The Difference Between Us (Opposites Attract #2)

Because in this house, if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody gonna be happy until the very, very end of time. Like the way end. Like after the epilogue and acknowledgments and sequel preview.

I picked up three napkins and started folding them into origami cranes, placing each one in the center of our ancient Corel plates. The eat-in kitchen was small and dated, but it did something to ease the aching in my hollow chest.

My parents were difficult and angry and deeply bitter, but they also cared about me above everything else. And I knew they loved each other. Even if they had a hard time admitting it. But it always made my memories an interesting mix of longing and loved, of bad memories mingled with great ones.

“You know he lost his job again,” my mother said in a harsh whisper. “Again, Molly.”

I stared at my mom’s back and lost the ability to form words. Her stiff shoulders and robotic movements said words she would never say out loud. What are we going to do now?

She never asked that question aloud, because she’d always had the answer. She would figure it out. On her own. Without help and without my dad. She would scrimp enough money to get by and continue to do whatever it took to pay the bills and put food on the table. She would do what she always did—clean up my dad’s mess.

My dad had never been able to keep a steady job. Which was kind of funny considering how many times he had been hired. That was the thing about my dad, he had no trouble finding work. He just couldn’t keep it. People loved him. His bosses always started out loving him. I loved him. He was boisterous and charming and completely irresponsible.

And he was a salesman. When I was very little, he sold cars. And knives, and cookware, and even life insurance policies at one point. In middle school, he’d moved to canvassing neighborhoods to sell roofs and then fences and finally gutters. When I got to high school, he had a steady job of selling medical equipment out of an office.

My mom and I had sincerely hoped that the office job would be a turning point for him. He even wore a tie to work and came home every day whistling.

But whatever it was that afflicted my dad when it came to finally pulling it together, had reared its ugly head and come back with a vengeance. When he lost the office job, he didn’t find another one until after I’d graduated and left the house.

In recent years, he’d had sporadic part time work with a tree service, but he wasn’t exactly a spry twenty-something-year-old. Manual labor was hard for him at his age. So he’d given that up, to try his hand at selling boats.

He’d managed that for eight months.

My heart dropped to my toes like it was made of stone. I grasped at my chest where there was only a gaping hole now. “He’ll find another job, Mom,” I assured her in an insistent whisper. “He always does.”

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t even flinch. “At least you’re not here anymore,” she said.

I focused on the napkins again. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Maybe she was happy I didn’t have to carry these burdens anymore, that I didn’t have to watch my dad spiral into depression as he tortured himself for not being able to keep work like most other people. Or maybe she was happy she didn’t have another mouth to feed and body to take care of. Maybe she was just glad she had one less thing to worry about now.

“If you need help, Mom, I can—”

Her hand snapped up cutting my words off, stiff as a board. “No, we don’t need help. Especially not from our daughter. You got your bills to pay, and that new car of yours, so don’t you even think about us. This is your father’s mess. Let him figure out what we’re going to do.”

The hole in my chest widened, cracking my body cavity with dense fissures that spread like disease all the way to my toes. “Well, just let me know if I can help,” I said stubbornly. “You’ve taken care of me my entire life, it’s important for me to be able to help you.”

“Molly Nichole, it’s my job to take care of you.”

And there it was, the confusion that always bit at my skin, like little stinging gnats. Was that all I was to her? An obligation? Another job where she had to pick up all of my dad’s slack?

I accidentally bent the neck of my crane napkin. I tried to fix it, but the napkin wasn’t stiff enough and I only made it worse.

My dad’s heavy footsteps could be heard ambling down the hallway. Without verbally discussing it, Mom and I shut down our job conversation and focused on our individual tasks.

“Patty, have you seen my green t-shirt?” my dad started talking before he’d even reached the kitchen.

“It’s in the laundry room,” my mother answered, still staring at her ham balls. “It’s dirty.”

“Son of a bitch,” my dad grumbled in return. He turned the corner to the kitchen and stopped in his tracks, surprised to see me standing over his table. “Well, now, if it isn’t the most beautiful girl in North Carolina.”

I looked up from my task and grinned at this man I wanted so desperately to be the hero instead of the villain in my life story. He was thin and gangly, but for his round belly stretched by his six-foot three-inch frame, made it an awkward effort for him to stay standing. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled back.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, kitten. Missed you.”

I left the table to wrap my arms around his middle. “I missed you, too.”

He kissed the top of my head and said the same thing he always said to me. “You know, I didn’t think this growing up thing all the way through. I didn’t think you’d move away and stay away. You were supposed to come back, Molly Monster.”

I sniffled against him, feeling frustrated tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I would not let them fall, but the pain in my chest had become a crushing, shaking, life-smashing pain and it was all I could do to hold myself together for him.

He smelled like cheap beer, Old Spice, and my dad. I squished my eyes closed and imprisoned every rogue tear.

“I’m here now,” I told him. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

He kissed my head again, not calling me on the lie. He knew I would miss this if I could. That I had missed plenty of invitations for supper with my parents. He knew I would rather be a hundred different places because so would he.

“It’s ready,” my mom declared.

Dad and I moved apart. He ambled over to his seat while I pulled water glasses down and filled them. My mom and I added ham balls—which sounded gross, but were, in fact, amazing—rice pilaf and lettuce salad to the table. Once we were all seated, we began passing the food around.

“Well, Molly Monster, let’s hear it. Tell us all about your life,” my dad demanded with his rich, warm voice. “Who are the boys that are chasing after you?”

Just like that I was transported to my twelve-year-old body that had no idea what to do with boobs or how to get my knees to stop being so knobby. “There aren’t any boys,” I answered honestly. “I’ve decided to focus on cats instead.”