Little Do We Know

  She plucked another blade of grass, and then blurted out, “D-bag is going to New York on Tuesday. I was thinking that would be a good time to tell her.”

  “Do you want me to be there?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Just be thirty-six steps away, would you?”

  When I got home from school on Tuesday, I logged on to WeekdayGourmet.com and scanned Mom’s recipes. The dishes were all familiar. Kid-Friendly Stuffed Peppers. Simple Smothered Pork Chops. Weekday Coq Au Vin. They reminded me of the nights Dad and I would tie each other’s apron strings and help her chop vegetables while we waited for delicious scents to start filling the house. She was always proud of her Chicken Parmesan, and Dad and I always agreed it was our favorite.

  I was glad to find her recipe on the website, and I followed the directions exactly. I flipped the chicken in the skillet and waited for the pieces to brown, and then I transferred them to the baking pan and sprinkled them with her cheese mixture.

  When I heard the door open and close, my stomach dropped.

  “You’re making dinner?”

  “Chicken Parmesan. Your recipe.”

  “But you always have dinner at Luke’s house on Tuesdays. Everything okay with you two?”

  “Yeah, we’re great,” I said.

  She kissed me on the cheek. And then she took a deep breath in. “It smells amazing in here. I’m going to enjoy every bite and not even think about the calorie count of that dish. And if I can’t fit into my wedding dress at my next fitting, I’m blaming you.”

  My heart started racing. I ignored it.

  “David’s out of town?” I asked. I said my line, exactly the way I’d rehearsed it, and I’d hit the tone perfectly.

  I’d decided it would be easiest to think of this whole exchange with Mom as a play, complete with stage marks and a rehearsed script. So when I got home from school, I walked from the kitchen to the table and back again, picturing invisible Xs on the carpet as I spoke the words aloud, listening to the way they sounded. I crafted and re-crafted my words carefully.

  It was a good exercise. It helped me distance myself from the fact that this conversation was happening in real life, and that when it was over, Mom and I would never be the same.

  “He’s in New York until Friday,” she called out as she grabbed a bottle of wine from the rack and reached into the drawer for the corkscrew. She worked the bottle while I put the finishing touches on the chicken and started rinsing the spinach. She leaned against the counter and swirled her wine in the glass. “Hey, while you’re cooking, let’s go over the list.”

  “Can we not?”

  “Oh, it’ll only take a minute. You’ve been so busy with the play and distracted by all that’s been going on with Luke. But from here on out it’s all about proms and weddings. Nothing but happy things. Sound good?”

  It sounded great. I wished it was going to happen that way.

  She left the room and returned with her giant binder. She set it on the counter, popped open the three rings, and removed the top sheet.

  “Okay, so according to The Knot we’re in good shape. Invitations are out and we’ve got my last two dress fittings scheduled. Your dress is being altered.” She kept going through the list, reading aloud, checking boxes while I tried to block out her voice. “The caterer has been paid, the cake is ordered. Oh, and, Emory…I forgot to tell you! You know how David keeps saying the music is a surprise?”

  Hearing her say his name made the spatula start shaking in my hands.

  “Well…I think I know what he’s up to.” She leaned against the counter. “This band played at his company Christmas party last year, and we danced all night. He keeps reminding me of that night, telling me how much he loved that band.”

  Stay calm. Stick to the script.

  “I’m thinking maybe he pulled some strings to get them to play at the wedding….”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I bet he’s paying them a fortune.” She took a sip of her wine and then let out a sigh. “He’s the sweetest man.”

  My hands were clammy, and I could feel the sweat beading up on my forehead. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t hear her say one more word about D-bag or the wedding reception or bands or invitations.

  “No, he’s not,” I whispered, but she didn’t hear me.

  “What?” she asked.

  “No, he’s not!” I yelled. I tossed the spatula into the skillet and sauce went flying everywhere, splattering all over the counters and onto the wall.

  Mom set her glass down and brought her hands to her hips. “What do you mean by that?”

  I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t remember the first word in my script. I sat there, frozen and frustrated, trying to remember where I was supposed to start. Mom was staring at me, looking confused and maybe even a little bit irritated, and I was staring back at her, begging her to read my mind so I didn’t have to speak the words aloud.

  Slowly, her expression changed, and I swear, I saw a trace of panic in her eyes, as if she already knew. “Are you okay?” she asked cautiously.

  I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  It was true. I was fine. I’d always been fine. The thing with David was weird and awkward and over. I. Was. Fine. Why was I even having this conversation with her?

  But Mom wasn’t letting it go. She stepped in closer, gripping my arms, making me keep talking to her.

  I remembered the first line of my script. It was totally out of context, but I was relieved to have discovered it, so I blurted it out. “I was looking at the mail.”

  “The mail? What are you talking about?”

  “You were at the gym. The game was on TV and I was looking at the mail. I didn’t even hear him come up behind me.” I was barely one minute into this thing and I was already way off. I had no idea what I was saying or what I was going to say next. The words just started spilling out of my mouth.

