“You can’t afford me. I’m moving to Arizona to live with Dad.” Jared had barely allowed Lily to get out of the car in Violet’s driveway before he made this announcement. This she did not need.
“Stow it, Jared. You can express your adolescent angst later.” She knew it was the wrong way to deal with him. Parenting experts would be appalled. Too bad.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he countered.
Lily bent so that her nose was nearly brushing his and growled, “Look it up.”
Which of course made Anna cry.
Lily lowered herself slowly into one of Violet’s kitchen chairs. Dale handed her a cup of hot chocolate and patted her hand and took a chair next to her. Violet was already wedged into her chair. They sat in silence for a few minutes while Anna cried and Jared shouted at her to shut up which only made her cry more. Lily felt defeated.
Violet called to Patrick and Spencer. Two tall handsome boys tumbled into the kitchen wrestling and joking as they came. The sight of them together made everyone smile. They were a rare example of brothers who are also best friends. Violet asked her sons to do something to make their cousins stop tormenting each other and their poor mother.
“Here take a twenty,” Violet said. “Get them some ice cream or something.”
“Vi, did you tell the kids I lost my job?”
“Of course not! Iris called and you know how her voice carries over the phone.”
“Ah, well. Jared suddenly wants to move to the hippy colony with Derek. I don’t know, maybe he needs his father right now.”
“Of course he needs a father. Not necessarily his father. Any prospects at the singles functions?”
“Vi, Honey,” Dale said soothingly, “Lily is her own person without a husband.”
“Thanks, Dale,” Lily said.
“What I don’t understand is how Derek can just abandon his family and ignore his children without so much as a dime of child support. And with a law degree, too! There’s a lot of time and money and effort wasted. Where would he be if it weren’t for you?”
“Please, God, let me have one conversation with my family that doesn’t become a diatribe on Derek’s failings.” Lily spoke to the ceiling. Then to her sister, “This is twice today I have said these words. I may have to make a sign. Five words. This-is-not-about-Derek.”
“Vi, Honey,” Dale added, “when you bad-mouth Derek, it puts Lily in the uncomfortable position of defending him.”
“That’s ridiculous. She’s the one who got hurt.”
“Didn’t cause it, can’t fix it, can’t control it. Let’s focus on what Lily can control.”
Lily was both resentful and grateful for Dale’s sensitive social worker tone. Most people assumed he was gay until they saw the family portrait: a once beautiful and curvaceous wife, two laughing boys in Tee-ball gear. The boys had grown tall and Nordic, clearly designed for sports involving gravity pulling them down mountains at great speeds. His wife’s concavities all became convexities and she was now roughly spherical. For all his work as an addiction counselor, he could not help his wife stop eating. This was painful for both of them and unforgivable to Camellia.