Ellen hadn’t set a proper date to talk to her Uncle again in an effort not to spend days upon days dreading the encounter. This, one might say obviously, backfired terribly, since the second she stepped foot at home for the first time in years all the anxiety she could have felt during days and days slammed into her chest all at once.
“Come in already,” Uncle said, annoyed, marching in, as if Ellen were being so obnoxious by having an emotional reaction at putting a foot at home for the first time in years when Uncle was pissed at her and had said he wouldn’t invite her to the beach house, which was something she hadn’t even known she had yearned for so much before he mentioned it—
“Sorry,” she said instead, and followed him into the house.
The place was huge. It had never truly felt hers, but it was home the way no other place had ever been, for her. She was still glad, as she walked past the too-white, too-clean, too-empty rooms, that Gabriela wasn’t here with her.
Truthfully, Ellen didn’t have time to spare to be here, what with needing money, needing work. But Uncle was like that—either she carved a space in her life for him, or he disappeared.
“What is it you want to talk about?” he asked, impatient, as he ushered her into his office, as if she were some colleague from work bothering him during off hours.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, then breathed in deeply and tried to settle her racing heart. “About Rafaela.”
His lips curled in disgust. Honestly, why did he hate her so much? Ellen didn’t understand. But that never mattered, really.
“We are not actually dating,” she admitted, eyes focused on the wall by his head instead of him. “This was an attempt of hers to appease her family after I moved in, but we aren’t together. We’re close friends, but nothing more. I understand you and she did not get along, and you had several arguments against this relationship, so—there is no relationship.”
There were kisses, sometimes, which Rafa seemed more hesitant about but nonetheless were still there; there were assurances of help, of a future, of a home; there was Rafaela with her head tucked under Ellen’s chin late at night, when they were dozing on the couch and neither wanted to go to bed because that meant separating. But Ellen never truly believed good things lasted for her.
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Uncle exploded, standing up so suddenly his chair toppled backwards.
Ellen flinched. She hadn’t expected him to react this badly.
“You lied to me!” he screamed, slamming a hand down on his desk. “That woman was a terrible influence—look at you! You are irresponsible and disobedient! I thought having to fend for yourself for once would teach you a thing or two about what you owe to this family, what we gave you, but you repay me by moving in with some stranger and lying to my face?”
“She’s not a stranger,” Ellen argued, though she knew in her heart the fight was lost. “We’re childhood friends—”
“I don’t remember her, so she can’t be a childhood friend,” he shouted, ignoring the fact that she’d had an ample childhood before he took her in. But then—her life had begun then, hadn’t it? “You are lying again! This isn’t who I raised you to be. This isn’t who I thought you would become! I don’t even know you anymore!”
Something inside of Ellen snapped.
“Maybe you don’t know me because you haven’t bothered to see me for more than a quick call sometimes in years!” Ellen exploded, furious tears sliding down her face.
Uncle stared at her, gob smacked. Ellen had never shouted back. She had never dared.
Her heart sunk to her feet. She had never dared because she knew what the consequences would be.
“Uncle, I’m sorry,” she hushed to say, leaning over his desk to grab his wrists. “I didn’t mean that, of course! I’m just tired, I’m speaking things I don’t know—”
He wrenched his hands away from her. “I always knew you’d end up here,” he said coldly. “An ungrateful burden even after everything I did for you. I don’t know you anymore. I don’t want you here. You’re not my family anymore.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” she whispered to him, feeling to numb for what just happened to sink in. “I don’t… I’ll break up with Rafa, I swear, I’ll move out, I’ll give Miry’s car back—”
“You have the car?”
Ellen flinched. “She lent it to me, for Gabi—”
“I assume you drove here,” he snapped. She nodded, eyes on the floor. “Good, the car’s back with us. Have a good life, Ellen.”
Ellen stood in the middle of his office, staring at him with a blank face.
He stared back and said nothing else.
“Okay,” she said hollowly. “Thank you for your time.”
She walked out.
***
She wouldn’t have been able to hide it from Rafa if she’d tried, and anyway she was too emotionally spent to try.
Rafa asked her about it hours later, after she’d gotten home from college and they’d fed Gabi, bathed her, and put her to sleep. Rafa had shifted from furious (when Ellen got home and she realized Uncle Carl must have done something) to plain worried (as the hours passed and Ellen stayed quiet and blank-faced and said nothing), so when she asked, she did it with this small, soft voice:
“Ellen, what happened?”
Ellen blinked up from her laptop, straightening up when her spine complained about being hunched over the coffee table for too long.
“I think my uncle officially kicked me out of the family,” she said, which was when she realized that her uncle had kicked her out of the family. Her chest went tight and tears sprung up to her eyes and slid down her face hotly, carving a path through her skin to fall heavily on top of her hands. Ellen stared at Rafa, whose face was wide with shock, and repeated, as if from a great distance: “I think my uncle kicked me out of the family.”
“What,” Rafa said, upset, “the,” she continued, angry, “fuck,” she finished, utterly furious.
“Kicked out,” Ellen repeated. “Disowned.”
Miry wasn’t her sister anymore.
“He abandoned you again?” Rafa hissed, grabbing her hand.
Ellen flinched at the callous, raw words, and burst into tears. Ah, there’s the word I was avoiding, she thought, abandoned, abandoned, abandoned; left behind, this time without even another Aunty to take care of me. Now there’s just me.
