Page 21 of The Apparent Trap

After my mom died, my dad made me go to therapy. We never really talked about my therapy (or his, if he even went). I just knew that he agreed I should go when school recommended it, so he started sending me to a nice lady named Dr. Greene.

It didn’t help anything, though, and I would guess it’s because of those extroverted-introvert defense mechanisms I’d already mastered at a young age that make people assume you’re fine. Unlike a lot of teens (grieving or not), I didn’t sit around and quietly sulk. I said a lot in therapy. I answered all her questions. I asked her questions about what I should be doing or feeling. I talked around everything, and as a result I’m not sure I ever said a single thing of substance. But she thought it was going well because I talked.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this week. Everything with Carmen is business as usual, and the show’s been great. Georgia has the same hyperfocusing tendencies that I do, and between our never-ending LEGO Titanic and a story she’s working on about farm subsidies, she’s forgotten to ask what happened with Lee and seemingly hasn’t noticed I’m a bit jumpier.

But inside, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how to pull off this spur-of-the-moment scheme I concocted. Every idea seems more difficult in reality. It’s easier to get rid of a doomed relationship if you’re eleven-year-old wronged twins in a movie about trying to get your parents back together and you don’t care about the fallout. We can’t exactly put honey and shaving cream on Carmen while she’s sleeping next to my dad, even if maybe I’m still annoyed enough at her that an impractical part of me wishes I could.

But that’s not the point. It has to be subtle enough that no one would ever trace it back to me or Lee. But it also has to be overt enough to get both of their wheels spinning and remind them that their relationship is untenable.

Wednesday, I bat around four ideas that are terrible.

Thursday, I accept all the flaws in the first four ideas and then come up with three more terrible ones.

But by Friday I think I have it.

“Your plan is to poison your dad?” Lee asks, incredulous, when he’s pulled me back into the crying room on Friday. The starkly bright walls and looming lighting don’t do a lot to make this feel clandestine.

“No!” I say with a whisper, even though that’s completely unnecessary here. “That’s a little dramatic. We’re obviously not poisoning anyone.”

“You just said you’re going to give him stomach problems.”

He looks too good today, and it’s infuriating. His t-shirt is solid blue from far away, but up close you can see there are wisps of white in it, and it makes him seem like he’s moving even more than he usually does.

I shake it off. I have to get used to being around him for the time being. “Stomach problems aren’t poison. Listen: My dad’s coming in to see her around lunchtime today. I’ll order her regular lunch and just double it. She’ll think one of the PAs misordered. Then I know he’ll insist on eating it because he really gets worked up about food waste.”

“Because he lived through the Depression?”

I roll my eyes so I don’t crack a smile. “He’s fifty-five, not a hundred and five.”

“Duly noted.”

“Anyway,” I say, redirecting. “She gets this bean salad a lot. And it’s kidney and pinto beans, along with cheese. It’s all stuff that a twenty-six-year-old’s internal system has no problem with. But a mid-fifties man cannot handle it.”

“That’s your big idea?” he asks.

“It’s low stakes,” I reply, defensive, “but it lays some groundwork.”

I don’t say that I’m already aware that being conflict averse has left me with an undeniably milquetoast plan.

He’s pursing his lips. “You really think Carmen’s so shallow that she would break up with someone because they’re a little gassy?”

Maybe? But I can’t admit that to her father. “I didn’t say ‘shallow.’”

“No, but that’s the implication.” He seems defensive, and I have no idea why.

“It’s just a start. A little boat rocking to begin,” I continue, trying to divert his line of questioning. “I’m not making a judgment on anyone.”

He sighs, and his hackles come down. “This isn’t exactly James Bond–level subterfuge.”

I suppress a smile. “Is that what you expected?”

“I just thought we could come up with something a little better than an extended fart joke,” he says with a chuckle.

“I never joke about my work, 007.”

“Oh look at you, quoting Goldfinger,” he says, his bright smile parting like clouds. And it’s surprising because I haven’t gotten the full wattage since that night at the bar. But just as quickly as the sun comes out, he realizes what he’s doing and shoves it away. I don’t know why the dismissal stings, but it does.

“I’m a movie nerd,” I shrug off.