Do Not Resuscitate

Blindsided.

She fucking blindsided me.

Kudos, Mom, I didn’t see it coming. Packaging up your problem child and sending it to its father, that’s a new one. I guess this is Mom’s version of a return policy. Your sperm created a defective product. I don’t want it. Take it back. Now.

I’m surprised she even got him to bend to her will on such short notice. She called him up out of the blue, yelled in his ear about how I’m ruining everything, and he decided to take me in. Just. Like. That. This isn’t like him. My biannual visit takes weeks to plan, weeks of the two arguing back and forth, weeks of figuring out how I’m going to get to Dad’s because Mom doesn’t want to bring me and he doesn’t want to come get me, weeks of Mom threatening not to let him see me, weeks of Dad reworking his schedule so he can be around me when I get there and when I leave, weeks of them trying to come to an agreement on something—anything. And I’m supposed to believe he agreed to take me in.

Just. Like. That.

Yeah, right.

I bet he agreed to get her to shut up. When she gets started, really gets her teeth into something, whether it be a rant or an idea, she doesn’t like to stop. A fantastic trait for a CEO. Probably extremely frustrating in an ex. Even worse in an ex who happens to be your baby momma. Mostly annoying in a mother, but relatively effective at times. Depending on what she decides to latch onto.

Her tenacity is the exact reason I’m bundled up in the passenger seat, duffle bag of miscellaneous necessities I don’t keep at Dad’s house balanced in my lap, eyes focused on the passing scenery. She wouldn’t stop. Get up, Danny. We need to go, Danny. Danny, I have to get back to work. Please, Danny. Stop being difficult, Dannilynn. On and on. She couldn’t go to work and let me lie there. She had to take me to Dad’s immediately.

I was wasting her time. I wanted her to go back to work. Back to where she can make things happen, where she can feel some ounce of success. So I got up, threw crap into a bag—toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner even though I haven’t had the energy to take a shower in the past few days and probably won’t ever again, things my room at Dad’s doesn’t have because I’m only there twice a year—made sure to wait till Mom was out of the room to grab my little Altoids box of razors, and let her help me into the car.

I didn’t get to eat the rest of the soup.

Goddamn, I’m hungry.

No food. No food nofood nofood nofoodnofoodnofoodnofood. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip. Remember the goal. Hold strong. Deep breath in. And out. Everything will be okay. I can reverse the damage those pieces of soup-soaked bread did.

Mom says my name, slips it into her nonstop, rambling monologue. Has she been talking to me the whole drive?

“—for the best.”

Whatever.

“—just for a little while.”

Sure.

“Make sure he remembers—”

Uh-huh.

“He knows how to handle,” she waves her hand, “this.”

And what is “this,” Mom? What do you think I’m doing to myself? What do you see when you look at me? A child who’s destroying her future? Newsflash, there’s nothing in the future for me. In a month, maybe two, I’ll be gone. Forever.

Why can’t you see that?

We pull up to Dad’s cute, suburban home. Two stories, blue façade with white accents, a small balcony on the top, a flourishing garden in the front, a three car garage, nothing that screams “rock star.” I’ve been in it, though. I know there’s a large backyard with an extravagant pool for parties. I know he has a soundproof room with mini-recording area in the basement for him and his band. I know there’s a baby grand piano in the spacious living room, where his drummer used to play around, the baby grand he keeps despite the fact that looking at it devastated him for the longest time.

My death won’t have the same effect. He can turn my room into a second playroom for Brooklyn or a music room for Brooklyn or something for Brooklyn. I won’t need it anymore. I barely need it now.

As I struggle to get out of the car, the bread I ate not nearly enough to fuel me, the front door swings open.

And there’s Dad.

His large, muscled, tattooed body looks out of place taking up space in the cute, blue house’s doorway. He’s smiling, broad, dimples exposed, the same dimples Brooklyn and I have. Like he’s excited to see me. Liar.

He lumbers down the path, right towards me. I panic. I freeze. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t normal behavior. He’s supposed to stay inside, wait for me to come in with my version of the house key, greet me with an awkward “Hi, Danny,” and let me shuffle up to my room. He isn’t supposed to come outside and rush me like a linebacker.

