82. A Girl’s Head Is Spinning

JAMIE

September 8, Tuesday

Nevada

Grams steps forward. “We’ve been listening outside. This is our doing,” she blusters. “We ran into each other on a trip three months ago, decided our children had been irresponsible parents, and have been plotting to get our grandchildren back in our lives ever since. We planted the idea of the retreat, and coordinated to get the girls there at the same time.”

Papa glances at Siri and me. “I’m so sorry. We’re both ashamed of the way our children have torn you two apart.”

Grams puts her hands on her hips. “We didn’t mean for things to get so twisted up. But it’s high time we all took a step back, faced our faults, and moved past it as a family.”

Dad glares at Grams. “Mom, it was not your place to meddle.”

“Oh please, Grier.” Grams waves him off.

Mara scolds her father, “You promised you would never betray my trust with this!”

“Come on, Mara. You told Siri one of our daughters wasn’t real!” Grier yells.

The four of them get into it.

I feel like an astronaut. The conversation muffles through my own personal space suit as I float untethered outward into the nothing. Grams set me up to attend the retreat? She was planning it for months? What does coordinated mean? Which bits of my downward spiral were manufactured?

These people raised me.

I really don’t know … if I know what’s right and what’s wrong. I wonder if my gauge has always been completely off. Is what Siri and I did worse than what the parents did? What Grams did? What’s justifiable? What is wrong with us? How can we ever move past all this? We’re not just dysfunctional; we’re a clusterfuck of molten garbage.

Siri fills my field of vision. She’s squatting down in front of me.

“Jamie, you’re crying.”

She reaches out to touch my face, and I swat away her hand. “I’m not crying.”

“Please,” she begs. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Why am I so mad? I’m usually so calm. I’m so collected. I can handle anything. Siri’s done this to me. All her emotional bullshit has spread to me like a fungal infection. I hold a hand in front of my face like a third grader. Talk to the hand.

“No, I’m talking to you! We’re speaking about this,” she insists. When did she get so confident? “We have to talk. We have to work this out. I want our sister trip, no matter how pathetic and low budget it is. We’re going to have a relationship.”