Precise (4 page)

R
eality sinks in when I’m in the car on the way to my parents’ house. The Dayles are coming for the party.

But—no. Brent isn’t coming tonight. I only remember because Mom loves him as much as Liam. She hates when the Dayle boys are unavailable, but Brent must have had a good reason to stop her complaining.

Shit. Oh, shit. He isn’t coming because it’s his birthday too. Or was that yesterday?

I imagine my mom wishing him a happy birthday, and they appear more like family than her and I are. She gets this glint in her eye when she sees him. I always wonder how she seems so happy at gatherings, but it’s people like Brent, his brother, and everyone else that makes her happy to escape. Even after the abuse I had from her growing up I can see that she almost seems nice when she rests her hands on their shoulders, kisses their cheeks and asks how they’ve been.

Brent and Mom are the perfect pair. She pumps her face with beauty products and he has what she wants: icy blue eyes that are more shocking than Liam’s, and a height beyond my mom’s capability of reaching to kiss hello.

Brent, in appearance and personality, has barely changed since his teenage years. Unlike Liam whom, when he stares at me, I have no idea of what he’s thinking any longer.

One time, when Liam and I were fifteen and Brent was eighteen, we were meant to go to the movies to escape a regular Burnell versus Dayle Friday night catch-up. This is what Liam and I
thought
was the plan.

“I’m out,” Brent called. He jingled his keys.

“To where, sweetie?” his mom, Anna, said. Even at eighteen, she couldn’t help but query everything he did.

“
Out
. I already said that.”

Liam gave me The Look. When Anna turned, he asked, “Can me and Katie come? There’s that, er, movie we wanted to watch.”

I nodded as if I’d been waiting to see this “movie” all week.

“It’s Katie and I, Liam.” Anna smiled, proud, and craned her neck back to the open front door, where we could see Brent through the window. “Sweetie, wait up for Katie and Liam.”

“Cool. Thanks, Mom.”

“Where to?” Liam said to Brent when we were outside the house.

Brent wore jeans, dress shoes and a button-down shirt, a leather jacket draped over his arm. Overly dressed for the movies but I didn’t say that aloud.

“Youse, or me?”

Brent pointed his finger behind us, but I didn’t notice anything. Liam shrugged with his hands still nestled inside his pockets. When we looked back, Brent had already walked to the curb. He whipped his leather jacket out of his hands and pulled his arms into it.

I was about to call to Brent when the thumping bass of a remixed Madonna song sounded, getting closer by the minute. An early-nineties model Fairlaine and Commodore swung around the corner and screeched to a stop. Two girls fell out of the back seat of the second car, but quickly recovered.

“Brennyyy!” the blonde girl said. She looked only about a year older than me, and had a tank top on that stopped one inch above her bellybutton and a denim miniskirt, frayed around the edges.

She jumped up to reach Brent’s neck.

Liam and I stayed where we were. He kept his hands so deep in his pockets he slouched, and if my dress had pockets, I’d be crawled up inside them, too. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Brent greeted Blondie with a cool attitude, slipping an arm around her waist.

The other girl, probably around the same age as her blonde friend, walked slower. I thought she couldn’t care less—maybe she was dragged here—but Brent licked his lips and visibly tensed as she neared him.

The girl batted her eyelids. She had black, shiny hair and matching eyes. Her clear, fair skin glowed of class, whether she was or wasn’t well off.

Brent’s fingers hung off Blondie’s waist, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Hey, babe,” Model Girl said. She even sounded like Mariah Carey.

“Hey.”

And, just like that, Brent had two girls under his arms. Blondie and Model Girl slipped forward, presumably towards their cars, but Brent walked back to Liam and me.

“Be good, huh?” Brent said, his ice blue eyes holding my gaze.

“Yes, Dad.” I mimicked a whiny child, even going so far as to stick my tongue out at him.

He pounced forward, caught my tongue in his fingers and said to Liam, “You both can go out with your mates or whatever, but take care of her . . . all right? She’s our family.”

Liam smirked at me. “Yeah, but she’s ugly enough to ward off anyone dangerous.”

Brent’s glare looked thicker than steel, warning him off any more funny business. He released my tongue, kissed me on the cheek, and punched Liam in the shoulder playfully. Then he slipped his arm back around his two favorite girlfriends.

