Mom opens the curtains at eight in the morning on Sunday, and my eyes glue themselves shut. "Why?" I ask, voice hoarse. I'm groggy, tired, and I should not have hung out with Desmond last night after the date. We played video games at his place until about eleven, then my mom came and picked me up. She never chastised me about staying out late, so long as she knew where I was.
"Because we're seeing your grandparents today, remember?"
"Yeah," I mutter, rolling over and covering my head with a pillow to block out the light.
"How was the date?" My bed sinks as my mom sits on the corner.
I mumble into the pillow. She yanks it off my head and hits me with it.
"It was good. I like her."
"Ah, the three word sentences. At least you're turning into a real teenager." She blinks and pats my leg, which is still tucked under the covers, thankfully. Mom doesn't usually barge in, but she will to wake me up. "You treating her well?"
"As well as you treat me." I snatch my pillow back and stick it behind me. I blink and force myself to sit up, wiping sleep from my eyes.
"I hope you treat her better than that." My mom cups my face and brushes back my hair. I shake her off. "Oh, two dates, and you're too good for your mom?"
"This early in the morning, the only thing good enough for me is more sleep."
"You get up earlier than this for school."
"Only because it's required."
"Come on. I have breakfast ready." She taps my knee and heads out of my room, flicking on the overhead light for good measure. I groan and grab the pair of discarded jeans off my floor. I'm grateful they don't smell like Desmond's weed, considering he was smoking in his basement all last night.
I change into a clean plain shirt and meet Mom in the kitchen. The couch is already made up with the bed sheets folded off to the side. She hums to herself while she puts together our food, and she's in a good mood today.
"Did you quit your job?" I pull a chair up to the breakfast nook and take a seat.
"Why do you keep asking me that?" She notices where I'm looking and shrugs. "I had a relaxing Saturday, and your grandparents are putting another bit of money away for your college fund. Act surprised when they tell you." My mom divides scrambled eggs topped with cheese onto two plates and sits down across from me.
"Do they know I'm not going to college?"
"You are going eventually. I agreed to two gap years, Carter, but no more than that, you hear me?" She narrows her eyes and points a fork at me. A bit of cheese dangles from the end of it, and it's hard for me to take her seriously.
"Fine. Two years."
"I mean it." She stabs another bit of egg. "We'll work hard, save up money. I'll apply for financial aid and go back to school, and then you'll go too."
"Okay," I agree, mostly to stop the conversation. It's four years away, and I don't want to think that far ahead. I have plenty of people who believe I'm not the college type, and I tend to agree with them. Being a waiter is frustrating, but the tips are decent. For now, it works. Who knows what four years will bring?
"Finish your eggs, and then we're heading out."
*
It takes twenty minutes to head across town into the hills. The homes here are nestled in the trees, with old Victorian style houses cropping up where cabins should be. We climb all the way up to the top of the hill, then back down the other side. Halfway down, the trees clear, and we catch a glimpse of the gleaming lake below. Mom pulls the car into a driveway that curves along the hill, straight next to the three story, sea foam green house.
My grandparents are waiting outside on lounge chairs. The way they have their porch set up looks like something straight out of a home decorating magazine, not in a good way. My grandparents are younger, barely having any graying hairs. They had Adam when they were in their late twenties, and they still haven't hit their fifties.
Mom makes us visit them frequently, and in some ways, I've become their replacement son. Though, they won't let my mom forget how good they would be for me, if they had adopted me instead of her raising me herself. It pisses me off.
They think because they have money to spend, a big fancy house, a boat, and a lot of material wealth, that I'd be better off. Every time I hear them hint that two parents is better than one, I want to say how good that did my father, but I don't. I realize they miss their sons, plain and simple. But I do want them to stop being so insistent.
"Darlings!" My grandmother, Claire, rushes off the porch and throws her arms around me. She always smells like she just finished taking a bubble bath in overripe bananas.
"Howdy," my grandfather, William, says with a wide, toothy grin. As soon as Claire releases me, he comes in for a hug too and pats my back hard.
"Hey," I say. Mom nudges me, and I add, "How are both of you?"
"Good, good." Claire's voice is overly cheery and goes up an octave for the first five minutes every time I see her. "You know, waiting for the day we can both retire." She barks out a laugh.
"Come on in. We made cake." William slaps me on the back again.
"You made cake?" I arch an eyebrow at him.
"Claire made it," he corrects, not understanding my sense of humor.
I sometimes wonder how I'm related to these two people. Despite seeing them on a regular basis for my whole life, we have nothing in common. My father links us together, but we're nothing alike.
