A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life Read Online Free PDF

but at the same time I kind of wish they’d do it because those are the details I want to hear about.
    I tell Cleo about the huge fight I had with my parents last night over the Rivka Situation. They’re driving me crazy. For weeks now, at every opportunity, they drop hints they think are subtle but are far from it, and I guess they got tired of me ignoring them because last night they sat me down for a talk.
    I hate my parents’ talks. I hate the way they look at me. Particularly Mom. She gets this attitude like she’s the lawyer and I’m on the witness stand. I feel like screaming at her that even though she spends most of her time at work, she’s home now, and I’m not a client or somebody she’s trying to sue or even one of her volunteers spending my Saturday in her service arguing with local shoppers about the First Amendment. I’m just her daughter.
    Dad is much easier to take in these situations, but that’s probably because he sits there and lets Mom do most of the talking. Come to think of it, that can get pretty annoying too.
    “All right. Fine. What?” That’s how I started our talk.
    “Honey,” Mom said, “you know we don’t like to tell you what to do—”
    “Well, then don’t.”
    “But we really think that you should at least give Rivka a call.”
    “See? You just did it. You just told me what to do.”
    “She wants to talk to you.”
    “So?”
    Mom looked at Dad. He looked down at the floor.
    “She might have things to say that are important for you to hear.”
    “Like what? If she had something so important to tell me, she wouldn’t have waited sixteen years.”
    “Honey, she hasn’t waited sixteen years. We’ve told you before that we’ve been in touch with her since you were born. She’s always known about you. She always wanted to know about you.”
    “Stop,”
I shouted at her. I pulled my knees to my chest and put my head down. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to hear that she’s been calling, that she knows that I go to Twelve Oaks, that I broke my wrist when I was five, that I was the scarecrow in the seventh-grade play. That is none of her business. I am none of her business.
    When I lifted my head from my knees I saw that Dad was still looking at the floor. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe there was a rift in this united front.
    “Why don’t you say anything, Dad? Why are you just sitting there?” I asked.
    “I don’t know, kid. This is tough for me. I hate to upset you.” Mom shifted away from him on the couch. His eyes were heavy and sad. Looking at him, I could see all the hours they’d put in on this topic, and I could tell that it hasn’t been easy on him.
    “Well, congratulations. You managed to upset me anyway. Thanks a lot.”
    I picked up the remote control and turned on the television, signaling that, from my perspective, our talk had come to an end.
    Mom held out a piece of paper. “Please, just take her number.”
    I took it partly to shut my mother up, partly because of the circles under my father’s eyes, and partly because no matter how hard I try to fight this, there’s that curiosity again, rearing its ugly head.
    I stormed out of the living room and slammed my door a full three times just to make certain my parents could hear it. I turned the volume on my stereo up to eight, four notches higher than what is allowed in my house. I sat down at my desk, booted up my computer, and did some Internet research. Here’s what I learned: Rivka’s number has an area code and three-number prefix that I believe lands her somewhere on Cape Cod.
    Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, planet Earth.
    I put the number in my drawer not knowing if or when I’d ever make this phone call, but I hoped that taking the piece of yellow scrap paper into my possession was a big enough step that I’ve earned the right to be left in peace for a while.
     
    After school today I have the first meeting of my new club, the Atheist Student Alliance. My