Page 250 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
My height is starting to come between us. Dollie has commented on me outgrowing her because we’re no longer close in height. I stand easily a foot over her head these days. It meansshe has to stretch slightly when spoon feeding me frosting from the same spoon she uses herself.
It’s innocent.
To her.
To Dad, it isn’t.
“It’s too much. They are siblings. People are gonna talk.”
Their conversation is whispered, but it isn’t quiet and can be heard from the next room.
“Do you think I don’t know that!”
“I think you need to do more to keep them apart.”
“This isn’t new, Ronan. It’s been this way since they came home.”
“They’re joined at the hip. You can’t deny it’s getting worse. I mean, come on. There was a time when they were okay as long as they were in the same room, but now?—”
“No. They’ve always preferred being close, Ronan. You’re not the one here daily watching them.”
“Exactly. So, I don’t get how you can’t see that they’re literally gonna have to be pried apart.”
“You know what, yeah, it’s a little extreme, but is it that important? He’s withdrawn. There are some days he doesn’t even speak to us. Some days when they won’t leave the bedroom?—”
“That they shouldn’t be sharing. He’s a teen, hitting puberty. Do you want to have to explain some incestuous teen pregnancy to the locals? Do you want me to lose my job?”
“That isn’t going to happen, any of it, and we’ve done other things that risked your career, and your kids being a little co-dependent is hardly the worst of it.”
“We made a mistake, but let’s do right by them now.”
“I am. He needs this. He needs her. And she loves him, more than she does either of us.”
“Because she doesn’t spend time with us. You’re letting guilt rule you. You give in to him every single day because you feel terrible about what happened.”
“I’m not having this conversation here.”
Dollie feeds me another spoonful, and I just know these American buttercreams are gonna be sparse by the time Mom gets around to decorating them.
“Fine.”
Dad’s creaky shoes move over the floor, heading our way.
“You know,” Mom stops him with her words, those shoes that test my patience, silencing. “I sometimes wonder if it’s guilt that stops you from bonding with him.”
“It’s time, Gen. I’m overworked.”
“You have time for Dollancie. You greeted Dollancie. But she wasn’t the one who was sexually assaulted, and that’s why you see him differently. He needs you. I need you to be there for him.”
Dad says nothing in return, but neither of them enter the room with us.
Are you okay?Dollie signs, using the hand movements Mom has taught us recently.
I nod.
Big blue eyes question me, her disbelief sitting on pulled-down eyebrows.
Her arms band around my waist. “I love you.”