I don’t have time to come up with a plan of action, an escape plan, an evasive maneuver. His beefy arms envelop me in a tight hug. I stiffen. Let me go, Dad.

“Hi, Sweetie,” he mumbles.

Let me go. Let me go now.

Seconds pass—or has it been minutes?—but he keeps holding on. What is he doing? What is going on? Has he been drinking? It’s barely noon. He’s more responsible than that. Whatever this is, it needs to stop.

Finally, he releases me from his vice grip of a hug. He continues smiling that weird, bright smile, still pretending he’s happy I’ve intruded on his life. I don’t return it. I drop my eyes to his chest, to the Avenged Sevenfold design on his shirt.

Narcissistic, much.

Dad gently takes the duffle bag from my hand, I let him, and he hefts it onto his shoulder. I think he’s still smiling at me. Fine, Dad, if holding my duffle bag brings you that much happiness, you can hold it. It’s too heavy for me anyway.

“Let me talk to Mom for a sec, okay?”

What?

I’m about to turn to look towards Mom, who should be sitting in the car prepared to perform the drop and go, but she shadows me, saving me the trouble of having to move. With Mom at my side and Dad in front of me, I’m frozen in place by the strangeness of the situation.

Mom actually got out of the car. Dad actually left the house. They’re actually going to talk. This isn’t how drop-off is supposed to work. I don’t know what to do.

“Brooklyn and Val are in the living room,” Dad urges.

Right, waiting for me to make an appearance, then hideout in my room, like normal. Because someone has to stick to the script around here.

He places a hand on my shoulder, a big, heavy hand that threatens to knock me off my weak feet. “Danny?”

He’s eager for me to leave them so they can talk. About me. I’m tempted to stay in an act of defiance and listen, to hear Mom’s list of grievances against me, to hear Dad use every excuse in the book to prove I can’t stay more than a few days. But I don’t. I shrug off Dad’s hand and shuffle past him and up the path to his cute, blue house with the elegant, white accents. No talking back. No fuss. No explaining everything will be fine in a few weeks, if that long.

Mom’s load sigh makes me pause at the wide open front door and turn. They’re talking at each other, not having a conversation, but their voices are too low for me to hear the words. Mom has a fierce expression on her face and her arms wrapped tightly around her, closed off. Dad’s mouth is in a scowl and his fist are rested on his hips, an expression of anger. They might kill each other right here in Dad’s front yard. That would solve their problems, too.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Dad notices me staring at them, and he throws on a smile. “Val just made cookies,” he calls.

Trying to ply me with food. He and Mom are more alike than they think.

Lucky him, I love the smell of fresh cookies. They remind me of my childhood, of a time when my parents loved me, the fat, ugly, useless child they decided not to get rid of.

It’s one of the things I’m going to miss.

The smell of cookies. Not my childhood.

I turn away from Mom and Dad, give them their privacy back, and shuffle into the house. There’s no cookie smell wafting in the front hallway, and I’m disappointed. Dad had to open the door and let the smell out.

My feet drag against the carpet while I “walk”—if my sad excuse for movement can be considered walking—through the hall. I keep my eyes directed at the floor, focus hard. I don’t want to get distracted by the picture frames lining the walls and the little hall tables. I’m in one, the only recent picture Dad has of me: my yearbook photo, the one from last year because we haven’t taken this year’s yet.

It’s a crappy picture. My hair is a frizzy, black mess. I have a monstrous zit. My lips are splotchy in color and blistered from all the picking. The sweater I wore is an ugly orange and makes my skin appear sickly pale. I’m not trying to smile. And my eyes, the deep hazels identical to Dad’s, are empty, void of emotion. Dead.

I round the corner, into the living room, and…

Cookies. Oh, God, cookies. I’m salivating, it smells so delicious, so sweet, like heaven. The pit of my stomach rumbles, low, demanding. I want to eat them. I need to eat them. I need to eat something.

I clench my fist, dig my nails into my palms. Hold it together. Fuck.

“Sissy!”

