Chapter 34

I sat in the Phillips home, on their couch, waiting for the police. All Dad had to do was call the sheriff, and they would come pick me up. I might have been a minor, but I was sixteen, halfway to seventeen, and I’d just caused serious bodily injury. Yes, he’d swung first, but I didn’t think that would matter.

The police never came. Instead, Mom showed up at the door thirty minutes after I ran inside. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the police when, instead of a fist pounding on the door, I heard the doorbell, but I hadn’t expected my mother to be on the other side of the door.

“What did you do?” were the first words out of her mouth.

I was torn. Part of me wanted to admit that I’d gone there to hurt him, but the rest of me wanted to yell at her for not stepping in and being a parent, protecting me from him.

“Things got out of hand,” I heard myself say.

I turned and walked back into the house, leaving it up to her whether she followed me in or not. After a pause, she did, closing the door behind her and following me to the couch, although she chose to sit in one of the chairs opposite the couch that I sat on.

“He’s in the hospital.”

“Good. Next time he won’t take a swing at you.”

“You know what kind of temper he has. Why would you go over there to confront him after what happened the last time.”

“You’re kidding me, right? He takes a swing at me, and you’re here mad at me for defending myself,” I said, getting heated. “I’m your child. You have a responsibility to protect me from him, not to protect him from me.”

“Charlie, you’ve been training in martial arts for over a year and we’ve already had a problem with you hurting people. You knew what would happen when you went over there. What if he decided he wanted to go to the police about it?”

“Let him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I just don’t get how you can defend him, and I don’t even mean him trying to hit me. You spent all of last year telling me I needed to focus on school and how you didn’t want me to end up like him, and then you almost let him pull me out of school.”

“I took care of that.”

“Did you? Do you know why he fired Warren, my manager? Because Warren was willing to work around my school schedule, instead of pushing for me to drop out of school and play full-time. He almost certainly wants Brent to come back, so he has someone on his side, pushing me to switch to homeschooling.”

“You can’t know that’s why he did it.”

“I do, because he told me that’s why he did it. He said he needed to make the best decisions for my career and that I didn’t need a manager that wouldn’t push me to reach my full potential.”

“Well, he has been doing this his whole life, and you’re still a kid. Maybe it isn’t a bad thing he’s trying to look out for you.”

“Do you think I should be home-schooled?” I asked.

When I’d talked to her at the beginning of the week, it sounded like she still thought school was the best thing for me, but now she was covering for his decision instead, or at least wasn’t coming out against it. I didn’t doubt that he’d been working on her to get her to change her mind, but I hoped she would be able to resist him, since she always seemed to believe in my finishing high school.

After a very long pause, she said, “There are a lot of options still available with homeschooling or even a GED.”

“So you’ve given up on me going to college?”

“I didn’t say that. I just think it’s worth hearing your father out. He makes a lot of good points. Besides, when I said I didn’t want you to drop out of school, I had no idea you’d make it as far as you have with your music. Both Kent and your father were very impressed by your sales numbers, and they all think it’s a sign that you can really make it in this career.”

“Get out,” I said, struggling to keep myself under control.

“Charlie, I really think we should talk about...”

“GET ... OUT!” I screamed, my throat burning from the effort.

She jumped back in the chair, shocked. After a few seconds of clutching her purse to her chest, she frowned, got up, and left.

I was shaking, my fingers digging into the couch as I fought to get myself under control, practicing the slow breathing that Chef had me do during meditation. I wanted to punch something. I wanted to destroy something, just to let it all out.

That’s what I wanted to do, but it wasn’t what I needed to do. I needed to figure out how to protect myself. I’d already realized I couldn’t rely on my mother to make decisions in my best interest, and now it was clear I couldn’t rely on her not to make decisions that went directly against what was in my best interest.

I know I was slow. It would probably be apparent to anyone looking at my situation that my parents were on the verge of screwing up my whole life, but I hadn’t wanted to give up hope that my mom would at least support me. She’d always been my biggest cheerleader and had always demanded I make smart choices. She’d sacrificed and worked herself to the bone after Dad went away. Even though I knew it was foolish, I’d hoped that person would come back. I’d refused to accept the reality of the situation, because accepting that meant giving up any hope I had in her.

I got myself under control and picked up my phone. I knew as soon as I dialed it that I’d be losing any chance of a future with Mom in my life. Or at least I’d be starting that process. But I couldn’t put it off any longer.

I dialed the phone, and thankfully, Chef picked up on the first ring.

“Hey, Charlie, is everything okay? Did you get your car sorted out?”

“I need help,” I said, my voice wavering.

The adrenaline was still coursing through my system, and I was barely holding it together.