“Why?” Rafa asked, hands rough in her anger, but still comforting as she knelt down beside Ellen and pulled Ellen into a tight hug. “What did he say? Was he that pissed about the lie? Was he that angry that you had moved in with me? Wasn’t pulling us apart once enough for him?!”
Ellen just buried her head on her shoulder and cried quietly. Never loudly. Nobody likes a kid who cries, Gabi had told her once, and Ellen almost laughed now.
“We’re not letting him do this,” Rafa ranted, clutching Ellen close like she was afraid the man was going to burst in and rip Ellen from her, as if Ellen wouldn’t love him for it, as if she wouldn’t do anything for him to come take her home. “There must be something we can do! Is he’s upset about the lying, he’ll calm down eventually! If he just hates me, I’ll kiss his ass if I hate to! If he’s like Connor and thinks we’re being irresponsible, I’ll—I’ll marry you!”
Laughter bubbled out of Ellen, something small and miserable. “Don’t joke with that, Rafaela,” she said, “don’t, when you don’t mean it. How can you marry me when you don’t even want guardianship of my kid?”
Rafa’s mouth snapped shut. Shame filled her face, but Ellen was past noticing.
“This, us… we’re not serious,” she continued quietly. “Uncle isn’t wrong about one thing: I have to learn to take care of myself. I can’t just go from being a burden to him to being a burden to you.”
“You’re not—”
“Would you prefer it if I avoided the word burden?” Ellen snapped, leaning away to dry her eyes. She didn’t look at Rafa. She couldn’t bear the thought of Rafa getting to where her Uncle got, standing in front of her like a stranger, hating her. “I just… I need to figure out what I’m going to do. How I’m going to deal with… everything.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m going to have to drop out of college, aren’t I.”
“No! How did you get there?” Rafa grabbed her by the arms and shook her a little. “Ellen, please, just—I’ll make you some tea, I’ll watch your favorite movie with you, then tomorrow we can talk—”
But Ellen couldn’t bear the thought of Rafa doing her more favors. She shook her head and stood up, stepping back.
“I need to work to build up my savings,” she said. “I can do that for a while and try for college when Gabriela is a bit older. It’ll be fine.” She breathed in deeply. “I can take care of myself. I can take care of. It’s—it’ll be fine.”
“Ellen,” Rafa tried one last time, reaching forward to grab her hand.
It fell when Ellen stepped back again.
“It’s fine,” she told Rafa with a faint smile. “None of this is your fault. You already do so much for me. I’m really thankful. I just have to figure out what I’ll do with my life. Okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
She walked into the room she shared with Gabi, leaving Rafa sitting alone.
***
She thought Gabi had already been sleeping, but of course as soon as she walked into the room, Gabi was sprawled on the floor as if she’d just thrown herself back from having her ear pressed against the door. They blinked at each other, then Ellen sighed.
“Not sleepy?” she asked, kneeling down to pick her up. Gabi threw her arms around her neck and hid her face in Ellen’s hair.
“You were fighting,” she accused in a mumble, then: “Because of me?”
“No,” Ellen said firmly. “Because of my uncle. Remember him?”
“You said you had Aunties and Uncles too.”
“I did,” she said. “He was… the last one. And he’s upset with me because I lied to him, and—because of some other stuff. I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Not because of you.”
“But you were fighting Rafa,” Gabi said, wiggling until she could wrap her tiny legs around Ellen as well. Ellen stood up and sat down on the bed. “Why’s she fighting you for your lied to your Uncle?”
“She’s angry with him, but I don’t want her to be,” Ellen said, then sighed. “Things are so complicated. But we weren’t fighting about you, okay? You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
Gabi was quiet for a moment.
“Are we going to leave?” she asked quietly, gripping Ellen tighter. “Is Rafa going to leave?”
Ellen managed not to start crying through a positively herculean effort.
“Eventually,” she said. “Rafa’s my friend and she let us move here to help us, remember? That doesn’t mean we’ll live here forever. But,” she firmed up her voice, “the two of us will always stay together, okay? Me and you, we’re a package now.”
Gabi was quiet, then: “I wanna story.”
Ellen was more than glad to read it to her. Ten minutes later, Gabi was conked out in her arms. Ellen sighed and snuggled to her side, with no energy to get dressed for the night. She was more than glad to pass out.
Which was when her phone buzzed with a text. Ellen hid her face in the pillow for a moment before fishing it out of her back pocket.
Miriam: I talked to my father, I heard what happened.
Miriam: Are you all right? Can we talk?
Miriam: I’m sorry about the hour, but can I call? Or we could meet tomorrow?
Ellen was going to erode like stone to sand if this kind of thing didn’t stop happening. She wanted to talk to her si—to Miriam more than anything, but what good would that do? Hadn’t Ellen fucked with their family enough, hadn’t she screwed up Miriam’s relationship with her father and mother enough? If only Miriam could stop resenting her father for how he treated Ellen, if only her father would stop resenting her for loving Ellen, everything would be all right.
Ellen: I don’t think that’s wise.
Ellen: But I have a coat, a scarf, and some pots of yours here. I think some boots as well. We can meet later so I can give them back.
She turned off her phone before Miriam could answer.