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Rose never considered herself a big fan of Christmas—she preferred the excitement around the Hmong New Year. If she had to rank the holidays, though, Christmas would be above Father’s Day.
Mother’s Day would be ranked second (Hmong New Year in first place).
Winter had come in with vengeance, and she’d seen more snow in the last week than she had the last four years combined, she was sure of it. Damian rolled his eyes when she said as much to him, but he was probably annoyed that he hadn’t thought of the factoid himself.
Rose shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that Damian’s personality hadn’t blunted at all in the two years that they’d been living together, but she had held out some hope that when he’d turned eleven, the same age she had been when he’d moved in, that he would have figured out how to be a normal person.
Maybe that could be her science fair project next year. She could start now, get some good baseline data, and figure out what would be her independent and dependent variables. It would make for a good longitudinal study.
After two years of coming in second place, Rose had been completely shocked and devastated to found how that not only did her project not get second place, she didn’t place at all.
She’d ran off, refusing to look at Dick or her father after the winners were announced, when she heard a kid from another seventh grade class saying her project wasn’t even in the top ten. Rose bit her tongue, eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to keep the hot tears from falling. She wasn’t in the fifth grade anymore, this wasn’t worth crying over—
But, Slade flew home for it. He wasn’t supposed to be in town, Dick had told Rose a week earlier that he and Damian would be there to see her presentation. But her father was supposed to be on a long-assignment, which usually meant he’d be gone for at least five weeks.
The science fair was during week four.
Not placing was bad enough, but knowing how disappointed Slade would be was worst. He was probably mad, annoyed, that he’d taken time away from his work to go to this stupid school event. And, for what?
Rose was sure he wouldn’t come next year. Not after the complete let down that this year was.
Later, after they’d gone out for dinner and ice cream (Dick insisted they keep their dinner reservations, ignoring Rose’s protests that they had nothing to celebrate and immediately chastising Damian when he tried to voice shared sentiments), Rose didn’t wait before pulling down the photo from the last science fair from the fridge. It had stayed front and center for the entire year, Rose’s bright smile now causing her physical pain when she realized how much of a failure she’d been.
Why did she think ooblek would be interesting enough to make the top three, much less first place?
Rose was cursing herself, the old photo held between two fingers and she was ready to rip it before tossing it into the trash when Dick stopped her.
It had been two years, but Rose still found herself unsure of how to talk to Dick most days.
Thankfully, one of them had made some progress and the sound of Dick’s voice didn’t immediately put her fight or flight instinct into overdrive.
“You don’t need to keep it,” he started, grasping the glossy paper to flatten out the edge where she’d been about to rip. Dick wasn’t looking at her. “But I would like to put it away, for safe keeping.”
“Whatever,” Rose pivoted, her hair long enough now that she felt it brush past her elbow when she turned too-quickly.
Dick let her go.
She’d taken the stairs two at a time and her bedroom door was slammed before she could stop herself.
Rose winced.
Her father hated when she slammed the doors.
It wasn’t surprising when muffled voices carried up the stairs. The unmistakable sounds of Dick and Slade, not quite arguing but doing whatever the hell it was that they did.
Rose once thought about making that her science fair project, but she didn’t know what the actual experiment would be and had quickly decided she would rather not know anything else about the two of them than she had to.
She expected the voices to get louder, to hear Slade’s heavy foot steps as followed her up the stairs.
They stayed muffled.
Whatever Dick was doing, for as much as he annoyed Rose, was keeping Slade from turning his ire on her, and Rose wasn’t too dumb to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It’d been two months since the science fair, and Rose was determined to get first place next year. If nothing else, it would convince Slade that she was worth the attention.
Slade’s attention was hard to come by, even when he was home. It wasn’t a notion that made Rose feel any particular way, it was just a fact. One time, she’d said as much to Dick, and his wordless answer, his face absolute crestfallen, was nauseating.
Rose resolutely kept all grievances, opinions, and comments about her father to her self, after that. She didn’t need Dick’s pity, of all things.
