The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(47)

Everyone did as I asked. As the librarians scribbled down their emails on a back page of my journal, a text came through from Lily.

How are you doing? she asked. (We’d already had a very long I’m-so-sorry-You-have-no-reason-to-be-sorry exchange.)

About to be discharged, I replied. Up for something tomorrow that doesn’t involve depth perception?

You name it, she replied.

I will, I promised.

But first I’d have to survive a night with my father.

—

Leeza’s first words to me when I got into the car were, “Oh no, you poor baby!”

Good sentiment, unfortunate word choice.

The whole ride home, she fussed and fretted about my eye, and by the time we got to the apartment, I felt my father was more annoyed at her than he was at me. Which was quite an achievement.

In many ways, Leeza was not what I’d been expecting for a stepmother. For one, I was expecting someone closer to my own age. But Leeza was actually a year older than my mother—something that annoyed my mom to no end, because it was one thing to be left for a newer model and quite another to be left for someone with as much mileage as you had. (My mother shouldn’t have told me this, but on a particularly dark pre-stepfather night when I was ten, she had.)

Along similar lines, I was relieved that Leeza and my dad hadn’t wanted to have another kid—my father broadcast this fact at many dinner parties that I was at in my formative years. This meant my status was secure. But at the same time, it also confirmed that maybe I hadn’t been entirely wanted in the first place. Because if my dad had experienced such a good time with me, wouldn’t he have wanted to experience it again? (I knew it was more complicated than this, but emotionally, this was how it sometimes felt.)

My room in my father’s apartment was maybe one-quarter bedroom and three-quarters storage for yoga equipment and odds and ends. Usually Leeza cleaned it out to make the ratio at least fifty-fifty before I arrived, but this time she hadn’t had a chance.

“I’m sorry,” she said, moving an exercise ball off the general area of my pillow. “If you want, I can get you some cleaner sheets. I changed them after you were here the last time—but I know that was months ago.”

Mercifully, there wasn’t any rebuke in her recitation of this fact. At least not until my father walked by and seized it.

“Yes, it hasn’t escaped my attention that your presence has been scarce here, Dashiell,” he said from the doorway. “It’s been that way for the whole year, no? About the same time you met Lily, if I’m not mistaken. I know what teenage hormones are like, but family is family, and it’s about time you realized that.”

“Now, now, dear,” Leeza said, armfulling some yoga mats into the closet. “We love Lily.”

“We love what we’ve seen of Lily,” my father replied. “But I have to say—first, a year ago, she lands you in jail. And now she’s landed you in the hospital. It makes we wonder whether Lily’s the right kind of girl for you to be spending so much time with.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

“I’m not kidding at all.”

I stared him down with my one good eye. “You don’t know Lily at all and you don’t know me at all, so your observations, while delivered with conviction, are just so much horseshit to me, Dad.”

My father grew bright red. “Now you look here, Dashiell—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Stop. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to pass any judgment here.”

“I am your father!”

“I am all too aware of that! And it’s bad enough for you to treat me like an idiot. But don’t you dare slander Lily in the process. It takes both her and Mom to balance out the seesaw with you on the other end.”

My father laughed. “Ah—I knew your mother would factor into this. All of these things that she’s told you—”

“No, Dad. These are the things I’ve told myself. Over and over and over again. Because, surprise! I am actually capable of coming to my own conclusions.”

“Boys,” Leeza interrupted, “I know it’s been a really long day for all of us. And Dash needs rest after everything he’s gone through. So why don’t we call it a night?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I need to know if he even wants me here. Otherwise I can just go home.”

“No, Dash,” Leeza said sternly. “You are not staying alone tonight. Eventually, whatever drugs they gave you at the hospital are going to wear off and you’re going to find it’s not particularly comfortable to go to sleep with a bandaged eye. You need someone to take care of you.”

I didn’t tell her, but at that moment, she sounded exactly like my mom, in a way my mom would actually approve of.

“Listen to Leeza,” my father said.

“There’s no school tomorrow, right?” she went on. “Invite Lily over for breakfast. I’ll make gingerbread pancakes.”

“You’ll order gingerbread pancakes,” my father snarked.

“No,” Leeza corrected, “I will make them. It’ll be nice to have some people around who deserve them.”

“Good lord, I know when I’m not wanted,” my father huffed. “I’ll see you in the morning, Dashiell.”