Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Rob pulls a pair of slacks from a hanger. “You hate your dad.”
My spine stiffens, memories trying to dig their way to the surface, but I throw more dirt on the pile, not willing to let the past become uncovered.
He’s right. I do hate my father. There had been two people in his life he cared about making happy: my mom and himself. Actually, that’s not true. He was different with Ella, but I think that’s because she was the only girl and Mom had wanted her so damn much. The week before she’d hemorrhaged, Mom had been the happiest I’d ever seen her. And while Dad doted on Ella in ways he didn’t with us boys, he’d left taking care of her and Easton to me, Rhett, and nannies. Rhett and I’d both had Ella and Easton to worry about after we lost Mom.
A slow ache starts in my chest. I rub my hand over my left pec, trying to massage it out before it can grow. “My brothers need me,” I say, unsure why I’m even talking to Rob about this. If I want to share with anyone, it should be Spencer, my closest friend in Santa Monica. He’s the kind of guy who will drop everything to go with me if I ask, but he’s also in a new relationship and crazy in love with his boyfriend, Corbin. I’m not going to bring my shit to his doorstep.
“The brothers you rarely talk to? You can’t even speak to Rhett without getting angry, and the only time he calls is when there’s something going on with your dad or Easton. I don’t pretend to understand what happened between you and your family, but I really can’t make sense of you taking a leave of absence to go help people you haven’t seen in ten years.”
Rob has never asked—not about what happened, not if I’m okay, not if I need him. That’s always worked for me because I don’t like to get too close, but in this moment, I can’t help wondering what in the fuck I’m doing. Why I’ve spent so much time with this man, and why he stays with me when I’m not sure he likes me very much.
Because you don’t ask much of him. Because you’re just as closed off as he is.
I grab my jeans and tug them on. The truth is, I don’t know why I’m going. Rob’s right. I can’t talk to Dad or Rhett without getting angry. Rhett’s been in competition with me my whole life, doing everything in his power to be exactly who Dad wants him to be. Everything has always been about Rhett getting what he wants, and he’s taken it all, even the one person who meant the most to me. Dusty.
And Easton…sometimes I feel like I don’t know him at all. He’s always been in his own world, but he would invite us in, joke and be silly with us before he lost Ella. He would spend whole afternoons chasing butterflies with her simply because she loved them so much. After that…he became completely closed off.
I mentally shovel more dirt on the pile.
But regardless, I’ve always felt an obligation to my family, to take care of what needs to be done, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Even if returning to the UP feels like cutting my own damn heart out.
*
I didn’t feel much as I flew into Detroit, not even when I rented a car and started to drive. It’s not until I’m driving across the Mackinac Bridge that it really hits me what I’m doing. Going home. To Birchbark.
The Straits of Mackinac are below me, the water clear and beautiful. Lake Michigan is to the west, Lake Huron to the east, and in the distance, everything is green and vibrant.
It’s pretty shitty that the place I hate most in the world is also one of the most beautiful…and that with each mile I travel, the ache in my chest only grows.
It’s a three-hour drive before I’m in Birchbark, the town I called home for the first twenty-five years of my life, but it feels like it takes five minutes before I’m pulling into the familiar small town on the shores of Lake Superior. Most of my childhood was spent swimming on local beaches until we lost Ella. It took years before I was willing to get into anything other than a pool after that. And while it holds bad memories, I’ve found ways to allow myself to enjoy it.
I’m not staying at Dad’s. I don’t have it in me to do that, and it was too late to get any kind of long-term rental. Tourists flock to the UP in the summertime, taking advantage of all the beauty and nature it has to offer. That means finding a vacation house rental isn’t easy.