The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(10)

But, holy shit, I was pissed.

Bad enough that as I was leaving my mother’s apartment, Mom called out, “Where are you going? I’m coming with you!” Okay, I thought. Mom and Lily have always gotten along. I’ve always been happy about that. And it’s great that Lily wants to share her tree lighting with a wide range of people. Go with it.

I even chose not to mind when my mother said, “Are you really going to wear that?” and made me put on a tie. This was probably the first mother-son outing we’d had since puberty had ousted mother-son outings from my to-do list. Still, I tried to rise to the occasion. We chitchatted on the subway about what her reading group had chosen that month. After I professed a complete ignorance about the works of Ann Patchett, we found our way to other subject matter, like the fact that I was going to stay around for New Year’s while she and my stepfather were heading out of town. It was fine.

But then we got to Lily’s subway stop, and at the top of the stairs, Mom gripped my arm and said, “No. That can’t be—no.”

At first I thought, What a coincidence. Of all the places Dad chose to be this afternoon, he happens to be here, in our way.

Then I saw he was holding a present…and it dawned on me that the afternoon was exquisitely f*cked.

This registered with my mother, too.

“Lily couldn’t possibly have…?” she asked.

The problem was, I didn’t have to answer. We both knew it was possible.

“Oh no,” Mom said. Then, punctuating each word with a deep breath, “No. No. No.”

I know plenty of children of divorce who are sad about the turn of events that turned their family into rubble. But I have never been one of them. Even a casual observer could see that my parents brought out the worst in each other—and I was hardly a casual observer. When things fell apart—I was nine—it felt like a full-time job to observe the way my parents acted around each other. They both thought they were arming themselves with their strengths, but really they were just grabbing for amplified versions of their weaknesses. A seesaw of panic and rage from my mother. A swirl of arrogance and righteous indignation from my father. I tried not to take sides, but ultimately my father’s meanness was far worse than my mother’s need. He’d done little to disrupt the pattern since.

Lily knew how I felt. She knew I kept a wide demilitarized zone between my parents. It was the only way to prevent constant warfare on my father’s end, and hurt on my mother’s.

Now she was hurt. Just seeing him, she was hurt.

“I had no idea,” I told her.

“I know,” she said. Then, after a clear moment of decision, she started walking forward, following my father.

“You don’t have to do this,” I told her. “Really. I’ll explain to Lily. She’ll understand.”

Mom smiled at me. “We can’t let the terrorists win, Dash. I’m going to this tree lighting whether your father is there or not.”

She even picked up her pace, so by the time we got to Lily’s block, we were only a few feet behind my father. Characteristically, he wasn’t looking back.

“Dad,” I said, finally, as we got to the front steps.

He turned and saw me first. Put on his Father Face. (It never quite fit.) Then he looked next to me and flashed some genuine surprise.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” my mom replied. “Oh.”

We stood there clucking for a minute, pleasantries without any feeling of pleasantness. Mom asked after Dad’s new-but-not-that-new wife. Dad asked after Mom’s new-but-not-that-new husband. It felt surreal—the names didn’t match the voices that usually said them. I was at a loss—and the loss was one I had grown up with. It was not something I wanted to get any closer to.

The present that Dad was holding was wrapped—maybe by the wife, maybe by the shop. Whatever the case, it showed more care than I’d received in years. I got checks—when I got anything at all. She always signed the birthday cards for him.

Even before Lily answered the door, Mom and Dad started to peck at each other—Dad saying, “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” and Mom saying, “Why wouldn’t I be here?”—until I pecked at both of them to be quiet. I knew Lily’s whole family would be here, and the last thing I wanted was for them to see how rocky the surface of my gene pool was.

Lily opened the door and I had to remind myself: She had no idea she had no idea she had no idea. So I didn’t scream. I just said, “Guess who I ran into?”

A different girlfriend would have answered my sarcastic salvo with one of her own. Krampus? Lily might have said. Or Scrooge. Or Judah Frickin’ Maccabee. But that wasn’t what Lily was going to answer. Instead, she asked, “Can I take your coats?” Only, none of us were wearing coats.

Instead of answering, my father held out his present. “For you, my dear,” he said to Lily.

“I would have brought something,” my mother quickly interjected, “but Dash told me it wasn’t that kind of party.”

My father laughed. “Typical!” he said to Lily, as if she knew as well as he how bad I was at figuring out what kind of party a party was.

“It really isn’t that kind of a party,” Lily said. “But thank you anyway.”

And my father, true to form, said, “Well, if it’s not that kind of party, I can always take the present back.” He lunged to take it from her, and then pulled away, laughing again. “God, it was just a joke, people,” he said once he realized he was the only one laughing.