My dad says he’s tired of turning off the lights, that he works too hard to be nickel-and-dimed by the energy company, that if we’re only going to move from room to room, eyes pivoting from screen to screen, then the least we could do is flip a switch every once in a while, that is if we want to continue to have Wi-Fi and HBO, and Xbox Live, and soda, and pizza every Friday night. A little respect is all he\u2019s asking for, but of course we ignore him, it\u2019s either that or tell him to go fuck himself, but in our last kids-only family meeting, Jett said we had to keep Dad on the even keel, that if we wanted to avoid counseling and a barrage of new medications, if we wanted to avoid the screaming and the threats, we\u2019d better lay low, that turning up the volume on our iPads was a better way to go about ignoring Dad\u2019s new crisis. Besides it kept Mom from getting her headaches, from binge-watching those trashy Housewives shows.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not the one that usually gives a shit about parental issues. We save that crown for Hope, a middle child if there ever was one, and her constant attempts to get someone to notice her. You know those stupid challenges: Tide Pod, Salt, Momo, planking, or whatever, she\u2019s done them all. Every six months she goes to the hospital puking or gasping or screaming, and me and Jett just shake our heads. We\u2019d like to help Hope, but she thinks we\u2019re the problem. It doesn\u2019t help that she hates music, that her life is more dramatic than any show on TV, that she\u2019d rather sit in her room cutting off the bottom inches of her new mini-skirts.<\/p>\n
But tonight when I walk in the door late because I skipped the bus to try skateboarding at the library, Dad is standing in the kitchen, his forehead greased with sweat from some chore we\u2019ve been refusing to do, flipping the light switch on and off. Mom\u2019s nowhere in sight, and she\u2019s the only one who can calm him down when he\u2019s freaking out. Jett and Hope are sitting at the table, the one that still has stains on it from our paint and marker days, the one my mother would love to replace, but my dad refuses to throw out. Mom\u2019s always begging for new furniture, says it would finally make her finally feel at home even though we\u2019ve lived in this house since I was a baby. Jett and Hope don\u2019t even have their headphones on or their phones out, and it feels like I\u2019m walking into a courtroom. Jett doesn\u2019t even smile, when I say, \u201cWhat\u2019s up, Pops?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave a seat, Hudson. There\u2019s something we need to get straight,\u201d Dad says, the lights flashing on and off.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t we skip the lecture. I mean we know it all by heart. Work too hard. Bills. Lazy. Shape up or ship out,\u201d I say, turning toward my siblings, but either Jett\u2019s really high or he\u2019s been crying, and Hope is never this quiet. I can usually count on her to distract Dad long enough for me to make it to my room unnoticed. And where is Mom?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to sit, that\u2019s fine. But you\u2019ll goddamn hear me for once.\u201d He leaves the light switched off, puts his hand out as if to grab my shoulder, but I\u2019m already ducking away toward the refrigerator, pulling it open hard enough to make the condiments jangle in their glass jars.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you run this little speech past Mom?\u201d I rummage around until I find a Lunchable and a Pepsi, hoping Hope hasn\u2019t eaten all the fruit snacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother,\u201d Dad says.<\/p>\n
I close the fridge door, hands full, and now Dad\u2019s crying too, and god as if this wasn\u2019t the worst play I\u2019d ever seen. \u201cWhat about her? Did she finally go crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad crumples into the chair, the wooden back popping.<\/p>\n
\u201cHudson, we\u2019re trying to tell you,\u201d Hope says. She hovers next to Dad, her hand resting on the chair back. Her fingernail polish is dark purple but chipping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we agreed to leave the old man alone,\u201d I say to Jett.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s in charge now,\u201d Jett says, wiping at his nose with his sleeve like a toddler with a nasty cold.<\/p>\n
I pop open the Pepsi because I don’t know what to say. I’m tempted to run out of the room, but even if I don’t like them much, they’re my family, and however this bad news turns out, I need to hear it.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe freaking left, man. Like pack up all her clothes and jewelry, left a note with an address, kind of never coming back\u2014left,\u201d Jett says. There\u2019s something about his eyes, the shape of them that reminds me of my mom, and I step toward him because I want to punch away that resemblance. He doesn\u2019t even flinch, and my dad is reaching out, and we\u2019re holding hands, and I don\u2019t let go, because it\u2019s better than him flipping the lights, a code that might have said I love you<\/em>, but my mom must have misunderstood, must have heard I won\u2019t, I won\u2019t, I won\u2019t\u2014change<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A little respect is all he\u2019s asking for, but of course we ignore him, it\u2019s either that or tell him to go fuck himself, but in our last kids-only family meeting, Jett said we had to keep Dad on the even keel, that if we wanted to avoid counseling and a barrage of new medications, if we wanted to avoid the screaming and the threats, we\u2019d better lay low, that turning up the volume on our iPads was a better way to go about ignoring Dad\u2019s new crisis. Besides it kept Mom from getting her headaches, from binge-watching those trashy Housewives shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":15351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1943],"class_list":["post-15263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-tommy-dean","writer-tommy-dean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15263"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15352,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263\/revisions\/15352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}