Chapter 4
Tara didn’t answer Dad right away.
I could hear the clock in the kitchen. I watched her look at the acceptance letter, then at me.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I was going to tell her.”
“When?” I asked.
“I just opened it.”
“The program called you two weeks ago.”
“I called them,” she said. “They didn’t call me.”
Dad set the papers on the table.
“Why?”
“Because it’s six weeks away from home, and I didn’t know you’d discussed it with me.”
“I discussed it with Dad,” I said. “He signed the application.”
“I’m part of this family too.”
Dad shook his head.
“That doesn’t give you the right to withdraw her application.”
“I didn’t withdraw it.”
“You tried,” I said.
Tara turned to Dad.
“She’s seventeen. You’re ready to let her spend six weeks in another city without asking me?”
“I looked at the program, the housing, and the staff,” Dad said. “Maya earned a place.”
“I thought we made decisions together.”
“We make decisions together about our marriage. Maya’s future isn’t something you get to quietly close off because you disagree.”
Tara pulled out a chair and sat. She suddenly looked tired.
“I was afraid she’d come back hating me more.”
The admission hit me strangely. She had tried to keep me home because she feared I might want to leave.
“I don’t hate you,” I said. “But every time you try to control what happens to me, I trust you less.”
She lowered her eyes.
Dad asked for the envelope. He checked the remaining pages and placed them back in my hands.
“We’ll confirm your place tonight,” he told me.
I took the letter upstairs before Tara could say anything else.
From my room, I called the program myself. The coordinator confirmed that my acceptance was active and that only I could accept or decline. She asked if there were any concerns about the application.
“I just wanted to hear that it was still mine,” I said.
“It is,” she told me.
I sat on the bed afterward with Mom’s quilt over my knees. I had spent weeks hoping for this letter. Now that it had come, I was afraid to feel happy.
Dad knocked.
“Can I see what you submitted?”
I opened the portfolio on my laptop. There were sketches of Elena’s little brother, the street outside our school, and Mom’s hands holding the clay bowl we had made together. I had drawn them from an old photograph.
Dad stopped at that one.
“She would have loved it,” he said.
I looked away.
“Did she ever feel like she was hard to live with?”
“No.”
“I keep wondering if Tara would be happier if I left.”
Dad closed the laptop gently.
“Tara is responsible for how she treats you. You don’t need to leave your own home to make her comfortable.”
“I do want to go to the program.”
“I know. That’s different.”
We accepted the place together that night.
On Saturday, I went to Elena’s house to work on a school project. Her mother congratulated me and insisted I stay for dinner. I had not realized how much I needed an evening where nobody watched my face for signs of disloyalty.
Dad picked me up afterward.
Tara was at the dining table when we got home. She had written me a letter. She pushed it across the table and said I could read it whenever I wanted.
In my room, I opened it.
She said she was sorry for the false accusation and the call to the art program. She wrote that she had been jealous of the ease between Dad and me. She missed feeling needed in the house and had let that feeling turn into resentment.
The letter was the most honest thing I had ever seen from her.
Then I reached the last paragraph.
She asked me to give her a chance by agreeing that we would “keep family problems inside the family” from now on.
I read that sentence three times.
When Dad came upstairs, I showed it to him.
He sighed.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“I want to talk to her too,” I said. “But I’m not promising to keep quiet.”
“You shouldn’t.”
The next morning, I went downstairs holding the letter.
Tara looked hopeful when she saw it.
“I read this,” I said. “I’m glad you told me how you felt. But I need to be able to talk to Elena, her mom, or anyone I trust when something hurts.”
Tara’s smile faded.
“I meant we should work things out together.”
“Then we can do that without asking me to hide them.”
Dad stood beside me.
Tara folded her hands.
“You’re right,” she said slowly. “That was unfair to ask.”
I wanted to believe we had reached something real.
Then her phone rang. She looked at the name on the screen and walked out to the porch.
Through the window, I saw her press a hand to her forehead.
May you like
When she came back in, she told Dad her bank had called.
A payment had failed on a storage unit he knew nothing about.
