Page 8 of Knowing Amelia

I exhale. “Because this woman is his mother.”

“And Mom said⁠—”

Lucky for him, this is a phone conversation, or I may have hit him. I squeeze the life out of my phone, my face burning up. “Well, Mom and Dad realize that marriage and life are about compromise. Maybe that’s something we need to learn.”

“Marriage?” Ben’s laugh booms through the receiver. “Livy, you’re twenty-two. Are you telling me you want to get married?”

“Me?” I grip the phone until my knuckles hurt, the heat from my cell causing my palm to sweat. “Well, no. I mean, not right now.”

“Of course not. Neither do I. We aren’t our parents.”

Okay… Only, he seems to be doing his best to replicate my father.

“We are a modern generation. Marriage?” he balks. “Like we’d ever enter into a contract that people like us are born to help others break.”

“What are you saying?” I ask him.

“I’m saying we’re different than them.”

“Really?” I scoff. “Because it looks like you’re trying to replicate Dad.”

He sighs. “You know I admire your father, Liv. And truly, I don’t appreciate him leaving at such a crucial time. There’s so much I need to learn, and we only have these positions for three months. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to do things differently. We are our own team.”

“You and me? Or you and Dad?” I lean against the door of Dad’s car, waiting for my father to join me.

“You and me, of course.”

“Only we’re the kind of team that doesn’t unite. No marriage.” I kick the heel of my foot against the concrete. “Right?”

“We don’t need marriage to unite. Not to mention, you’re twenty-two and I’m twenty-four. We have too much life to live before we’re tied down.”

“I’m confused, Ben. Are we uniting or not?” I let the sarcasm ring through.

Dad steps out the door, a scowl on his normally pleasant face. Wordless, he walks around the car to his driver’s side door, bag in hand.

My sarcasm doesn’t translate. “We’ll unite one day,” Ben says. “In our own special way. Understand?”

“Oh, crystal clear,” I say just to get him off the phone. Looking through a muddy mess might be clearer. “I have to go, Ben. Dad’s waiting on me.”

Five

The silence between Dad and me during our travels is making the hours feel more like years. He said five whole words to me on the flight. From Billings, we have a two-hour drive into Rendezvous—two hours that could easily make this day the longest of my life.

Drowning in the awkward silence, I clear my throat. “Where are we staying?” And for the first time, with my own question in my ears, I have an out-of-body epiphany. My heart thrums faster. If we stay at Amelia’s, would I get the chance to look under her floorboards? I’d have to figure out how to get Dad out of the house. I wouldn’t expose her secrets with him watching.

Dad’s eyes never waver from the road. “There’s one motel in town. I guess we’ll stay there.”

I wring my hands together, then lock them between my knees. “What about Amelia’s place?” It’s a simple question. One that does not say, I have a secret.

“What about it?”

I swallow, feeling as if my life depends on my next words. “Why not stay there?”

“Because we’re not,” he says, shutting me down and stopping my heart. Ugh.

“Will Red and Earl be there?” I met my dad’s younger brothers as many times as Amelia: twice. The two looked just alike, inches shorter than Dad, with weathered skin, bald with wisps of brown, almost-black hair around the edges.

“I’m sure Earl will be. He’s the one who called. Red’s off adventuring again.” Dad holds the wheel with both hands, ten and two, never deviating from that position.