Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,68
were hungry, if you were starving . . .”
“Dad never drank!” Oliver said. “You think you know everything and you don’t! I was fine!”
“What if you got sick? Do you think he would have taken you to an emergency room or a hospital? He didn’t even take you to the goddamn dentist!”
“He and I were there, Mom. You weren’t!”
“I looked for you!” Maureen screamed, and now she was crying. My dad’s face was pale and Rick was standing up now, too, a reluctant referee. My mom’s grip on my hand was iron tight, and I was pretty sure I was hanging on to hers the same way.
“I spent every day looking for you!” she continued. “All of my money! All of my time! I tried to find you!”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t.”
“Hey!” Rick said sharply. “That’s enough, Oliver. You’re putting your mom through hell, you know that?”
“Why is this always about her?” Oliver yelled back. “Everyone acts like it was my idea to disappear but actually, I’m the one who decided to come home!”
Maureen froze. So did the rest of us.
“Every time I asked Dad about you, he would just say he didn’t want to talk about it!” Oliver yelled, his face flushed. “And then one day, I went to the library, the big one with the lions, and I tried Googling you, and there were all of these articles about me and I saw your picture for the first time in ten years, Mom, okay? Ten years! And I knew then what Dad had done so when they asked for fingerprint volunteers on that stupid field trip, I said yes. And now sometimes I wish I hadn’t because I just fucked everything up for you, didn’t I?” Oliver’s eyes started to fill with tears. “You had this perfect life with the twins and Rick and I just messed it all up.”
“Oliver, no, honey—” Maureen said as she started to cross the room to him. I was still in my chair, and my mom’s hand felt clammy in mine.
“No!” Oliver yelled, and Maureen stopped in her tracks. “Just don’t, okay? You still love the kid that left, but I don’t think you like the one that came back! I don’t think you—”
But he stopped talking when we all heard the tiny sobs coming from the corner. Molly and Nora were standing in the doorway, huddled together, both of them crying as they watched the fight.
That current between Maureen and Oliver suddenly severed, and Maureen seemed to crumple as she buried her face in her hands. “Shit,” I heard her whisper.
Oliver, for his part, looked sick, like he wanted to throw up, and he closed his eyes and said something to himself that I couldn’t make out. Then he opened his eyes and stalked away from the table, coming back a few seconds later with his hoodie in his hand, the same one he had been wearing in the gazebo the night we kissed. Had that really been just last week?
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to until he knelt down in front of the twins and hugged them both, their small arms reaching up to wrap around his neck. “I’m sorry, okay?” I heard him say again. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.” Then he was kissing their heads and standing up, heading toward the door and almost running out.
The rest of us sat at the table in stunned silence. My entire face was hot, but my hands were cold, like I had a fever. My mom let go of my hand and started to go around the table to Maureen, Rick went to the twins, and I sat back in my chair and looked at my dad, who was watching me very, very carefully.
“Dad?”
“Go,” he said, answering the question that I didn’t even know how to ask.
I stood up. My legs were shaking. “I have my phone,” I told him.
“It’s okay, Emmy. Go.”
I pushed my chair back and grabbed my coat, then walked out the still-open door and pulled it shut behind me. I had no idea where Oliver had gone, or even where to look, but when I went out to the front yard, I saw a small figure stalking up the street, illuminated by orange streetlights and the ever-present coastal fog. He looked like a ghost, lost and alone, floating away.
“Oliver!” I called. “Wait!”
He didn’t acknowledge me, though, and I dashed through the wet grass after him, my sneakers squeaking