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“When you made him fall down. His hand was bleeding, so I brought him a Band-Aid. He took it, even though it had princesses and he’s a boy. He said it was even better than the ones he had when he was a kid. His only had robots.” She wrinkles her nose at the thought of robots. My sister is all girl.
“Does Mom know?” I ask after a while. I wonder what she’d think of Lily doctoring a stranger in our driveway. I also feel bad that I hurt Chase. He looked so startled falling backwards that I was busy trying not to laugh, not thinking about if he got scraped up on the plant pots.
I am officially a bitch.
“Mom is nice to him too,” Lily says. “And I’m nice.”
“You are nice,” I say, giving her a little hug.
She turns to the next page and selects a purple crayon. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes, actually, I do.” I realize I sound a little too proud of that fact, considering I’m talking to a kid who still thinks boys have cooties.
“I had a boyfriend last year,” she says. “But not this year.”
“You had a boyfriend?”
My six-year-old sister had a boyfriend before me. Lovely.
“His name was Emmett. He smelled like potatoes.”
“Really?” I ask, trying not to laugh. Maybe I’m not upset about her having a boyfriend first after all. “And what happened to Emmett?”
“He threw wood chips at me and wouldn’t let me play under the slide with the boys.”
That must be the Kindergarten version of,he embarrassed me in front of my friends and wouldn’t let me talk to other guys.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Boys suck.”
“Mom says not to say that,” she reminds me. “But we can say boys stink.”
“Like potatoes,” I say, and then we’re both giggling, and I know she’s on my side after all.
*
Christmas at Firefly Lake is always fun—or it was.
Dad, Diana, and their brother were left the lakefront property with the lake house on it when my grandparents passed away, and instead of selling it and divvying up the proceeds, they decided to keep it the way it was when they were growing up.The big wooden house has a ton of windows with a great view of the sunset over the water and a huge wraparound deck where the dads would always smoke meat and do dad stuff. Down at the shore, there’s enough beach to hang out on when the weather is nice. We never came in the summer, since it’s a sauna here, and back home we could just pack up and drive a few hours to the ocean.
That is, until this summer, during which a certain party occurred that will remain buried in the depths of my memory and never thought of again.
This year, as soon as we pull up, I know it’s a mistake to come back here. It was one thing to let Meghan drag me to a beach party across the lake. First off, I could get drunk. Second, the party was at someone else’s house, so we only came back here to sleep. And since I was drunk, I barely thought about Dad. It was nothing like this, where as soon as all the relatives gather, it’s clear that Dad left a gaping chasm right down the center of the family, so big I’m surprised someone doesn’t plummet to their death in it. Especially since everyone seems steadfastly determined to pretend it isn’t there, like they’re all from Connecticut and not just Mom and us.
I escape as soon as I can but stop to eavesdrop on the stairs when I hear my name. I hold my breath and listen to Mom telling the relatives that I’m “out of control” and she doesn’t know what to do with me. Even though she can’t see me, I roll my eyes before heading upstairs to join Meghan, who left me to snap green beans with Aunt Diana like a traitor.
I flop down on her bed. “What is my mom’s deal?” I say with a groan. “You’d think I was snorting cocaine off toilet seats and hooking for money on the side. I’m not out of control at all.”
“Wow, that’s a far cry from not being able to say the word ‘fingering’,” she says, then shakes her head in mock regret. “They grow up so fast.”
“I’m serious,” I insist. “I’m the tamest of all my friends, and none of them ever get in trouble. I never do anything bad.”
“Maybe you should try it, my dude.”
“She’d probably put an ankle monitor on me,” I grumble. “I’m seriously the best kid, Meghan. I go along with my friends, but I’m like, the uptight one in the group. But somehow I’m the one who gets punished for drinking a fourth of what they drink, or sleeping fully clothed on a couch with a boy when every one of them is off hooking up and never getting grounded for a day. Where’s the justice?”
“Have you talked to her?” Meghan asks, sinking onto the bed with her foot folder under her. “She’s probably just worried about you. Parents kinda do that, you know.”
I glower at her for a second. “Whose side are you on?”
