AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Who says I have demons?” My voice has a higher pitch than I like.
“Every woman who has tried to love you. Don’t think I don’t know about your string of broken hearts.”
“What has that got to do with Anita?”
“Everything, Gabe. One thing an adoptive mother always struggles with is when and how to tell the baby left in her care about the adoption. We lay it softly in a cocoon of how much we wanted you. That we chose you. That your arrival was a miracle.”
“You saying it wasn’t?”
Her metal bracelets jingle as she reaches across to grasp my wrist. “Of course I’m not saying that. You have been the joy of my life. But the unsaid other half of this story is that someone did leave you behind. They also made a choice. And probably that choice was the right one. Likely it was painful and selfless. It was about your safety, your future. But I could always see in your eyes that you saw yourself as abandoned. As unworthy. And I never knew exactly how to help you with that.”
“You did all the therapy. You tried.”
“I did. They all felt you were very well adjusted.”
“But I’m not?”
She tilts her head, her gaze holding steadily on mine. “I think you are perfect. But here we are. And you’re all torn up for the first time, and I can’t help but wonder if the decisions you’re making are for the right reasons.”
“The decision to see Anita or the one to let Tillie go? It’s not like I can keep her here.”
“Both. I think it starts with Anita.”
“What if I learn she’s been way better off without me being a weight around her neck?”
“That could happen.” Mom’s fingers squeeze my arm as she holds on to me. “But then you’ll know. Sometimes it really is the devil you don’t know that gets you.”
“And what about Tillie?”
“Georgia means more time to figure things out with her. Two weeks is not enough. Take more.”
I’m not sure she’s right. But the roiling unease in my gut tells me plenty is already wrong. It’s always been wrong.
I stare at my chicken. I love the island. The food. The people. But I’ve never felt like I really belonged. Not deep down. Is it Anita’s fault? Or did I always hold myself away from where I landed and the people who came into my life?
When I look at Mom, she’s rummaging through her enormous canvas bag. She keeps everything in there from Avon Skin So Soft to firecrackers. She always says you never know when you might need soothing, or when you ought to cause a disturbance. Or both.
But this time, she extracts a candle. “I’m not saying I’m brilliant. But I’m probably brilliant.” She passes it to me.
I turn the label. It reads:Fuck the darkness (especially when you’re sitting right next to a light).
I’m just out of the shower after a workout, which I’ve sorely missed out on lately, when I get a text from Tillie:Need you naked.
My entire body flashes with relief. She’ll see me after all.
I send a shot of myself, the towel still wrapped around my hips.
Tillie:Idouble dog dare you to send one without the towel.
Of course I do.
Tillie:Hold that pose. I’m coming.
And she does. A few minutes later, she crashes through my apartment door and tackles me right on the sofa.
The hard texts seem far away, like they happened to other people.
When we’re quiet again, lying side by side on the narrow cushion, the need to know what happened overwhelms me. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
