Chapter 32: “Why, oh why, oh why, oh — / Why did I ever leave Ohio?”
It’s a few minutes after eleven when I walk into the restaurant, right as we open. The dining room is empty except for my siblings; Dutch bounces a fussy Sherry on her knee, Gerry’s messing with his baseball cap and laughing about something, PJ leans back in his chair, soda in hand, and I notice that he’s put on a few pounds since the last time I saw him.
Admittedly, the last time I saw him was when he was vacationing in Europe three years ago. I’d gotten mad with him about something that I honestly can’t even remember anymore, and have only barely spoken to him since then.
He gets up when he sees me walk in, smiles warmly but with a hint of caution. Whatever we fought about last time we were together, I’m still the rabid animal who might bite him at any time, I guess.
“Ani,” he says, pulling me into an embrace and clapping me on the back. “It’s really nice to see you. It’s been way too long.”
We exchange pleasantries for a while; he catches us all up on his life. Business is good, he says, and he’s been seeing someone he can’t wait for us to meet, an attorney he met through a dating site who completely understands why his time is so limited, because she’s as devoted to her career as he is to his, and so her own time is limited, too. Isn’t that great?
Yeah. Trying to date someone when both of you are too goddamned busy to actually spend time together. Sounds wonderful, PJ. You just keep going with that.
But of course I don’t say anything; I keep my mouth shut and smile and make faces at Sherry, who stops fussing as soon as I begin entertaining her. A few minutes later, I’ve taken over Gerry’s seat while he goes to answer Becker’s question in the kitchen, and somehow Sherry ends up in my lap, playing with my hair and giggling while PJ and Dutch compare notes on their new cars.
“The Germans are still the best engineers in the world,” Dutch declares. “I’ll take a German car over a Japanese car or an American car any day of the week.”
PJ chuckles. “You know your C-Class out there was probably built in Alabama, right? A lot of foreign brands are manufactured in the U.S. these days. They’re all about the same.”
Dutch wrinkles her nose like something smells bad. “Not true. Built here or not, the Germans still design a better product.”
I chew on Sherry’s fingers, making monster noises as I pretend to eat her hand, which makes her squeal with delight. And I figure it’s better that my mouth’s full, because if it wasn’t, I’d probably be obliged to point out that the only reason Dutch owns a Mercedes Benz is for the hood ornament.
PJ, who in general is a better fucking person than I am, just shrugs and lets it drop.
Gerry returns from the kitchen, pulls up a new chair and sits backward on it, turns his baseball cap around, too. He looks at Dutch.
“So did you talk to Mom and Dad? About the loan?”
Dutch nods. “A little. I managed to get Dad alone for a few minutes. He told me the original loan was from a long time ago, and they got locked in at an interest rate that was higher than what they wanted, and so when a sales guy gave them a chance to refinance the house, they jumped at it. Said he thought it would give them a chance to pay off the original loan — and it did — but they didn’t do a good job reading the fine print on the mortgage refi; sounds like the sales guy was a real sleaze. So the rate on their mortgage jumped up way, way high a couple of years ago, and they’ve been struggling to make ends meet ever since.”
All of us fall into thoughtful silence except for Sherry, who babbles happily while she grabs fistfuls of my hair.
Gerry speaks first. Frowning, he asks, “He told you all that?”
“I told you they’d talk to me,” Dutch says. Her smile is smug.
“How?” Gerry says. It’s obvious he’s both offended and surprised that Dad would say all this to Dutch but not to him and me.
I’m not surprised, of course, but that’s why I make it a point not to live in Ohio.
“Like I said. I got Dad away from Mom. Once I had him by himself, it took a little work, but he opened up.”
PJ gets a funny look on his face. “Did he say what the original loan was for?”
“No. I asked. He wouldn’t say.”
PJ’s funny look persists. He puts his soda down, chews on his tongue, stares into space.
“PJ? What’s up?” I ask. When this doesn’t get a response, I try again. “Junior? Got something you wanna share with the rest of the class?”
The childhood nickname he’s always hated gets his attention, and he comes back to planet Earth. “I just realized something. I think this might all be my fault.”
Dutch furrows her brow. “What are you talking about?”
PJ lets out a long breath, scrubs his round face with both hands. “It probably is my fault,” he mumbles, mostly to himself.
“What’s your fault, bro?” Gerry asks.
