Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,86
talking, no doubt, about last night and what else is going on that caused Dylan to do this crazy thing. Such a good kid, too, so we all assumed. Never gave us any trouble. Between Angel’s anger and dieting and Jewel’s stomachaches and the visitation drama we were so relieved that he was on cruise control.
Michael will handle it, because he’s a terrific dad.
As I descend the stairs, a memory worms its way out of my hangover fog. Mallory telling me that Michael won’t have another baby with me. This was probably part of her gambit, along with the booze and the fake girly friendliness.
But it is true he won’t talk about setting a date. And now I’ve fallen down on the one important job he gave me.
Angel is playing checkers with Jewel now that Dylan is having his talk with his father. But she’s texting in between moves. Jewel is chattering, waving at Angel, practically doing cartwheels.
“Your sister wants your attention,” I say to Angel. “Can’t you give the phone a rest?”
She sneers at me. “Whatever, drunk.”
Jewel’s hand halts in the air, hovering over a piece. She’s got an exciting double-jump all lined up, I can see. She gapes at me, her eyes wide with shock.
She shouldn’t need to know what drunk is, but she does, and she knows it’s something her mother did that got her in trouble. She knows it’s the reason her mother doesn’t live here anymore, much as Michael tries to convince himself that his explanations about how “people can’t stay living together happily” covered that part over.
Angel is smiling now. She puts her phone down. “Go ahead, J. Your move.”
Jewel looks down at the board, her face serious beyond her years, and barely picks up her checker as she jumps twice and takes Angel’s pieces.
I don’t see Mallory downstairs. I realize she’s probably in with Michael and Dylan. Of course, she’s the mother, and naturally she’d be involved in a serious conversation like this.
Jewel stands up, then. “I don’t feel like playing. I’m going to go read.”
Without glancing at me, she bounds up the stairs.
Leaving Angel and me alone.
I sit down in Jewel’s vacated chair and look Angel in the eye, doing my best to keep my face neutral and stay upright, though my head is hammering and I’m still hangover-dizzy.
“So, you think you know a lot about me, I guess.”
“I know enough. I know you’re a liar.”
“Not telling is not the same. And I’m going to tell your father. As soon as I get the chance, when things settle down.”
She slouches. “Yeah, that’ll go over well. You’re only ’fessing up now because I found your diary and you got drunk. That’s, like, a deathbed religious conversion. My dad’s a reporter.”
“That will be up to him, how he feels afterward. There’s context here you don’t know anything about.”
“Ha. Context makes it okay to call me a bitch.”
“I was venting. Getting out my frustration.”
“Whatever. You believe it, or you wouldn’t say it.”
I look up at the ceiling, as if begging God to help me. “You are awful to me sometimes. You treat me like a lackey. You roll your eyes so much I’m surprised you haven’t sprained them. You snort in disgust when I walk by wearing something you don’t like, and yet I’m expected to do everything you ask. I do it all, without complaint, and still you act like I’m some disgusting leper in your house. And that was before you ever saw a diary, so yes, I vented my frustration, in fact, my hurt, that you seem to hate me.”
“Oh, like you care how I feel about you.”
“Of course I do.”
“Because you have to, to marry my dad you have to win me over. You think I couldn’t see that, after you moved in, how you wanted to do my hair and take me for coffee, and act all buddy-buddy with my friends? It’s so fake.”
“It wasn’t fake,” I protest, but she is partly right. I stepped up my attention to her after I moved in. I wanted to make it better because I sensed a shift in her demeanor that day. I sensed her growing suspicion.
“And you’re so young you want to have another baby, and there I’ll be, a babysitter. Again. Like I practically raised Jewel.”
“I’m not like your mother.”
“No, you’re not. Because she loves me.”
“You just said yourself that you practically had to raise Jewel, and I’m telling you, I’m different, isn’t that a good thing?”