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“Go back upstairs, Gael,” said Alex darkly.
“Let me get the vacuum cleaner. I’ll help you. Are you cut?”
“Gael for fuck’s sake!” Alex shouted. “Will you stop talking? Just go back upstairs, please. I’ll fix this.” She raised her head enough for Gael to see the rage in her eyes.
Gael took a breath, about to say something, then thought better of it and went upstairs. Alex heard her enter Bella’s room. Great. The crash had awoken the girl as well. Gael slipped into her Tia voice, but it sounded more tentative, more performative.
Alex swept and mopped and searched all the nooks in the kitchen. Convinced she’d removed all the visible pieces, she ran the vacuum over the floor and counters. Sure enough, a few slivers jangled into the vacuum hose. Sometimes the danger is hard to see, she thought, and, if she were given to tears, she would have lost it then.
Instead, she grabbed her bag, walked out the back door, and drove home.
Chapter Five
Gael’s phone pinged after midnight.
Can’t talk yet. Sry. Meet me W 7 pm, 1st Cong Church?
Over the course of the day, Gael’s mask had held. She told Bella that Alex had left to go to work. Not an outright lie. She’d held herself together in the morning at the playground, where she and Bella discussed the fast-approaching kindergarten year. She didn’t cry on the bike path, where Bella said she wasn’t ready to take off the training wheels yet. She remained stoic at the alpaca farm. And at night she laughed through yet another loss at Duck Wars.
But once her daughter was asleep, the facade broke. She turned on the television to cover her sobs. She had a glass of wine at 9:30. It failed to take the edge off, but she was unwilling to go for a second. She took a book to bed, tried to focus, but the scent of Alex was all around her. She held the pillow to her face, cried a little more, and fell asleep.
The text woke her and she spent the next two hours cycling through emotions. Relief. At least Alex had reached out. Disappointment. Couldn’t they talk in person? Insecurity. What did I do to cause this?
Then she took a break to pee.
Back in bed, the carousel of moods. Indignation. Just delete the text. Let Alex stew for a while. Serves her right. Then, in rapid sequence, came guilt, apologies, and confusion.
At 2:13, she decided the adult reaction was to give Alex her space. She texted “K” and took her book down to the couch. It was after 3:00 when she fell back to sleep.
Alex sat on the front steps of the First Congregational Church watching as, on the sidewalk, a battalion of ants worked to remove a mantis corpse.
“Alex?” said Gael hesitantly as she rounded the corner and approached.
“Thanks for coming,” said Alex. Her voice sounded relieved but her eyes held sorrow.
Gael nodded, waited for more.
“I told you about how, after that incident at the loading dock, I had to complete a course in anger management. Well, I stayed in the group. I don’t go all the time, but I try to keep it regular. Maybe once a month. They’re about to start inside now.
“I wanted to explain, but I needed to be in a safe place. This is where I’m safe. Not that I’m not safe with you, but. . . Will you come in and listen?”
Gael nodded, took Alex’s hand, and walked in the side door and down to the basement meeting room.
Gael listened as Leonard ticked off the rules. She thought how brave Mateo was for trying to break old patterns and reach for something new. Her heart ached to hear Christy bare her heart.
Then it was Alex’s turn.
“I’m Alex. Some of you have heard this story before, but I need to tell it again tonight. This is Gael. Last weekend, Gael asked me to move in with her. It was an easy decision, really.” She looked Gael in the eyes. “I can’t think of anything I want more.
“But then, Saturday morning, I accidentally smashed a glass coffee pot. I thought about Corinne, and it brought me to my knees. Gael deserves to hear the story, even if it means she changes her mind about me.
“My father died of a brain tumor when I was three. I don’t remember him. Mom never recovered from the loss. She chased his memory to the bottom of a lot of bottles. I don’t remember her drinking being a problem when I was little, but I do remember the smell of gin on her breath when she tucked me in at night.
“In high school, I sort of became her caretaker. Recovery was never in her plans, so I felt a lot of resentment. I was pouring all this effort and energy into a losing battle. I don’t think she even noticed how out of control it was. If she’d sobered up, maybe she’d have thanked me.
“I’d try to get her to eat so there’d be something in her system to soak up the booze. Used to put out a plate of Ritz crackers with peanut butter because that’s what I liked. I’d clean her up after she’d pissed herself. I started putting a towel down on the recliner so I could just wash that instead of scrubbing the cushion with stain remover twice a week.
“Came out when I was sixteen. Didn’t go well. I wanted to wait until she wasn’t half in the bag to tell her, but that was always a pretty short window of opportunity, you know? She slapped me, called me a slut, told me to get out of her house and not look back. I did. And I didn’t.
