Chapter 9
Sloane
I took my time stretching the thick muslin over the frame, the alabaster fabric rough in my palms as I stapled it taught to the wooden structure I built with the tiniest nails to ever grace planet earth, courtesy of Grant’s ‘tool box’.
For a man who comes off rough and tumble, his tool collection is quite the shame.
I can picture the way Beau’s brows would pinch at the sight.
“Ya ain’t even got an Allen wrench in here, son.”
I miss him—Beau. The way he always smelled like cheap Folgers coffee, his hands permanently calloused.
When I first moved in it was unsettling, a multimillionaire with working hands.
The hands of my uncle, or the kind man in the trailer beside moms who had kids of his own but always found a way to scrape together a few extra meals for me and Grant when things got really bad, weathered canvas work gloves tucked in his pocket.
Eventually those hands, Beau’s hands, felt like home.
I don’t know why it was so much easier to let him in than it was with Evie.
I never knew my birth dad so I assume that helped, a big gaping wound begging to be filled by Beau’s quiet strong stature.
He was the first and only father figure in my life.
When I walked into his garage on my thirteenth birthday— a big one, he’d say—and saw Delilah, her red paint chipped missing both headlights, it was just her and Beau’s timid smile, his big hands tucked carefully into his pocket.
That moment opened me right up. He was my dad right then and always after, because he knew me.
We never talked about anything really because we never had to; he knew me and never asked for anything else.
I wish I could tell him how that meant more to me than the car.
I begin mixing the greens trying to get something close to how I remember Beau’s work shirt that day, the Fielder Foods logo on the right pocket. I smear in too much brown, the small pot turning a sickly sticky brown and my eyes sting.
I miss him. I know though if I see him he’ll know.
Just like Grant but maybe more, like his life experience will allow him to piece together what happened in California, what happened with Elliott.
I can feel the end of the well, his kindness and grace running out, like if I tilt my toes just slightly I might touch the bottom. Everyone has their limit.
I feel hot salty liquid on my face now, the perfectly stretched canvas barren in front of me.
I swallow and it feels like glass in my throat, glancing at my phone I see another missed call from Clem.
Another person I let in only to become a burden to later.
Her need to protect me, like a splinter in my thumb.
I set my brushes down, taking the scissors from the small bedside table beside me, one of the few pieces of furniture in Grant’s guest room.
I let them tear into the grain of the canvas, the rip satisfying in a way that it shouldn’t be, like I’m cutting out parts of myself instead of a perfectly blank canvas.
Maybe because the canvas isn’t blank, just empty.
My phone buzzes beside me, Clem’s name appearing yet again and for a second panic zigs it’s way through me because what if she needs me. What if in my avoidance I miss the chance at being there.
“Hello.” I tried to hide my sniff from the phone’s receiver, using the back of my hand to wipe my face, still holding the scissors.
“Jesus Sloane. I literally thought you died.” Her worried voice pulls something liquid out of me and I immediately feel like I might vomit.
“Nope—still here.” I slip into that tired quiet tone I only ever use with her because I know she won’t leave.
There was a time I tried to make her. In our early teens, I’d push her so hard, with my words, with my actions, I’d swear she’d never come back.
Yet there she was. Here she was. Clementine always came back because she’d never leave in the first place.
“Have you called any of those counselors I sent over?” Her voice is careful, like she’s talking to one of her horses who needs breaking in.
“I don’t need a shrink, Clem,” I sigh into the phone, flopping down on Grant’s guest bed, the milky white duvet almost creamy.
“Sloane, you went through—”
“I’m fine.” I cut her off, brushing my hand over the marshmallowy texture of the blanket.
“Look, can I call you back? I’m actually painting right now.
” For a second I think she can hear the lie because if anyone could it’s her and maybe she can but wants so badly to think that I’m better that she lets herself believe it because I can hear the smile in her voice, the way it hitches slightly with relief.
“Painting? That’s great! That’s really good, Sloane.”
