Page 42 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

OF ALL THE PEOPLE TO COME OUT OF MY MOUTH, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE MY FATHER?

Simon

If, when I die, I become a star, I hope I have the decency to sparkle less brightly on nights when my descendants feel as though they are the world’s biggest fuckup.

But these stars—these stars in the sky have the utter audacity to twinkle merrily. Even a lack of my glasses causing the stars to be blurry doesn’t hide the fact that they’re happily shining away without a care in the world.

Clearly my ancestors.

It tracks with how my parents would twinkle in the sky.

They’d be overjoyed at my failures and disappointments.

And they had the nerve to try to call once again this evening too, as if they were aware I’d fucked up and wished to revel in my failures.

One of these days, I should block their numbers. I never answer, and I have no wish to continue a relationship with them, but for some reason, I never make that final step to rid myself of them fully.

Possibly I wish to have the occasional reminder of the kind of parent I don’t want to be.

Or possibly I enjoy torturing myself with the occasional spike in my own heart rate any time I see their names pop up on my phone.

Someone rustles in the dark, and I scowl at them too. “As I’ve made quite clear, you’ve been dismissed for the evening. I shan’t be eaten by lions or tigers or accosted by stalkers in my own back garden,” I snip at whichever security agent is coming to check on me after they should be off.

“Are you sure about that?” a woman replies.

I sit up straight. “Bea?”

“Stalker reporting for duty. Wanna be kidnapped? I bribed your guards with risotto and have strawberry shortcake for you. No cream. Just shortcakes and juicy, juicy strawberries that have been soaking into the shortcake since I left Ryker’s house.

It’s undoubtedly delicious. Plus, fresh strawberries, right out of his garden. ”

I’m uncertain if I should bless her or curse her.

My cock certainly is on the bless her side of the scales.

The rest of me though—my children attempted to steal her brother’s pet, and I was so embarrassed, and so very disappointed that a nice family evening had ended with my boys being complete hooligans, that I rushed us out of there without making a proper apology to him.

Were I her, I’d be delivering poisoned dessert to me right now.

She settles on the ground beside me, depositing a large, dark, rustling package on the ground before us as well.

“I waited outside the gate until I saw Lana’s car leave. You okay?”

“Am I okay—excuse me, but your family were the victims this evening.”

The bag rustles, and something inside clinks.

A bottle.

She’s brought bottles in addition to strawberry shortcake.

The shortcake is likely made with cream and butter and will cause me a fair bit of discomfort, which I undoubtedly deserve.

“Root beer or a summer shandy?” she asks me.

I peer at her in the darkness. “Are you aware those are two of my favorite beverages?”

“I cheated and googled you. Like a good stalker.”

“Do you have a preference?” I ask her.

“In search engines for stalking?”

“In beverages.”

She’s smiling at me. I can sense it. “I like them both.”

“Then surprise me, though I don’t believe I deserve either this evening.”

“Good answer. I don’t think I can tell them apart in the dark. Also, I like that you keep yourself humble. It makes you more bearable.”

That should be amusing, but I feel myself sighing. “Thank you for your kindness, but I’m afraid I intend to be rather poor company this evening.”

She passes me a bottle, essentially setting it upon my knee since I cannot see her nor the bottle in the darkness. Not with my eyes being what they are in the dark.

I take it from her, deeply regretting how much I enjoy when our fingers touch.

I would like to kiss her.

To forget this evening happened.

Though I would prefer to have earned that honor rather than deserving to be verbally eviscerated for my failure to raise upstanding, law-abiding children.

“Maybe two months after my parents died, my brothers started asking for a dog,” Bea says.

“All three of them were asking constantly. I was barely keeping up with who had to be at band practice or play practice and who had to be at baseball practice and when Ryker’s therapy sessions were and if they were all getting their homework done, so I kept telling them we’d talk about it later.

But later came and went, and they got tired of the answer, so Griff and Hudson snuck into the elementary school and stole the kindergarten class’s guinea pig. ”

I peer in the direction of her voice. “Truly?”

