Saturday night, Dad had to work late with Adam’s father, so Mom ordered in some Chinese food and allowed all of us to drink something other than water. It was the first time she didn’t look as if she was wondering without Dad’s presence.
“How was school today, kiddos?” she asked, helping Emmanuel take a Sprite out of the back of our fridge. Evelyn looked at me with wide eyes, and I shrugged. Emmanuel was watching Mom as well, believing the same thing we all were: something was going on today.
“Um, good, Mom,” Evelyn said, picking at her lo mein. “How was yours?”
Mom glanced over her shoulder, giving Evelyn a kind smile. I took a large bite of my egg roll, watching Mom as she sashayed over to us. “Never mind my day,” she said. “I wanna hear all about yours before semester exams pop in.”
She says this because what happens to me happens to Eric and Evelyn too. Eric becomes obsessed with the idea of acing his exams and kissing at least five different girls. Evelyn just gets emotional (it doesn’t help when her hormones join that party) the entire week, and she’ll cry if her test score is anything less than a 95.
I’d like to consider myself better than the two.
“My day was great,” Eric shrugged, his head focused on the food in front of him. I finished eating my first egg roll while Mom nodded, watching her suspiciously.
“Same here!” Emmanuel cried, raising his fork to the sky. “Sam and I played outside at recess and we almost missed the bell to come back inside! And then Sam was talking about how she was going to be making some changes to herself when she got older and-”
“That’s great, honey,” Mom interrupted. I didn’t blame her for it. If nobody stopped E from talking, his mouth would be running all day and night. She tried to give a smile to Evelyn, but she was busy touching a large amount of vegetables Mom had bought for her, courteous of Dad. “What about the rest of you? Anything special?”
I kept my head down, biting back a smile while thinking about the two times I had made Delcan grin today. Evelyn ignored me and turned her attention to Eric, her ponytail barely missing her food. “Bro, don’t you have news?”
Eric shook his head, his lips pursed. “That’s not what a few friends told me.”
“Oh! Is it the girlfriend thingy?” Emmanuel’s smile faded as he cried out, clutching the shin Eric had kicked under the table. “Ow!” He looked at Eric in betrayal, but Eric was shoving food into his mouth.
Mom shrugged. “I’m not going to tell anyone,” she expressed. “Is she a new girlfriend or have you two been together for some time…?”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDwTUEvBCxv
“She’s Asain, Mom,” Eric said, noodles and a piece of orange chicken falling out of his mouth. I kept my silence, knowing exactly who Eric was talking about. Recently, a girl moved to our school. I didn’t know her name, but she was in the same grade as me. She also was put on the debate team at our school, as well as the school newspaper with Annalise. I caught Eric and her kissing after one of the basketball games, although I felt no need to do anything but make fun of how short she was. He then decided to express my boyfriend’s past, and I hit him in the balls with the closest thing to me: an aired up basketball.
Mom paused. “Oh,” she said. Dad had stated on multiple occasions that Chinese people (as all Asians were to him) should stay in China, and should suffer from their actions. He also believed all Chinese people (Japanese people) are still planning on committing Pearl Harbor again, and that all of them are working for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-um. Since I didn’t know many people of that race, he almost fooled me on it. Then, Annalise’s half-sister stood on a chair and slapped me when I made a joke about it in 7th grade, and I stopped agreeing with Dad on Asian people. “Don’t tell your father.”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGTTspMdDA1
Eric shrugged. “No, ⟴,” he declared.
“Language, sweetheart,” Mom whispered, keeping her head down and her eyes on her food. “What about everyone else? Dating anybody your father wouldn’t approve of?”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA3qtmGkEo6
I keep my eyes on Emmanuel, warning him that if he even dared to open are his mouth, I would hit him with his favorite toy. He sighed and shoved a piece of large broccoli into his mouth. “Guess not,” I said.
“Evelyn’s dating Ezra’s best friend!” Eric announced.