“Yup,” I mumble, letting my face fall to the shredded canvas annoyed at my impulsivity and the realization that I’ll have to stretch another.
“Okay. I’ll stop mama birding you but answer your damn phone.
I’m not Evie, you can’t just ghost me.” I roll my eyes but feel a familiar smirk tug at my lips.
“I love you, I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says definitively and I can almost see the tiny nod she makes when she’s making a silent promise to herself.
“Love you, too, Clemmie.” I click the call button and rest my hand on my stomach. A new habit that's been hard to break.
This past summer
“I can’t believe that asshole isn’t taking you.” Clementine’s fingers wrap around the wheel, her dark waves cascading across her long tanned arms as she merges onto the highway.
“He’s going to pick me up,” I say out the car window and I can hear the thrum of my own voice, the sensation like speaking underwater.
I pull the sleeves of my navy blue UCLA sweatshirt over my fingertips, letting my forehead press against the passenger side window.
I feel Clem’s hand on my arm, rubbing it a little too harshly, like someone who learned empathy from watching others.
I can tell she doesn’t know how to act in this situation, which goes against every fiber of her being as someone who knows how to act in every situation.
“You sure about this?” she asks, her voice a ghost in the space between us.
I can feel her dark assessing eyes on me, calculating, thinking through every version of what happens next, like if she can sift through her thoughts fast enough, look close enough, she’ll find a jagged edge to grab, to catch me.
This isn’t that, though. This isn’t some crisis to solve or a story we can laugh about later.
This, right now—it’s just this. My head against a cold window pane watching the blur of the interstate, ordinary, unremarkable, mundane and yet, there’s an unmovable weight to it.
Like the snapping of blinds in a too bright room, sunshine in an attic filled with dust you can suddenly see, a microwave you watch until the seconds run out because you need something to end.
That’s what this is, just an ordinary moment stretched thin around something I can’t take back.
I finally nod, shutting my eyes, letting the steady hum of the car absorb me, letting it bring me back to him.
“I don’t want this with you.” His voice is like wet paint, familiar and slippery.
His gaze narrows, zeroing in on the hand on my belly, the one I’ve been unable to keep away since looking down at that stupid stick.
I wonder if this is just an instinct, something ancient and hardwired in our anatomy.
Or maybe it’s a way for me to remember that I’m real, this is real.
My face feels prickly and hot and I get that sensation you get right before you cry, like water up your nose or thickness in your throat.
I let my eyes fixate on something on the floor, an Orange peel, just barely in view, brown with rot and curling inward.
“Sloane, we’re here.”
I look up, the Hospital sign glows through the windshield, not like a beacon, not a symbol or warning, just what it is. Words on a building.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to come in there?
I can cancel my interview. Seriously, it’s just graduate school,” Clem smiles, a joke that doesn’t meet her eyes, that familiar sad smile, the one begging to carry the weight of this.
She’d clean up every messy part of me if it meant she could make sure I’m okay.
She loves me. She may be the only one who ever really has.
The thought has me biting the inside of my cheek, trying to hold the feeling in its place, keep it from rising.
Because I want to be alone. Maybe it’s guilt, the craving to feel all of this. Every slow second.
“He’ll be here Clem, I’m fine.” I nod and I see the worry flash in her eyes, the recognition that the typical Sloane performance has slipped, that she’s leaving me at intermission.
“I love you, Sloane.” She squeezes my arm again, but this time it isn’t rehearsed.
The automatic doors open immediately after I get out of the car and I want to run to catch them, the space between me and them long and awkward and wrong.
A few men and a woman are holding large picket signs to the left.
They’re graphic but also not displaying any sort of realistic imagery, just mutilated fully developed fetuses and murder written in bold red letters.
I try to force myself to care about their message.
Try to make myself see their point of view.
As I approach, a woman in scrubs comes out to greet me, wrapping a long warm arm around my shoulders.
“Ignore them,” she grits out, her jaw furiously clenched as she grimaces at the small crowd.