The Summer I Turned Pretty

“Belly, have you called your dad yet?” my mother asked me.

“No.”

“I think you should call him and tell him how you’re doing.”

I rolled my eyes. “I doubt he’s sitting at home worrying about it.”

“Still.”

“Well, have you made Steven call him?” I countered.

“No, I haven’t,” she said, her tone level. “Your dad and Steven are about to spend two weeks together looking at colleges. You, on the other hand, won’t get to see him until the end of summer.”

Why did she have to be so reasonable? Everything was that way with her. My mother was the only person I knew who could have a reasonable divorce.

My mother got up and handed me the phone. “Call your father,” she said, leaving the room. She always left the room when I called my father, like she was giving me privacy. As if there were some secrets I needed to tell my father that I couldn’t tell him in front of her.

I didn’t call him. I put the phone back in its cradle. He should be the one calling me; not the other way around. He was the father; I was just the kid. And anyway, dads didn’t belong in the summer house. Not my father and not Mr. Fisher. Sure, they’d come to visit, but it wasn’t their place. They didn’t belong to it. Not the way we all did, the mothers and us kids.