“Most girls wouldn’t describe themselves as dicks.”
“Would you prefer I call myself a cu—”
“Don’t,” Ben interrupts. “I fucking hate that word.”
“Really? Most guys I know seem to think it’s interchangeable for female.”
“Yeah. My father is one of those guys. Used to call my mother that. All the time.”
“That’s gross.”
“What’s gross is her putting up with it.”
For all of Tricia’s faults, and they are legion, she mostly leaves her boyfriend drama out of the house. Guys never stay at our place. She goes to theirs. If they call her foul names, at least I never have to hear them.
“Why’d she put up with it? Your mom?” I ask.
Ben shrugs. “She got pregnant with my brother when she was seventeen. Married my dad. Had three more by the time she was twenty-three, so she was kind of stuck with him. Meanwhile he’s out and about, carousing. He has two more kids by his girlfriend; it’s an open secret. Everyone knows. Including my mom. But she still stayed married to him. They only got a divorce when my dad’s girlfriend threatened to take him to court for child support. Cheaper and easier to dump my mom and marry the girlfriend. He knew my mom wasn’t the kind to sue.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It gets worse. Mom’s finally free of the bastard and we’re all older, a little independent. Things seem to be going okay. And what’s she do? Goes and gets pregnant again.”
“How many are you?”
“My mom had five kids, four with my dad, one with her current douchebag. And my dad has two others that I know of, but I’m pretty sure he has more. He believes birth control is the woman’s responsibility.”
“You’re like the redneck Brady Bunch.”
“I know.” He laughs. “Only we didn’t have a housekeeper like what’s her name?”
“Alice,” I answer.
“Alice.” He smiles. “Ours would have to have a white-trash name, like Tiffani.”
“Or Cody.”
Ben looks perplexed. I remind him that I clean houses for a living.
His face actually flushes. “Sorry, I forgot. I meant no disrespect.”
“Oh, please, it’s a little late for that now,” I say, though I’m smiling and then he is too.
“So what’s your story?” he asks.
“My story? You mean like my family?”
He raises his eyebrow, like he just bared all, and now it’s my turn.
“Not much to tell. It’s sort of like your story and the opposite of it. It’s just me and my mother, Tricia. No dad.”
“Did they split up?”
“Never together. She refers to him as the sperm donor, though he wasn’t, obviously, because that would’ve meant Tricia actually intended to have me.” Tricia has remained uncharacteristically quiet about my father, and over the years I’ve suspected it’s because he is married. I picture him sometimes, in a nice house, with a nice wife and nice kids, and half the time I resent the hell out of him for it, but the other half of the time, I sort of understand. It’s a good life, that. If I were him, I wouldn’t want someone like me to fuck that up either.