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Silence falls over the table, but Elise tries desperately to save the moment. “Don’t worry, once you have me there you won’t need anyone else.”
He smiles at her in approval, but there is a cruel twist to his mouth. “Just don’t do anything untoward around your brother or he’ll have you arrested on the spot.”
The quiet is deafening, but Dad isn’t finished. He turns toward my mom to say, “Oh, Julia, did I tell you it’s been officially confirmed that it was Karl that hired that escort? They were able to figure it out since the agency owner cooperated with police and turned over all the paperwork he filled out. The handwriting was an exact match. I’m sure she’ll struggle to get clients into her whorehouse now that everyone knows she’ll rat them out the moment trouble arises.”
Mom’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t respond. I, on the other hand, can’t hold my tongue any longer.
“She’s doing it to protect Patricia, even though it’s going to fuck up her business,” I can’t help but point out with a deep tone in my voice. “But you wouldn’t know anything about choosing the right thing over your company, now would you, Dad? You’d keep Karl the rapist on payroll if given the choice.”
Dad slams his fists down on the table, rattling the plates and glasses. Little Arthur starts to cry, clutching Mom’s arm.
“For fuck’s sake, Andries! After everything she did to you, you are still taking her side? When are you gonna grow a pair and forget that whore once and for all, huh?” Dad yells, veins sticking out on the side of his neck.
Fury rises in me, uncontrollable, and before I can stop myself I’m on my feet. I throw my glass of water over him, causing everyone else at the table to gasp or cry out, and in the ensuing chaos I turn on my heel and head back upstairs at a near-jog.
I have called Roxanne a number of disgusting things, but hearing Dad talk about her that way made something inside me snap. It shows me something that I don’t want to admit to myself….
I still love her.
I run upstairs and lock my door behind me, ignoring it when Elise comes pounding at the door a few minutes later. Laying on my bed, pillow over my face, I could almost scream. Out of rage for how my dad has been behaving, and out of self-pitying sorrow for myself and the way I still feel about Roxanne.
I don’t scream, though. I put my headphones back on, and when the urge has passed, I sit up, and start writing. No reason to waste good misery, they always say.
17
Amsterdam, February 19, 2022
Andries
I sleptlike shit after the fight with Dad at dinner. I hate that I lost control like that, and I feel utterly guilt ridden about losing my temper in front of my younger siblings. Mom and Dad had never fought, not like Dad and I had, and it must have terrified them.
I don’t dare leave my room to try and make amends, though. I’m convinced that Elise is crouched outside my room in camouflage, hunting knife in hand, ready to end me the moment I do. I had never heard my sister so angry as she was when she was pounding on my door, but it was the hint of sadness that scared me the most. I don’t know if I can bear making both my sisters and my mom more disappointed in me.
I slept like shit, and I felt like shit. Still feel that way, actually.
When I woke up from my bothered, wretched sleep, I could already hear the house switching into high gear for the party. Dad’s fifty-fifth birthday is to be the bash to end all bashes, and considering that it sounds like they are tearing the mansiondown and rebuilding it from the ground up, it is certainly going to be something, to say the least.
And there is no way in hell I’m going.
Elise texts me first, telling me that we can all let bygones be bygones for the night so we can all celebrate Dad. I know that means she isn’t letting me off the hook, but that nothing will be said about the dinner fight as long as I play my part at the birthday party.
Too bad for them. I’m going to stay in my bedroom until the next morning, even if I starve. I have a few things in a mini fridge on the other side of the room, so that’ll have to do.
Determined to stick to my guns and skip the party, I shower, brush my teeth, put on a pair of sweats, grab reading and writing material, and throw my headphones on, cranking up the volume. If I don’t hear what is happening, it won’t bother me nearly as much.
Avoidance plan enacted, I open my notebook to write, and begin to whittle away the hours.
Once again, I’m reminded that wearing headphones in my room is a mistake, because it just leaves an open invitation for my family to harass me. To my humiliation, it’s not just my mother who opens the door, either. She’s followed by a young woman, whose long, bare legs and kind, open expression makes me frown in suspicion. This better not be a hookup attempt.
I jerk the headphones off and toss them aside, narrowing my eyes. “How dare you come into my room uninvited?”
Mom scowls, and I suddenly know for sure she’s going to have a talk with me about manners next time we’re alone. “It’s almost time for dinner, why aren’t you dressed?”
“Because part of the agreement for me living here so you can keep me under your thumb was that I didn’t have to attend any of your asinine social functions,” I remind her.
“It’s a dinner in your own home. Your father’s birthday dinner, might I add.”
“Even more reason for me to not attend,” I quip.
