Page 46 of Not a Word

I dug a credit card out of my wallet and handed it over. He dashed to the counter, got some kind of iced coffee with the consistency of a milkshake, returned, and gave me back my card. Holden had looked like he was ready to talk about something but wanted to wait until my son was back in his chair.

Holden said to Alicia, “Might as well tell them, right?”

“Whatever,” she said.

I steeled myself. Was Alicia a girlfriend I’d never heard of? And was Holden about to announce an engagement? A pregnancy? Hadn’t there been enough surprises for one day?

“Me and Alicia did time together at Sharnwood,” he said, grinning, as though his rehab center had been a prison and not a treatment center. “And to be clear, Alicia’s not one of the counselors. She’s a recovering fuckup, too.”

Alicia grinned.

“Oh,” I said, feigning mild surprise, although Alicia had that weathered look that told me she’d traveled a lot of life’s miles in less time than most of us. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

She said, “Likewise. Holden says great things about you.” I didn’t know whether she was just being polite, or whether it was true. “Good to have someone to talk to who understands firsthand the kind of shit you’ve had to deal with.” She grimaced, turned to Gage next to her. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Holden. “Watch it. My nephew’s never heard that kind of fucking language.”

Gage smiled awkwardly and took a sip of his drink through a straw.

“Mom’s been kind of frantic,” I said. “Couldn’t reach you.”

“Feel free to tell her I’m alive,” Holden said.

“She’s been worried how you’re handling the news.”

Holden grew solemn. “Not well. I’ll admit, I went a little nuts this afternoon when she came by. Thought we should take a world cruise, get away from it all, pretend none of this ever happened. I wanted to do something nice for her, you know? Show her that, as awful as it is, she is still alive. But what does she do? She gets on the phone with Sharnwood, so I beat it. Not going back there. I got Alicia here to keep me straight.”

Alicia nodded, reached over, and took Holden’s hand in hers.

“And it worked,” my brother said. “I know when you came by, I was, you know, dipping my beak into it, but no more. It was a blip. I’m gonna be okay. I don’t have to go back to that place.”

“Mom’ll be relieved.”

“Yeah, right,” said Alicia.

We all looked at her. Here was this stranger, at least to Gage and me, weighing in with a sarcastic sneer about someone she, so far as I knew, had never met.

“What?” she said. “I’m just going on what Holden’s told me.”

Holden said, “In our, uh, sessions, we kind of open up about . . . everything. I’ve said stuff there I’ve never said anywhere else, and even told Alicia things that didn’t come up in group. Guess I’ve talked about the effect Mom has had on me, how she does her best to make you think she loves you but screws you up at the same time.”

It wasn’t my place to defend our mother, or side with him. His relationship with Mom had always been different than mine in ways I found hard to articulate. I’d had the feeling Mom’s love for Holden was, in some ways, conditional. That it was dependent on emotional capitulation, but what that capitulation entailed was a mystery to me. He was the older brother, although not by much, and maybe the experiments in mothering she’d tried on him were deemed either inadequate, or unnecessary, with me.

“I didn’t mean to put my foot into it,” Alicia said. “But I feel I’ve got a pretty good handle on the Holden-Mommy dynamic.”

Gage popped another minidoughnut into his mouth, took another sip of his drink.

“It’s true,” Holden said. “Alicia knows me like nobody else.” He winked at me. “Even you.” And then a second wink, directed at Gage. I would have to ask him about that later.

“And our group session leader,” Alicia reminded him. “Ben? Man, the stuff he knows about us.”

Holden laughed. “Wonder how he sleeps at night.”

Alicia grinned. “Bet he wakes up screaming at four in the morning.”

I wanted to know more about Alicia. “So, you’re from Yorkton Hill?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”