Thomas drums his fingers on one side of the steering wheel as he turns onto my street. It’s narrow and winding, filled with modest ranches and split-levels. It was supposed to be our starter home, bought after my father’s first novel was published almost ten years ago. The book wasn’t a blockbuster, but it was well reviewed enough that he was offered a contract for a second novel. Which he still hasn’t written, even though author is the only job he’s had since I was in grade school. For the longest time, I thought he got paid for reading books, not writing them, since that was all he ever did. Turns out he just doesn’t get paid at all.
Thomas pulls into our driveway and shifts into park but doesn’t cut the engine. “Do you want to come in?” I ask.
“Um.” Thomas takes a deep breath, his hand still drumming on the steering wheel. “So, I think…”
I lick my lips, which taste like cinnamon and chlorine, while I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I prod, “You think what?”
His shoulders tense, then rise in a shrug. “Just—not today. I have stuff to do.”
I don’t have the energy to ask what stuff. I lean toward him for a kiss, but Thomas pulls back. “Better not. I don’t wanna get sick.”
Stung, I retreat. Guess that’s what I get for lying. “Okay. Text me later?”
“Sure,” Thomas says. As soon as I’m out of the car and shut the door, he reverses out of my driveway. I watch him drive up the street with an uneasy flutter in my stomach. It’s not as though Thomas waits for me to make it through the front door when he drives me home, but he doesn’t usually take off quite that fast.
The house is quiet when I get inside. When Mom is around she always has music on, usually the nineties grunge she liked in college. For one hopeful second I think that means I have the place to myself, but I’ve barely set foot in the living room before my father’s voice stops me.
“Back so soon?”
My stomach twists as I turn to see him sitting in a leather armchair that’s too big for the cramped corner of our living room. His author chair, the one Mom bought when his book was published. It would look better in one of those office-slash-libraries with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an imposing mahogany desk, and a hearth. Our tabby cat, Eloise, lies stretched across his lap. When I don’t reply, he asks, “How was the meet?”
I blink at him. He can’t really expect me to answer that question. Not after the bomb he dropped last night. But he just gazes back calmly, putting a finger in the book he’s holding to mark his page. I recognize the cover, the bold black font against a muted, almost watercolor-like background. A Brief and Broken Silence, by Adam Story. It’s his novel, about a former college athlete who achieves literary stardom and then realizes that what he really wants is to live a simple life off the grid—except his rabid fans won’t leave him alone.
I’m pretty sure my father was hoping the book would turn out to be autobiographical. It didn’t, but he still rereads it at least once a year.
You might as well, I think, my temper flaring. No one else does.
But I don’t say it. “Where’s Mom?”
“Your mother…” Dad hesitates, squinting as the sunlight streaming through the picture window reaches his eyes. The light brings out glints in his dark hair and gives him a golden glow he doesn’t deserve. It makes my chest hurt, now, to think about how mindlessly I’ve always worshiped my father. How deeply I believed that he was brilliant, and special, and destined for amazing things. I was honored that he’d given me an A name. I was the Fifth A, I used to tell myself, and one day I’d be just like them. Glamorous, mysterious, and just a little bit tragic. “Your mother is taking some time.”
“Taking time? What, did she, like…move out?” But as soon as I say it, I know it isn’t true. My mother wouldn’t leave without telling me.
Eloise startles awake and jumps down, stalking across the living room with that irritated look she gets whenever her nap ends. “She’s spending the afternoon with Aunt Jenny,” Dad says. “After that, we’ll see.” A different note creeps into his voice then—petulant, with an