  “He’s your boyfriend. I thought of him as your boyfriend. And my future stepdad. And I never thought he saw me as anything but your daughter.”

  Mom’s face went pale. “What did he do?”

  I wanted to pull away from her grasp and race out the door. Hannah promised she’d be home. Luke was only a text away.

  “What did he do, Emory?” she repeated, gripping my arm even harder.

  I pointed to the kitchen table. “It was last year…right before Christmas. You weren’t home. He came up behind me…and he pressed me against the table and he…he…” My voice was shaking too hard to finish my sentence.

  I forced myself to stop and breathe, like I did when I got nervous on stage. “He told me I should know better than to dress that way around him. He told me he couldn’t be responsible for what he’d do to me.”

  Mom covered her mouth as thick tears welled up in her eyes and started spilling down her cheeks.

  “He tried to kiss me. And he—”

  “Did he touch you?” Mom cut me off. Her voice was shaking now, too. I was glad she asked so I didn’t have to say it first.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Where do you think?”

  She walked toward the other side of the kitchen, clutching her head, and then returned to me. “What happened then?”

  “Nothing. I went to my room and that was the end of it. He didn’t follow me. He hasn’t done anything since. It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal?” Mascara was streaming down Mom’s face.

  “Seriously. I wasn’t even going to tell you. It happened, and I’m fine, and it’s over.” I wrapped my hands around her arms. “You’re so happy now and I don’t want you to be sad again….” All the color drained from her face, and I wished I hadn’t said anything. “Forget it, Mom. Please.”

  She took off for the bathroom. I could hear her throwing up, flushing the toilet, running the water.

  She was gone for a long time, and when she finally came back to the kitchen, her eyes were puffy and red, and her hair was pulled back in a cl
ip. She looked horrible, and I felt even worse.

  “I’m sorry I’m not handling this very well,” she said.

  “You’re handling it fine. Look, I didn’t even want to tell you, but I figured you should know. And now you do. So this can all be over. I’ll move out when school starts in August, and you can move into David’s loft like you planned, and we can just forget this ever happened, okay? We’ll never talk about it again. I thought you should know, that’s all.”

  Mom pulled me into her, and I inhaled that scent that was so uniquely her and always made me feel safe. When she pulled away, she took my face in her hands. “I love you more than anything in this world. You know that, right?”

  I nodded.

  “More than anything in this world.” She repeated it for emphasis.

  She stood there for a long time, like she was trying to figure out what to say next. Her bottom lip started trembling and she bit down on it hard.

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  I nodded again.

  “You did the right thing.”

  “Did I?” I asked, because it sure didn’t feel like it.

  “You did,” she said, but she looked like she was barely holding it together. “I need to be alone. Is that okay with you?”

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I nodded again.

  And Mom went into her room and shut the door.

  I was out on the back deck, sitting on the top step. I’d been there for at least a half hour. It made me feel closer to Emory. But it had been too quiet on her side of the grass, and I was starting to wonder if she’d changed her mind about telling her mom.

  I heard the screen door open and close behind me. I didn’t move.

  “Hey. What are you doing out here?” Dad asked.

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?” He sat next to me.

  “Everything,” I said. “Mostly you.”

  “Funny,” Dad said. “I’ve been inside praying. Mostly about you.”

  I looked at him. “About me? Why?” I didn’t need his prayers. Emory did. Of course, he had no way of knowing that.

  He turned sideways and leaned back against the post, bending one knee, facing me.

  “Well,” he began, “I was praying for guidance. Praying for God to give me the right words to say to you. Praying that you’d hear them, and understand, and maybe even forgive me for what I did. And I was praying that you’d find the words you needed to say to me, too. And that you’d know how important it is to say them, whatever they are.”

  I smiled up at him. “That’s a lot of stuff for one prayer.”

  He smiled back. “I like to be efficient. You know, knock it all out at once.” He punched the air with his fist.

  Even after everything he’d done, a big part of me was struggling to stay angry at him. I didn’t want to be mad anymore. I still loved him fiercely, despite how clear his flaws had become.

  “I have a lot to say to you,” he said.

  “I have a lot to say to you, too.”

  “Can I start?” he asked, and I nodded, grateful for the extra time to pull my thoughts together.

  He shifted in place and looked around, like he needed a little extra time to collect himself.

  “I made a mistake,” he said with a big exhale. “Actually, I made a bunch of mistakes, starting with your college fund. I blew it. And then I tried to fix it. I thought I was doing it for you.” He paused and looked around again, like he was searching the yard, hoping to find the words he needed in the trees and flower beds. “I don’t know what it is, Hannah. When it comes to you, I don’t always see the big picture. I get singularly focused on making things right for you, regardless of the consequences.”

  It reminded me of what Emory had said that day we fought. “You have a blind spot when it comes to your dad.” It hadn’t occurred to me that he also had something of a blind spot when it came to me.

