34
Whisk: The process of using a whisk to incorporate air into food or to blend ingredients to a smooth consistency.
2016
Regina was pleased by Saskia’s interview process.
Difficult as it started, it got easier.
Saskia was patient, kind, and tough.
She pushed Regina to limits that had her hanging up on more than one occasion, but she always called back. Like pressing on a canker sore, it felt good.
The Grand Redemption Championship filming date was confirmed, so too was the article’s release to hit the stands after filming was done.
No cover photo; Regina had been adamant about that.
There was still every chance the story would leak once the magazine had gone to print, but it was the best she could do to stick to her self-imposed timeline.
She felt a little bad about not telling anyone her plans—aside from Marco—but she would before the interview came out. After Gale competed. He had enough on his shoulders, and she had other things to accomplish before life changed once again, for her and everyone she loved.
The last detail, maybe the most important one, was Gladys.
“I can’t just leave her and hope for the best,”
she told Marco one night during their weekly dinner.
“I can’t get power of attorney and I’ll never get guardianship.
I’m no one to her.
Even if all my money could move mountains, the process will take too long. She doesn’t even have a social worker checking in on her. The state will take her as soon as I bring her situation to anyone’s attention.”
“Then it’s out of your hands.”
Regina pushed food around on her plate.
Salmon in a Dijon pan sauce over sauteed spinach.
She wouldn’t admit to trying to shed a few pounds before whatever was coming came, but she had a good enough idea of what shape it would take to know she’d rather face it a little more camera-ready.
“I can take her with me, hire full-time care.”
Marco met her gaze across the table.
“With you?”
She did her best not to roll her eyes.
“With us.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not doing this hand-holding stuff, Marco.
You helped me come up with this plan and made damn sure I included you in it.
Now can we just move on to Gladys without you getting maudlin on me?”
“I’m not maudlin.”
Marco pushed away from the table, took their mostly empty dishes to the sink.
Leaning against it, he scrubbed his face with both hands.
“Second thoughts?”
she asked.
“And thirds and fourths.”
Regina wasn’t prepared for how that slammed her in the gut.
She sat up straighter.
“It’s not too late for you to back out.”
Marco’s hands fell to his sides, his grin tired but a grin nonetheless.
“And give you the satisfaction of ditching me twice? Nothing doing.
I have my pride.”
“Okay.”
Some of the breath slammed from her body wheezed back in.
“Fine. Good.”
“Your enthusiasm is staggering.
My ego might just pop.”
And there came the rest of it, filling her lungs so that her snarled “Fuck you”
tripped out on laughter.
“I love you too.”
He pushed off the sink.
“Listen, you, we can’t cart a demented old lady around, caregiver in tow or not.
It would technically be kidnapping for all the same reasons you can’t get power of attorney or guardianship.
Besides, she’s too old to deal with all that, or to leave her in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, because you’re not going to be able to babysit her then any better than you can manage now. Why not just hire a caretaker now, leave her where she is?”
“In that dump?”
Regina shook her head.
“Any competent caretaker will report it to the state.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Coming to stand behind her, Marco kneaded her shoulders.
“Have you spoken to Kyle yet? Lucy?”
“It’s too soon,”
she told him.
“I don’t want to tip my hand.
Gale’s whole future is—”
“His own to decide.”
“You think he won’t do it?”
“I honestly don’t know, Reg.
Either way, he’s on to bigger and better, whatever he chooses.
That kid’s got real potential.”
“Duh.”
Regina let out a long breath.
“There has to be a solution that doesn’t ultimately land her in the hands of the state,”
Marco said.
“I mean, consider this.
She’s been flying under the radar all this time, right?”
“Well, technically, it hasn’t been an issue until this past year.
Had anyone called attention to her mental state, she’d have passed.
They’d have left her alone.
Especially with Troy across the hall, taking care of her.”
“But no one’s caught up to that, right?”
“Right? Where’s this going?”
Marco tipped her chair back, smiled upside down at her.
“What the hell?”
“It’s probably not, technically, legal, but I might have a plan.”
It had been over a week.
Seven days and fourteen hours, to be exact.
Gale went to work, helped at Regina’s, played video games with Kyle—now that he had all the time he used to spend with Jenara—and stressed.
Work.
Sleep.
Play. Stress. Eat, on occasion. Stress some more.
It’s not helping, man.
She’ll call.
Give her time.
Don’t use this as an excuse to relapse.
You lived without her before, you’ll live without her again.
There was no point in responding to either Sean’s encouragement or his taunts, even when alone.
So Gale didn’t.
Sean was only echoing his own thoughts, anyway.
“Do you think you can stay a bit?”
Regina asked him as they finished dinner service cleanup.
Lucy had already gone home, and Kyle hadn’t been in for a few days.
Just him and Regina, like in simpler times.
“Sure, what do you need?”
“I promised Gladys apple crisp for tomorrow and haven’t even started it yet.”
Simpler times.
“Sure.
No problem.”
“Great.
Apples are in the walk-in.
Get peeling.”
Peeling, chopping, layering, baking.
