Just Another Girl (12 page)

“You two,” Rose says in a tone that suggests disgust, although I think I detect a slight flicker of sympathy in her eyes. Or else I'm just imagining things.

“Okay, Lily, you go make your bed now. See if you can do it the way I showed you, and there will be a prize.”

“A prize?” She looks pleased.

“But only if you do it right.”

Now she looks puzzled, and I can tell she's trying to recall what I've been attempting to teach her. It's a challenge since we only do it on weekends when we have time.

“Remember the steps,” I say intensely, as if I'm telling her how to detonate a bomb. “First you fluff the pillow. Then you smooth the sheets, nice and straight. Then you pull up the bedspread and fold back the edge. Remember?”

She nods. “Yes. I remember.”

“Good girl.”

Then she leaves as if she's going on mission impossible. And maybe it is. At least it gives me a little break.

“
You
are unbelievable,” Rose says. She holds up a hot pink top that I think makes her face look flushed. Of course, I don't say this.

“Meaning?”

“I don't know . . .” Rose just shakes her head. “But I do know this: Mom was really cranky before she left for work this morning. What went on here last night?”

And so, surprising myself, I actually tell Rose what happened. Not everything, but how Crystal called to say Lily was upset and how I called Mom and told her to deal with it. “And then I went to the movie with Owen and some friends, and I turned off my phone.”

“No freaking way!” Rose looks truly shocked now.

“Hey, I was in a theater, you're supposed to turn off your phone.”

“I mean, no way you told Mom to deal with Lily.”

“Way.” I stand up, stretch lazily, then hold my head high. “I was on a date, Rose. I was having fun like a normal person. Mom was
supposed
to get off work in like less than five minutes. Do you think I should've come home?”

Rose seems to seriously consider this, then shakes her head. “No. You made the right decision.”

I'm floored. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She holds up a tangerine-colored top in front of the mirror.

“That one,” I say.

“Ya think?”

“Uh-huh, it makes your complexion look pretty.”

She smiles. “Okay then.”

As she's manipulating the top over her big head of curlers, I decide to take this “sisterly” conversation to the next level. “Rose?”

“Huh?”

“I've been wondering about Dad.”

“Dad?” She's got the shirt past the curlers now, pulling it over her bra. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did he cut us off like he did? It seemed like he was trying. I know there was Jana and then Nelson came along—Dad's little mini-me—but we still went over there for a while.” I glance toward the door and lower my voice. “Was it because of Lily?”

I remember how Jana used to be nervous if Lily was around
the baby without supervision. It's like she thought Lily was going to suffocate him or drop him on his head, when in reality Lily loved the baby.

Rose shrugs. “Lily
and
Mom.”

“Huh?”

“It was both of them, Aster. Lily was stressing out Jana.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And Mom was stressing out
everyone
.”

“What do you mean?” As far as I could recall, my parents never, I mean
never
, talked to each other after Dad left us. If Mom answered the phone and it was him, she would simply hand the phone to Rose or me. Sometimes she even hung up on him.

“I mean, I heard them having a huge argument. We'd been with him for the weekend, and he dropped off you and Lily at the library and brought me home. I'd gone straight to my room, but then I heard shouting, and I realized Dad was still here. I don't think either of them knew I was listening.”

“And?”

“And I heard Mom really telling him off, calling him every name in the book. She was so angry. I think if she'd had a gun in her hand, she would've shot him.”

“What started the fight?”

“You mean besides Dad leaving?”

“Yeah, I mean that day. What started it?”

Rose frowns. “I didn't hear the beginning. I just heard Mom going nuts. She said she hated him and wished he was dead
and rotting in hell. She never wanted to see him again, she wanted him to stay out of our lives. All kinds of nasty stuff.”

“Really? You heard all that?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Why should I?”

Why am I surprised that Rose left me out? Still, it hurts. “So that was it then? He did what she wanted by staying out of our lives?”

“I guess so . . . I mean, we never went back to visit after that. And he stopped calling, and I'm sure it was around then that he stopped paying child support too.”

“But that's nuts.”

“So what's new?”

I just shake my head, trying to absorb this. My mom tells off my dad. He completely checks out of our lives. And that's supposed to make sense?

“I gotta go to work, Aster.” Rose is taking the hot rollers out now, tossing them onto her bed.

“I'm going to call him,” I proclaim.

“Dad?” She looks shocked. “You're going to call Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. He's our father, Rose. He should know what our lives are like. And he should be contributing financially. Maybe if he did, we could afford to hire someone to help with Lily.”

“Maybe.” But she shakes her head. “But whatever you do,
don't tell Mom. I mean, if she was in a bad mood this morning, I cannot imagine how ticked she'd be if you dragged her ex back into the picture. Be careful, Aster.”