The four of us head up the wrap around porch with pristine white railings. One falsely happy family, with an entire generation missing. William holds open the front door, and we head into the kitchen. It's lavish, and absolutely ridiculous that someone would need this many ovens and burners. It's like they are feeding a family of twelve instead of two.
"Carter, tell me, how is school?" Claire sing-songs.
Mom and I slide onto the kitchen island seats, and I rest my elbows on the cold granite counter top. Claire and William assume the other side of the counter, choosing to stand instead of sit. I asked William about it when I was younger, and he said he spent too much of his life sitting. Now, I suspect that they have a small superiority complex.
"It's fine."
Mom nudges me again. "He's doing really well, finishing most of his assignments early."
I let out a breath. Sometimes, I wish I could tell them the truth, that their sons created a reputation for me that I've never been able to shake. That every single day, I get angry—at them, at my father, at my uncle. They were the parents; they could have stopped him from riding that day. And my father should have learned from his uncle. There's too much blame to go around, so I try to swallow any resentment I have.
"I aced a Precalculus test."
"Good man," William says.
Claire pulls open the fridge and takes out a three layered chocolate cake with fresh raspberries lining the top of it. When I was six, she used salt one time instead of sugar. She's come a long way since then.
"So," Claire says, putting the cake down in front of us. "We wanted to do something special to celebrate your half birthday, Carter."
"Half birthday?"
She nods vigorously. "And we're not going to miss another one. Birthday, half birthday. You want to celebrate once a month, you let me know." She looks at me with watery, almond shaped eyes.
Mom squeezes my hand under the table, but she doesn't have to warn me to be wary of my grandparents' moods.
"Yeah, okay, but this is great. Really." The words are stale and forced, but I keep my manners. I always act like a different person around them, like the son they wished they had.
Claire serves us all huge slices of cake, way too big for this early in the day, but I still devour it. It's rare that we have dark chocolate, and even rarer to have fresh berries. Mom makes our budget work because we get the essentials. If we ever have anything sweet, it's because I've spent a little of my money to treat us.
"When I was your age, I would eat an entire cake whenever I got the chance." William's statement comes out like he's boasting, but with his round middle, this fact does not surprise me.
"Don't fill his head with ideas," Mom says, a smile on her face as she sucks the chocolate off her fork.
My family reminds me of some Hollywood 1950s comedy, like we've been transported to the age after swing, when the world needed escapism and laugh tracks that accompanied the background of most shows. Oh, it's so funny. Everything is hilarious.
"I want you to know, Carter, if you ever need anything, anything at all, all you have to do is ask." Claire's grin shows chocolate covered teeth. "We're here for you, and to prove that, we've put more money into your college fund."
"Grandma, you don't have—"
She holds up her hands, and it's the same song and dance. "It's nothing. We love you and want you to succeed, okay?" I swallow a thick piece of cake and nod. "Now, your mom told me you're seeing a girl. Tell us everything."
My eyes narrow at Mom, and she grins at me. Her eyes are unapologetic. Every single event in my life has been cried and cooed over by my grandparents. When I lost my first tooth, when I realized Santa wasn't real, when I grew my first whisker of facial hair, when I got my first job, and now my first date.
A part of me doesn't want to share this part of my life with them. I gloss over the details. I tell them she asked me out. I tell them about our first date. I don't mention the dare. I don't mention our second date. I don't mention how I finally told someone about my dad. Our family avoids the topic of my father and my uncle, as if their memories are too painful and vast to share. Maybe someday, their stories will fill an ocean. Maybe someday, I'll get more than the vague recollection of Adam Ortese.
The twenty million questions come after. Have we talked about the future? What does she want to study? What are my intentions? Do you know how to have sex safely?
I groan, and Mom says, "We've talked about that." Her voice is cross, stern, and no nonsense. She takes that tone when she's a bit insulted by my grandparents.
"Too many times," I agree.
The visit ends up being only an hour and a half, but it feels like I've aged years from the incessant questioning. When we finally get into the car, my mom squeezes my knee. Her eyes are misty, and she latches her hands tightly around the steering wheel.
"What's wrong?"
The corners of her lips turn up, but her unsteady smile doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm really glad your grandparents love you."
It doesn't take an honors student to realize what my mom isn't saying. Her parents—my other grandparents—don't. From the pained look on her brow and the sorrow etching across her jaw, she wishes they did. I want to fix their absence for her, but only her parents can do that, and they likely never will. Because of me—because she chose to keep me.
"Yeah," I nod, having nothing else to add. "Thanks, Mom."
We're silent the rest of the ride home.
- - -
What do you think of Carter's family dynamic? How's the chapter? Anything I need to work on? Was there enough dialogue between the family? I felt like this chapter was getting long, but if you want to see more, let me know!
Thanks for reading! Come back next week to see Emma's clarinet performance against Georgia!