I don’t respond to him. Once a year my shadow darkens his door, but for him, that’s one time too many.
“Where’s Mom?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“I put money in your account every month, so I don’t have to see your face.”
It burns even more that there isn’t a trace of emotion in his voice. His demeanor isn’t angry or aggravated. He’s had decades of perfecting his responses to coincide with political requirements. Even at home, he has the ability to school his face. It’s been years since he’s had any viable political aspirations, but most of the time he remains in character.
“Of all days, today is the worst time for you to show up here.”
“It’s Seth’s birthday.” My words are almost a whisper, but I know he heard them because he flinches, his eyes closing tightly before he can shove the emotion away. My words hit their target, and I tense waiting for what I know is coming.
“So you think the reminder that you killed my only son is something that I need?”
Swallowing repeatedly doesn’t remove the lump in my throat. I shouldn’t be upset. Coming here and being treated like this is exactly the reason I show up year after year. The reminder of what I did nine years ago feeds my pain for a while.
“Kaci.” My mother’s dry, weak voice forces another wave of chills over my skin. “You look nice, dear.”
I don’t bother running my hands down my dress to make sure it’s sitting just as it’s supposed to. My mother gives me empty compliments every time she sees me, but they don’t mean anything. Years ago, she wasn’t like this. Before Seth died, she was brutal in her reminders on how a lady is required to act, and I never once met her standards.
“How are you, Mother?”
“Good.”
I know better. Her hair is a mess, blonde, natural curls springing from her head in all directions, and the sagging clothes on her body don’t even coordinate. This is the woman she became years ago with the help of Vicodin and vodka, and she shows no signs of slowing. Like myself, my mother also has her own ways to fast track herself into oblivion. The drugs and liquor are her own slow spiral into death. We all have our methods.
“It’s Seth’s birthday,” I whisper the reminder just like I did with my father, only her reaction is stunted. Her eyes were already glassy when she walked in, and there isn’t a change even now.
“Is it?” I’m not surprised she wasn’t already aware. Most of the time she doesn’t even know what month it is, much less the actual date.
“Are we doing lunch?”
“I don’t want you here, and I’m definitely not sitting down at the table with you.”
Mom nods her agreement with my father, more out of habit than understanding of his words.
“I’m your only child.” I know reminding them of this is only twisting the knife deeper into his gut.
“You murdered my son!”
Only now do his eyes turn to me, and his emotions begin to show.
Last year when things took this turn, I reminded him that Seth died from choking on part of a toy he bought for his three-year-old son. I made sure he remembered that mother had told him that the toy airplane had an eight to ten age range, but he put her in her place, making sure she knew he’d buy Seth whatever he wanted.
“Seth is smart enough to play with the damn plane,” he’d said to her before they left the house with me in charge of watching him. Just like always, she agreed because, in her eyes, he was always right. My father’s word was the law in his house, and no one was to contradict him.
Three hours later, I was making him a grilled cheese sandwich while my parents were at a town council meeting, my little brother died with one of the plane’s tires lodged in his throat.
In my father’s eyes, I’m one hundred percent to blame. Something he reminds me of each and every time I see him.
The yelling brings me back to being fifteen again, alone in the house while I tried desperately to get him to breathe while waiting for the ambulance. My efforts were hopeless, and the blame was immediate. I didn’t fault my father for pinning me with the blame. His anger was warranted. If I hadn’t answered the phone that day, things could’ve turned out very differently, but after hearing rumors around school that he liked me, I’d been anticipating Desmond’s call for days.
Shaking my head to clear it of the past, I just watch my father. The tips of his ears redden, and his grip on the whiskey glass in his hand is so tight his knuckles begin to lose color. Apparently, he’s easier to anger than he was a year ago, so I don’t bother to remind him that the toy plane was his idea.