Chapter 2 - Dad Wasn’t Supposed to Be There
Dad pushed the door open slowly.
He still had his phone against his ear.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then his eyes traveled across the kitchen.
The overturned chair.
The broken glass.
The belt in Gary’s hand.
Ethan crouched behind the counter.
Me standing between them.
Mom finally found her voice.
“You can’t just walk into my house.”
Dad lowered his phone.
“It’s Saturday.”
Mom’s face tightened.
That sentence meant nothing to me at first.
Dad looked toward Ethan.
“I’ve been outside twelve minutes.”
Ethan crawled out from behind the counter and ran to him.
Dad dropped to one knee and caught him.
I expected anger.
Dad had plenty of reasons to be angry.
Instead he asked Ethan whether anything hurt, whether he had fallen, whether the glass had cut him.
Gary tossed the belt onto a chair as though getting it out of his hand could erase the last five minutes.
“He threw a fit,” Gary said. “Nobody touched him.”
“I saw enough,” I said.
Mom turned on me immediately.
“Brooke, stop.”
Not Gary.
Me.
Dad looked at her.
That was the moment I understood Saturday mattered.
Under my parents’ temporary parenting schedule, Dad was supposed to pick Ethan up every other Saturday at three.
I hadn’t realized this was one of his weekends.
Mom had told me that morning the visit had been canceled because Dad was working.
Dad hadn’t been working.
He had been standing outside our house while Mom refused to answer the door.
“I called six times,” he said.
Mom folded her arms.
“He didn’t want to go.”
Ethan pulled away from Dad’s shoulder.
“I didn’t say that.”
Mom looked at him sharply.
It was tiny.
Barely a reaction.
But I saw it.
So did Dad.
Ethan wiped his nose with his sleeve.
“You said Dad couldn’t come today.”
Mom’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Gary stepped forward.
“This is family business.”
Dad looked at him.
“You’re not his father.”
Gary’s face hardened.
Dad didn’t rise to it.
He took a photo of the kitchen from where he stood, then another of the belt lying on the chair.
Mom rushed toward him.
“Don’t you dare turn this into something.”
Dad lowered the phone.
“Into what?”
Her answer came too quickly.
“A custody case.”
The words hung there.
Dad hadn’t mentioned custody.
Neither had I.
Ethan certainly hadn’t.
But Mom had.
And suddenly her relief when I entered the kitchen made a little more sense.
May you like
She hadn’t been relieved because I had stopped Gary.
She had been relieved because, until Dad appeared, she thought whatever had happened in that kitchen would stay inside our house.
