Chapter 31 Dane #2
“Food’s almost ready. Hope you’re hungry,” she says.
“I need more alcohol.” I down the rest of my drink on my way to the refrigerator.
“No, honey.” Mom sidesteps between me and my target, admonishing me with a look that’s too motherly for my current mood. “No more champagne until you get some food in you. You’re not even twenty-one yet.”
Denial has my eye twitching and frustration growing. “Are you for real?”
“Why don’t you help me with dinner?” Mom takes the glass from my hand and sets it into the sink before asking me to toss the salad.
“Do what now?” My mental dictionary only contains one definition of the phrase toss the salad, and there’s no way I’d do that in front of my mother.
“The salad.” She points to a large wooden serving bowl packed with lettuce and fixings.
“Oh, shit. Like a real salad?” I peer into the bowl, grimacing with the realization that I don’t know what to do.
Lori passes me a bottle of vinaigrette before turning back to her steaming pot.
“Wh—what am I supposed to do? Just, like, pour it in?”
With a breezy chuckle, Lori looks at me oddly. “No one ever taught you how to toss a salad?”
“No.”
“Okay. That’s okay. I’ll do it, hon. You just set the table.”
The long dining table is dressed in a wine-red cloth and a garland centerpiece.
Eight chairs pushed tight together, promising an intimate dinner party away from a smaller kids’ table occupying the breakfast nook.
Foreboding bubbles in my stomach, taking away my appetite.
I search through the kitchen cabinets while my mind wonders what Connor’s doing now.
“No, no, Dane.” Mom stops me with a hand on my arm as I pull a stack of dinner plates from an upper cabinet. “Not the Corelle. Not for Christmas Eve.”
“What does that mean?”
Making everything worse, Thalia breezes through the room, swishing past me with a curled lip. “Dane doesn’t know how to set a table, and he’d rather eat with his hands than learn how.” She pulls a stack of nearly identical plates out from the next cabinet over and takes them to the table.
Instead of getting angry, I admit my shortcomings and shove the wrong plates back where I found them. “Sorry, teaching me how to set a table wasn’t high on Artie’s list of priorities. He was more interested in smacking me around and forcing me to watch straight porn.”
“You’re such a liar,” Thalia argues. “Look, you’re making Mom cry. Hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Shit. The sheen in Mom’s eyes is unmistakable, and now I really do feel guilty. I’m not trying to stir shit up, but a side-effect of being more honest lately is that the truth comes out in moments when it ought to stay inside. Like Christmas Eve, for example.
“Sorry, Mom.” I hug her because I know how much she loves hugs. “I’m just being an asshole.”
“I’m okay,” she insists, reaching up to pat my cheek. “Why don’t you go back into the living room and let us finish things up in here.”
God, anything but the living room.
“I can help. Just tell me what to do. You need anything microwaved, or any lightbulbs changed?”
But Mom insists I take a load off until the food is ready, and Thalia calls me useless under her breath as I walk past. Ignoring her, I head for the living room but disappear up the stairs instead.
I slip into the first bathroom I find, turn the lock, and splash water on my face until this sweater doesn’t feel so stifling.
As soon as my hands are dry, I ruffle my hair so it hides my scar better, then I check my phone.
Aside from Randy’s memes filling our chat thread, there’s nothing new in my inbox.
I consider texting Connor to pick me up, but I’ll feel really lame if I have to interrupt his plans to come rescue me. So, instead, I tap the search bar in our thread and find that link Connor had sent me back when anyone finding out he likes men was still a triggering event.
Watching Connor kiss me like he means it has a way of refocusing me on what really matters. Sometimes it riles me up, but right now it simply rebuilds my resolve to get through a couple of uncomfortable hours for the sake of someone else I love.
That’s all it is. Just a couple of hours.
I leave the bathroom but stop in my tracks before I barrel into a girl no taller than my kneecap. She looks like a doll in her crimson dress and velvet hair bow, and the way she doesn’t move a muscle, only stares up at me with round eyes.
“Uhh…” I look each way down the empty hall, then flinch when the doll totters forward and wraps herself around my leg. “Uhh, hi there.” I reach down and pat her head like she’s a family pet. “Did you climb the stairs by yourself?”
When her only response is a jumble of incomprehensible babbling, I accept the challenge of taking her back down the stairs. Despite her puny size, she’s heavy in my arms. I hold her against my chest and let her hands clamp onto my sweater.
Almost to the stairs, Martin’s daughter, Lucy, pops up to the landing, looking frantic. Halting in front of me, she takes one look at me and her eyes go squinty. “What are you doing?”
“Uhh, I went to the bathroom?”
“Why did you take my daughter to the bathroom?”
“I didn’t. She must’ve followed me.”
Lucy snatches the toddler like taking her wallet back from a pickpocket, and I mutter an apology, even though I don’t know what I’ve done to be sorry for. Tiny hands grab for me while a little foot kicks my stomach. The kid whines. Her mother spins around and lugs her down the stairs.
Suddenly exhausted, I take my sweet time descending the stairs, one reluctant step at a time, until something on the wall catches my notice the way it hadn’t on my way up.
Among the many family photos lining the stairway wall, I’m struck by my own portrait.
But it’s nothing like the portraits Connor takes of me.
It’s forced and formal, misery written in the shadows under my eyes and the downward curl of my mouth.
I’m a kid—nine, maybe ten—and wearing a hideous suit with my hair gooped back.
Why would Mom hang this awful photo on the wall?
The boy in the photo speaks memories into my head that bring back my nausea. Memories I don’t want to think about. Not now or ever.