After Rose goes to work, I go through the regular Saturday chores and try to get Lily to help, which is frustrating both of us. Then I realize that I actually have no way to go see Dad. And for some reason I feel this is a conversation I need to have face-to-face with him. The phone won't cut it. But I don't have a way to get there, and it's too far to ride my bike, which I couldn't do anyway since there's the Lily factor. The bus doesn't go that far, and even if we rode it to the edge of town and hired a taxi, there's no way I could afford it. I'm tempted to call Crystal, but after last night, she's probably not speaking to me. I suppose I didn't really think this through very well.

It's close to noon now, and Lily has been grumbling about missing story hour at the library. Even though I point out that she's partially to blame since she slept in too, she can't accept it. I'm just beginning to lose patience with her when my cell phone rings, and I'm pleased to see that it's Owen. Great escape. Although I know better than to leave Lily unattended for this conversation. Too risky.

“How's it going?” he asks.

“Okay.” Then I briefly describe the chaos I came home to last night, trying not to go into too much detail since Lily is all ears. “But things settled down,” I say casually.

“My mom was asking me why you guys don't hire someone to help with Lily.”

Man, he really does talk to his mom a lot. “I wish we could afford to do that,” I admit.

“She said there are state programs and studies and stuff.”

“Yeah, we've looked into some things, but it's hard living in a small town, plus the state always seems to be cutting back the budget.”

Now, on one hand it's sweet that Owen cares enough to bring this up, but on the other hand I find it a tiny bit aggravating that his mom thinks she knows more about this sort of thing than we do. I talk to Kellie at the rec center fairly regularly, and she's a real expert on what's available for kids like Lily. Unfortunately, it's not much.

“It's probably none of my business, huh?” Owen says.

“No . . . I mean, it's nice that you care, but there don't seem to be any magic fixes for this sort of thing.”
Short of money
, I think, but I don't say this.

“I just think it'd be good for you to get more time for yourself, Aster. It's like you're missing out on, well, you know, all kinds of regular stuff.”

“Yeah, I do know.” Now I get an idea. “Hey, if you really want to help me, Owen, is there any way you could give Lily and me a ride over to my dad's house today?”

“Where does he live?”

“Renton.”

“Really? For some reason I thought he lived far away.”

“No, just far enough to make it inconvenient to visit.”

“I'd be happy to take you guys. Say when, and I'll be there.”

“Well, let me fix Lily some lunch so she won't be grumpy. How about one-ish?”

“One-ish is fine.”

I hang up and tell Lily that we're going to Dad's house, and she looks at me like I just told her we're going to the moon.

“Dad's house?”

“Yes. Remember Dad?”

She makes a funny smile. “Yeah. Of course.”

“But first you need to eat some lunch.”

“Does Dad still have the baby?”

I consider this. “I think so. Except the baby is older now. Let's see . . . Nelson would be about two and a half.”

“How big is that?”

I hold my hand down to estimate Nelson's height. “About that tall, I guess. And he can walk and talk now.” Okay, that's assuming Nelson is normal.

Suddenly I wonder, what if Nelson is like Lily? Then I remember that Lily's problem was related to her birth, not genetics. I looked up the medical term
umbilical cord prolapse
when I was about ten and discovered that Lily suffered brain damage when her oxygen supply was cut off shortly before she was born. Nelson is probably just fine.

I hurry to get our lunch made and eaten, then take care to make sure Lily looks clean and presentable. I even make her use the fingernail brush, and we cut her nails. Jana was
always worried about cleanliness around the baby, like she thought Lily had cooties or something. And besides Jana, I want Dad to look at both of us without being embarrassed to admit we're his children.

I take care with my own appearance too. Of course, I would do this anyway for Owen's sake. I'm not sure what Owen will do while we visit Dad. Hopefully, he won't mind making himself scarce for a while, because there's no way I want him to be around to hear me asking why my father doesn't pay child support. I don't want Owen to hear me demanding money.

As Owen drives Lily and me over to Renton, I am starting to freak. Why on earth did I think I could do this? Should I have called first? Or maybe it's better to just pop in on him without warning. That way he can't skip out on us before we get there. Not that I think he'd do that exactly, but I don't know. Two years is a long time to avoid seeing your daughters.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” Owen says after I direct him to the development where Dad lives.

“Yeah. Jana already owned a house here. A pretty nice one too. She's some kind of high-up-there nurse that's almost like a doctor. I think she calls herself a practitioner. Anyway, I guess she makes good money.” I can hear my nerves talking now, chattering on and on about things that I'm sure Owen couldn't care less about. But it's like I need to fill the space.

“Jana had never been married before, never had kids, so I
guess she put all her money into the house and things. I heard her say once that she never expected to get married. And she was almost forty when she got pregnant, so that was kind of surprising too.” I point to the two-story craftsman-style house. “That's it.”

I notice that the house has been repainted a rich olive green with warm brown on the trim. I seriously doubt that this house needed to be repainted since it's still pretty new. Our house, which is not so new, really does need a new paint job.

As Owen pulls into the driveway, three things occur to me almost simultaneously: (1) Dad might not be home; (2) he might not live here anymore, although my last Christmas card with a $100 gift card from Target had this address on it; and (3) he might not even be married to Jana now, although that seems unlikely.