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“Max!” Grace squealed as I walked through the door.

She and Lucy had stayed home from school after waking up with a fever and sore throat. Now, the two of them were sitting in the living room, playing with a few Barbies they had gotten for their birthday and doll furniture made from cardboard boxes.

“I thought you guys were sick,” I teased, closing the door behind me.

“We are,” Lucy insisted.

“So, shouldn’t you be resting or something?” I stood with my hands on my hips, eyeing them with exaggerated suspicion.

I knew they were sick. I had felt their foreheads myself, and I was the one who’d convinced Mom to keep them home.

“We were sleeping all day,” Lucy went on. “But then we woke up, took medicine, and had some soup, and now we feel okay. ”

“Mom gave you medicine?”

Mom was seldom capable of doing much, apart from sleeping and throwing together mediocre dinners some nights, it seemed, and the idea of her managing to give my sisters the medicine they needed to feel better was hard to believe. Yet they nodded.

“But we’re still sick,” Grace was sure to point out.

I smiled as they both prattled on and pulled off my backpack to open it. From inside, I pulled out the two small bags of potato chips I had bought in the school cafeteria and dropped them down in front of my sisters.

“Here,” I said.

“Thank you!” they cheered in unison.

Before I could say anything else, Mom wandered in from the kitchen, still wearing her robe.

It was almost four in the afternoon, but she looked like she’d just rolled out of bed.

Some people might’ve assumed that she wasn’t feeling well, that maybe she’d caught whatever my sisters had come down with.

But I knew better.

I couldn’t remember the last time my mom had gotten dressed or brushed her hair or made any sort of attempt to look alive.

“Oh,” she muttered, passing me without looking in my direction. “You’re home. You can take care of them. I’m going back upstairs.”

Immediately annoyed, I watched through narrowed eyes as she shuffled past me.

“What about dinner?” I asked her back as she approached the stairs.

“Figure it out. I’ve done enough today. ”

“Dad’s gonna expect dinner to be ready,” I pressed further.

She huffed a humorless laugh, but didn’t say anything else as she continued to disappear upstairs.

I blew out a long, heavy breath through my nose as I stared blankly at the empty stairwell.

I was sixteen years old. I wasn’t a little kid—I knew that—but I sure as hell wasn’t an adult.

Yet, in this house, I was expected to take on the responsibilities of one without earning the respect one would demand, and as I looked ahead toward the stairs, still envisioning my mother as she faded from view, it struck me just how much bullshit that was.

Ricky was responsible for doing his homework, washing the dishes, cleaning his room, and doing his own laundry.

That was it. Hell, recently, he’d gotten a job down at the local McDonald’s, and because he was working, Mrs. Tomson no longer expected him to wash the dishes every night.

Only on the nights he wasn’t working. And sometimes, I thought Ricky was lazy for expecting his mom to do so much, but other times, I thought my father was a tyrant for expecting me to do more than my mom.

But most of the time, I just thought he was an asshole.

Yet the worst part of it was that, even knowing what a cruel person he was, I couldn’t stop myself from seeking his approval and attention.

I was always, always desperate to make him happy, to maybe find that one thing that would make him smile, so I could do it over and over again and maybe hear him say something nice to me.

He said nice things to my sisters sometimes, so I thought, surely, he might one day say something nice to me.

If I ever could find that one thing he found worthy of his pride.

Maybe cooking dinner would be it.

So, I dug through the kitchen in search of something to make.

I opened one of Mom’s dusty cookbooks, found a recipe that required things we already had in the house, and fumbled through making meat loaf and baked potatoes.

Grace and Lucy helped by opening a can of green beans and dumping them into a pot, and then they set the table just in time for Dad to come home.

My sisters and I hurried to lay dinner out on the table, and even though it didn’t look quite like the picture in the book, it smelled pretty good.

Honestly, I felt good. I felt proud . And I hoped Dad would be too.

He walked in without ceremony, put his briefcase on the table beside the door, and silently walked into the kitchen, where my sisters and I waited. His expression was stoic as he swept his eyes over the table, then looked directly at me.

“What is this?”

I lowered my gaze from his to eye the table. “Dinner, sir.”

“Obviously,” he muttered as if this interaction was already boring him. “Did you do this?”

