Without Merit

“You never ground them,” she accuses. She grabs the bowl of oatmeal and walks it over to the trash. She angrily scoops the contents of the bowl into the trash. “I’ve never seen you actually follow through with a single punishment, Barnaby. It’s why they act like this.”

They being my father’s three oldest children. And it’s the truth. He’s full of empty threats and very little follow-through. It’s my favorite thing about him.

“Sweetie, lighten up. Maybe Merit didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to give him a donut today.”

Nothing irks Victoria more than when my father takes our side over hers. “Of course Merit knows not to give him a donut. She doesn’t listen to me. None of them do.” Victoria chucks the bowl in the sink and bends to pick up Moby. She sets him on the counter near the sink and wets a napkin to wipe donut remnants off his face. “Moby, you cannot eat donuts. They are very bad for you. They make you sleepy, and when you’re sleepy, you can’t perform well in school.”

Never mind the fact that he’s four and isn’t even in real school yet.

My father sips from his coffee cup and then reaches over to Moby and ruffles his hair. “Listen to your mother, buddy.” He carries his coffee and newspaper to the table, taking the seat next to me. He gives me a look that says he’s not happy with me. I just stare at him with the hope that he demands I apologize, or asks me why I broke one of Victoria’s rules again.

But he doesn’t. Which means my no-speaking streak is looking good for day four.

I wonder if anyone will notice my taciturnity. Not that I’m giving anyone the silent treatment. I’m seventeen years old. Hardly a child. But I do feel invisible in this house most of the time and I’m curious how long it will take before someone notices I haven’t spoken out loud.

I realize it’s a bit passive aggressive, but it’s not like I’m doing it to prove a point to them. It’s simply to prove a point to myself. I wonder if I can make it an entire week. I once read a quote that said, “Don’t make your presence known. Make your absence felt.”

No one in this family notices my presence or my absence. They would all notice Honor’s. But I was born second, which just makes me a faded copy of the original.

“What’s going on the marquee today, Utah?” my father asks.

It’s bad enough all the ex-parishioners of this church still hold a grudge against my father for buying this house, but the marquee digs the knife in even deeper. I’m sure the daily quotes that have nothing to do with Christianity get under people’s skin. Yesterday’s quote said CHARLES DARWIN ATE EVERY ANIMAL HE DISCOVERED.

I had to Google that fact because it sounded too insane to be true. It’s true.

“You’ll see in five minutes,” Utah says. He downs the rest of his shake and pushes away from the table.

“Wait,” Honor says. “Maybe you should hold off on updating the marquee today. You know, out of respect.”

Utah stares blankly at Honor, which clues her in that none of us knows what she’s talking about.

She looks at my father. “Pastor Brian died last night.”

I immediately turn my attention to my father at that news. He rarely shows emotion, and I’m not sure what kind of emotion this will bring him. But surely it’ll be something. A tear? A smile? He stares stoically at Honor as he absorbs the news.

“He did?”

She nods. “Yeah, I saw it on Facebook this morning. Heart attack.”

My father leans back in his chair, gripping his coffee cup. He looks down at the cup. “He’s dead?”

Victoria puts a hand on my father’s shoulder and says something to him, but I tune her out. Until this moment, I had forgotten all about Wolfgang showing up last night.

I put my hand over my mouth because I suddenly want to tell them all about the dog showing up in the middle of the night, but I feel like I might choke up.

What does it say about me that I didn’t have any sort of reaction just now to the news of Pastor Brian’s passing, but realizing his dog came back to the only other home he’s ever known makes me want to tear up?

Honor called me a sociopath once while we were in the middle of a fight. I’ll make it a point to look up that word later. There might be some truth to that.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” my father says. He stands up and Victoria’s hand slides off his shoulder and down his back. “He wasn’t that much older than me.”

Of course that’s what he’s focused on. Pastor Brian’s age. He’s less concerned about the death of a man he’s been warring with for years and more concerned that he was close in age to someone who is old enough to fall over dead from a heart attack.

Utah is still paused at the door. He looks like he’s in a state of disbelief. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. “If I don’t acknowledge his passing on the marquee, people will accuse us of being insensitive. But if I acknowledge it, people will accuse us of being disingenuous.”

What an odd thing to be worried about in this moment.

Honor’s boyfriend tears out his drawing and stares down at it. “Sounds like you’re screwed either way, so I’d just go with whatever you feel like going with.” He says all this without looking up from his drawing. But his words reach Utah anyway, because after a brief moment of pause, Utah walks out the front door toward the marquee.

I’m confused by two things. One being the constant and repeated presence of Honor’s boyfriend at our breakfast table. Two being the fact that everyone seems to know him so well that they’re perfectly fine with him joining in on the family conversation. Shouldn’t he be too nervous to speak? Especially around my father. He’s only been hanging around for a couple of weeks now. Meeting his girlfriend’s family seemed to sit really well with him. I hate it. I also hate that he doesn’t seem like the type of person who talks a lot, but the few things he does say have more weight than if anyone else were to say them.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I’ve decided to go on a verbal strike. I’m tired of everything I say not having meaning to anyone. I’ll just stop talking so that when I do talk, my words will count. Right now it feels like any time I talk, my words circle right back into my mouth like a boomerang and I’m forced to swallow them again.

“What’s a heart attack?” Moby asks.

Victoria bends and begins to help Moby put on his jacket. “It’s when your heart stops working and your body goes to sleep. But it only happens when you’re an old, old man like Pastor Brian.”

“His body went to sleep?” Moby asks.

Victoria nods.

“For how long? When is he gonna wake up?”

“Not for a long time.”

“Is he gonna get buried?”

“Yes,” she says, sounding a bit annoyed with the natural curiosity of her four-year-old. She zips his jacket. “Go get your shoes.”

“But what happens when he wakes up? Will he be able to get out of the ground?”