Page 67 of Malaise
TWENTY
My feet achein my new shoes even after the short walk from where Carver dropped me off two blocks back. He insisted he drive me most of the way to Mum and Dad’s, saying that the seven or so kilometres from the motel would be too far. Turns out he’s right. Guy must know a thing or two about new shoes, huh? Probably should have broken them in first. But it’s fair to say that I’ve been a bit too preoccupied to be worrying about my damn choice of footwear.
Problem number one, aside from the obvious: walking into the funeral as a united front with my damn parents when I literally can’t stand to be anywhere near them.
Housing my heart in my throat seems to be a new thing of late, so I can’t say I’m that surprised at how I feel while I wait for them to answer the door. I’m considering knocking again, my palm sweaty in my balled fist, when Mum opens the entrance wide.
“You’re late.” She steps away to let me in.
“By one minute, which I pretty much spent waiting out on the front step for you to answer, so….”
Dad appears from fuck knows where, inches from where I stand. “Not today, Meg,” he warns. The spider veins around his nose are bright red—a sure indicator he’s already angry before we’ve even really started. “You zip up that damn attitude, or so help me—”
“You’ll what?” I ask, unable to help myself. “Kick me out?”
His nostrils flare.
Match point, arsehole.
I sidestep him and head through to the living room. On the up side the house no longer looks like an illegal florist operation. But it also looks as though they don’t have kids… at all. No pictures of us. No sign anywhere that these people have two—albeit only one alive—kids who make them proud. Nothing.
“What did you do with our family pictures?” I ask Mum, pointing to where they used to sit spread around the TV.
“They’re in the hall cupboard.” She stands before the oval mirror in the hall, fussing with her hair.
“Why?”
“Why not?” Dad counters.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Mum sucks in a deep breath, her hands stilled either side of her head. Her eyes close, showing the deep brown eyeshadow she hardly wears, and her mouth thins into a firm line.
Oh, shit.
“How dare you?” she asks in a cold, even tone as she opens her eyes and finds me in the reflection. “How dare you come back into this house, after everything you’ve done to ruin this family, and walk around asking questions that you know will get a rise out of everyone, just to cause more trouble?”
“I was asking a simple question, Mum. Not trying to cause trouble.”
“Bullshit,” she says scathingly. “All you have to do today is pretend that for once you can put this family’s interests before your own.”
“Well, hey,” I sass. “If you think you can too, then I guess I’ll try real hard.”
“Meg,” Dad warns.
“No.” I stand on the opposite side of the room to both of them, Mum now in the doorway. It’s a perfect metaphor for how we’re divided. “You keep making me shoulder all the blame for this… this breakdown. I won’t. I’ll take some of the blame, because yeah, I didn’t handle things the best. But you two need to own up to your part, too.”
“We’re all a little tense right now,” Mum says tersely.
“Yes, we are,” I agree. “But the thing is, I’m the only one getting flak for not knowing what to do without Den here. It sucks,” I shout, welcoming the anger that staves off more fucking tears. “But you know what? It sucks even more that I wish I was dead too.”
“You don’t mean that,” Dad scorns.
“But I do. Because surely it’s better than how it feels to be rejected by your own parents, cast aside by the people who are supposed to be there no matter what.”
“We don’t know how to handle you anymore,” Mum yells, fists at her sides. “You act out, threaten us with these kinds of things—”
“The truth?” I ask.