CHAPTER 5: THE REAL WORLD
WC:1263
Dad knocked on my door and pushed it open a crack. “Tyler?” The door bumped into my heavy backpack, full of my locker contents from the last day of junior year. He pushed harder and came into my room. “Can we talk a minute?”
I wanted to say no, but I knew that wouldn’t make any difference. When he wanted something, no one else’s feelings mattered. Not that Mom was any better. They didn’t talk to each other—except to fight—since they decided to separate, and instead focused way too much attention on me. I sort of wished they’d just get divorced already. “Fine.”
“I wanted to talk with you before Mom came home. There’s some things I don’t feel she would respond well to, and we still need to discuss them.”
“Okay.”
“You’re a smart kid, Tyler. I’m sure you sense that things have been a little tense for a while.” He sighed. “Well…we hoped that we could keep things together until you graduated and went off to college, but things might change sooner than that.”
“You wanted me to go to MSOE, which means I wouldn’t be going off to anywhere.”
He said, “You always have the option to live in the dorms.”
“Wasn’t that too expensive when we talked about it last year?”
He sucked in breath and stared at me. “There isn’t any way to talk to you without it ending in an argument, is there?”
I was so familiar with his tone and short temper, but had no interest in repeating the same awful pattern we always fell into. “What did you want to talk about? Maybe start with that. What do you want me to say?”
“How about just a good attitude, Tyler. Would it hurt you to have a good attitude toward us while we’re working through some really difficult stuff?”
“I’m not having a bad attitude!” I shut my laptop. “I’m getting on a call with my friends, and I don’t want to talk about college right this minute. Is that okay?”
His voice got louder and sterner. “There’s never a good time to talk about anything! When do you want to have that conversation? Next June?”
“Oh, of course you have to be sarcastic. It can’t possibly be valid that I don’t want to have a heavy conversation like that in the fifteen minutes before Mom gets home and you two go into cockroach mode and scatter for the night. That maybe I need some help making decisions about the future because I’m not even sure what options I have or what might work best for me.” Dad shifted, already thinking about what he wanted to say back. “Or that I do know how stressed you all are lately, and I’ve been trying to give you both space and not make anything more stressful.”
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He sucked in a sigh and let it out slowly. “I can appreciate that. I didn’t want to have a conflict this evening, I just wanted you to know that things are tough for all of us and if we don’t seem there for you right now, it isn’t that we don’t want to be.”
“What does that mean?”
He sat on my bed. “I don’t know.” He shook his head and his anger faded away and seemed replaced with forehead wrinkles and a slumped back. “I just…don’t know how much longer we can stay living all together like this. I felt like I should let you know where things stand. You know, so nothing comes as a surprise.”
I breathed in deep and let the air out. It sounded like he meant something specific, but I didn’t want to open any more cans of worms. They needed to figure their own garbage out. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
He half-smiled. “So can we go somewhere tomorrow and have a conversation about it?”
I wanted to ask what conversation he wanted to have, but that was just going to reignite him. “Sure. Tomorrow is good.”
“Okay. I’ll come home a little early tomorrow and we can go out for a bit.”
“Can I talk to my friends now?”
He nodded silently and got up. “Try not to stay up too late,” he said, leaving.
I opened my laptop and took out my headset so I could get on the call already underway. Minutes later the real world faded away and all I cared about was expansions and exclusive skins. I ended up staying up way too late.
Next morning, I jumped out of bed and went downstairs to get breakfast, or lunch, whichever felt right when I got there. I paused on my way through my bedroom door. The papers that I hadn’t looked at since the interview were on my dresser. I grabbed them so I could read through while I ate.
That afternoon, I waited for Dad, and thought perhaps he would be excited to hear about my new job and sign my paperwork. Three o’clock went by, then four. Five rolled around, and I sat on my couch waiting. Wondering what we were supposed to talk about. What he wanted to discuss and how it was going to impact me. I hadn’t been heard in years, so I couldn’t guess what he wanted to hear. Maybe he just wanted to talk at me about his concerns. He had a habit of doing that. His own mind-crap grew and grew until it overtook him from time to time, and then I had to just listen and agree for an hour or so until he blew himself out.
It certainly didn’t help my anxiety waiting for that pleasure. Is that what every kid’s life was like? Nick’s home wasn’t like that. Neither was Eric’s. Nick’s parents were both teachers. They spent time taking vacations in the winter and hanging out at their cabin up north every summer.
Eric had a huge family. He grew up with like twenty cousins. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they went to movies together, played pool, went bowling, and had Sunday dinner every week. His mom and Granny were from Georgia, so they made bunches of southern food. Whoever wanted to show up was welcome. He’d invited me a few times, but I tried not to take advantage of their hospitality. Their house was like Thanksgiving every weekend. Ours was like Valentine’s Day right after a bad breakup—everyone just wanted to be left alone.
During the second episode of Takeshi’s Castle the front door closed. I grabbed my papers and headed downstairs.
“Hey Mom,” I said from the staircase. I guess I shouldn’t have been upset, or surprised that Dad had forgotten me. “Can you sign some papers for me?”
Her purse dropped on the table, and she came into the living room. “What were you asking?”
“I need you to sign some papers.”
“For what?”
“I got a job.”
“Did you?” She smiled and patted my shoulder. “That’s fabulous, Tyler. I’m really proud of you. Okay, give me a minute to take off my shoes. Today was crazy long and I didn’t sit down once.”
She looked around in the hallway closet and then said, “Is your dad here?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Hm. Maybe we’ll go get something to eat. How about Chinese?”
“Um…okay,” I said. “I’ll call in the order.”
“No, I thought we’d go out to eat. To celebrate,” she added, closing the closet door hard. “Let’s go, just the two of us. You can tell me about your new job on the way.”