Page 69 of The Burning
“If they have any leftover sweets, will you bring me some?” Elodie asked me as I attempted to pull my sweater over my head and slip my feet into my shoes at the same time.
I refused to dress up tonight and wore a Harvard sweatshirt I’d bought at H&M to try to re-create Princess Diana’s casual street style. It didn’t look anything on me like it did on her, but paired with black knee-length shorts and dirty sneakers, it was comfy and would do the trick of annoying my dad and making Estelle cringe.
I promised to bring Elodie back a snack as she lay down on the couch and blew me a kiss. I rushed out of the door and started down the steps, but turned around and used my key to lock the door. Kael’s constant reminders were finally working. I missed Kael, even though it had only been two days since I saw him last. We texted a lot, but I was practically working from open to close and he was busy with discharge meetings that would take up most of the week. Today I barely made it off work in time to shower before the approaching hell of a dinner at my father’s house. I played a random playlist on Spotify that was named “studying when you’re miserable but don’t wanna fail.” The title drew me in, and the slow, folksy instrumentals worked, making me focus only on the drive and not on my anger toward my father.
My dad’s house was the same as it had always been. The same overdone landscaping with random little trees and mismatched flowers planted by Estelle out of boredom, yet never maintained. The same flags flying high on the pole. The same driveway that made my mind race with last-ditch excuses to not go inside. I slapped my hands against my cheeks gently, enough to bring some color to my drained face. I had to stop letting this house and its inhabitants demoralize me. I didn’t know exactly how to do that, but I had to figure it out or my dad would ruin my life like he had my mother’s.
Everything in my life was changing: my brother was leaving, Elodie’s due date was creeping closer each week, Kael and I were attempting to restart our . . . I couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t know why it was so hard for me to just call it a relationship, but we hadn’t had the official talk yet, so for now, it didn’t need a label. With so much change as of late, I hoped the intimidating dynamic of dinner with my father would also change for the better. As much as I kept preaching to myself about change, change, change, there I was, right back at Tuesday-night dinners. Everything inside their house was predictable. Though Estelle had replaced a few things over the last couple years to bond herself to the house and settle into her new last name, the house was mostly full of the furniture my mom and dad had collected over their life together. Old picture frames that my mom had bought were now occupied by his new wife’s face. I had never really thought about how much of my mom was left in that house, but as I got out of my car, I wondered how Estelle felt about being surrounded by my mom’s ghost, or if she even thought about it that way at all.
As if they were moved by an actual ghost, the front curtains drew back to reveal my dad standing there watching me. Austin was next to him, his shadow much more imposing than my dad’s. Austin waved and my dad said something to him, making him smile. It was almost eerie to see them together, both smiling from the window. Austin looked so much like my dad right then that I had to look away or I would bolt back to my car and take off.
I would bet they were bonding over Austin’s recent enlistment. I wondered when my dad had found out and I hated how happy he probably was that my brother was following in his footsteps.
I could gag.
I walked across the grass and when I got to the door, Austin was there waiting, wearing a white Nike hoodie and sweats. Immediately I knew they were Kael’s. I had taken a shower after work, but refused to go the whole nine yards of blow-drying, or applying mascara or foundation. I twisted my wet hair into a claw clip and put some moisturizer on. I wanted my outfit to bother my dad, but even he was dressed in more casual clothes, wearing loose-fitting blue jeans and a burnt-orange T-shirt. Was I in bizarro world? Estelle and her usual dress or cashmere would be my last hope to look underdressed.
“Yo.” Austin threw his arm over my shoulder and hugged me as soon as I stepped into the house. He smelled like a fresh sip of beer and faint cologne. His eyes were bright, no circles under them, no blotchy hangover spots on his cheeks or neck. Whatever the hell Kael had been doing with him was working. Lately, my brother had been looking better than I had ever seen him.
My heart began to swell until my dad’s voice sounded out, the same old gray concrete it had always been. “Karina, I’m glad you could make it.”
