Unless…
Rather than retreat into my room over the garage, I walked to the garage entrance to the main house and turned the knob, popping open the door with my breath in my throat.
“Dad?” I called, announcing myself, followed by “Mom?” It’d been a year and a half since I greeted them in the same sentence. It was weird.
Hushed whispers came from the kitchen, so I didn’t turn on the light in the living room, giving them time in case they’d been arguing or she’d been crying. I’d seen plenty of that before the divorce. I didn’t like to see my mother cry. I didn’t like that Dad made her cry. And if he did, and she was in there sobbing, I swore I would—
“Oh my God.” I froze in place, slamming my eyes shut, and tried to forget what I had just seen: my mom frantically tucking her shirt into her jeans and Dad buttoning his pants.
No. No.
No, no, no.
There wasn’t enough brain bleach in the world to blot it out.
“Cade!” Dad’s voice. “I, uh…we thought you were with Tasha.”
“Hi, honey,” came my mom’s voice, and I tried to ignore the aerated quality it held.
I kept my eyes closed and covered them with a hand for good measure.
“I’m…I just wanted to say hi,” I said, backing out of the kitchen and toward the blessed exit behind me.
“Caden, wait,” my mom said. “We were…um, we really were talking.”
“At first,” Dad mumbled.
I gave up and dropped my hand. I could only make a run for it with my eyes open anyway.
“No.” I shook my head as my mother arranged her hair. “I…Let’s talk later.”
“Caden, please,” Mom said. “Just…When you’re ready I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. In the morning or…now?”
Dad moved to the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. He took a sip and handed it to Mom. She sipped and handed it back, and then they shared a smile. It was so much like the old them—the them I remembered from when Dev lived with us. The them that was a unit. A couple with an unbreakable bond.
“Now’s good,” I said, giving in and moving toward the kitchen. I was drawn in by the childlike hope that my family would once again be complete. I sat at the table in my spot. My parents sank into their respective chairs like seats had been assigned.
I took in their placid smiles and asked, “What the hell is going on?”
Joyce was the first to crack. “I came over because your father called me to tell me about how you’re not going back to college.”
I put my hands on the table and pushed myself up.
“Sit down, Cade,” Dad said, his voice infused with authority. “She agrees with you. Hear her out.”
My anger melted away and I lowered myself back into my seat. “You agree with me?”
“It’s so good to hear your voice. Paul said it was back, but wow. It is really back, isn’t it?” Tears pooled in her eyes and she blinked to stave them off.
“Seems to be.”
“This Tasha must be a miracle worker.”
“We’re done,” I said, letting the double meaning hang. Tasha and I were done because there was no more of me to “fix,” but we were also done because there was no more Tasha and me. She might not have spelled it out, but it wasn’t hard to determine what she wanted. And it wasn’t me.
“I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“You won’t,” I told my mom, sparing her a tight smile.