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“He thinks you’re Christian. Just hold him until he calms down.” My mother’s voice was soothing, calm. Like she had no idea what she was asking of me.
Like she wasn’t ripping my heart out of my chest and feeding it to Ali.
“Mom,” Charlie said, her voice brimming with warning. “Don’t.”
At least I could be grateful to my sister for that. I swallowed the sweet wine, wanting to gag on the acrid sugar flavor. But then I set the glass down and turned. Steeling myself, I held out my arms. “I’ll take him.”
I don’t know why I did. Maybe it was just that I couldn’t stand the pain in his voice. It wasn’t his fault that his mother was a selfish bitch and his father a cheating whore. Or that I might be his father.
Maybe it was because the cries seemed to be settling into my soul, lacerating me even more, and I wanted the loud wail to stop, at any cost. Or maybe I wanted to pretend, for just a split second of indulgence, that this was all different. Whatever the reason, I reached out my arms, and he reacted in kind.
“Don’t drop him,” Charlie said in warning as my mother handed me Camp.
His face was streaked with tears and there was snot pooling under his nostrils. As I took his weight into my arms, I settled him onto my hip and gave him a smile. “It’s okay, you’re fine. No big deal.”
I took the bottom of my T-shirt and wiped tears first, snot second. He was startled and reared back, eyes going wide. “I think he’s figured out I’m not Christian,” I said.
“I think you smell like bait,” Charlie said. “And booze. You’re like a pickled herring.”
That almost made me want to laugh. Maybe she was right. Maybe my scent was strong and unfamiliar to him.
Camp stared up at me, solemn now, sniffling a little as his tears quieted down. He had the same blue eyes as Christian and me, but his mother’s tiny button nose. I didn’t understand how Ali could have left him. But then again, maybe I had left him too. The thought made me both angry and ashamed.
His little fists were gripping the front of my T-shirt. His legs had gotten longer since I had last held him, his weight more substantial. “What’s wrong, little man?” I asked him.
He didn’t say anything. He just laid his head against my chest.
Oh, God. I wanted to die. I wanted the earth to open and swallow me and take this pain away from me. His sweet, heavy body against mine, his trust implicit, his innocence so difficult to preserve. I loved everything about the way he felt in my arms, yet I hated the reality of my life. My fucking life.
My hand brushed over the back of his soft, downy hair. I knew from pictures that mine and Christian’s hair had once been this light. Almost white. I tried to visualize Camp in fifteen years. How he would feel about his life, his parents. I couldn’t imagine. It all seemed like a continuous trail of fucked-up that he couldn’t escape. I could get away from this and I imagined I would eventually. But Camp was stuck with his conception reality forever and for that reason, I held him just a little tighter, bouncing him to reassure him.
But then my mother peeled him away from me. “There. That did the trick. Everybody’s happy now.”
Was she for fucking real? I cleared my throat. There was a giant lump in it. I needed a drink to push that down. I refilled my glass and took the wine down in one swallow. Then refilled it again.
“Do you want something to eat?” my mother asked again.
“No, thanks.”
“Did you drive here?” Charlie asked.
“Nope. Used the two legs God gave me.” I sounded flippant and a little crazy. Which was how I felt. I was desperate, the insides of me pushing at the outsides, everything struggling to stay contained. I felt explosive.
“I can give you a ride home.”
“Not going home. I have a date.”
Charlie’s boxy eyebrows shot up. “With who? Jack Daniel’s?”
Buzzing hard now, I refilled my glass a fourth time and shook the box. It was getting low. What the hell? “What, no. A real living and breathing girl. From away.”
That’s what my parents and grandparents had always said about someone not from Maine. They were from “away.” I knew they were skeptical because every local girl knew all about my drama and for the most part stayed away. But their faces cleared when they realized she was a tourist.
“How long is she here for?” Mom asked.
“A few weeks. Her sister is getting married here next weekend. She goes to Harvard,” I added, because nothing wrong with bragging on Sophie. She was a genius.
“The sister?”
