He was right; I didn’t remember. But I could give him the benefit of the doubt and say it had been for at least most of my sisters’ lives.
“Why is she so tired?”
My father huffed an impatient sigh and lowered his utensils to the table as he regarded me with a look that matched his obnoxious sigh. “Your mother is a sick woman, Maxwell. If you haven’t noticed that, you’re more clueless than I pegged you for.”
“Sick with what?”
He rubbed at a spot on his temple, closing his eyes and sighing again. “Eat your dinner.”
Lucy and Grace looked up at me from across the table, their twin brows furrowed and pinched. I offered a slight shrug in response.
Crazy how you could live under the same roof as two people—your own parents—for years and feel like you hardly knew them at all.
Silence fell over us, as it usually did. We ate, we drank, and when we were finished, Dad stood from the table and started to turn away when I decided to take a chance.
“Dad,” I said, grabbing his attention.
He turned back to face me, but said nothing.
I sucked in a deep breath, an attempt to prepare myself for the inevitable verbal assault, then said, “Prom is coming, and I would like to go.”
He raised a single brow, a look of amusement on his face. “Prom?”
I swallowed at my humiliation. “Yes.”
“It’s that girl, isn’t it? The pretty one I saw.”
I strained to keep my fists from clenching. “Yes.”
He eyed me, taking his time as my heart thundered and my palms began to sweat. Then he surprised me with a shrug.
“Fine. Go. And you can borrow one of my suits. But you will go there and nowhere else. No hotels. No after-parties. No goofing around.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It took every bit of strength not to fall away from the reality of who my father truly was. This moment was an anomaly, and I was unlikely to ever experience something like it again. But I couldn’t remember being happier, and I couldn’t believe it was because of him.
“Yes, sir,” I said with a nod, and as he left the room, I stopped trying to hide my smile.
***
The next day, I asked Laura if she’d go to the prom with me. It felt weird to say the words, oddly rehearsed after practicing it in my head all night and into the morning. The dance still wasn’t something I cared about, and if it hadn’t been for her, I would’ve preferred not to go at all. But the look of wide-eyed excitement that was slow to blanket her face made it seem worth it.
Then, two weeks later, I stood inside the bathroom, wearing one of my father’s suits that was just a little too loose on my lankier frame.
And I hated it.
Because I looked like him.
It had never occurred to me before how our faces were the same shape or that our shoulders were just as broad. When I paid close enough attention to the cut of my jaw or the curve of my mouth, I saw him there too. And why were our eyes the exact same shade of blue? A cold, icy color that made me suddenly shiver at the sight of my own reflection.
It's the suit, I kept telling myself.
I wanted to tear it off and set it on fire, but I couldn’t wear a baggy T-shirt and jeans to the dance, and none of my dressier clothes fit me anymore.
I emerged from the bathroom to find Dad standing outside the door. He startled me initially, but the way his lips curled with satisfaction made my skin crawl.
“You clean up nicely,” he said, and that little part of me that craved his affection felt instantly soothed. “You can wear a pair of my shoes if they fit you.”
“I think I’ll just wear my sneakers,” I said.