“What happened?” he asked, hearing the desperation in my voice.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t need to break down and I didn’t need a shoulder to cry on. I actually needed help, and to get it, I had to be level-headed.

“I ... this is going to be a long conversation. Is there any way you can pick me up from Hanna’s house? I still need to play tonight, I’m not going to let the band down, but I need advice. Badly.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said, and hung up.

I knew he was already out the door. I appreciated how ready he was to drop everything for me. I should have told him a long time ago what was going on. I knew he’d do whatever he had to do to help me out, and was probably going to point that out when I told him what was going on.

He was better than his word, and must have sped the whole way, because the doorbell rang after four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. I’d managed to calm down some, waiting, but as soon as I saw him, I felt myself starting to shake. Maybe it was leftover adrenaline or maybe just Chef being there gave me a glimmer of a way out, but I started getting choked up.

“I...”

“Come get in the car,” he said, interrupting me, turning, and walking away before I could say anything else.

“I was trying to say...” I said, my voice a little more under control, when I got in the passenger seat.

“Just wait. Let’s get to the Blue Ridge first.”

I nodded and stared out the window as he drove, then followed him up to his apartment when we got there.

“I...” I started, only to be interrupted again.

“Sit,” he said, pointing at the couch.

It wasn’t until I noticed him reaching for his kettle that I saw it had steam coming out of it. Either he’d been in the middle of making tea when I’d called, or he’d had someone come up and make it for him while he came to get me, because he put the teapot and two small cups on a tray and brought them over to the small coffee table in front of his couch. I’d had tea with him many times over the last year and a half, but that had always been after a training session when he’d wanted to talk about the philosophy of Buddhism or the principles of Kung Fu.

I’d already learned that one of the rules of this practice was that I was to quietly sit until told to speak. In Shaolin, having tea with your master wasn’t just about drinking the tea or being social. It was a ritual with specific rules that had to be followed.

“Drink,” he said.

I did as he ordered, taking small sips. I’ll admit to not loving hot tea. It was bitter and watery and wasn’t something I’d drink for myself. I did, however, appreciate having it with Chef. Besides always learning something when we had tea, I also knew this was a big part of his growing up in the temple. He saw it as an honor to have tea with his masters, and so I knew he was honoring me by having tea with me.

I still had a lot I wanted to talk about, but I trusted him to let me get to it when he thought I was ready.

After I drank a little more and sat the cup down, he said, “Close your eyes. Slow your breathing. Focus on your center.”

Those were the beginning steps of meditation, which wasn’t what I wanted to do right now. I trusted him, but I was also anxious to at least start solving the problem with my parents.

“Chef, I...” I started to say, and was cut off immediately.

“Děng,” he said in Chinese. “Close your eyes. Slow your breathing. Focus on your center.”

I half sighed, half growled in frustration, but did as he said. I focused on my breathing, my concentration going to my diaphragm. Chest expanding as I breathed in, holding it while continuing to focus on my center, chest compressed as I breathed out slowly through my nose while I counted to ten. Hands loose on my knees, back straight, head up. Breathing in and out, trying not to think about anything else.

Normally, I struggled with clearing my mind, something was always tumbling around in there, and I would have thought that would be doubly true now, considering everything that was happening. Instead, I felt my mind really settle down. Maybe it was because I was trying so hard to focus on my breathing or maybe it was because I was so exhausted emotionally, I didn’t have the energy to do anything else.

I don’t really know how long I sat there, breathing, but I almost jumped when he spoke again, breaking the silence.

“Open your eyes. How do you feel?”

“Better,” I said, and it was actually true.

I was still upset, but I was under control for the first time since getting off the phone with Kent.

“Good. A calm mind makes calm decisions. Now, tell me what’s happening.”

“You know my dad came back, right?”

“Yes. I also know you’re staying at the Phillips’s, so that must not be going well, but you haven’t seemed like you wanted to talk about it.”

“I didn’t. I think I was hoping he would disappear and things could go back to normal. I know it’s stupid...”

“No, it’s understandable. No one likes confrontation, especially when family is involved. There is a reason denial is the first stage of grief. Most people’s first reaction is to run from the things that scare them or are difficult. It’s understandable.”

“I guess. I don’t really know how to explain this. I guess ... you have to know how things were before Dad got arrested. While Mom has always tried to do the right thing, she’s never been able to say no to him. She never wanted to live on the road, but it was his dream, so she went along for the ride, even after I came along. It’s why she settled down the moment he was out of the picture. She couldn’t even say no when...”

I stopped, but Chef didn’t say anything. He just sat there, a placid look on his face, not staring me down, but not looking away, holding his cup of tea. I did look down. I needed to explain everything, so he could give me good advice, but I hadn’t really admitted this to anyone, and even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I still felt tainted somehow.