“Yep. That was my first run-in with the local chief of police. No, second. Ryker was the only one of my brothers home the night of the fire, and the police had a few questions for him, so at the ripe old age of nineteen, I was officially his adult to be present when they were questioning him as a minor at not-quite-sixteen. But not the point. Point is, kids do kid shit. Even bad kid shit when you think their consciences should know better. And eventually they grow up and become the kind of people who will host cookouts at their farmhouses for you even though they don’t like using the grill because it’s on fire or being around a lot of people. ”

I twist the top off the bottle and take a sip.

Ah.

I’ve got the shandy.

It’s rather lovely.

The voice whispering that I don’t deserve one of my favorite drinks whispers a bit softer, as though I might be loosening up on the self-flagellation.

“Then there was the year Griff didn’t turn in a single assignment on time,” Bea continues.

“Ryker missed some occasionally, especially when his nightmares about the fire would come back, but not like Griff did his freshman year. I was getting calls and emails from the school about him failing classes constantly . And he kept rolling his eyes at me and telling me the baseball commissioner didn’t care if he passed algebra, and he didn’t listen to the softball coach at Austen & Lovelace who told him otherwise, but she used her network for me to get us a call with the local minor league team’s coach who put the fear of the ghost of Babe Ruth in him for me. ”

I sip at my beer again and remain quiet.

Her voice is calming.

So is the message she’s gently delivering, which is soothing parts of me that I never knew could be soothed.

That I never thought I deserved to have soothed.

Is this what true family is supposed to do?

“And that was the year that Hudson had a cold every other week, which meant he was at the doctor every other week because I didn’t want to not take him if it was actually worse than just a cold because that would’ve been letting my parents down if I didn’t get him diagnosed right and then he got that infection in his heart that sometimes happens with strep throat. ”

“Is that a thing?”

“Yep.”

“Bloody hell. Charlie sniffled yesterday.”

“Probably allergies.”

I sigh deeply and stare into the darkness, idly letting the bottle dangle by my fingers.

“Lana took the boys. She has no time or bandwidth, as she calls it, for them this week—her mother is being quite difficult, which she insists is not her mother’s fault, given her memory issues—but I’m clearly inept at being a parent, so she took the boys. ”

Bea’s hand rests on my leg, and she squeezes gently.

“My parents were pretty awesome as far as parents go, but I still remember occasional nights when I was little when one of them would get angry and the other would tap in. And I can’t tell you how many fights my brothers and I had the first couple years after our parents died because I didn’t get a break and I needed one and felt guilty for not being able to live up to the example they set for us. ”

“My parents were bloody awful, and I was constantly berated for anything, sometimes even perfection not being perfect enough, and so I have no idea how to discipline my children without being my parents, but I was so fucking angry this evening, and all I could hear was my father’s voice coming out of my mouth. ”

She scoots closer and settles her head on my shoulder. “I googled your parents too. I know you can’t tell a person by their search results, but I’m pretty sure your father wouldn’t be sitting in the grass beating himself up over worrying if he was a good father or not.”

I want to sigh again, but instead, I take another swig of beer.

She’s not wrong.

Generally, after berating me, he would seek solace in the arms of a mistress.

Occasionally in our own home if my mother was away.

And I’d hear him call whomever his flavor of the week was, and I’d hear exactly what he said when he asked her to come over— the little twat has me by my last thread. I need relief —and once again, it was my fault that my father was a philanderer.

Because I dared to make noise or ask for something or simply exist.

I dared to annoy him enough to want to fornicate with a woman who was not my mother.

“Did Lana say you’re a terrible father because of tonight?” Bea asks.

“Of course not. She never says such things. Even when she should.”

“Did you go out of your way to try to read it in her body language?”

That was rather pointed.

And correct.

“How many trips to the headmaster’s office and police station did you make as you were raising your brothers that you would ask that question?”

“Enough.”

“So that’s to be my fate when I’m in town.”

“Not necessarily. I know lots of families who never had to talk to the principal or the police. I think that’s actually more normal.

And the guinea pig was almost the worst thing my brothers did.

At least, on purpose. And then there’s Daphne, who’s spent a number of nights in jail because of activism, which is completely different from spending nights in jail because of busting through a private gate in a burger bus to try to make kids eat fried fish on a stick. ”