Sure, he could talk Slade into doing just about anything, but shouldn’t Slade be doing those things because he wanted to? For Rose? Not because his midlife crisis was threatening to withhold sex if he didn’t.
Not that Rose knew anything about that, but it was an easy enough assumption. Why else would Slade have ever been interested in Dick in the first place? Rose wasn’t some dumb kid anymore, and one of her best friends’ dad had done the same thing over the summer.
At least they could commiserate together.
Christmas was no where near her favorite holiday, but at least she’d been able to keep celebrating it after moving in with Slade. Mother’s Day, on the other hand, hadn’t been touched since she left the city.
Dick tried, his first year. It wasn’t unusual to find Dick humming to himself (or talking), but the humming increased when May came around. He’d wanted them to have a family dinner, and talked about putting together a menu of their moms’ favorite foods.
Damian practically screamed his distaste at the thought to Dick, the night he’d brought it up. A candle had fallen over and the entire dining room had almost burned with his rage.
If Rose hadn’t been so annoyed at Dick she might have found the entire thing hilarious.
Father’s Day wasn’t any better. At least on that day they actually had dads around to celebrate. That was the first time she’d met Grant, when both of Slade’s sons came for the weekend. Dick insisted on having a barbecue, and the one thing everyone agreed on was that the guy knew absolutely nothing about grilling.
Rose wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen her father laugh, like that, before. He had draped an arm around both of his boys and directed them towards the grill, effectively creating a wall that made pushing Dick away from the propane tanks easy.
She’d bit the inside of her cheek at the insight, her stomach twisting. The warm press of the iron chair against her legs, the blazing sun turning the metal hot to the touch and practically burning her thighs where her shorts stopped, was becoming more and more interesting. Rose pressed her hands to the metal, fingers curling around the edges on either side of her legs.
The burn was comforting as much as it was jarring, when her palms pressed down.
Rose had been so distracted that she nearly missed Damian’s reaction. He was two seats away from her, and had been quiet for so long that she’d honestly forgotten he was there; a feat rarely seen when Damian was involved.
Now, though, his eyes looked seconds away from turning to outright fire. She’d never seen him glare that badly, which was no small feat considering this was Damian she was talking about.
Nobody noticed, except her.
They didn’t say anything. Looking back, Rose didn’t know what she would have even said had they looked at each other. Dick hadn’t noticed anything, which meant Damian’s inevitable blow up wouldn’t be as effectively squashed when Dick eventually got involved.
She’d never celebrated Father’s Day before moving in with her father.
Rose wasn’t all that impressed, still.
The thing was, Rose didn’t not know that she had a father. He would come to visit once a year, never on her birthday day but during the month. As a kid, Rose found it funny. Now, Rose wondered if he ever knew her actual birthdate before being handed her birth certificate.
He sent presents. Her mother always told her it was his way of sharing the excitement of his travels with her, giving her a piece of the world where she couldn’t go and follow him. And that would have made sense, but instead of sending some replication of a sacred text or monument Slade was always sending her the most random of things.
Now, Rose hated herself for how excited those surprise packages used to make her. She’d come running up the stoop, box waving in the air, and her words running a mile a minute. The other women always laughed, but it was with affection. If they were close enough, they’d try to ruffle her hair up when she tried to get back to their apartment as fast as possible.
“Oh, I know!” Joey snapped his fingers, his laughter a familiar sound. It still confused her seeing how carefree and playful Joey could be when Slade was his father. She wasn’t like that. Was his mom? She’d only met Grant twice, talked to him even less times than that, but she thought he was no where near as chipper as Grant. “What’s the weirdest gift you’ve ever gotten?”
“How is that any different from asking someone what the worst gift they’ve ever received was?” Dick had vetoed that question, early on in the game.
Rose didn’t usually speak up and join in the games Joey and Dick preferred. But, unlike the last two Christmas’s, Rose had started throwing caution to the wind and didn’t immediately run away when Dick sat down.
