The Family Condition by Cody Lakin

Author:Cody Lakin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cody Lakin

“Can I ask something of you?” she said this as night came on. Home was only two more hours away.

“Anything.”

“Would you come with me to my parents’ tomorrow?” Her eyes reflected the night outside the windshield. Her face was dimly lit by the glowing buttons on the dashboard.

Tomorrow I was supposed to record a podcast with Chris, and then have lunch with Nat. Nat wanted to talk about plans to visit our dad. And Kendra had called me this morning, which I didn’t really care about but it seemed like something that needed resolving.

I looked at Elodie, then back at the road. Was I ready to return to that house? To be confronted again by her nebulous father? And by the inexplicable entity of her mother? “Yes,” I told her, and meant it. “Tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“I need to ask you something first.”

She looked at me. Her open silence invited me forward.

“A couple months ago, you barely wanted to answer my questions about your parents.”

“I know.”

“Now you want to go back there.”

“Bennet, I don’t expect you to—”

“All I wanna know is what changed.”

On all sides of us, the ocean of darkness blurred by—silhouettes of towering trees eclipsing most of what we could see of the night sky. The road was a thin line illuminated by the car’s headlights.

Elodie sat, quiet, for a long time. She sighed. “After we left their house, they were all I could think about. I saw her face when I closed my eyes, the way she’d looked at me when I stepped through the doors and stood in front of the glass. And my dad… when I got a moment alone with him, he… he had all these stories he wanted to tell me. He just wanted to catch me up on everything I’d missed.” She looked over at me, and I couldn’t tell if it was merely the reflection of the headlights in her eyes, or if she was fighting tears. “I’m tired of running away from them. I guess that’s what changed. I want to try.”

I reached over and put my hand gently on her. She took it and held it with tenderness, with gratitude.

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