But it isn’t my unhappy childhood that pisses me off now.
It’s that Lori would display it on her wall for anyone taking the stairs to ogle at.
Thalia, Martin, Martin’s kids, and whoever else.
How many times have they glanced at this photo in the last ten years without a modicum of compassion for a kid whose eyes are glassy with tears?
Or did they simply not care enough to notice?
I march down the rest of the stairs and swerve into the kitchen. Thalia is chuckling up a storm with Mom about something, like everything’s dandy so long as I’m not around.
“I’m gonna go,” I say loud enough to turn Mom’s head.
The chuckles die, and her face melts into a frown. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“I’m gonna call Connor to pick me up. I can’t—”
Thalia’s eyes roll. “You’re so selfish, Dane. It’s Christmas Eve.”
“I don’t care about Christmas or Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah, you don’t care about anything but yourself.”
Craning across the granite peninsula, I tell Thalia’s sour face, “I do not care what you think about me, period.”
“Stop it.” Mom scoots around Thalia and reaches for my arm, but I flinch away before she can touch me. “Dane, don’t leave. Just tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll work through it.”
“What’s wrong is he’s a fucking baby,” Thalia interjects.
Mom snaps back at her, “Do not curse at me, young lady.”
“Is it really going to be like this from now on?” Thalia asks our mother.
“You’re gonna baby him all the time like you did when we were kids?
You finally got your favorite child back, and you’ll let him act however the hell he wants?
Because if that’s how it’s gonna be, I’m not coming back up here. ”
“Thalia, that’s not—” Mom starts, but I finish.
“Good, then stay in San Diego.”
“Don’t say that, Dane,” Mom tells me.
“Why not? This is your fault, you know? If you had taken me with you, then maybe she’d love me. Maybe those people in the living room would know who I am, and maybe I wouldn’t be so messed up. But you left me, and I don’t know how to be here right now, so I gotta leave.”
“Dane—”
I head for the front door before Mom can grab me. The emotion swelling behind my face keeps me moving even when Thalia says, “Let him go, Mom. You never should’ve invited him.” Because I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to be here at all.
Martin and his clan eavesdrop in the foyer, stunning me for a moment until their scandalized expressions remind me of how much I also don’t care what they think about me. I mutter a goodbye and—
My leg catches mid-stride, that same toddler from upstairs latching onto me like a baby opossum. I reach down for her.
Lucy lurches forward, saying, “I’ve got her,” while tearing the kid off me before my hand can touch her small shoulder.
“I’m not contagious,” I say. “I’m not gonna infect your kid with whatever you think is wrong with me.”
As soon as Martin tells me to relax, I flee out the door before I can really cause a scene. Adrenaline pumps so fast in my veins, I don’t feel how cold the nighttime air is until I’m almost to the end of the block.
“Shit!” I shout in the middle of the sidewalk. My coat.
If Connor hadn’t bought the thing for me, I’d ditch it in a heartbeat. Stuff is replaceable. What’s left of my dignity? Not so much. But it was a gift from my boyfriend who hates it when I’m cold, and I can’t leave without it.
I switch around and march back, hyping myself up to storm right back into that house, but the figure standing in front of the porch quiets my inner monologue. Tucked into her own coat, Mom holds mine out when I slow to a stop in front of her.
“Thanks.” I take it and slip it on, the wool lining immediately insulating me from the December chill.
On a soft, hopeless sigh, Mom says, “I’m sorry. Holidays are a lot, even when things are going smoothly. It was ridiculous of me to think this would be enjoyable for you. I just hated the idea of you being without your family on Christmas Eve.”
“I’ve been without you for the last ten Christmas Eves.”
“You’re right. Why don’t we try again? Tomorrow, maybe? We can do something, just the two of us. See a movie or go for a walk somewhere. What do you think?”
I think it sounds awful, but that might be my raw mood talking. “I dunno. The Whitlocks have a whole itinerary of Christmas-y stuff planned out for tomorrow, and Connor’s really hyped about it.”
Mom’s dejected expression twinges at my humanity and that instinctual fear of disappointing her.
So, I add, “But I’m sure no one would mind it if I slip out for a couple hours.”
A small smile grows. “Can I give you a ride back to Connor’s?”
“Actually, he’s at McKinley Park right now. Do you know where that is?”
It’s barely a five-minute drive, what with the roads so empty. Just enough time for me to apologize. That’s the sucky thing about Mom being in my life again. Every time we talk, there’s something for one of us to apologize for.
“It’ll get better,” Mom says, patting the back of my hand. “It’ll take some time, but it’ll get better.”
“I like it when it’s just the two of us.”
“So do I.”
Mom pulls the car into an illuminated lot at the front of a large, green park. There are people in the distance who look like guys my age. One of them looks a lot like my puppy, but he’s sitting all by himself.
“How’s it living with Connor’s family?” Mom asks, probably to keep me in the car longer. I don’t mind it, given how cold I’ll be when I get out.
“I like it. His parents are really nice. They give me lots of chores, but Connor usually does them with me, so I don’t mind it. Connor is really good at doing chores.”
“Make sure he’s good to you, alright?” Mom says.
“Connor’s perfect.”
“No one’s perfect.”
“I know.” I unbuckle but stay put a little longer. “But Connor tries. Most people don’t even try.”
Mom hugs me then, as tight as always, and tells me she loves me. Sometimes when she tells me that, I don’t say it back. Too afraid of meaning it more than she does, or not meaning it enough. Tonight, I say it back, and I smile when she kisses my forehead the way she used to when I was a kid.
“Have fun,” she says as I climb out of her car.
“I will.”