Page 28 of Tell Me Softly

Chapter Seventeen

Kami

My nerves were frayed when I walked inside. Being back in the Di Bianco house—seeing my old best friends’ mother again, almost kissing Taylor, coming face to face with the hatred in Thiago’s eyes—had been too much. Too much emotion for one day.

I closed the door behind me and couldn’t hear a thing.

No one making a late-night snack in the kitchen, no one watching the news or playing video games.

But then a shout broke the silence: my parents were arguing.

That was nothing new, but normally they tried to do it down in the basement so we wouldn’t hear them.

I don’t think they were worried about me as much as my brother.

Doubly strange, it was my father doing the yelling.

“Don’t you realize how fucking frivolous this is? If it can’t be done, it can’t be done, and that’s all there is to it, dammit!”

“Frivolous?!” my mother replied in a tone that told me this wasn’t going to be pretty. “Let me remind you who said he wanted me to get operated on after I had Cameron!”

“Yeah, because you cried for a month straight about how your tits had gone saggy, and that was the only solution I could think of!”

“Oh, please!” my mother said with a bitter laugh. “Even I could come up with something more original than that.”

I walked toward the stairs, but instead of climbing them, I stopped and listened to the argument.

“Everything I tell you, you twist around, trying to make me into the bad guy. I have to stay away from home sometimes. It’s work, get it? I’m tired of you always accusing me of cheating on you. Especially when there’s one person in this fucking marriage that we know has a record of cheating.”

I stopped breathing. Not because of what he’d said, but the fact that he’d said it. That subject was taboo in our house. It was never mentioned, and we all tried to act like it had never happened.

“How dare you bring that back up after all these years?”

I ducked around the corner as I heard my mother run out and stomp downstairs, sniffling. I hated my parents fighting, but I hated it even more when I noticed my little brother curled up in a ball in the living room with a terrified expression on his face.

“Cameron! What happened?” I asked, kneeling next to him.

My mother heard me and ran around to face me. “There you are!” She pointed a finger at me. Her mascara was running, and she seemed more angry than sad. “What the hell are you doing coming home at this hour?”

“I was busy with a project for school,” I said, standing up.

“Why didn’t you call and let me know?!” she shouted back. “I was out having drinks with my friends, and I had to leave to go get Cameron from school. You were supposed to bring him home.”

“Since when?”

“Since I said so!”

“You never told me!”

“I sent you a text.”

“You took away my phone, remember?”

My mother fell silent for a few seconds, then screamed, “And after this, I’m keeping it another week!”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Why?” I asked.

“Because I said so.” She pointed at Cameron and said, “And you’re punished too. If I hear you’ve gotten into another fight, I’m taking you out and sending you to military school! I swear to God!”

“No! I don’t want to go! I don’t want to wear a stupid uniform!” my brother shouted, but then he wilted under my mother’s fiery stare.

“Not another word,” she said.

“So you’re taking it out on the kids now?” my father called down. He walked downstairs, trying to take hold of the situation. My mother by now looked completely insane.

“They’re my children, and I’m trying to raise them to behave. You wouldn’t know anything about that, though, since you’re never here!”

“Oh, please!” my father exclaimed. He was losing his patience. “This has nothing to do with me being away from home. You’re mad because I told you we need to rein in our expenses, and you just can’t live with the thought that you might have to drink less or get one less mani-pedi a month.”

“I’m not going to give up my life just because you’ve decided to get paranoid about some crisis you’ve made up in your head.”

“We’re on the verge of bankruptcy!” When Dad screamed this, we all fell silent. Everything was so quiet, we could even hear my father’s breathing. “I’m going to work it out, but you have to understand that from now on…”

“I don’t have to listen to this shit!” my mother butted in again. “You caused these problems; now you solve them so your family can get on with their lives. It’s literally the only thing I’ve ever asked of you.”

She ran back upstairs and slammed the door.

What my father had just said had frightened me. I didn’t care about the money—I wasn’t like Mom in that way—but I was worried about him.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

He stood there staring up toward their room, looking deeply disappointed. I swore to myself I would never do anything to hurt him in that way. I couldn’t stand the thought that I might ever make him that upset.

