Page 48

“No,” I say.

We drink quietly in the dark, each swallow going down more easily than the one before. I feel it in a few minutes, my head floating and the words I need to string together in order to get through this sliding off the surface of my suddenly slick brain.

“Do you have other friends?” Mom asks eventually.

“One,” I say. I think about Sara for a second, a person who I spend time with because we both spend time with Claire. “Maybe two.”

“Gotta start somewhere,” Mom says, her words beginning to slur.

We’re quiet again, this unfamiliarity of talking to each other not comfortable but not as painful as I thought it might be, either.

“You’re so much like him,” Mom says. “It’s not easy for me, you know.”

I don’t say anything because I don’t want to talk about this. Not about how my anger builds in my stomach and boils up into my head, venting out through my hands and mouth like steam escaping on the way. Not about how he was the same and I saw that once or twice, how he wanted to throw a punch or break her jaw. But he always stopped himself, and maybe that’s something he could’ve taught me if he’d stayed.

“Once he was gone I hoped the parts of you that are from me would have more room to breathe,” Mom says.

“That didn’t happen,” I say.

“No.” She nods. “I wish I could open you up, Alex, unspool everything inside of you and burn out the parts that are from him, put you back together and see my daughter instead of my husband every time I look at you.”

I take another drink. If she doesn’t instinctively understand that’s the same thing, then I can’t explain it.

“I’ve been trying to get him out of my life for ten years,” she says, refilling her glass again. “Little things build up when you live with someone. Six months ago I found a vase someone gave us as a wedding gift and I took it outside and broke it. But I can’t do that with you. A decade trying to get everything he touched out of this house and I end up raising him instead.”

My mom has poetry in her, something I never would have guessed. It must be where my words come from, flowing through me with a power equaled only by the fire in my gut. They’re moving now, escaping in a way I didn’t mean to or expect.

“I killed Comstock,” I say.

“I know,” she answers.

And we drink a little more in the dark, that thread hanging in the air. And maybe one of us will reach for it again.

39. PEEKAY

My dad has some crutch phrases. One of his big ones is this too shall pass (2 Corinthians 4:17–18, if you’re wondering). My mom always tacks her version onto that—time heals all wounds, although I’m not sure she’s placed her trust entirely on the earth continuing to rotate, because she supplements with chamomile tea. So most of the crying done in my life has been over steamy mugs with herbs floating in them, the musty whiff of Dad’s big-ass King James Version flopped open across from me, while well-meaning pats on the back are supposed to make everything okay.

This is how my trauma is handled, everything from Grandma dying to my first kitten tangling with a speeding Jeep to getting my period. I did call Dad out on the this too shall pass thing on that last one. Then Mom got all loyal and explained menopause and the fact that technically Dad was right, it would just take about forty years, and then I cried harder.

So it’s understandable that I didn’t bring my broken heart to them, dumping the bloody pieces onto the dinner table after we finished our cherry cheesecake. They knew, though. They couldn’t not notice that suddenly Adam was no longer a fixture in our house, a guy who was so welcome and trusted that he didn’t have to knock anymore. But I guess maybe Mom and Dad are smart enough to realize that pointing out the second hand on the clock isn’t going to suddenly mend the fissure straight through my aorta.

Here’s the thing, though—they were right.

We’re deep into winter and I’ve stopped feeling like there is a spear in my chest every time he’s up against Branley in the hallway. To her credit, I actually saw her push him away a couple of times when I came around the corner. It’s not like we’re friends or anything. We’ll give each other a nod in the hallway or cautiously say excuse me when we slide past each other in the senior cut line at lunch, but we’re not coordinating our clothes every night. Still, the fact that she’s trying to not throw it in my face set a warm glow in the black gaping hole where I picture that spear passing through, so many times that the wound keeps getting bigger.

Except I think it closed up when I wasn’t paying attention.

The other night I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize, an anonymous how r u?

I shot back: who is this? A call came in from the same number two seconds later. I let it go to voice mail, listening immediately after I got the notification. And then Adam’s voice, definitely injured: “Seriously, you deleted my number?”

I didn’t add him as a contact, but I did keep the voice mail. The righteous indignation buried there amused me.

I texted back: Yeah, I did. What’s up?

U talking to Park?

Also amusing. Yes. I am talking to Park, kind of. It started when he texted me to make sure I was okay after what happened at the church, an innocent brotherly text that I didn’t read anything into, responding that I was fine and thanks for checking. A couple of days later he asked if I was coming to the basketball game and I answered yes and his response—a simple good—kind of set that glow I mentioned earlier into a spark.