senior summer || a story/vignette

The tension in this house in July is worse than any fight I’ve ever been in. The humid heat, the aggravated sighs from Mom as Dad sits with his eyes fixed ahead, either oblivious to or deliberately ignoring the intense discomfort in the air. My brother Dan spends most of his time locked up in his room, lost in video games and forming friendships with strangers twice his age who evidently are better company than the mess that exists downstairs. I don’t blame him - I avoid any place where Mom and Dad are together as much as I can, but I wish Dan wouldn’t leave me alone with them at dinner. It would be nice to have an ally in the storm that is silence and cold stares over a half-frozen microwave meal on dusty tableware.

“I’m thinking of applying to Cambridge,” I tell them in my gentlest let’s-not-just-sit-here voice. “I saw the application requirements and I think I can pass the geography course assessment.”

My dad turns his head toward me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, honey. Tuition in England is cheaper, and who wouldn’t want to study at the birthplace of Newton’s greatest ideas?”

“We’re not so poor we can’t afford American tuition,” my mom snaps, glaring at the back of Dad’s head, “and I don’t want you in Europe. You know how people there are, a big socialist lot who think they’re God’s gift to the Earth.”

The mood goes back to tense and silent because I’m not in the mood to fight over something I didn’t feel that strongly about to begin with. I have no intentions of really applying to Cambridge, even if it is an idealistic dream. Next fall, I’ll probably be at the state university next door, working at the campus bookstore to pay off my loans and save up enough money to get the hell away from here. I get the sense Mom and Dad can’t wait for Dan and me to be gone too. Then they’ll be able to go their separate ways physically instead of being trapped up in our colonial saltbox house when mentally, they’ve been divorced for years.

As soon as the last bite of uncooked rice is in my mouth, I try not to make my rush to get out of the dining room as obvious as it feels. I’ve gotten pretty good at it; Mom and Dad both think I’m just in a hurry to get to the 7:30 Zoom I told them I had for the French course I’m taking at my local community college this summer. The class is actually asynchronous, but I sure hope God doesn’t punish me for the white lie. During the school year, drama rehearsal and newspaper keep me busy until after dinner and distract me from my disastrous home life. In the summer, though, there’s no buffer between myself and my parents other than my workload and AirPods.

As I’m lying in bed, I pray Suki asks to hang out tomorrow. Maybe her mom will make curry and she’ll let me sleep over. My eyes finally close, sleep drowning out the muffled voices downstairs that I’ve gotten so good at treating as white noise.

The next morning, Mom herds me into the car, telling me we’re going bathing suit shopping. A tiny part of me gets excited, remembering our mom-and-daughter days from when I was little. The wiser side of me quickly shuts that down, because I know now that trips alone with Mom are less about the task itself and more about the car ride. It’s on the way to wherever we’re going that she likes to unload all of her pent-up anger at Dad ontp me, planting seeds of hatred and spilling every ounce of trauma she’s ever had into my pool of thoughts. It’s because the doors are locked, and she knows that even though I want to, I won’t have the balls to jump out of the car and onto the highway.

Today, as we’re driving down Route 110 with the air conditioning on full blast, she opts out of her usual introduction of adjectives to describe Dad (lazy, selfish, cold, embarrassing, loud, ugly, poor) and cuts straight to the chase. “I’ve been having an affair. I’m leaving your father and moving in with Michael next month.”

I just stare out the window, apparently too numb to feel anything other than relief. “Sounds good,” I finally say when I feel her eyes pushing me to respond, “Suki told me Target’s having a bikini sale this week.”