“Max cooked,” Grace said with an air of awe that puffed my ego just a little more.

“We helped,” Lucy added.

Dad grunted as he pulled out his chair and sat down. It was the invitation for the rest of us to sit, and the meal commenced, as it did every other night .

Nobody bothered to retrieve Mom from upstairs—we never did. She would come down later, when she felt like it— if she felt like it. Dad didn’t care if she was present as long as we were. We were his army to command while she’d just been the vessel from which we were born.

Dad led us in the saying of an emotion-barren rendition of grace. We waited for him to serve himself before we filled our plates. And then, after he lifted his fork and took the first bite, we all followed suit and began to eat a meal I had made.

And all the while, I watched my father.

I waited for him to look satisfied, impressed, happy— something .

I waited for him to express any kind of appreciation for the time I’d spent cooking a meal that was not only edible, but good .

Honestly great. Hell, I’d say even better than what my mom cooked on any given night, and I wanted him to say something, to tell me that, for once, I had done something to earn his praise. Something right .

But he said nothing. His expression remained as stony as ever, and with every silent moment that passed, the more my shoulders slumped and my pride in my newfound ability wilted.

Then, when he was finished, he stood from the table and dropped his napkin onto his dirty plate.

“Maxwell,” he said as he turned to leave the kitchen.

“Yes, sir?” I asked, pathetically heartbroken over something I now realized had been a pipe dream.

“Wash the dishes,” he said. “And from now on, it is your responsibility to cook dinner. ”

No , I wanted to say. Cooking dinner meant less time after school.

Cooking meant I couldn’t go to the library or find the time to hang out with Ricky.

Cooking meant losing any bit of freedom I’d managed to keep …

but I couldn’t. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say because my life was only an extension of his, and I lived it to serve him.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered.

“Hey!”

My father’s booming voice cracked against my ears, and I straightened my spine and raised my head so fast that I thought my neck would snap.

My eyes met the disapproving fury in his as he sneered, “Watch your attitude, boy.”

He said that last word with malicious connotation. As if to remind me that I was still just that. A child. A boy . Someone who depended on him for food, shelter, affirmation.

I hate you , I thought as I stared into his dead, emotionless eyes, only to immediately feel the shame of having thought it at all.

Do I hate my father? I wondered as he stomped away, and I looked at the table of used dishes and dirtied utensils.

I didn’t really know what it meant to hate him, but that would imply that I had at least once loved him, and I wasn’t sure about that either.

Do I even know what love is?

I had seen other kids in school with their girlfriends and boyfriends, giggling and staring into each other’s eyes with sickeningly sweet looks of adoration on their faces.

It grossed me out, and I snickered with Ricky as we passed, but …

I wanted it. I wanted to feel love in such a deep and intense way, and I didn’t know how the hell to get it if not from the people who had given me life.

I mean, Ricky at least had his mom. She loved him. She was proud of him. She thanked him for what he did around their house. And if his dad were still alive, I was sure he would’ve felt the same way.

What the heck did I have?

I didn’t know how long I stood there, thinking and holding on to the back of my chair with a viselike grip. But then Grace—or maybe it was Lucy—touched my arm. I looked up as the hand pulled away and I saw the faces of my sisters.

“Dinner was good, Max,” Lucy said quietly.

“It was better than Mom’s,” Grace added.

I parted my lips with a heavy exhale before forcing them to smile.

“Thanks, guys,” I said.

Then they helped me clean up the table and put away the leftovers. I sent them upstairs when it was time to do the dishes. I could handle that.

Hell, I can handle anything , I decided as I scrubbed and dried the plates and forks and glasses. I would handle anything because they needed me to.

Still, I wished for more.

And I thought I always would.

***

“Think fast! ”

I looked up in time for Ricky to toss a can of Coca-Cola my way. I grabbed it swiftly and turned the cold aluminum over in my hand with a look of wonder spreading over my face.

I hardly ever got to drink soda. Only when I snuck over to Ricky’s house, which wasn’t often.

Maybe once every couple of months, if that.

I wished it could be more frequent—I loved being at Ricky’s house—but I had to be careful.

I couldn’t let Dad suspect anything. He’d never allow me to leave the house again.

“Thanks, man,” I said, popping the tab.