It took him a moment to realize Tinajas had stopped loading cups.
“It just kind of happened,” Jem said with a shrug.“I mean, if he calls it off, I can’t blame him.He kind of caught me lying again, and I never wrote my vows—”
“Oh my God,” Tinajas moaned, collapsing over the sink.“Why, God?Why did You put this impossible White boy in my path?What did I do to deserve this?”Without waiting for an answer, she spun toward Jem again.“There is one man in this entire universe who will put up with you, and this is how you behave.”
“It’s not like I was trying to lie!It just happened!”
“What is wrong with you?”
“It’s been a weird fucking week!”
Tinajas just shook her head.But after a moment, she resumed loading the dishes.From the back of the house came excited shouts from Dionica and Guillo, along with what definitely sounded like someone jumping on a bed, so maybe the wholegetting dressedthing hadn’t gone as planned.
“I think something’s wrong with my brain,” Jem said.
Tinajas snorted.
Jem’s smile came and went, but he said, “I’m serious.I think I need to see a doctor or something.If I could afford to see a doctor.If I had insurance.”
“This is where marrying that rich doctor you live with could have paid off.”Tinajas waited, probably to make the punch land when she added, “If you hadn’t fucked everything up.”
“He’s not rich.And I didn’t fuck everything up.Tean loves me.When I explain, he’ll forgive me.”
“He shouldn’t.He should get rid of you.He should find another White boy who is younger and prettier and who won’t cause him problems.”
“Younger?”
She shrugged.
“Holy shit, Tin!”
With a flick of her wrist, she shut off the water.Then she started the dishwasher.Drying her hands on the towel again, she stood there, studying him.
“I don’t even know why I did it,” Jem said.He tried to act normal, but even to himself, his voice sounded miserable.“Since that first night I saw him, it’s like I just do things, and I don’t know why I’m doing them.I know I should stop.I know I shouldn’t do it.But it’s like I can’t.Or I don’t want to.I don’t know.”
“The diddler?”
Jem nodded.“I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“For fuck’s sake.You saw a guy who traumatized you.You were, what?Eight years old?Nine?He tried to get his hands down your pants, and it scared the shit out of you.Of course it traumatized you.Now you see him again, and part of you is still that kid who got hurt—”
“I didn’t get hurt.”
“Hey!I’m talking!Open your mouth again and see what happens!”When Jem didn’t respond, she continued in a more level voice, “You were a kid, and he was trying to hurt you.That shit fucks you up.And it stays with you.”
He didn’t have to ask her how she knew.Because she’d been in care too.And they both knew how often it happened.How often it went unreported.How often it went nowhere even if you did report it.Until you realized, as a kid, that it was all up to you, and you were the only one you could count on.
But he shook his head.“Yeah, look, I appreciate it, Tin.But nothing happened.I’m fine.”She didn’t say anything, her dark eyes fixed on him, and he found himself talking again.“It’s not like I was one of those kids like Benny who couldn’t do it on their own.Hell, Tin,Ihurthim.Bit him down to the fucking bone.If anybody should have been traumatized, it’s him.”The towel was still in her hands now, the terrycloth rumpled and dark with water.His mouth was moving again.“I’m all grown up now, and I do all right.”
“You do all right,” Tinajas said.
Jem shrugged.But his gaze slid to the window.Outside, the clouds were moving in: thick and textured, like someone had run a comb through them.
“You don’t ever find yourself not feeling anything, like somebody turned off everything inside your head?”Tinajas asked.“Or sometimes, you feel too much, and you need something to make it go away?”In a dry voice, like she was making a joke, she added, “You don’t show up at someone’s house stoned on something you didn’t even know what it was except maybe bad oxy?”
Off a toilet seat, he almost said.Like the words wanted to jump out of his mouth.He crushed it up on a toilet seat.
She waited like she expected an answer, and somehow Jem laughed, and he cut his eyes to her, and then he looked back at the window.A plane was moving across the sky.“Come on.”
