Chapter 6 - The Gathering Storm
By two o'clock in the afternoon, the heat in Fort Worth had climbed to ninety-six degrees.
The air inside my little house was heavy with the smell of cheap aerosol air freshener and the fried sausage Travis had cooked for lunch, leaving grease splatters across the white tile backsplash that he hadn't bothered to wipe down.
When Junie and I walked through the front door, Travis was sprawled across the living room sofa, his bare feet propped up on my coffee table directly over a stack of unpaid medical bills I had set aside.
“Where have you two been?” he grumbled, not taking his eyes off his phone. “The kids were starving. I had to make them lunch myself. And your mother called—she said you weren't answering your cell.”
“My battery was low,” I said evenly, walking past him into the kitchen.
Junie slipped silently down the hall toward our bedroom, her sneakers making no sound against the floorboards. She knew the rules of the house now: avoid Uncle Travis when the game was on, avoid making noise when he was on the phone, avoid existing in the common areas unless invited.
It made my stomach twist with self-loathing that I had allowed my child to learn those rules in her own home.
“Well, Mom’s coming over at four,” Travis said, swinging his legs off the couch and stretching his thick arms over his head. “She’s bringing dinner. Which is good, because frankly, Darcy, the food situation here has been pretty pathetic lately. We need real protein. The boys are growing.”
I stood at the sink, washing my hands with cheap lemon soap. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, that is so,” Travis said, walking into the kitchen and leaning against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. He adopted that familiar, paternalistic tone he always used when he was about to demand something outrageous under the guise of an executive decision.
“Look, Darcy, we need to talk about the summer arrangements.”
I turned off the tap. I wiped my hands slowly on a dish towel. “What about the summer arrangements, Travis?”
“The kids are going to be out of school starting Thursday,” he said casually, picking an apple out of the ceramic bowl on the counter, turning it over in his hand, and setting it back down because it had a small bruise. “Lindsay has them for two weeks in June for some family trip to Colorado, but after that, they’re here full-time for six weeks straight. It’s part of the standard summer possession order.”
“Here,” I repeated. “In my two-bedroom house.”
“Well, obviously,” Travis scoffed, rolling his eyes as if I were a particularly slow child. “Where else would they go? But here’s the problem: that back bedroom is just too small for three kids in the summer heat. Chase is twelve now; he needs his privacy. Hadley can’t be changing clothes in front of her brothers. It’s not appropriate.”
I leaned back against the sink, watching him with an expression that must have looked utterly blank. “And what do you propose we do about that, Travis?”
Travis cleared his throat, adjusting the collar of his t-shirt. He had the nerve to look magnanimous.
“I was thinking it makes the most sense if you and Junie take the small bedroom, and the kids take the master bedroom. That way, Chase and Owen can have the twin beds, Hadley can have the walk-in closet space for her things, and you and Junie can share the small room until August. I’ll keep the couch, obviously, so I don't crowd you. It’s just the logical move, Darcy. You have to be flexible. We’re a family unit right now.”
He was asking me to surrender my own master bedroom.
He was asking me to pack up my clothes, my bed, my sanctuary, and cram myself and my daughter into a ten-by-ten space that he had already stripped of her desk and her dignity, while he continued to collect forty-four hundred dollars a month from David and Sarah on Whispering Pines Court.
“You want my room,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s not *your* room, Darcy, it’s just square footage,” he snapped, his patience fraying at my lack of immediate compliance. “Why do you always get so territorial? Mom was right—you’ve been single for so long you’ve gotten completely rigid. In a real family, people sacrifice. They don't count every inch of floor space.”
“You’re right,” I said, looking him straight in his clear, unblinking blue eyes. “In a real family, people sacrifice.”
Travis blinked, momentarily thrown off by my sudden surrender. A smug, satisfied smirk spread across his face.
“Good. I’m glad you’re finally seeing reason. We can move the mattresses after Mom leaves tonight. I’ll have Chase help you carry your dresser down the hall.”
He turned on his heel and walked back toward the living room to resume his baseball game.
I stood in the silence of the kitchen, looking down at my hands. They were no longer trembling.
The front doorbell rang promptly at three-fifty-five.
It was our mother, Judy.
She bustled through the front door carrying a steaming Pyrex dish wrapped in floral kitchen towels and a cardboard bakery box containing a peach cobbler from the expensive market on the west side of town.
“Oh, it is simply sweltering out there!” Judy announced, presenting her cheek for me to peck while immediately scanning the living room. “Travis, sweetheart! Look at you, you look exhausted. Are you getting enough sleep on that awful lumpy sofa?”
“Managing, Mom,” Travis sighed heroically, rising to take the heavy casserole dish from her hands with a display of exaggerated strain. “Just taking it one day at a time. Trying to keep the kids’ spirits up.”
“You are an absolute saint, Travis,” Judy declared, patting his arm tenderly before turning to me with a critical eye. “Darcy, why is this house so dark? Open the blinds! It feels like a cave in here. And where is Junie? Don't tell me she’s hiding in the bedroom again. That child needs to come out and greet her grandmother.”
“Junie is reading, Mom,” I said, closing the front door behind her.
“Well, she can read anytime,” Judy huffed, setting her oversized straw handbag on my kitchen counter directly on top of the notebook where I had written down my grocery tallies. “Family is here now. Go get her. And set the table, honey. We have a lot to discuss before Father's Day.”
I looked at the table.
Travis’s dual monitors were still glowing. His cardboard boxes were still piled high on the chairs. His dirty cereal bowls were still crusting beside the napkins.
“Travis,” I said, my voice cutting through the humid air of the room like a cold knife. “Clear your things off the dining table.”
Travis frowned from the refrigerator, where he was already inspecting the casserole. “Darcy, I told you, I’m in the middle of an auction. Just set the food on the coffee table. We can eat while we watch the pre-game show.”
“No,” I said.
Judy froze, a look of profound shock washing over her wrinkled face. “Darcy Lynn! What kind of tone is that to use with your brother?”
May you like
“Clear the table, Travis,” I repeated, stepping into the center of the room. “Or I will take every single piece of your equipment and throw it onto the front lawn.”
***
