Chapter 58: ANGELA 002

ANGELA

WHEN I ENTER THE HOUSE, ready to wind down after a long day at work keeping this broken family afloat, my stepfather says, “Today is your brother’s birthday.”

I look at him for a long moment. We’ve never precisely not got along during his marriage to my mother, but we’ve never been friends. We’re roommates. It’s as if Mom is my mother and hence my burden to bear … and then my burden has a burden: a loser she invites around and I manage to tolerate.

It’s funny that my name is on the lease and has been for over a decade. It’s funny that I had to take that contractual obligation over when Mom and Bill, working together, managed to default for three months straight. And it was really side-splittingly hilarious when I had to leave my tidy studio to move back in here — not because I needed the help, but because help was needed.

It’s awesome that I’m the only name on the lease, and super great that despite Bill’s son being a billionaire, I have to support his sorry, drunken ass.

“I don’t have a brother,” I say.

“You know what I mean, Angie.”

I hate it when he calls me Angie. But it’s either him being an asshole or a legitimate inability to change old ways, not a correctable mistake. So I keep my mouth shut like always.

“I didn’t realize.”

“Sure you did. It’s a week after your birthday, and you’re good with dates.”

“Oh. Well, then I guess I did.”

Bill chews his cheek — a curious habit that once upon a time, during a brief spell of sobriety, he asked me to help him break. The first time I reminded him not to chew his cheek, he yelled at me. That was his last reminder.

“Did you send him a card, or call him, or anything?”

“No.”

“You should call him.”

“He didn’t call me.”

“Did he send you a card?”

I sigh. Bill can see the card. It’s my mother who must be protected from its accidental Semitism. I hand it to him, along with the ripped red envelope.

Bill opens it.

“Was anything in it?”

He hasn’t even read it. There was no time. It was a one-two beat, nothing longer. One: Open the flap. Two: Ask his question. Nothing had fallen to the floor; that was strike one. But there was still a chance his wealthy son could redeem himself.

“His usual gift. We can go to Olive Garden.”

Bill extends his hand. As if the card hadn’t been addressed to me, not him.

I pull the gift card out of my pocket and hand it to him anyway. Bill looks at it, shakes his head, and hands it back. The twenty-four-hour carryout where he buys his beer doesn’t accept gift cards.

“Well, that was nice of him.”

I laugh.

“Don’t tell your mother.”

“Why?”

“She hates him, for one.”

That was true. Mom was half the reason Parker left in the first place. The other half, predictably, was his dad. The intellectual part of my mind knows that half plus half equals a full boat, but sometimes I’m sure there’s room for a third in there anyway. A third reason he left. A reason I know something about, little as I like to consider it.

“And for two, we start going out, and she’s going to want to keep doing it. You know how she is. How much is on that card anyway?”

I wait a beat before answering, mainly to see if he’s measuring his son’s worth in dollars, which I’m pretty sure he is. “A hundred bucks.”

Bill vents air, half laughing. He should be used to it. My birthday gift card, surely purchased and sent without Parker’s notice, is the closest Bill ever gets to receiving money from Parker. Funny thing is, as much as I hate him most of the time, I’m with Parker on this. Bill not getting a dime from WinFinity means it never trickles down to me or Mom, but Bill sober was an even bigger asshole to Parker than he’s ever been to me drunk. Some dads are disappointed that their sons don’t live up to their standards. Bill’s son dwarfed Bill’s standards, more or less to prove a point. His way of saying I told you so has been to say nothing at all. To never come home. And to never give his fucker of an old man a single red cent.

“So what’s that, like two-three meals if we all go? That’s just enough to give her ideas. Suddenly, your cooking won’t be good enough. She’ll want to go out all the time. You know how she is.”

It’s the second time Bill has informed me that I know how my mother is in the past three minutes. Good thing he’s around to keep me aware of such things.

Instead of answering, I walk into the living room. Mom’s in her chair. For someone who doesn’t move all day, you’d think she’d be larger. But she’s practically a leather-covered stick. A lifetime of smoking and drinking. She stopped her vices before marrying Bill, thankfully, or we’d be drowning in a sea of barley and rye. Only Bill drinks now. Only Bill breaks things we need when he’s angry, so we have to buy more. Only Bill refuses to entertain the idea of Mom getting a job, seeing as how doing so might ruin her stipend.

But the worst thing is that Mom’s bought into it. When I was younger, before Bill and Parker entered our lives, Mom used to be quite the spitfire. But that cab didn’t just graze her, it knocked her spirit into the gutter along with her body and twisted knee. She used to play tennis. She used to dance around the house while cleaning. Now look at her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she says, looking up.

“Hey, Mom.”