Chapter 13: No You Don't Get to Decide That
The kitchen was too quiet after I said it. I hadn't asked. I'd told them. My acceptance was real, my enrollment was started, and I wasn't asking for permission anymore.
Linda didn't look at me. She looked straight at my dad, like she was waiting for him to correct me. Her arms were still crossed, but her shoulders had risen a little, and her mouth was pressed thin. She gave a small, sharp nod toward me, as if to say, are you going to let her talk like that?
My dad was standing at the end of the table. He hadn't sat down since he came in from the hallway. His hands were on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and I could see his knuckles go white and then relax. He breathed in through his nose and let it out slow. The fluorescent light buzzed over us. The envelope was still on the table between us, not crumpled anymore but not flat either, the blue seal a little scuffed.
He looked at Linda first, then at me.
"No," he said. His voice wasn't loud. It was the same word he'd used that day by the trash bin, but it landed different now because he didn't stop there. "You don't get to decide that, Linda."
Linda blinked. Her arms tightened.
"Robert, I am trying to keep this house running," she said. Her voice stayed low, controlled. "You work ten-hour days. The twins get off the bus at three. Someone has to be here. I can't pay a sitter on top of everything else."
"I know," he said. He didn't argue that part. He pulled the chair out and sat down, finally, so he was at our level. His hands stayed flat on the table. "I've been letting you carry that completely. That's on me. I've been gone and telling myself it was working because Maya was here. That's not fair to her and it's not a plan."
He turned his palm up slightly toward me when he said that, and then he looked back at Linda.
"So I'm fixing it. I'm not just saying it," he said. "I already talked to my supervisor yesterday. I'm moving to the early shift starting next week. I'll be home by three thirty. And I called the elementary school this morning. They have an after-school program until five. It's forty dollars a week per kid, and the church on County Road has care on Wednesdays for free. I put our names down. We are going to make it work without her."
Linda's mouth opened a little, but no sound came out right away. She stared at the white cabinets like she was doing math.
"Forty dollars a week times two, that's—" she started.
"Eighty," my dad said. "I know. We'll cover it. I'll pick up the overtime on Saturday mornings. But Maya is not the childcare plan. She hasn't been for a while, we just didn't say it out loud."
I felt my throat tighten. I hadn't expected him to have numbers. I'd expected another vague promise about figuring it out later. My hands were under the table, twisted together, and I made myself breathe.
Linda pushed back from the counter. She didn't yell. She walked to the sink and gripped the edge of it, her back to us.
"So that's it? You two decided without me?" she said.
My dad shook his head, even though she couldn't see it. "No. Maya decided about her own future. That's how this has to be. From now on, any decision about her school, her mail, her paperwork — it needs her consent. Directly from her. Not through us."
He tapped the envelope once with his fingertip, light.
"And nothing else of hers goes in the trash," he said. "Not a letter, not a form. Nothing gets thrown away to make a decision for her. If something comes for her in the mail, it goes to her hands. That's a line. I need you to hear me on that."
The kitchen faucet dripped once. Linda's shoulders moved with a breath. When she turned around, her face was flushed but her arms were no longer crossed. They hung at her sides, and for the first time she looked smaller, not stern.
"You think an after-school program is going to watch them when they're sick? When they have a half day?" she said, but her voice had lost the edge. It sounded tired now, and a little cornered.
"We'll handle those days together," my dad said. "You and me. We'll take turns calling out if we have to. We should have been doing that anyway."
He looked at me then. His eyes were red at the corners. "Maya, you are going. The fall. We will get you there. I will help you with the deposit and the rest of the forms. Okay?"
I nodded. I couldn't get a full sentence out, so I just said, "Okay."
Linda didn't say yes. She didn't say she was sorry. She walked past the table, past the envelope, and stopped by the hallway door. She put her hand on the frame and paused.
"Fine," she said, short. "Do it your way. But don't ask me to be happy about figuring out eighty dollars we don't have."
She left the kitchen. We heard her steps go down the hall and the bedroom door close, not slammed, just clicked shut.
My dad stayed at the table with me. He slid the envelope a little closer to my side of the table.
May you like
"Keep that somewhere safe," he said quietly. "In your room. Not on the counter."
I picked it up. The paper was warm from the light. He was still looking toward the hallway, listening to the quiet house, and I realized the standoff was over. She hadn't gotten to veto it. We had a painful, thin truce, and for the first time it was us two against the problem instead of me against both of them.