  “I was trying to make you happy,” he continued. “But I kept making it worse. And then, I didn’t know how to unravel all the knots I’d made along the way. It was wrong of me to share Luke’s video. I told myself I was helping him, helping you, and helping the school, all at the same time. But that wasn’t fair to him….He didn’t want any of this.”

  “No, he didn’t.” I thought back to that day in the living room, when Luke stood in front of the fireplace studying our family portrait. “I think he just wanted to know you. For what it’s worth, I think he still does.”

  Dad let his head fall back against the post and closed his eyes, like he was taking it all in. “I owe him an apology. And I owe you one, too.” He opened his eyes and locked them on mine. “I’m so sorry.”

  I bit down hard on my lip. “It’s okay.”

  Dad didn’t look away. “I know you have more to say to me than that.”

  I did. I had a lot more to say. But I wasn’t sure where to start. I could have told him how I’d been more devastated about the college fund than I ever let on. Or I could have told him how he let me down in ways I never thought he could when he betrayed my trust and shared Luke’s video. Or I could have told him how I’d been questioning everything I’d ever believed, and how for the last couple weeks, I’d been meditating a lot but hadn’t prayed once.

  I could have started with any of those things. But none of them were more important than the one that kicked everything off. Dad had said that he’d made a bunch of mistakes, starting with my college fund, but that wasn’t where it all began. He didn’t even know about the first mistake he’d made.

  “I need to tell you why Emory and I got in our fight.” I pointed at her house and Dad turned his head. “She’s over there right now, telling her mom.”

  “Telling her what?” He was clearly confused. “What does Emory have to do with any of this?”

  “Everything,” I said. My heart was racing and my hands felt clammy. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Remember that day I told you she was in my room and needed to talk to you? But when we got there, she was gone.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, she wasn’t gone. She was hiding in my closet. She heard everything we said.”

  He looked even more confused. “That was months ago. I don’t think you ever told me what she wanted to talk to me about. What did we say?”

  I wrung my hands and stared out at the garden. “I started to tell you that she was upset about a guy. But you cut me off. You started talking about how Emory had changed over the years. That our friendship might not be in my best interest anymore.”

  “And she heard me?” He cringed, like he remembered saying the words, but they sounded even worse when he heard them coming back at him. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  I nodded. I knew. But it didn’t matter. Whether he meant it or not, that wasn’t really the point. “That wasn’t what upset her.” I felt sick as I remembered the two of us sitting on the edge of my bed in my room, talking about Emory like she wasn’t there when she was behind a thin closet door the entire time. “I agreed with you. I didn’t defend her. And then after you left and she opened the closet door, I made it even worse. I told her maybe you were right—that maybe we shouldn’t be friends anymore.”

  Dad nodded slowly, like he could see the puzzle pieces of our fight fitting together, clicking into place, creating a picture of the last few months that explained everything.

  But he still didn’t know the worst part.

  And the worst part was so much worse.

  I sat up straighter, steeling myself for what I had to say next. “Dad,” I said. But that was as far as I got. My heart was pounding and my legs were trembling and my chin was quivering and I hadn’t even said anything yet.

  “What?”

  Spit it out, I told myself.

  “She didn’t come to our house that day because she was upset about a guy. I mean…she did…but it was…” I stammered, trying so hard to get his name to come out of my mouth, but I couldn’t do it. “It wasn’t just any guy.?
??

  Dad looked at me sideways. He hadn’t looked especially concerned about what I was trying to tell him, but he did now. “It was David.” I threw his name into the air like it was toxic. And then I squeezed my eyes closed, as if that would help block out the vision of what he had done to Emory that day. “He…He trapped her. He wouldn’t let her go.” Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I had to fight to get a breath. “And when she got away she ran away from him. And she ran…here.” My voice broke on the last word, but I felt an overwhelming sense of relief to have it all out.

  I cried harder. I expected to feel a supportive hand on my back, but when I looked up, Dad was just staring at me, eyes wide, mouth open, fingertips pressed into his temples. And then he stood and walked down the steps, out to the lawn, like he needed to get far away from me and what I’d just said. He stopped when he reached the back fence, and then he stood there under the tree, staring down into the dirt.

  I followed him. “She came to me for help,” I said between sobs. “And I didn’t help her.” I hated admitting it out loud. It sounded worse than it felt. I sat there for what felt like a full minute, drawing air deep into my lungs and trying to pull myself together. “You just said that when it comes to me, you don’t always see the big picture. Well, I tend to do the same with you. I follow your lead instinctively. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. When you have an opinion about something, I let myself lose sight of what I think, what I know is best. I take your opinions on as if they’re my own. What happened to Emory that day was the most important thing, and instead, I got all wrapped up in your opinion of her. And that’s not your fault, it’s mine.”

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  “I’m sor—” I began, but he turned around and started yelling before I could finish.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what happened to her? You needed to tell me that!”

  “Emory changed her mind. She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you and Mom.”