Brent still has that charm; the way my mother acts around him is proof. I’m not sure if he’s matured since those rebellious teen days, but he has the best heart. If I enjoyed company, I’d be sad I haven’t seen him in months.

When Brent watches out for me, I don’t mind. It’s funny ‘cause I used to joke with him about acting like my dad, but I can’t joke with Liam like that. It’s simply not a joke.

Please, God, let me get through tonight.

• • •

O
n the way over, I play Ella’s favorite pop tunes. She sings a line; I try to top her by belting out the next one. Ella ends on a note of Whitney Houston proportions, proving who the deserving winner is.

It’s just past five o’clock when we arrive outside my parents’ house. Across the front yard, Dad calls, “Kates!”

I almost forget I’m outside their house until Ella runs past the passenger-seat window, charged like a new set of batteries.

“Ella,” I yell behind her, “be careful, please.”

She zooms ahead anyway, arms pumping. Dad greets her with open hands and equal excitement translated on his face. He sweeps her up, cuddles her into his chest, and from here, they share a silent conversation. Two happy, young souls.

Dad’s silver hair sweeps up for a moment, his long forehead, straight nose—the Tom Cruise, I like to call it—and his gray eyes shine under the setting sun. His skin is paler compared to when he was younger, but even at seventy-one, he still easily passes for sixty. Especially when he clings onto Ella and slides her down his side.

I hurl my bag into the first room once inside. This room, like the rest, is decorated with balloons and streamers, ahead of the arrivals. The hallway leading down the house seems to be half of its usual size due to the strange ornaments decorating it, half of which I haven’t seen in years.

Inside the kitchen, Mom is scrubbing dishes. A pot boils on the stove. She has pink gloves on so as not to chip her fresh manicure or crèmed hands, which I know she would have had done up already in preparation.

“You’re here!” Her voice is high and excited, so this can’t be good.

She pulls out her hands from the kitchen sink and lays the pink gloves out on the rack to dry. She beckons me closer. “Come finish, won’t you? I’ve got so much getting ready and making up to do.”

Mom’s plump cheeks, even poutier lips, and smooth forehead tell a different story. Her clean-up-the-house look, which she has on at the moment, consists of earthy-toned lipstick, rose-pink cheeks, and mascara that matches her brown eyes. The manicure is stock standard.

“Dad and I will take care of this.” I flutter my hand around the half made-up room. It still needs more chairs, bits and pieces shelved or trashed, and there are dishes to do. “Before the family arrives.”

“I said for you to arrive at four, didn’t I?”

At this point, Dad strolls in. He tows Ella behind him, so she doesn’t notice the question lingering between his eyebrows. He shakes his head at Mom.

“Argh, I guess now is better than never.” She smiles stiffly and leaves.

“I’ll get everything ready by five thirty, in case Aunty Mia arrives early. It
will
get done.”

Instead of imagining me whacking her over the head with the dirty plates, I picture my plan. Greet everyone and ask how either their job or kids are going. Chat to the family. Most importantly, be with Ella and
notice
her. Easy enough—if Molten Man doesn’t bring up any flashbacks.

I’m here, damn celebrating. Isn’t that enough of an insult to Him? Plus, Ella will have her favorite Aunty Mia to spoil her rotten—if my dad ever lets go of her—and will otherwise be busy running after her second cousins, Benjamin and Ryder.

You shouldn’t have come
, Molten Man says.

He’s right. I shouldn’t have come. My husband died yesterday and I’m in rouge, heels and a gorgeous dress. I shake my head.
No, that happened months ago. It just feels like yesterday.

I can’t talk about him, at all really, so I don’t know what’ll happen when my family asks how I’ve been, and without him.

“Well, I’ll hurry,” Mom says from another room. “I still need to have a shower. Perhaps I should have invited Liam here earlier since you . . . oh, never mind.”

The fact that other people will be here tonight, enough to distract Mom, should comfort me, but it makes my head spin. People clutter my thoughts. Make me feel like an alien in a Womens’ Rights Convention. People are clingy, loving and then
poof!
They’re gone. Unreliable. Unaware.

While Mom makes herself up I set the table, finish the dishes, prepare the food and, when Dad is able to tear himself away from Ella, he helps bring in extra chairs from the garage to seat the guests.