“Everything’s OK.” My brother jumped up and hugged him. “I know it’s late, but Mom didn’t make any dinner, I’m starving, and I could use a little fresh air. How about if I take you kids for a late snack and tell you what’s going on?”

My brother nodded, then asked if he could bring Juana. Dad sighed and said yes but told him to grab a windbreaker too. As he ran upstairs, I told Dad I hadn’t had anything to eat but a piece of cake and that I was starving.

Annoyingly, my brother insisted on going to McDonald’s, which meant we had to drive out toward the interstate, but I got it.

He was a kid, he loved junk food, and Mom would never let him have it.

So Dad and I agreed to do it for his sake, even though a Big Mac wasn’t exactly what either of us would have preferred.

When we got there, Cam and I sat down, and Dad ordered and brought over our trays.

For a while, we talked about random things––the weather, what was going on at school––but when we’d nearly finished and Cam was making annoying slurping sounds as he sucked the last bit of soda through his straw, my father turned serious.

“Next week is going to bring changes,” he said. He kept his attention focused on me while my brother played with the toy from his Happy Meal. “The company’s in bad shape. We took some wrong steps––I took some wrong steps––and a lot of our investors are getting cold feet.”

“What did you do wrong?” I asked, afraid for him, knowing how harshly he judged himself.

“I delegated something to the wrong person, and a lot of important people’s money has disappeared.”

“Did they steal it?”

“I don’t know the details yet, but there’s no other explanation that makes sense. It seems like Carrowell has been embezzling from us.”

“Can’t you fire him? Or go to the cops?”

“I wish it were that easy, but the thing is, Carrowell was doing it on my behalf. I trusted him, and I signed off on almost every one of those contracts.”

“Dad!” I felt panic take hold of me. Even my brother stopped playing.

“I’ve got a good lawyer,” he said, smiling at my brother and patting him on the cheek. “Everything will go back to normal, but I need time, and in the meantime, I’m going to have to cut some expenses.”

I nodded. “Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

Dad looked down and then back up at me. “I hate to ask you, honey.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. Whatever it is, I won’t mind.”

“We need to sell your car.”

The news hit me like a blow to the chest. I needed a second to absorb it. But now was no time to be selfish.

“Sure,” I said, asking myself how on earth I’d get everywhere on foot. “No worries.”

“I’m sorry, honey. You don’t know how sorry I am.

But three cars is too many. I might even have to ask your mom to sell hers.

I know, I know…” Dad had seen the look of shock on my face.

I couldn’t imagine how Mom, who was so concerned with appearances, would react.

“We’ll wait and see. At least for now, though, I’m hoping we don’t have to take that step. ”

I nodded, wanting to say something, but not knowing what.

My brother pulled Juana in tight and asked, “Are we poor?” His iguana licked him, as if wanting to add emphasis to his question.

“No, we’re not poor,” my father said, maybe a little too assertively. “We’re just going to need to take a little more care with our money from now on.”

My brother nodded, and I looked at the bruises around his eye.

“You want to tell me what happened to your face?” I asked.

He shook his head and looked at my father, who told him gently, “You’re already in hot water with your mom, buddy. Don’t let me hear about any more phone calls from school, OK?”

“We were just having fun, though! We were playing pro wrestling.”

This kid… I couldn’t help but burst out, “Aren’t there any games you can play that don’t involve you guys hitting each other?”

He shrugged and that was the end of that.

In the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t been that long since I was his age, but still, I couldn’t understand him and his friends.

When I was little…OK, so I did break into someone’s house when I was little to steal a bunch of candy.

I guess I wasn’t that much of a saint after all.

Dad bought us each an ice cream cone, and we headed back home. Mom was still in her room when we got there.

It was nice having Dad home. Mom was right about one thing: he didn’t come around much.

We needed him there more. He took my little brother up to his room, told him good night, then went back downstairs.

His glass of water , I thought. Dad always forgot it.

And sure enough, I heard the tap turn on in the kitchen.

He stopped in the hallway, already in his pajamas, and said, “Good night, princess. And listen, everything’s going to work out. I promise.”

He came in, kissed me on the forehead, and left. I’d never seen him look so upset. Well, I had one time. But I was little then, and I didn’t understand what was happening.