“Five years ago, when we were all back here for Dutch and Matt’s wedding,” he says. “I don’t know if you guys remember, but I’d just bought another restaurant. But once I got into it, I realized I’d bitten off more than I could chew. It’d been struggling before I bought it — that’s why the owner unloaded it in the first place — and I thought I could turn things around quickly, but it turned out to be harder than I thought. I’d sunk a lot of money into it, and I was about to lose my shirt. Which was going to endanger the other three restaurants. So… I wasn’t proud to do it, but I asked Mom and Dad for help. They gave me more than I asked for — fifty grand — and I — ”
“Fifty grand?” Gerry echoes. “Jesus, dude!”
“Like I said, it was more than what I asked for. I tried to pay them back in installments, but Mom wouldn’t hear it. She refused my money. Voided my checks and sent them back to me.”
Dutch drums manicured nails on the glass table covering, rests her chin in her other hand. “This loan they gave you… it was at the same time as my wedding?” she asks.
PJ nods.
She sighs. “They paid for most of the wedding, too. Right after they’d loaned Matt and me some money.”
“Wait,” I say, untangling Sherry’s hand from my hair. “When did they loan you guys some money?”
“A few months before the wedding. Matt got laid off the year before, remember? And he was working again, and we were doing okay, but we’d missed a few house payments. Things started to get dicey. Mom and Dad helped us out for a few months, until we could catch back up.”
“How much did they give you?” I ask.
“None of your business,” Dutch snaps.
“PJ told us,” Gerry points out.
Dutch looks away. “It doesn’t matter. We paid most of it back.” She glances at PJ, looking a little troubled. “They didn’t send us our checks back.”
I study her skeptically. “How much is most?”
She crosses her arms against her chest. “We still owe them about four or five thousand dollars.”
Gerry shakes his head, lets out a low whistle. “Fifty thousand to him. A wedding plus another few thousand to you… No wonder the restaurant’s about to go under.”
Dutch huffs and jabs a finger at him. “If I remember correctly, they sent you to rehab — again — not long after I got married. Did you ever ask them how much they spent trying to get you clean? And have you even offered to pay them back?”
Gerry drops his gaze, takes off his baseball cap and runs a hand through his hair.
PJ and Dutch both look at me.
“What?” I ask, already reading the silent accusation in their faces. “I hope you’re not waiting for some big admission about the money they gave me. Because I haven’t taken a dime of their money since high school. Unlike the rest of you, apparently, I’ve been paying my own way for a long time.”
“Well, congratulations,” Dutch drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I guess you’ve proven you’re the best one, once and for all.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head.
“What? We’re in a competition I didn’t know about? What are you fuhh…” But I have Sherry in my lap still, and I cut out the f-bomb just in time. “What are you insinuating?”
“It’s not about insinuation. It’s the truth, Anika,” Dutch says.
“The truth about what?”
“About how you’ve always gone to great lengths to prove how much better you are than the rest of us.”
I snort and glance at my brothers, thinking one of them might intervene on my behalf against Queen Bee over here. But PJ’s still chewing his tongue, staring into space; Gerry’s still gazing down at the baseball cap he’s rotating in his fidgety hands. I’m on my own.
“Me?” I say to Dutch. “I’m the one who goes to great lengths to prove how much better I am? This coming from the woman who was telling us all a couple of minutes ago about how much better her Mercedes is than a Camry? You’re fuh… You’re full of it.”
Sherry glances between her mother and me, and her little face puckers like a raisin, tears brewing in her big brown eyes.
Dutch purses her lips, arches both manicured eyebrows. “You’ve done everything you can to avoid taking responsibility in this family, all the while making sure the rest of us know that you think you’re better off without us. And when things get hard here at home, you stay as far away as you possibly can.”
“Stay away? I’m sitting right here!”
“Yeah?” she shoots back. “Where were you the last time Dad had to leave to go find Gerry?”
“I’m in the room, guys,” Gerry says.
This pulls PJ back from outer space. He looks from Gerry, to Dutch, to me, worry creasing his brow.
Dutch ignores both of them, continues on her tirade. “Why didn’t you even know Gerry got clean a year ago? Or that he’s been living at home for the past seven months? And how come you’ve seen Graham and Alex’s kids more times in the last five years than you’ve seen your own niece and nephew?”
“Maybe because every time I come home, you start throwing crap like this in my face!”
