Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ✔︎

4 | The Right Decision

|photo by James Lacy from Unsplash|

They say a tornado sounds like a freight train. I didn't hear anything like that the day ours hit. We were too far away, I guess, and I was too focused on Dad, frantically dialing and redialing Mom's number until she finally answered her phone. And on my pulse, which was pounding in my ears like a bass drum.

It's pounding like that now, a response to the popping and cracking of gravel under the tires of a storm gray king cab. Monty's head pops up. His toenails scrape wood as he scrabbles to his paws and flies down the steps, barking.

I shield my eyes from the late afternoon sun to watch Dad climb out of the truck, one hand on his stomach. He burps, grimaces and burps again. "The anti-acids are in the linen closet," Mom says, her tone more amused than disgusted.

"Roger that."

He pats my head as he climbs the porch stairs and then disappears into the house. Mom sits on the step beside me. I feel her prodding eyes but I don't look at her. Silence rarely stretches between us and I have plenty to say now, but I'm afraid to start, afraid the thoughts will come out with the heat of my anger and I'll do more damage than good.

"You're home early," she says.

"Glenn needed sleep."

My words are too short, clipped. I take a breath and try to ease the tension in my neck and shoulders.

"Did you have fun at the cookout?" she asks.

I'm stunned by the sincerity on her face—stunned and pissed. "No, Mom. I didn't get a chance. You dropped a bomb and then left me there to stop the bleeding."

So much for self-control.

"You're right, Thea. I'm sorry."

This time, her sincerity disarms me.

"After the conversation I had with your father this morning, I assumed your friends already knew about Zachary," she says, her tone apologetic. "The look on Glenn's face told me I was wrong. I thought it best for me to leave and let you fill him in."

Mom's tone is believably apologetic and I did mention Glenn this morning when I told Dad about Collegiate. But no, her face was too smug, too confrontational. It wasn't an accident. It was sabotage.

She stands, pressing a hand against her lower back as she straightens her shoulders. "I need to sit somewhere more comfortable." She moves to the collection of wicker furniture, a love seat and two chairs that came with the house. She painted them white and replaced the "hideous" floral cushions. Now our oversized front porch looks like the cover of a magazine. 

"Why Zachary?" I ask, settling in the chair farthest from her. "Is this about you, putting hundreds of miles between me and Glenn?"

Her eyebrows drift up and she pulls a striped throw pillow into her lap. "No, Thea. Not in the way you're thinking."

"You don't like him."

"That couldn't be further from the truth. The Nash's are like family—and I'll always be grateful to Glenn and Brian for being so kind to you when we moved here."

Ha. They were polite when any of our parents were around, but when it was just us kids, Glenn's older brother teased him relentlessly about being in love with the boss's daughter. It wasn't true back then. Glenn was halfway through sixth grade and I was an anxiety-ridden ten-year-old finishing out my fourth-grade year at home, because I wasn't ready to be the new kid at my sixth school.