Emily

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There were several contenders in the running for the worst day of my life. One of them was prom night, when I spent six hours in the company of Justin Schachter, fighting off his clammy grabby hands and pretending to enjoy myself and actually care about who was prom queen. Another was the last day of my last internship, when they told me I wasn’t nice enough to get the job. Apparently I should have smiled more. I’d bitten the insides of my cheeks until they bled, but I’d walked out of there without saying a thing. That was a bad day.

It looked like this day might beat both of them.

I woke up in my old bedroom, in my single bed. Mom was still home when I went downstairs, which was strange, because she usually left for work early, as did Dad. I didn’t have to be at Lauren’s salon until ten, and she picked me up at nine, so for the few days I’d been home, I’d had the place to myself in the morning.

But Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed in her nice work pants and blouse, a cup of coffee in front of her. Like she was waiting for me.

My gut turned. There was something off about Mom and Dad since I’d been home—something off about everyone and everything. There was a strange tension in the air, and Mom kept hugging me and stroking my hair like I was five. Dad didn’t say much at all, keeping to his books and newspapers in the living room. He left for work early and worked late. There had been no family dinners since that first night, because we were all so busy—the salon didn’t close until seven, and there was cleanup to do after that. I was still learning Lauren’s business, and I was putting in the long hours until I had it mastered so she could take some time off.

I stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at Mom, the unhappy look on her face despite how nice and tidy she was for work. “What is it?” I said.

“Have a cup of coffee, sweetie,” Mom said.

But I did not want a cup of coffee. My stomach had just dropped to the floor. “Mom. What is it?” I said again.

“We need to talk.”

I took a breath as every possible bad thing came to me, everything at once. “Oh, my god. How terrible is it? Do you have cancer?”

“What?” Mom said. “No.”

“Does Dad have cancer?” He’d been so quiet, withdrawn, maybe—

“No one has cancer,” Mom said firmly.

“Then tell me. Just tell me.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You never did take bad news well. You overreact.”

And now she’d just admitted it was bad news. “Mom!”

“All right. Lower your voice.” She winced. “You may have noticed that your father is a little distant since you’ve been home. There is a reason for that.”

I sank into a kitchen chair, my knees suddenly weak.

“The fact is,” Mom continued, “your father and I are having some difficulties. And we’re taking some time apart.”

For a second, I was too stunned to speak. People’s parents split up all the time—most of my friends’ parents were split—but my parents? Mom and Dad? They were a unit, indivisible. Our family was functional, happy. Mom and Dad raised us as a team, everyone knew that.

I mean, they weren’t very romantic. They didn’t hold hands or go on dates or anything like that. But whose parents were romantic? Did that matter? Was it supposed to matter? Should I have seen?

Then the penny dropped.

First: Lauren wasn’t here for this conversation. Which meant Lauren already knew.

And second: “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re taking a break? As in it’s already happening? But you’re both here.”

Mom sighed and looked at me meaningfully, and I knew. I hadn’t seen Dad in the mornings. And he’d been around after work, but I’d never seen him get ready for bed.

I couldn’t help it; my voice rose, making Mom wince again. “Dad doesn’t live here?”

Mom’s voice stayed calm and level. “Your father moved into his own apartment four weeks ago.”

“Four weeks?” I sounded shrill and crazy, and I couldn’t help it, and I didn’t care. “You two split up four weeks ago and didn’t tell me? And then you pretended that Dad lives here for the past three days?”

“We were going to tell you,” Mom said, picking up her untouched coffee and standing, “but you were at the end of your internship, and you were under stress. And it was a very hard time for your father and me.” She walked to the sink and dumped the cup out, a little vigorously.

“So what you’re saying is, telling me about it would have made it worse.”

“I’m saying that it was very hard, and we made the best decisions we could.”

“You told Lauren! And she played along with this little fiction that Dad lives here!”

Now Mom’s mouth was pressed into a firm line. “We told Lauren because there were reasons we had to. She’s been very supportive, despite her own problems.”

“What problems?” God, why did no one tell me anything?

“You’ll have to ask her that.” Mom crossed her arms. “It’s her story to tell. This is a small town, Emily. People talk. Your father and I have been trying to keep our privacy. And frankly, that’s our right.”

I stared at her. This was my mom—I recognized her, everything about her, from the line of her posture to the braid of her hair. And yet in this minute, parts of her were unfamiliar. Her outfit, I realized, was relatively new, and her shoes were flats with beadwork on them. I’d never seen those shoes before. It bothered me suddenly that I didn’t know my mother owned beadwork flats, wore them to work.

“Is that all, then?” I asked her. “Is that all I need to know, or is there more?” A horrifying thought occurred to me, but I tried to keep my voice calm. “Is there someone else in the picture? For either of you?”

“No,” my mother said firmly, and I felt a wash of relief. “It’s nothing like that, honey, I promise you. We’ve just been together a long time, and people change. And we’ve found it harder and harder to be together. But your father is coming to the ceremony tonight, so I ask that you keep our business private. Okay?”

Jesus. That was tonight—Mom’s big award ceremony, getting honors from the police force. That was why she was telling me now—so that I would go to the ceremony and pretend our family wasn’t splitting up.

