CHAPTERTWENTY
Hayden
“You do the grilling;we’ll take care of everything else.”
Dad looks between the two of us, seeming to think about arguing over who is going to do what. But in the end it looks like he changes his mind. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
He leaves out the sliding door and I take stock of where we are. How this is a memory of a time I wasn’t sure I’d come back to. When I’d left Bradford to go to college, I’d had these thoughts of not returning and making something huge of myself. Very quickly, I’d realized how much I loved the Tennessee hills and missed it every single day I was gone. At night, I’d look out the back door and see nothing of what I see when I look out the one here. It was flat and boring.
Where I’d been looking for excitement, I’d come to appreciate the changing of seasons, the storms coming over the peaks of the mountains, and the comfort of knowing each part of your hometown. When I’d first gotten to college, I’d had to use a GPS wherever I went.
It was new and exciting.
Until I’d wanted the comfort of home and my favorite chicken restaurant, in Bradford I’d known exactly where to go. I’d known where to get my coffee in order to not have to wait in a line. At college, seeing Hailey whenever we missed one another. She wasn’t a few hours up the road. In Wisconsin, I didn’t.
What had been excitement turned into longing and, before I knew it, I’d realized what I’d wanted all along was exactly what I’d had.
Which is why I’m so happy to be right where I am.
Standing in the kitchen with Hailey takes me back to high school nights when we’d been worried about dad being by himself all the time. Neither of us wanted him to be alone and we’d spent more time here than out with our friends.
“I’ve missed this,” Hailey says as she grabs fresh vegetables out of the fridge before turning to put them in the sink. The water flows in the background of our conversation.
“Us hanging out together?” I clarify. With her, it could be a couple of different things. The few arguments we had as teens were because we didn’t communicate well. Something we’ve both tried to work on as we’ve gotten older.
“Here in this kitchen while dad’s on the back porch grilling. Us in here wondering if he’s been dating at all.” She raises her eyebrows in a seductive manner.
We giggle, leaning into each other.
“Have we ever seen him go out on a date?” She asks, stopping what she’s doing to presumably think about the past.
Shaking my head, I’m positive. I’ve never seen him with another woman besides our mother. “No.”
“I take that back,” Hailey gasps, snapping her fingers. “There’s one time I remember sneaking in. It was one of the few times I decided to act like a youngster. You were asleep and there was a woman leaving the house.”
Tilting my head, I scrunch my eyes together. “Shut. Up.”
“God’s truth.” She holds up her hand.
I’m not sure if I believe her. Maybe this is something she made up so we can feel better about monopolizing his time as kids. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Blocked it out of my memory,” she shrugs.
“This isn’t something you block out of your memory and don’t tell me about,” I argue. “We’ve discussed it since then and you’ve never brought it up. So excuse me if I find it unbelievable you forgot.”
“You were young!” She defends herself. “I was trying to help you grow into a woman while trying to figure out how to do it myself.”
In this situation, I feel sorry for her. While both of us had been hurt when our mom left, I don’t think I ever realized how different her experience was compared to mine. I’d been selfish, thinking only about myself, while she may have needed a mother more than I had. “You were young too. Honestly, we were both just winging it.”
Hailey’s eyes are downcast. She nods.
The sad silence has to be broken and I need to be the one to do it. “Okay, should we ask him about it?”
She snorts. “Do you want to ask him?”
“I don’t know. I mean, how much do we want to know about our dad’s sex life?”
We look at one another. “Ehhhh…” We shake our heads.