“No! You don’t love me, either!”
And then she hung up.
He tried calling her back, but she didn’t answer. He left her a text and an e-mail.
More nothing.
Shit. For anyone other than his sister, he might’ve just given it a few days and tried again. But this was Amory, and though her moods were pure and one hundred percent genuine, they were also mercurial. He stared at his phone for a while, trying to talk himself into letting it go. But the last time he’d let it go, she’d run away from home and managed to get herself on a bus to D.C. to come see him, where she’d gotten herself mugged.
Shit.
He called his dad. His dad was usually more reasonable than his mom.
“Son,” his dad answered. “Been a long time.”
Two months. Parker had called on his mom’s birthday and caught them in the middle of dinner with friends. It had been a good call as far as these things went mostly because with their friends listening, neither his mom nor dad had wanted to reveal any rift. “Dad. How are you? How’s Mom?”
“She’s right here, son. I’ve got you on speaker.”
Parker grimaced. “Great,” he lied. “Hi, Mom.”
“Did you know?” his mom asked. “Did you know what Amory was up to?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “That depends on what she’s up to. She just told me she’d had something planned for when I came but I’m not able to leave right now—”
“Right, so now she’s decided to go see you.”
Damn. “No,” he said. “I was just talking to her and—”
“Parker, how could you?” his mom asked. “She can’t travel on her own, you know that, and yet you persist in putting these crazy ideas in her head. After last time—” She broke off and started to cry.
Parker closed his eyes. “Mom—”
“We’re going to have to get a court-ordered conservatorship to protect her now that she’s a legal adult,” she said tearfully. “We didn’t think we’d need one, but now with you tempting her at every turn to do the wrong thing . . .”
“It’s not the wrong thing for her to want to get out and see and experience new things,” Parker said.
“No,” his dad said. “It’s not, of course it’s not. But you’re the one who wants these things, not her.”
Parker pinched the bridge of his nose. This was a very old argument. “Dad—”
“No, Parker, you don’t understand,” his mom said. “You never have because you think what you want is what everyone should want. But everyone’s different, Parker. And Amory happens to be very different. She’s happy here and you need to see that and stop trying to make waves. It makes her anxious to think she disappoints you. So now she’s determined to make you happy. And we’ve all seen what a determined Amory can do.”
Parker inhaled a deep breath. “Mom, that was three years ago, and we both know that the whole D.C. thing could’ve been avoided if you’d let her off the leash once in a while. With some supervision and practice, she’d have the experience to travel more—”
“She was mugged, Parker,” his dad said. “Mugged on the street waiting for the bus. What is this world coming to when a handicapped little girl can’t even be safe in broad daylight?”
“She’s not a little girl anymore,” Parker said. And actually, Amory had been mugged while showing a perfect stranger the picture of him in her wallet, which she’d held open, revealing the wad of cash she’d “borrowed” from their parents. “She needs experience handling herself in the real world,” Parker said. “She can do this, she just needs some help. I could—”
“What?” his mother interrupted to ask. “Continue to fill her head with ideas of traveling and living her life the way you do?”
“Not the way I do,” Parker said. God no. He worked 24/7. Hell, he worked even when he was on “vacation.” He lived and breathed the job and didn’t have much of a life outside that job. And he’d made that work for him.
But the fact that he’d run so far and hard away from his workaholic parents and the life they’d chosen, only to also be a workaholic in his own field, didn’t escape him.
The apple, in spite of its best efforts, hadn’t landed all that far from the tree.
But he didn’t want his life for anyone, especially his sister. He sighed. He knew they thought he was being too hard on them, that they were doing the best they could. “All I want for Amory is happiness,” he said. “That’s the bottom line, the most important thing. Thanks to you both, she has a good life. You’ve always been there for her.”
“We’re not the only ones,” his mother admitted. “You’ve given her as much of yourself and your time as you can; we know this. But she’s getting the wrong idea.”
“Mom,” he said as gently as he could. “You’re underestimating her. You’re holding the reins just a little too tight. You’re asking for her to rebel—”
“She was hurt, Parker,” his mom said. “A concussion. A broken arm. She was hurt and devastated, and it nearly killed her spirit to know what the real world is like. Next time it could be worse; next time she . . .” She broke off with a shuddery breath.
“You keep sending her pictures of every place you land,” his dad said. “Son, she looks up to you. You have so much influence over her, I don’t know if you realize how much. She wants to be like you, she wants to do all that you do.”
Which wasn’t mining.
Or staying near the family.
“Please,” his mom said. “She’s impulsive. You have to fix this before something else happens.”
Parker shook his head. “And how do you expect me to fix it?”
“Talk to her,” his father said. “Tell her that you and she aren’t the same, that she can’t live the way you do. That she can’t run off just because she doesn’t like the answers we give her.”
“Please,” his mom said. “Before it’s too late.”
When they ended the call, Parker tried Amory again. She didn’t pick up, so he left her a voice mail and said the only thing that would fix this. “Amory, I’m coming to see you soon as I can. I promised you, remember? But now I need something from you, okay? Now that you’re eighteen, you’re a grown-up. And grown-ups understand that things don’t always happen as fast as they want.”
Yeah, he was ruthlessly manipulating her feelings, but his mom was right on one thing—Amory was incredibly impulsive. “I’m finishing up a job here shortly. I’ll be there right after,” he promised.
One way or another. “You don’t need to go anywhere. I’ll see you soon.”
He disconnected and prowled the house. He was looking for Zoe but told himself he was just making sure the house was all locked up and that the occupants were okay. Zoe’s car was in the driveway but her room was dark. Hand on her doorknob, he stilled, debating with himself for a long, tense moment there in the hallway. But in the end, he didn’t open the door.