I wanted to shout at her, at Dad, at Lauren. It was childish, but there it was. I’d never been the kind of person to swallow down pain and pretend it wasn’t happening; I’d always been the one to blow up, quickly and loudly, and get it out of my system before moving on. People called it drama, but to me it was just feeling things, really feeling them all the way down to my bones, and dealing with those feelings while they were part of me. I didn’t know any other way to do it.

But I looked at the misery stamped on Mom’s face, and this time I swallowed it back. I said, “I won’t say anything.”

Mom’s expression softened. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, and it sliced me open, that she knew me so well. “This won’t change things. You’ll see.”

She was lying, but I was twenty-six, not five. I’d just have to deal.

But I hated it. I fucking hated it. That, I already knew.

“Thank God she finally told you,” Lauren said. We were in her hair salon, The Big Do, sitting in the office at the back while the customers got their hair and nails done in the front. Lauren was sitting in the room’s spare chair, wearing yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt with flip-flops. “It was getting really weird in that house.”

“They pretended Dad lived there,” I said. “For three days. I repeat: they pretended Dad lived there for three days. And you went along with it. Come on—doesn’t that mean our family is crazy? Or at least definitely weird.”

“It was the easiest,” Lauren said, shrugging. She had tied her hair back loosely, and strands fell along the graceful line of her neck. I’d never had any problem getting guys to notice me, but secretly I’d always been jealous of Lauren’s elegant looks. “No one wanted to just jump you with it when you walked in the door.”

“A phone call would have worked,” I said. I was sitting behind the desk, where Lauren usually sat. The computer was on in front of me, and we were supposed to be going through the bookkeeping system so I’d know how to make the entries. I lifted my hand, my thumb and pinky in the universal mime-sign for telephone. “Hello, Emily, your father has moved out. Thanks, bye.”

“You would have freaked,” Lauren said. “You would have dropped everything and come running or something. You would have called Dad crying and yelled at him.”

I frowned. The thing was, I sort of would have done that. Mom was smart to tell me while Dad was at work, because freakout or not, I would never call him at the office to dump personal shit on him. I would just wait until he got home, then dump it in a giant tsunami.

But he wasn’t coming home.

“Wait,” I said. “I don’t even know where Dad lives. Where does Dad live?”

“He got an apartment on Wilmot Street,” Lauren said. “It’s sort of cute, but it’s also sort of sad. He’s got a reading chair and a table and a bed and not much else. I went over there and he had two boxes of Jell-O in his cupboard. What does Dad think he’s going to do with Jell-O?”

I ran my hand through my hair. “Fuck my life.”

“I think he just reads there, like he always did in the living room,” Lauren said. “It’s a transplant of the living room. He hasn’t talked to me about it much, except to say that everything will be all right.”

That sounded like Dad. I put my head in my hands, my elbows on the desk, and groaned.

“See?” Lauren pointed out. “Drama.”

“There’s nothing wrong with drama,” I said. “And by the way, Mom told me you have some kind of problem you’re not telling me about. Care to clear the air?”

Lauren’s mouth snapped shut, and she swallowed.

“Spill it,” I said, lifting my head and glaring at her. “It’s time for the drama, Lauren. You can’t put it off anymore. Spill.”

The muscle in her jaw twitched. “Vic and I are getting a divorce,” my sister said.

I stared at her, shocked.

“I can’t have kids.” The words seemed to be spilling out of her, like I’d pushed a button on a vending machine. “We tried everything, including IVF. It took most of our money and we’re broke, and our marriage isn’t working anymore. We do nothing but fight. He wants kids.” She blinked hard, fighting back tears. “I wanted kids too, but now I’m kind of relieved because it’s over. And that makes me a terrible person. So yeah, that’s the problem. That’s what’s going on.”

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Mom’s news had been shocking, but this… this hurt. This was Lauren, my twin, my other half, and she was in awful pain. Her pain was my pain—it always had been.

I was sick over it. I was sorry for her. I was guilty, because I’d left town and stayed away for eight years. But Jesus Christ, had no one in my family ever learned to use a telephone?

“Don’t yell,” Lauren said, reading my face. “Don’t.”

Right. Even when they were telling me their lives were wrecked, apparently no one wanted me to yell. “This is why you need me here?” I said, calmly. “This is why you need my help to run the shop?”

“I need a break.” Her voice cracked a little on the last word, like she was fighting tears. “I work long days, seven days a week. We have to sort through our things and sell the house and see the lawyers… the real estate agent… the bank…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Please don’t yell at me, Em. I just need some help, okay?”

I stood up, came around the desk, and pulled her out of her chair. I wrapped my arms around her for the first time in years and gave her a bear hug, tight to me. She didn’t respond at first, then lightly patted my back in her dignified way.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’m going to kill him,” I said.

“Don’t.”

“I will,” I insisted. “I will murder his worthless fucking hide. I’ll do it. He is fucking dead.”

She sighed against me, but the sound was sort of amused. “You don’t have to kill anyone, Em,” she said.

“I so do,” I said. “Now let’s finish up, so you can get out of here.”