“A guy I’m friends with punched Kevin,” I announced. “Twice.”
Sheila’s head shot forward. “What?!”
I heard my dad suck in a quiet breath.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kevin growled.
“Honey, someone hit you?” Sheila asked Kevin.
“Summer.” I could hear my father summoning me from across the table.
“Yes, Mom. But I’m fine.”
“Summer.”
“Why were you hit?” Sheila paused for a moment. “Did you hit him back?”
“Summer. Look at me.”
“I’m fine, Mom. I really am. He didn’t hit me the second time.”
“Who is this guy?”
“A second time? There were two separate occasions?”
“Summer, you will answer me.”
“Mom, I am fine. I swear. Both times were my fault, anyway.”
“Are you dating this guy?”
“Your fault? What’d you do?”
“Look at me.”
“I didn’t do anything. Well, I might’ve said some things I shouldn’t have.”
My father fell silent, seeming to give up, but I felt his gaze on the top of my head. I twisted my hands together in my lap.
“You were being a jackass, you mean?” Sheila sat against the back of her chair with a thud. “Why am I not surprised to hear this?”
Kevin snorted.
I looked at my stepmom. “What do you mean?”
“What, honey?” She looked over at me.
“You’re not surprised Kevin was a jackass. Why do you say that? You say that like it’s a normal thing.” I looked at him. “Is that normal?”
His eyes closed to slits, and his hand formed a fist on the table. But then his shoulders lifted on a deep intake of air, and he forced his hands flat on the table.
“There were problems before you and your father moved in, yes.”
“Kevin!”
He ignored his mom. “When you moved in, those problems got pushed to the back burner.”
“No, they didn’t,” Sheila countered. “I had no idea how you felt.”
He looked to her now. “You did too. I screamed at you the night you told me they were moving in.”
She drew in a hissing breath. She’d twisted her cloth napkin into a knot, her knuckles white. “There was no screaming—”
“There was, Mom!” He pounded the table. “I was screaming at you. I yelled like a spoiled four year old throwing a fit. I’m admitting it. Why won’t you?”
She turned away. “Because it’s not true.”
Kevin shook his head. “This is ridiculous. You can’t even admit to reality.” He regarded my father and me. “I didn’t want you guys to move in. I didn’t want my mom to remarry. I didn’t want a new sister. I’m sorry. It’s nothing against you two, but she’d just divorced my dad six months earlier, and I knew that if two new people moved into the house, everything else would be shifted to the back. And that’s exactly what happened. Everything was all about her new husband, making everything great with her new marriage, and when she felt that was stable enough, she moved on to the new daughter.”
Those words punched me in the chest.
He softened his tone. “I’m sorry. I really am. I ignored both of you that year. I ignored everything that year. I didn’t want to deal with what she’d done to me, pushing me off like I was a burden to her.”
He focused on his mom again. “I wasn’t a burden to you. Your failed marriage was, and you took it out on me. When your marriage to him fails, don’t take it out on Summer. She already lost one mother; she shouldn’t lose a second one.”
“Kevin! I would never—” She started out harsh, but her voice trembled by the fourth word.
He cut her off with a brisk motion of his head. “You would.”
Placing his hands on the table, he looked right at my dad. “You seem like a great dad. Things have been distant between us, but don’t let her hurt your daughter the way she hurt her son.”
He stood. “And with that, I have to leave. I’m sorry, Mom. No family meeting for me tonight. What I have to say is between you and me—and your ex-husband who is still my father, just so you haven’t forgotten. He’s still my dad.”
Sheila blinked, trying to hold back tears as her son walked away behind her. She didn’t get up and go after him. She didn’t even watch him go. She sat straight ahead, tears rolling down her face, staring at something beyond us.
My stepmother had never looked as lost as she did then.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I sat there, and after a few more beats of silence, my dad murmured, “Summer, let’s give you a ride back. Sheila and I need to go to the hotel. It seems we have some things to discuss.”