I looked over to Evelyn, who’s mouth was shaped in an o before she screamed back, “Eric and his girlfriend haven’t used protection!”
“You’re dating who?” I asked.
My voice was overpowered by Eric and Evelyn throwing back insults at each other like the world was going to end if they didn’t. Mom looked back and forth between her children, her face in a state of confusion. She was clearly indecisive, wondering if she should be getting onto Eric and Evelyn for things that have already happened. After Evelyn mentioned the Mexican girl Eric had snuck into his room one night, Mom held up her hands.
“Enough,” she said. “This is ridiculous.”
I still kept my eyes on Evelyn, watching her as she did everything in her power but to look across the table. “You’re dating?”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrd4kgiDaie
“Yeah, Ezra,” she said, stabbing her food. “Is that alright with you?”
No, it’s not. It’s not that I don’t trust guys with my sister; she plays men until they beg for her or get bored and give up. I simply don’t trust Evelyn’s choice of people. Unlike Eric and me, she dates people Dad would hate just for the hell of it. Delcan’s the first person that I’ve dated that Dad would have an issue with. Well, millions of issues. My sister also doesn’t think when she dates, my entire reason for keeping all men away from her.
But who was she dating?
I shook my head, taking another bite out of my egg roll. “You’re too young to be dating.”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6jo0LzOyb7
“Alright, Dad,” she smiled. “We’re only a year apart.”705Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRto7HeIaHL
Eric shrugged. “Honestly, if she wants to have a boyfriend, she can have a boyfriend.” I could hear the cuss word on the tip of his tongue, although he clearly wasn’t going to say any of it in front of Mom.
“Who are you dating, honey,” Mom asked, very interested.
Evelyn opened her mouth for a second, but she looked at me and closed her mouth. Giving me a shrug, she pressed her lips together. “I don’t want to say who it is,” she said. The moment she looked down and bit her lip, I instantly knew.
I had blocked out the look of interest Adam had given my sister when she walked in wearing shorts. I’d also ignored him slapping his mouth closed when Evelyn smiled to him. I hadn’t thought about my sister’s tone when she had told me not to talk to Adam that day, or when she had come home late from hanging out with Callie.
Clearly, that was a lie.
“Adam?” I snarled, not intending to sound rude. Since I’ve known Adam in 7th grade, he’s only been with two girls. One was Ann, who he dated and treated well until she broke up with him, and the second was a girl he’d only spent one night with. Evelyn shrugged, going back to her food as the room fell into silence.
I had questions. How long have they been together? When did this happen? Who else knows?
Why didn’t one of them say something?
I looked over to Mom, who was stressed. She continued to look across the table where Dad sat. I realized it wasn’t the best time to throw a tantrum. Just when I was about to ask Mom about her day again, Emmanuel butler loudly.
“E!” Mom laughed. Emmanuel placed a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide as a smile crept over Eric’s face. I shook my head, taking a sip of my water.
A few seconds later, Eric belched out another one. Mom looked over to him, her face in shock as I laughed, slapping him on the back. “Way to set a chain, man,” I told him. I looked over to Evelyn, who was laughing at Emmanuel still and was now breathing heavily because of Eric.
Questions can definitely wait until later.
I snatched Emmanuel’s drink while he wasn’t looking, seeing the empty seat not far from him. For all I knew, this is the most fun I might ever have with my mother. Taking a long drink from my brother’s soda, I felt the air bubble grow in my throat, and I let it go.
Neither my sister or mother seemed prepared for that. Evelyn stopped laughing entirely, and she had her mouth shaped in an o. Meanwhile, Mom was laughing, clutching her stomach as she fell back in her chair.
I smiled, not remembering the last time Mom had laughed like that. Actually, I can’t remember the last time she laughed. It was a soft type of laughter, wavering up and down like the autumn wind. The laugh sounded nothing like what I was used to, and I think that’s what allowed me to forget about my stress. Seeing Mom this happy was new for all of us.