Aunty Mia and Uncle Stan arrive at five-thirty. When Mom emerges to greet them, I open a cupboard and clank my glass on a shelf in the rush to hide it. Just my luck. When I try to be sociable, she comes out and sees me in a compromising position. The last thing I need is for her to see me with a drink this early on in her night. Especially since now I know she goes through my trash.

Mom notices me searching the cupboard, and no doubt has seen the glass. She’s not fooled for a second. Her reaction is as quick as a magnet to its counterpart. She frowns and slips around people, chairs and decorations to reach me.

“You’re . . . ” she tiptoes to look above in the cupboard, but it doesn’t make her heels lift her any higher. “Looking through the old plates and cutlery?”

What is she talking about? I look where my hands are. Apparently I’m searching through sets of retro plates and matching retro coffee mugs. “Er, sort of.”

She clicks her tongue, hand poised on her hip.

“Oops!” I say. “Silly me. Wrong cupboard.”

Mom draws in a deep breath with closed eyes. When she opens them, I’ve taken my glass of vodka and ice out of the random cupboard, and am trying to hide it again.

“I won’t lecture you, but please, oh please, don’t embarrass me in front of everyone.”

I scoff—the vodka thrusts out my feelings faster than I have time to consider. I remind myself I’m only joining in the
party
mood. Plus, if I stay here a moment longer whilst sober, I’ll explode. That wouldn’t be very responsible, would it?

“Come on, it’s a party. I’m just joining in the mood.”

“You
set
the mood, Katherine. You can make your own choices. I thought I’d remind you.”

“Okay.”

“What’s in your glass?” Mom says.

“Ice.”

“Just ice?”

“Yup.”

She is silent for all of two seconds while she peers into my glass. “Just think about Ella.”

“Like I don’t ever think of her, huh?”

“I didn’t mean that.” She looks to Aunty Mia, and flashes a confident smile. Mom ruffles her skirt out. As she does this, her shaky fingers continue to smooth over the material. She nods toward the hallway. “Come with me.”

She pulls at me but I snap my hand back. Instead, I lead her away, taking the conversation to the far bedroom at the end of the house to where I haven’t been in years, and there is relative quiet. The hallway smells of fresh lemon, like it has just been sprayed or wiped down, but here it’s musky, laden with layers of dust.

When I stop, Mom doesn’t say anything. She touches her skirt again, this time pushing it down. She continues to press it even once the ruffles appear non-existent. Then she fluffs her hair into place.

“What? Nothing to say to me now?”

She looks up, only for as long as she speaks. “I told you I didn’t want to lecture you.” Her head is back down in a second.

“Bullshit. ‘I won’t lecture you, but do this and do that, and, oh, don’t do that.’” I inflate my shoulders as if I’m a big, macho man. Surely she sees the contradiction in her words now I’ve mimicked them.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” her voice is soft, “or want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

“What’s up with you, anyway?”

She stands straight. Her eyes relax. “Well, I just didn’t think you’d come back into this room, is all. You seemed like you knew where I’d take you, and you didn’t want that.”

She’s right. I haven’t been inside here for years, not since before Paul and I could afford a house together. This is our room. Because of my anger, I hadn’t had time to think about that before.

The bed still has the half-blue-half-pink comforter on it. We’d compromised on it. There’s the cowboy hat I puked in before I realized I was pregnant with our daughter. Aside from that, most of my stuff has been taken down. It’s bare and stiff, our old room only by name.

I press my lips together to shush my breathing, which has picked up like I’m running.

“I didn’t want to come across as insensitive about having a party. I actually wasn’t going to have one at first. But I realized that Paul would have wanted us to be happy. He’s probably joining in the party up there.” Mom is cold and hard with the emotion of a brick, so I’m surprised when she gasps and begins sobbing. She squeezes both sides of her nose with her shiny nails.

Does she not realize if I haven’t cried since what happened, crying in front of me isn’t going to illicit a reaction? This trick won’t work on me. Possibly stupid Katie, but not who I am now.

“Shut up.”

Mom grips my wrist. “Wait!”

She’s holding hard enough so that, when I yank, my heels only dig further into the carpet. I glower at her and the only reason why I haven’t raised my hand back to push her off me is that action would be all she needs to prove Ella isn’t safe with me. There used to be a time when I’d let her touch me and I’d feel satisfied I had remained unaffected. Fast-forward to now and I don’t care. It’s hard to think about anything but Him dying.