myself a long time ago and stopped pushing away my needs to protect you.”

Her nostrils flare. “How in the world do you protect me?”

I swallow a lump in my throat. “I don’t think you ever ask me how I’m doing. When mom died, I comforted you because you needed that, but you didn’t comfort me back. You didn’t even see that I was hurting.”

She blinks away tears. “My mother had just died.”

“So did mine,” I whimper.

Francesca looks away, shaking her head, and wiping her nose.

I say, “I’m not going to apologize for my relationship with him, or for keeping it a secret. It has nothing to do with you.”

She stares at me, clenching her jaw. Then, Francesca pulls her foot out of the grass and stomps off, toward the road.

I see the sun but can’t feel it. I hear the water moving, but I don’t listen to it. I’ve said things well overdue and instead focus on the shake of my body, the softness in my heart, the easing headache. I don’t want to fight with Francesca, but if I had never said those things, we’d always be in a little bit of a fight, a resentment. I’d be fighting myself too.

Oh God, Adam’s still in there with my dad.

I return to the house, hearing raised voices in the dining room that the television can’t drown out.

Adam yells, “I’m sorry, when did she hop into a time machine and become seventeen again? She’s thirty-two! She doesn’t have to listen to you anymore!”

Cautiously, I enter the room, and they’re all sitting exactly where I left them, only Heddy’s visibly tense, my dad grips his knife with white knuckles, and Adam’s face is red.

My father argues back, “She’s my daughter. I won’t let her be subjected to a scoundrel musician who’s never home and is going end up sleeping with any pathetic woman who’s available after a night of booze and drugs.”

“Okay, everybody calm down,” I interrupt.

Adam shouts, “Who do you think I am? A member of Nirvana?”

I stand in the doorway and say, “Dad, you don’t know anything about Adam. He’s not like that.”

“You don’t know him either, Vienna,” he argues. “A couple of months fourteen years ago and a few nights this week? Please.”

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