Gale had made so many apple crisps by that point, he could do it in his sleep.
“You hear from Jenara yet?”
Gale nicked a finger. “Shit.”
“Quit chopping! You’ll get blood in the apples.
Come here.”
Obedience was a given, but she took his hand and led him to the sink, ran it under cold water.
From the first aid kit, she took antiseptic, a bandage, and a finger cot—which he, Kyle, and Sean always called finger condoms, because they were idiots that way—and fixed him up.
Except for the usual scowl he’d come to recognize as concentration rather than anger, he caught a glimpse of the Regina who’d taken care of him the night he arrived on her doorstep, drunk off his ass and panicking.
“I know how you’re feeling right now,”
she said without looking up.
“Will you be forgiven? Will the ones you love ever trust you again? It sucks, but this is how it goes.
Use that to avoid fucking up again rather than an excuse to do so.”
“That’s what Sean says,”
Gale muttered.
“You got marbles in your mouth?”
And there was the regular, old Regina back.
Gale kind of preferred her.
“Speak clearly, will you?”
“I’m not going to do it again.
I swear it.”
“Take it slower, Sparky.”
She grinned.
“Today.
You’re not going to do it again today.
Tomorrow, you tell yourself the same thing. You keep doing that until you forget to even remind yourself.”
“Have you forgotten?”
“I’ve had a few days here, a few weeks there,”
she said.
“It’s getting to be more often lately, but I’ll be okay.”
“Lately? Because of me?”
Regina laughed, flying lips chasing a bee.
“Not the way you’re thinking.”
And then it was gone, not replaced by the scowl he was more comfortable with, but a softer smile she rarely offered.
She pushed the hair from his face.
“You’re making me remember what it was to be young and passionate and royally fucked-up, but happy.
You make me want stuff I haven’t in a long, long time.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I guess we’ll see soon enough.”
“Huh?”
“Back to work.”
She whisked the first aid paraphernalia from the counter.
“These crisps aren’t making themselves.”
Two hours later, they had four hotel pans of apple crisp baking in the ovens, water for tea was already boiling on the stovetop, and the familiar, companionable silence they usually worked in left Gale far too much time inside his own head.
“Another twenty minutes or so should do it.”
She passed him his mug.
“I should have asked you if you were staying before I forced you into a cup of tea.”
“Where am I going to go?”
he asked.
“Home to play video games with Kyle?”
“Glad to know I’m a better option.”
Regina blew over the top of her mug.
“He’s a good kid.”
“He’s the same age as me.”
“You’re both kids.”
Gale sipped his too-hot tea.
The days, the confessions, the waiting and wanting and wishing balled into one another.
Not only had Jenara not called, but Lucy seemed to be avoiding him too.
When they did see each other in the kitchen, she seemed shaky, always close to tears.
“Out with it.”
No sigh.
No smile.
Just, “Is it always going to be this hard?”
“Yup.
But hard doesn’t mean impossible.
It doesn’t mean you’ll never fuck up again.
It doesn’t mean you will. What matters is getting back up, brushing yourself off, and trying again.”
Gale’s eyes unfocused.
Fess up, man.
You know you have to.
If anyone was going to understand, it was Regina.
He took another too-hot sip, kept his gaze off in the distance, unwilling to look her in the eye.
“At the party on New Year’s Eve? I chased two guys out of the bathroom.
They were using . . . something. I wanted it so bad. They offered, and it took everything I had not to. But I did, kind of. I got some of whatever it was on my hand when I smacked it away. It . . . I . . . it was just the smallest bit on the tip of my tongue. But . . . yeah. I caved.”
She was silent way too long.
Gale’s face burned.
“You do understand,”
she said, “that’s when you decided to use, right?”
Gale blinked, focused.
“I didn’t decide anything.”
“Of course you did.
It was the tiniest taste, but it was a taste.
You didn’t just wash it off.
Once you make the decision, conscious or not, it’s only a matter of time. Believe me, I know. And if you don’t acknowledge it, it’ll happen again. Sooner than you think.”
“You’re losing me here,”
Gale told her.
“I didn’t take them up on their offer.
I kicked them out.
I should never have told you I tasted it.”
“Maybe.
But you still know you did.
Did you tell anyone else?”
Sean, he imagined, didn’t count. “Jenara.”
“Everything?”
Gale looked away.
“There you go.
The decision was made when you didn’t tell her.
You crossed a boundary and didn’t step back. Get it?”
You know she’s right.
“Shit.”
Told you, didn’t I?
“It took me years and more denial than I care to admit before I actually got my head wrapped around that.
Learn from it, Gale.
It’s all you can do at this point.”
“Yeah.”
More dejected than he’d been since the morning after, Gale drank his tea in silence.
Funny thing was, he had absolutely no desire to drink, or do anything else for that matter.
Zilch.
Nada. It was as if the fiery alcohol fall from grace had sapped every desire for oblivion from his brain.
It won’t last, man.
You got to know that.
You got to keep diligent.
Gale wanted to cry.
Gale did cry.
Without sobbing and snot.
Only a few tears he pretended Regina didn’t see.