She shakes her head. “No. Wrong. You’ve always been content to let everyone else do the dirty work while you stay as far away as possible. Hell, I’m surprised you even bothered to come home when you found out Mom was sick.”
“Goddammit, Dutch, I broke my contract to be here!” I shout. In my lap, Sherry starts to wail, reaches for her mother. “How dare you say I can’t be bothered!”
Dutch leans across the table, plucks her daughter from my arms, pats her back soothingly but turns her venomous fucking eyes on me. “You came home because your career’s over and you don’t know what else to do.” When I don’t say anything right away, she nods definitively. “Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”
“This is such bullshit,” I say between clenched teeth. “I’m here because Mom’s sick. Because coming home was the right thing. Because the rest of you are too busy or too fucked-up to run this place if Mom and Dad can’t!”
Gerry turns his head sharply, eyes turning into slits.
Whoops. I probably shouldn’t have said anyone was too “fucked-up” to run the restaurant, because there’s only one person in the room those words could possibly be directed at. I think I just crossed a line.
He confirms it after a pregnant moment of silence. “Funny. I’m pretty sure I was managing to run this place just fine while you were back in Switzerland, playing ball and chasing tails. But maybe I’m just so ‘fucked-up’ that I didn’t even realize I needed your help.” He stands briskly. “I need a cigarette.”
“Gerry…” I say, apology in my voice.
But he doesn’t wait around to hear me say I’m sorry. He spins on his heel and walks out the front door.
PJ holds up both hands, looks between Dutch and me. “Girls, come on. This isn’t productive,” he says. “We’re here to help Mom and Dad. Not make things worse.”
“And what’s your plan for doing that, huh, PJ?” I ask irritably. “You got fifty grand in a shoebox somewhere that we don’t know about? You gonna make everything right?”
He opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish out of water, and then his eyes slide away from mine and onto the table. And because I know my brother, I know he’s in falling into the middle of a shit storm of guilt right about now. But at the moment, I can’t bring myself to care.
I turn on Dutch. “What about you, sissy? You got that four grand to give back? You planning to sell the Benz out there so you can pay them back for the cost of your wedding? Because I sure don’t remember — ”
“Anika, so help me God, don’t finish that sentence.”
“Why not? How’s the sentence going to end?”
“It’s going to end with ‘I don’t remember them paying for my wedding.’”
I roll my palms skyward, shrug. “What’s wrong with finishing my sentence that way? You talked about telling the truth earlier, right? Well, that’s the truth. They didn’t contribute a dime to our wedding. They didn’t even offer. Jenny and I paid for everything out of our own pockets.”
“Grow up, Anika.”
“Seriously, guys,” PJ says in a warning voice, “this really isn’t help — ”
But I’m not done.
“I grew up a long time ago, Dutch. Unlike some people, I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
Sherry cries harder. Dutch bounces her up and down, but keeps her eyes locked on mine.
“I am so sick and tired of you using your sexual orientation as a whiny excuse for all the things that didn’t work out in your life exactly the way you wanted them to.”
My head jerks back. “Since when have I used the fact that I’m gay as an excuse?”
“Since you were in high school!” Dutch spits. “But you know what? Have you ever considered that maybe the fact that Mom and Dad are closer to the rest of us has less to do with the fact that you’re a lesbian and more to do with the fact that you’re a selfish bitch?”
I slap my hands on the table, push myself up to my full height. I usually avoid towering over my siblings, but for once, I don’t care that they have to crane their necks to look up at me.
“I don’t need this,” I say. “And I don’t know where you think you get off, when it’s the rest of you who’re responsible for this restaurant going under. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’d always rather point fingers than step up and do the work.”
I turn to leave.
“That’s right, Anika, just walk away. Talk your big game about showing up for us and doing the work, and then walk out. Because that’s what you do best.” She flaps her hand at me condescendingly, like she’s shooing away a pesky fly. “Run on home to Switzerland. Let everyone else pick up the pieces you leave behind. Just like you did to Jenny.”
I spin around. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. Whine about us not supporting your relationship all you want, but everyone knows how hard Jenny tried to get you to stay. You think we don’t know about how she begged you not to leave? The same way you begged her after Rhianna?”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. “How do you even know about Rhianna?”
“How do you think? We live in Marcine.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Oh my God. This is exactly why I fucking hate Ohio.”
I let the door bang shut behind me, hoping it’s not too late to apologize to my baby brother.