shadow people, but I have. “Then why did the Realtor tell you it was haunted?”
“Because people like to tell stories.”
“You should tell him what you’ve seen,” Mom whispers to me, and the guilt tastes like bile. “He’d want to know.”
If I tell Dad, he’ll overreact and go insane, and I’m not ready for what telling him will entail. “I’ll tell him. Just not now,” I say softly back.
“That may be too late,” Mom continues in her hushed tone. “He’d want to know now.”
I’m not ready to share my secret with Dad, even though it’s an incredible burden to carry on my own. “You said you were fine with how I chose to deal with this.”
“I did, but I’m not sure I agree with keeping things from your father. He loves you.”
“He’ll freak out,” I whisper-shout. “He’ll quit his job and he’ll never let me out of his sight.” That’s not the life I want for me, and it’s not the life I want for him.
“V, I don’t think—” she starts, but I cut her off.
“Are you happy with how things went after you told Dad?”
Mom is crushed by my words, grief-stricken over what happened between her and Dad when she told him her secret. Even though she’s pressuring me now, Mom told Dad that how I decide to handle the fallout of my diagnosis is my choice, and I’m guessing that’s why Dad doesn’t talk to Mom anymore—at least not in front of me.
Late at night, though, after he’s checked on me to make sure I’m asleep, his anguish carries from his side of the house to mine. I can’t hear what he says, but the sorrowful, mournful melody of his tone reaches my ears and breaks my heart.
I nibble my bottom lip and hope she understands. “There are things I need to do before I tell him. After I do those things, I’ll tell him. I promise.”
“Regret is a bitter thing,” Mom says. “Be careful with how you play this hand. There are some decisions you can’t take back.”
Which is why I can’t tell Dad what’s happening with me, not now. Maybe not ever—despite my promise. I know Dad loves Mom and that Mom loves Dad, but there’s this wall between them. Before I tell Dad my secret, I need to find a way to make things right between them, to give him comfort in the midst of my decisions, and to do it in a way that won’t destroy my plans for this year and Dad’s life.
“Are you ready to eat?” Dad asks, beaming.
“Definitely.” I stand, and so does Mom, but instead of going to the table with me, Mom crosses the room and disappears up the stairs. Like always, Dad acts as if he doesn’t notice her. While that cuts open my soul, I force a smile on my face and do my best to enjoy this moment with my dad.
SAWYER
Top five things I need to tell my mom, but I’d rather cut off my leg with a dull butter knife than say aloud:
1. She loves that I’m a swimmer more than I do. In fact, she loves most of my life more than I do. But she should, as she’s orchestrated most of it.
2. I didn’t break my arm by slipping on the deck of the pool at the YMCA like I told her, but instead by doing something stupid.
3. Even though I know what I do is the definition of insanity, I can’t stop.
4. No, I’m not happy my cast comes off tomorrow as that cast is the only thing that’s kept me from being stupid again.
5. My dad’s current girlfriend is pregnant with their first child, and that’s the reason I haven’t talked to or visited my father since the beginning of summer. He can hardly handle playing “dad” to us, so why have another?
Did I write any of that in my senior journal? Hell no. Our English teacher must live under a delusions-of-grandeur rock to think there’s a single one of us who would share our deepest and most intimate thoughts in our Daily Top Five Forced (my addition) summer assignment.
I’m forty entries behind, and I have until six this evening to finish before turning the journal of doom in to my teacher at orientation. I’m aware it’s not a good way to start the year.
In the driver’s-side mirror of the U-Haul, I watch as my little sister runs in circles around my mother. Lucy’s shrieking at the top of her lungs because