Damian wasn’t quite there, yet. He’d begged off within seconds of Joey and Dick laughing. Rose figured he was sitting at the top of the staircase, listening in.
It’s what she used to do.
“Fine, fine, question stands,” Dick waved a hand, dismissively, but his smile remained sincere.
“There was that one year you sent me guitar strings.”
When no one answered, Rose looked up. Dick was confused, but Joey was only looking at Slade.
Their father was maintaining the most flat expression of his life.
Rose wasn’t sure if he was actually breathing.
“You what?” Dick started.
“Wait was that the year—” Joey interjected.
Slade took a breath. His exhale left everyone frozen.
“What, is that not the weirdest?” Rose looked between the three of them. The longer they didn’t talk, the more angry she became. She had joined their game, and now they were going to be weird about her answer? That was the name of the game! This was why she never stuck around long enough to talk to them—
“Follow up question,” Joey was looking back at Rose. His eyes were still wide, but Rose could tell he was trying not to freak her out. “What year did you get those strings?”
“Uh,” Rose started counting back in her head. “I was seven.”
“Did you play an instrument?” Dick asked, eyes locked on Slade’s.
“No, but mom and my aunts got together and they surprised me with one, right after the new year.”
“That was four years ago,” Joey looked back at their father, now.
“I am well aware of the date, Joey,” Slade’s voice was lower than usual. Rose knew he only talked like that when he was mad, but what was he mad at her for? Should she not have admitted Slade sent her presents during the year? That he came to visit yearly in the time leading up to her mother passing and having to move in with him?
Joey looked at Rose after taking a deep breath, “Four years ago he got me a surprise gift.”
Rose nodded her head. That was pretty normal for Slade.
“It was a life-size Barbie dress up doll.”
“What?” Dick yelled. Rose’s eyes widened; she wasn’t sure if she ever heard him yell, before.
She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.
“I learned to play guitar four years ago,” Joey added.
Rose froze.
She turned to look at their father, brow creased.
“Did you really—”
“You swapped their gifts?” Dick stood up, his chair scratching across the tiled floor. They’d been sitting around the island in the kitchen but now Rose wasn’t sure that was the best idea, all things considered.
“I had several boxes to mail that year,” Slade provided a non-response.
“Bullshit!” Dick yelled.
“I don’t get it,” Rose shook her head. She raised her voice, “Can someone explain to me what the problem is? He didn’t talk about it when he came to visit for my birthday. I played him a song and—”
Rose froze.
She didn’t understand what kind of face Joey and Dick were making, but they didn’t look particularly good.
“You knew about Rose?” Dick asked, voice strained.
“You visited?” Joey added.
“Every year,” Rose confirmed with a nod of her head. “Every February.”
“Oh my god,” Dick muttered under his breath. Joey shook his head.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
At first, Rose bristled at that. She did know what she was talking about! Looking at Slade and Rose realized he was talking to them.
“Mom was pissed,” Joey was probably back on the topic of the gifts.
“She could done a lot more than that settlement! She could have killed you!” Rose wondered if Dick knew how ridiculous he was sounding.
Slade rolled his eyes.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Like hell it was!” It surprised Rose how much Dick insisted Slade actually talk through things when they went wrong, or when there was a misunderstanding.
There was none of that happening, now.
“The conversation is over,” Slade nodded with finality.
“You don’t get to decide when a conversation is over,” Dick continued. “Not when you were running around with an entirely secret family—”
“We weren’t a family,” Rose ignored their dumbfounded looks. “He was just this guy I sometimes saw, who sometimes gave me cool things, and mom said he was a good person to know.”
“That’s even worse,” Dick was facing Slade again. “You understand how that is much worse, right?”
“You’re being weird,” Rose stood up before Slade could answer.
She was out of the room and up the stairs to her room before she heard Slade’s response. Like she expected, Damian was sitting on the topic step of the staircase.
He tried to trip her.
She side stepped him, and kicked him in the shoulder.
At least she could count on Damian, for as nauseating as the thought was.