A tiny blur of brown and pink catapults into my legs. I stumble back, hit my shoulder against the doorframe hard, almost fall on my ass. I’m going to have a bruise in a few hours, but I manage to keep my balance with minimal flailing. Clutching the doorframe with one hand, I place the other on the tiny blur’s head. I don’t say a word, but she’s content squeezing my legs.

Brooklyn. Sweet, adorable Brooklyn. Three years old and she accepts her half-sister’s lack of response better than the adults.

“Hi, Dannilynn.”

And Valary.

I raise my head enough to meet her eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. She’s getting more response than my own parents get. I don’t want her to get any ideas in her head. She’s the type to blame things on herself. She’ll think I did this because of her, because of something she did or said or thought, because I was upset Dad brought in a cartoonish evil stepmother character. But she’s not my evil stepmother. She’s just my stepmother. She’s just the woman Dad married and had a second child with. She’s just Val.

“Are you hungry?” Val asks.

Starving.

“Do you want some cookies?”

You have no idea, Val.

“I can make you something else.”

She’s trying to make herself appear open, friendly, happy, but the concern subtly twists her features. Her brows threaten to draw together. Her eyes are a little too wide, and they shine a little too bright. Her mouth wants to frown, but she forces it into a smile. She’s leaning forward in the recliner, prepared to shoot up at a moment’s notice to get me anything. She’s worried. She’s always worried.

So I throw her a bone.

I shake my head.

“Are you sure?”

Absolutely.

A bright coo of “She’s getting so tall” interrupts Val’s worried inquisition.

Mom?

“Katharine,” Val says, shocked, surprised, so shocked and surprised she rises from her chair like she’s going to walk over to Mom and shake her hand or hug her or physically greet her in some way, but she remains rooted in place.

Yes, Val, they’re being weird.

Mom is standing next me. In Dad’s house. Actually standing in Dad’s house. Willingly. Peering down at Brooklyn and commenting on how tall she’s gotten. And Dad is hovering behind me. Pretending this is normal.

This isn’t normal. It’s fucking weird.

Mom nods. “Valary.”

She says the name pleasant enough. Not necessarily overtly friendly but not as if she’s about to jump Val and tear out her dyed-white hair. Civil. She’s being civil.

“Hi, Sissy’s mom,” Brooklyn says.

Mom nods again, this time at the child attached to my legs. “Brooklyn.”

Silence settles over us, and it stretches on until it becomes awkward. Stiflingly awkward.

Well, aren’t we just one big, happy family. All united by one common denominator. Me. Had I not been born, we wouldn’t be here right now. It’s true. They know it, they’re thinking it, but they won’t say it. They won’t acknowledge that they’re brought together, forced to acknowledge each other, because of an accident. Not out loud. They don’t know I know. They don’t know I’m going to take care of this for them. Soon enough, they’ll never have to see each other again. Mom can go on her way, maybe get married and have a replacement child. Dad, Val, and Brooklyn will go on theirs, finally move on from the lingering past. Because their only tie will be gone.

Gone, gone, gone.

If I can keep from devouring the cookies Val left on the coffee table. In plain sight. I need to get to my room. I’ve been downstairs for too long.

“Well,” Mom says, smoothing out her blouse, “I need to get back to the office.”

You read my mind, Mom.

“Danny,” she starts, turns to me, but I don’t respond.

And Mom hugs me. Completely out of the blue. I tense. She kisses my forehead. The action feels awkward. She holds on tight for a beat. Two. Three. This hugging thing needs to stop.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” she whispers.

Sure, Mom.

She lets go and tries to meet my eyes so I can see her plastered-on smile or so she can see if I’m at all there. I don’t care to see her fake smile, and she should know I’m not all there. I let my gaze go out of focus. She sighs her frustrated sigh quietly, to herself, a sign she’s given up, and turns to leave.

“Thanks for this,” she mumbles. To Dad, not to me. She thinks I can’t hear her. He grunts something, which must be satisfactory because she says, “Bye,” in a tone dripping with false cheerfulness.

I think that’s the tone she uses when talking to clients who piss her off.

Calls of “Bye” follow her out. The front door closes behind her. The only reminders of her presence are the flowery scent of her perfume and me.