“Like I had a choice, really,” I said into my brother’s neck.
“Be nice,” he replied under his breath.
Hearing loud cheering from the TV, my father turned and pointed, his hand on my brother’s shoulder as I tried to unwrap myself from his embrace. “Ah, look. They scored.”
“Since when are you into sports again?” I whispered to my brother, who was still hugging me to him.
“Since now.” He shrugged. “Glad you came.”
Austin finally let me go, and I checked the time on my phone. I had only been there for two minutes. It was going to be a long night. Especially with everyone acting like nothing had happened. The elephant in the room. I followed behind them and stood next to the couch, staring absentmindedly at the men knocking into one another on the TV.
“Kare, come in and get settled,” my dad said. “You act like youdidn’tgrow up in this house.”
“I didn’t grow up here,” I reminded him, but walked farther into the living room, nonetheless.
He didn’t reply, but I could tell by the look he gave me that it pained him not to snap back at me. I wondered how long it would take for one of us to bring up what had happened between me, my dad, and Kael. I didn’t know how long I could just pretend like we hadn’t had a massive blowup and hadn’t spoken in weeks. The anger inside of me mixed with the crunching sound of football pads on the television made my head hurt. I looked for the remote to turn it down a bit, but it was sticking out of my dad’s front jeans pocket. During my childhood, my dad always held on to the remote—literally—when a game was on. It drove my mother mad, so mad that once she grabbed one of his shiny golf clubs and smashed it into the brand-new TV we’d bought during tax season. Both of our parents’ screams filled the air as Austin and I ran down the porch and to the park at the end our block. Austin dangled upside down on the monkey bars and I sat in the mulch, picking up handfuls and throwing it as we debated which one of our parents would win the fight that day. By the time we got home, my dad was in their bedroom and our mom was asleep on the front porch swing, an empty bottle of wine on the steps.
Years later, these types of memories still freshly echoed in my mind as if they had occurred recently. So much so that as I stood in front of my father’s blaring TV, I could hear the sound of the creaking metal chains of the porch swing. I wished I could afford to go to therapy again, but now that I was turning twenty-one, my health insurance from my dad’s retirement was about to disappear, so there was really no chance. As Austin and my father chummed it up like old pals, I considered telling my dad I would send him the bill for my much-needed therapy.
I wondered if deep down he thought he had lived his life the way he should have and had done right by his children, or if he even gave a shit. It had always seemed like his career and reputation mattered more than anything else in the world.
I had never seen my brother and father this way. They were usually at each other’s throats or making awkward small talk that Austin would later complain about. Our father had never been affectionate with either of us, purposely keeping his physical distance as long as I could remember. And this evening, neither of them had mentioned the thing that had to be bringing them together, which was my brother following in his footsteps and enlisting. I wondered when Austin might have told him, how he’d reacted, if Estelle had smiled along, proud of Austin for the first time since she’d met him.
On cue, Estelle walked into the living room to bring my dad a beer and stopped to say hi to me. She seemed different tonight, maybe because it had been a while since I’d last seen her. Something about her looked more fresh than usual and she barely had any makeup on. She was wearing a long-sleeved linen shirt that was something between beige and gray and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Was it casual Tuesday for everyone and I just didn’t get the Fischer family memo?
“You look gorgeous,” she said. “So stylish. Reminds me of when I was in my twenties.”
“Thanks,” I told her, trying not to sound as startled as I was. Her face was sincere even though I was basically wearing pajamas to the family dinner.
“I like your hair like that, too. It really brings out your eyes,” she added.
She reached to touch my hair, and I jerked away, but didn’t exactly mean to. She looked at me, not able to hide the hurt on her face, and I lamely apologized with a small smile. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, she was the least of the villains in the house at the moment, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to touch me or caress my hair.
“Would you like some wine?” she asked me, her expression back to one of a smiling, pleasant host.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t in the mood to drink, but I wanted to accept at least one thing from her after rejecting her.
