Isolated (Ch 4)

The subsequent dinner was decent, it wasn’t decadient, but had the everlasting cadence of a struggling family: NOW WITH HOPE!

Frozen Lasagna. The H’dourves? Blunt that I managed to scour up from roaches hidden behind the radiator and a snack of stale pork rinds.

Nothing was more deafening in the silence than the discovery of the missing Golden Child. 

“Mo was supposed to be here for dinner,” My Dad gritted through his teeth, a slow nasal exhale of smoke cascading down his perma-frown face. 

I sighed, staring at my phone. Dreading the unopened message from my sibling. 

Mo: I have a science project for the fair tomorrow. I can’t handle any more disturbances.

Which is teenspeak for “Mom had a more promising meal that is guaranteed to be warm through and through.”

I don’t blame them, if they weren’t star athletes on track with an ongoing monthly streak of dean’s list, dad wouldn’t have cared for their presence…Or lack thereof.

That asshole still doesn’t get it.

”Mo’s got a lot of homework, it’s almost time for midterms.” 

That same deafening silence. It’s maddening.

I could hear the “Remind me of that nextime Mo needs someone to restring the damn lacrosse stick” brewing in my dad’s mind.

He didn’t respond, except with a grunt and eye roll before passing me the Franken-blunt. The stale taste of tobacco made me slightly nauseous, only cooled by my flat ginger ale. 

“Where’s your man?” He cleared his throat once more before hacking up flem into his slurpee cup. 

 I cringed inside, exhaling the smoke at the ground as I stayed hovered over my phone. He still hadn’t texted me back since this morning. 

I need answers.

”Jerry’s got him overtime at the dump.” I answered dryly before taking another sip of my soda. 

“Yeah? Well, at least he can swing by to help us polish the rest of this” my dad hovered his hand over the Banquet “meal”, swirling his finger in a dismissive gesture over the “meal” I tried to spice up. 

I scoffed, “Yeah, he’ll eat anything.” playing with a small morsel that was inevitably still frozen.

My heart equally froze as he called, my beloved knight. I excused myself from the table, stepping a mere feet away into the conjoined living room. 

Before I could greet him on the phone, he immediately butted in: “I’m going to my mom’s tonight.” 

I quickly shot a side glance at my father, now fully facing me with a lifted brow. 

“We got some leftovers for you if you want them.” I suggested in a lighter voice, with a slight bit of persuasion hidden. 

“I’ll stop by afterwards.” His voice was interrupted with a familiar, light-hearted chuckle before I heard a snap of a finger through the phone. 

“What was that?”

His tone shifted, “What was what? Babe, it’s the fucking tv! It’s like you don’t trust me anymore, c’mon.” 

He had now garnered my father’s attention fully, through my cracked smartphone. It’s funny that my dad has near-echolocation hearing when he needs to.

I was flustered, my skin was pale as I sat down on the arm of my dad’s lazy boy. “No, no, baby. You got it wrong.” I said reassuringly, trying to hide the clamoring in my voice, “I thought your cousin was with you.” 

“No, she’s not, she’s being a fucking bitch to me. I’d rather not…” 

That aching silence came back, before he snapped me out of my airheadedness: 

“Listen” He continued, “I love you, ya hear? I’ll talk to you later, bye.” 

Before I could reciprocate, he hung up. And, right before my dad could open his piehold: “He’s gonna come by later tonight.” I quipped as I headed back towards my squeaking seat.

Dad rolled his eyes, “Well, I was gonna have him help fix your chair…I guess not.”

The same squeaking chair that had been squeaking since it was designated to me at age 11. A saucer chair with some teeny-bop star on it, propped with yellow, flattened pillows.

That finally hits the monthly mark, another empty promise.

The eerily sense of my life being held at the strings by these two men started to creep up again. 

I shoved it down with another toke of the blunt, as it was handed to me lazily like a tired olympian running through his hometown. My dad sighing as he tossed his paper plate and headed back to his lazyboy, preparing for his evening nap.

And suddenly, I don’t remember why I was upset anymore