Evelyn didn’t even take a drink of anything before she burped as well, louder than Eric and I had combined. She placed her hand on her heart as all of us fell silent, and then Emmanuel giggled.
“Goodness, sissy,” he smiled. She stuck her tongue out to him, and I laughed with my brother and mom.
“And she’s victorious!” Eric chanted, intimidating a sports host for wrestling or something. I joined him in clapping, smiling as she stood up and bowed.
“Not just yet,” Mom said.
We all stopped and looked at her. Mom ignored our eyes as she chugged more than half of her drink, then she relaxed. I don’t think I ever thought of Mom as the party girl. She seemed as if it was too much for her. For all my life, Mom reminded of the children who were driven to have good grades and no friends, but she didn’t mind that. Evelyn and I even made up a consultancy that she had an arranged marriage with Dad, but Emmanuel overheard us and asked her. Turns out, she agreed to marry him in college.
This person I was watching wasn’t Mom. She was someone who had broken out of a shell that had been holding her back for years. Our Mom has life in her eyes, and a real smile on her face.
Mom soon let out a burp louder than any of ours, and I joined Eric in chanting her on. Emmanuel shouted with us, his high voice sounding odd compared to Eric and I. Evelyn was clapping, shaking her head with shock in her eyes. Mom accepted the applause with a slight shrug before she began mixing her food again. “Like I said,” she told us. “Momma can always one-up you.”
She hasn’t said that since I was five, and Dad had gone on a business trip. She’d played Monopoly with my siblings while she was still pregnant with Emmanuel, and she beat all of us pretty hard. I went bankrupt and gave up quickly, while Evelyn cried because Eric took a hotel from her; she quit soon after. Mom beat Eric without him even knowing, and she used “momma” for the first time.
Evelyn let out a burp again, and I looked at her. “I think we’re done with that,” I told her. She held her hand over her mouth, smiling.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” she told me.
“I sure as hell hope not,” a voice said. ⟴. I turned to see Dad standing in the doorway, one hand holding a briefcase, and the other holding a copy of the receipt Mom had. He walked over to all of us as I watched the life draining out of my mom. “Ladies are not supposed to burp, Evelyn, do you understand that?”
Before she could respond, Dad patted me on the back. “Hope you had a good day, son,” he told me. I nodded in response, blocking out my previous thoughts of making out with Delcan at school. “Sarah, what the ⟴ is this? I expect you to make dinner every night for these children. Is that not your job?”
“Mom had a job,” Evelyn said. I glared at her, feeling Dad’s hand tighten on my shoulder. “And she’s not a robot for you to play around with.”
Dad took a moment to respond to her. When he did, his voice was cold and stern, like he was ready to hurt her. “Evelyn,” he began. “The next time you decide to act like you’re a grown adult, I’ll see how well you can handle being in Paris Heights without any money or good clothing. With the way you’ve been eating, they’ll send you straight into prostitution. Do you truly want that, daughter?”
Slowly, Evelyn shook her head. Mom stood up and began taking away our plates, even though she knew we weren’t done. I felt a desire to turn around and do something to Dad, thinking he wouldn’t ever hurt me. Eric looked like he was ready to kill Dad with his plastic knife, while I watched Emmanuel grab our sister’s hand under the table.
“While you’re at it, Sarah, clean the entire house,” Dad called. “I can feel your filthy behavior lingering around this house.” I held my teeth together, wishing Dad’s Hans would move. Mom poked her head in through the kitchen, and she nodded. Mom’s back, I thought to myself. Eric didn’t excuse himself from the table, pushing back his chair and going up to his room, the door slamming.
Dad didn’t seem to acknowledge this. He still kept his body turned to Evelyn while Mom went into the living room with a broom and wipes in her hand. “Evelyn, you will never do that again, young lady. Do you understand me?”
My sister had straightened her back since Dad had walked into the room, and I wished I’d known how long he had been there. With her chin held high, she nodded. “Yes, sir.” But her “sir” was drowned out by Mom’s vacuum cleaner.
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