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Authors: Caitlyn Duffy
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us."
"Was she pretty like you?"
Maybe having a younger sister wasn't such a
bad thing. I sat in Kelsey's bed and cried until she was
snoring.
Hours later I was awakened out of a deep
sleep by a commotion. A cleaning crew was in the bedroom remaking
Kelsey's bed with fresh sheets, and Jill was overseeing them. I sat
straight up in bed, surprised that Jill would invite total
strangers into my bedroom while I slept.
"What's going on?" I asked, rubbing my
eyes.
"You let Kelsey eat alfredo sauce," Jill
snapped. "That's what. She's allergic to milk and threw up all over
the bed."
Oops. I remained perfectly motionless on my
side of the room, unsure if she expected me to get up and help
clean, or just stay out of the way. When the hotel maintenance
staff finally folded up the dirty sheets, smoothed a new set out on
the bed and said farewell to Jill in quiet voices, she lingered in
the doorway for a moment to address me.
"We have rules for reasons, Taylor," she
said, her voice sharply bitter. "If this is going to work out,
you're going to have to be more mindful."
I lie awake in the dark for hours after she
closed the door. Kelsey was spending the rest of the night on the
couch in the suite's living room. If it had been Jill's desire to
make me feel lousy, she had done a good job. It had hardly been my
intention to make Kelsey sick and I felt terrible; I knew she had a
lot of allergies and had just been careless.
But the way Jill had phrased her reprimand
really got under my skin. I wasn't sure if Jill didn't get that the
circumstances under which I had come to be living with my dad were
kind of irreversible. Or maybe there was a part that I didn't get:
maybe Jill had thought of other ways to get me out of their lives.
The mere notion should have made me feel relieved, since I wasn't
delighted to be the fourth wheel on their family unit, but instead
it just made me feel miserable.
The next morning my dad wore sunglasses and
did not talk much. The whole traveling tour met for a big breakfast
down in the hotel's main ballroom overlooking the ocean. We took up
two huge long tables and rather than even try to wait on us, the
hotel set up an enormous buffet. Wade and George seemed like they
were delighted to be back on the road and couldn't wait to go hit
the beach for a few hours.
But Dad remained silent while the rest of us
joked and drank coffee.
Then I realized he was hung over.
I never would have figured him for much of a
drinker, but I guess it made sense. Jill was in a lousy mood, too,
and while I originally thought it was because of the linguini
incident, I wondered if my dad's state had something to do with
it.
Typically I'm not one to judge someone else's
vices but I have a sore spot when it comes to alcoholism. More than
once when I was in elementary school, Mom forgot to pick me up
because she had overslept in the middle of the afternoon. When I
was in junior high she got a DUI in the parking lot of a liquor
store, which Allison had thought was hilarious but I failed to find
comical. Once when I was in seventh grade we were going to Westwood
for breakfast and I could tell by her wobbly driving that she
hadn't completely dried out from her bender the night before. I had
made her pull over to sit at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf until she
sobered up and she had told me, "Maybe you should drive us the rest
of the way there."
I was twelve years old at the time.
She apologized profusely later once she could
admit what an asinine suggestion it had been for me to drive, and
even went to a few AA meetings. My whole life she had drifted in
between being a complete drunk and a functional alcoholic. And I
would give my dad the benefit of the doubt that this was a rare
instance, but I got a sickly feeling in my stomach at the notion
that this was probably not an uncommon occurrence.
I barely saw my dad for the next two days
while we were in Florida. He was out of the hotel room before dawn
to go to the gym for his rigorous
"Was she pretty like you?"
Maybe having a younger sister wasn't such a
bad thing. I sat in Kelsey's bed and cried until she was
snoring.
Hours later I was awakened out of a deep
sleep by a commotion. A cleaning crew was in the bedroom remaking
Kelsey's bed with fresh sheets, and Jill was overseeing them. I sat
straight up in bed, surprised that Jill would invite total
strangers into my bedroom while I slept.
"What's going on?" I asked, rubbing my
eyes.
"You let Kelsey eat alfredo sauce," Jill
snapped. "That's what. She's allergic to milk and threw up all over
the bed."
Oops. I remained perfectly motionless on my
side of the room, unsure if she expected me to get up and help
clean, or just stay out of the way. When the hotel maintenance
staff finally folded up the dirty sheets, smoothed a new set out on
the bed and said farewell to Jill in quiet voices, she lingered in
the doorway for a moment to address me.
"We have rules for reasons, Taylor," she
said, her voice sharply bitter. "If this is going to work out,
you're going to have to be more mindful."
I lie awake in the dark for hours after she
closed the door. Kelsey was spending the rest of the night on the
couch in the suite's living room. If it had been Jill's desire to
make me feel lousy, she had done a good job. It had hardly been my
intention to make Kelsey sick and I felt terrible; I knew she had a
lot of allergies and had just been careless.
But the way Jill had phrased her reprimand
really got under my skin. I wasn't sure if Jill didn't get that the
circumstances under which I had come to be living with my dad were
kind of irreversible. Or maybe there was a part that I didn't get:
maybe Jill had thought of other ways to get me out of their lives.
The mere notion should have made me feel relieved, since I wasn't
delighted to be the fourth wheel on their family unit, but instead
it just made me feel miserable.
The next morning my dad wore sunglasses and
did not talk much. The whole traveling tour met for a big breakfast
down in the hotel's main ballroom overlooking the ocean. We took up
two huge long tables and rather than even try to wait on us, the
hotel set up an enormous buffet. Wade and George seemed like they
were delighted to be back on the road and couldn't wait to go hit
the beach for a few hours.
But Dad remained silent while the rest of us
joked and drank coffee.
Then I realized he was hung over.
I never would have figured him for much of a
drinker, but I guess it made sense. Jill was in a lousy mood, too,
and while I originally thought it was because of the linguini
incident, I wondered if my dad's state had something to do with
it.
Typically I'm not one to judge someone else's
vices but I have a sore spot when it comes to alcoholism. More than
once when I was in elementary school, Mom forgot to pick me up
because she had overslept in the middle of the afternoon. When I
was in junior high she got a DUI in the parking lot of a liquor
store, which Allison had thought was hilarious but I failed to find
comical. Once when I was in seventh grade we were going to Westwood
for breakfast and I could tell by her wobbly driving that she
hadn't completely dried out from her bender the night before. I had
made her pull over to sit at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf until she
sobered up and she had told me, "Maybe you should drive us the rest
of the way there."
I was twelve years old at the time.
She apologized profusely later once she could
admit what an asinine suggestion it had been for me to drive, and
even went to a few AA meetings. My whole life she had drifted in
between being a complete drunk and a functional alcoholic. And I
would give my dad the benefit of the doubt that this was a rare
instance, but I got a sickly feeling in my stomach at the notion
that this was probably not an uncommon occurrence.
I barely saw my dad for the next two days
while we were in Florida. He was out of the hotel room before dawn
to go to the gym for his rigorous
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