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)
“I don’t need a nurse to check on me.” His speech is slower, words measured like he has to concentrate to get them right.
“Well, your son is worried about you, and he pays me.” Rosie winks at me before turning to Dad. I like that she doesn’t take his shit. “You should be happy you have kids who love you so much. Rhett is like a mother hen, and Morgan flew all the way out here from California.”
I notice she doesn’t mention East. What the fuck is going on with him?
“Come here, son,” Dad says, not acknowledging what Rosie said. She steps out of the way, and I go inside the entryway. The same crystal chandelier hangs above it, and to the left there’s a table with a vase and a bowl for keys. “Good to see you, Morgan.” Dad holds out his right hand, and we shake. He has never been much for displays of affection, and I guess that didn’t change after not seeing each other for ten years.
“I’m done here,” Rosie says. “I’ll grab my stuff and see myself out.”
“Um…thank you.” I run a nervous hand through my hair, hating that I feel on edge. I should be over this shit by now. “Do I need to do anything?”
“Nope. Everything on my end is organized through Rhett. Just enjoy seeing your father, and welcome back to Birchbark.”
I nod and watch her walk away. What does one do when for the first time in ten years they’re in the room with the father who is never satisfied with them?
“You didn’t have to come.” Dad’s limp is obvious as he slowly moves toward his office.
“I love you too,” I say sarcastically as I follow.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, but do you have much room to talk? You left us. You fought with your brother, and you left us, Morgan. Swifts don’t abandon their family.”
My nostrils flare, teeth grinding together. “The way you were always there for us?” falls from my mouth. We shouldn’t be doing this. Not now. Now when he’s not well. But I can’t help it. He fills me with too much rage.
“I always took care of my family.” He tries to pull the chair from under his desk, but it gets caught. He tugs again but fumbles and can’t seem to do it. “Goddamn it!” Gone is the man who shook my hand in front of Rosie.
“Let me help you.” I walk over, but he shakes off my concern.
“I can pull out a chair by myself.” Whatever was hooked fixes itself when he yanks again, the chair almost falling before he rights it, and he sits down. His face is slightly flushed. He might look almost the same, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s not. “I need to get some work done. Your old room is ready for you if you plan to stay.”
That’s my dismissal. Any time things get real, it’s what he does—shuts down the conversation. We all learned it from him. I guess in a lot of ways, I’m more like him than I wanted to be.
I head outside, grab my suitcases, and bring them upstairs to my old room. It shares a bathroom with Rhett’s old room. Easton had been across the hall, Ella beside him.
I put my things away, then walk over to the window. My room faces the water, the dock. This is where I’d been, pretending to count, but had been on my phone, talking to Dusty, annoyed I had to play a dumb kids’ game of hide-and-seek with Easton and Ella. Angry that Rhett was off on some pre-college trip before he got to leave for Harvard.
I’d been so angry and selfish that I didn’t go and look for them. I sat on the bed while they waited in hiding spots for a brother who wasn’t coming…Ella climbed into the small boat, which tipped over, and she got trapped and drowned, while I pouted in my room…and no one knows. No one knows why I took so long to find them.
Nausea sweeps through my gut, the bitter taste of bile in my throat as I step away.
Don’t think about that, don’t think about her. Not right now.
Even though I’m on a leave of absence, I still check my work email and reply to a few concerns, before ending up in Mom’s room. The same bed is there that she used to sleep in, same white bedding that’s been washed over and over through the years. Dad moved into the second master bedroom downstairs after she died, with some excuse I don’t remember. All of us kids stayed up here with her ghost.
“You would hate what’s happened to us,” I say to the family photo sitting on her old dresser, while twisting one of the two rings that always grace my fingers. I’d gotten them from her. They’d belonged to her father, whom we never met. She gave them to me before they fit, but now that they do, I always wear them. “We would have found a way to be okay if we hadn’t lost you.” She would have held us together. She would have forced Dad’s hand more, and she would have helped me and Rhett through our shit. She never would have left Ella and Easton hiding, so my sister would be here, and East wouldn’t be dealing with whatever shit he’s dealing with.