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I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth, chewing and swallowing without tasting them. “Hell if I know. When I left them at the hotel, they had everything they needed. Maybe one of them got diarrhea or something.”
Michelle makes a face. “Seriously, Lucy? Also, does Joan have a photographic memory or something? How did she—” She stops as she realizes it’s only been five years since they were here last, and Joan must have spent time with them then.
At our father’s funeral that neither of us attended.
I take a few more bites. Automatic chewing. Automatic swallowing. After the fourth bite, I give up and push my plate away, instead cradling my now-drinkable coffee. I sip as I watch Michelle go through the same cycle I did: forcing herself to take a few bites. She eventually pushes her plate away, too, and gulps her coffee down.
“By the way, we’re not done talking about Celeste. I’m personally invested now because when I was a kid, I had high hopes of being a bridesmaid in your wedding.”
I grimace. “Way to make it about you.”
Michelle grins, unrepentant. “Anyway, let’s put it on hold until tomorrow. Run me through the plan for this afternoon again, then we’ll head to the hotel and loop in the aunties and uncle. Deal?”
I can’t help smiling. Even bone-tired after a late night working on a time-sensitive project and her flight this morning, Michelle is—as she’s always been—a force to be reckoned with.
“Deal.”
The next hours pass too fast, the majority of them spent reviewing our homework from the interventionist. On a Zoom call earlier this week, she asked us each to write down a list of five to ten times when Mom’s drinking negatively affected us or caused concern, being as specific as possible.
Michelle and I wrote ours over the phone together, which only slightly alleviated the shittiness of having to pick the top ten out of close to fifty. I wish I could say the process was cathartic, but it was just depressing.
When the interventionist meets us at the hotel to run through her strategy and likely scenarios, my nerves start to sing at a fever pitch. I see the same tension reflected on the faces around me, even as the interventionist does her best to calm us down. She repeatedly tells us that we’re not responsible for Mom’s decision at the end of this. That we have to let go of the result.
Logically, I get it. Mentally, I’m prepared.
Emotionally, I’m a dumpster fire.
Ten minutes before it’s time to leave, I step outside with my phone. I’m powerless over my fingers as I unlock the screen and open my contacts to dial Celeste. I’m not expecting her to pick up, so when she answers, I’m struck mute.
“Lucas? Hello?” There’s a long pause. “Are you okay?”
My heart rate immediately drops ten or fifteen bpm, and I take my first deep breath of the day. Maybe I’m chaos to her, but she’ll always represent peace to me.
I clear the hesitation from my throat. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. We’re almost ready to leave for Mom’s house.” I take another breath. “Celeste, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been distant the last couple days?—”
“Don’t,” she interrupts. “No apology necessary. I know you’re going through it. No matter what’s going on with us, I want you to know that I’m here for you.”
The words take the air from my lungs. “I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.
“Shut your mouth on that nonsense. Everyone deserves a best friend.”
A smile tugs my mouth. “Best friends, huh?”
She makes a small, humored sound. “Like you said, no one knows us as well as we do. But enough about that. Do you remember what you did before every swim meet? I want you to do it now.”
A laugh tumbles out of me. “No way.”
“Lucas,” she growls. “Put the phone on speaker and do it.”
I glance at the hotel to see my aunts, uncle, sister, and the interventionist leaving the elevator and crossing the lobby.
“Uhh…”
“Now!” snaps Celeste.
“Fine, fine!” I put the phone on speaker and drop it onto a patch of grass to my left.
Without giving myself another second to think, I do three jumping jacks, four burpees, five chest slaps, and seven rapid claps—all while reciting our ridiculous pregame chant.
