Chapter 24 #3
But his eyes are already on me. They soften so slightly I might be imagining it, and when I mouth Thank you to him, a little smile crosses his lips. Then he looks back down at his plate and continues eating.
I do too, for that matter. The roll is soft and fluffy. The fried chicken is crispy. The casserole turns out to be cheesy potato with green onions, and I’m seriously debating going up for seconds when the conversation at our table drifts into dangerous territory.
Alvina is the one who takes us there, of course, and she’s talking to Dom.
“Now you’re handsome like your father, Dominic,” she says. “Is there anyone special in your life?”
The activity room buzzes with chatter and laughter around us, but our little corner table goes uncomfortably silent for a moment. Rosie is looking back and forth between me and Dom, her eyes wide, while Dominic’s expression has gone blank.
Alvina doesn’t notice; she just goes on, her cutlery clinking as she speaks. “There’s no one in Reese’s life, of course,” she says.
Of course.
“But you know—now that I think about it—” she says, and her hands pause as she looks up at me. Her eyes widen like she’s remembered something. “Reese, darling, you did have a crush on Dominic when you were children!”
Kill me now. Stab me with a fork. Drown me in Emma’s butternut squash stew.
“In high school, I believe, or middle school?” Alvina chatters on, her voice perfectly pleasant as she reaches over and pats my hand in an almost affectionate manner.
“Her eyes all aglow when you came into her father’s shop—and I do remember a notebook with the name Reese Harper drawn in a heart.
As if the two of you would ever be together!
But teenage girls are like that, you know. ”
She laughs—not malicious, just painfully certain that someone like Dom would never have loved someone like me.
My face is on fire, my body still, and the tension at our table is palpable.
The only one who doesn’t seem to feel it is my mother, who plows on like she’s telling a merry story of sweet childhood mishaps.
“I faintly remember her crying when Dominic left for college. Oh, no need to be concerned”—she’s looking at Dom now, and vastly misinterpreting his look of utter shock—“it passed ages ago, I’m sure.
Love doesn’t last that long, after all, does it?
And then you just move on.” Another laugh, tinkling and tittering like a chirping bird.
But Daryl’s brows furrow, his lips pursing into a frown.
I’m too frozen to frown, my brows too stony to furrow. There’s a buzzing in my ears, and my vision blurs against my will as humiliation rises like bile in my throat.
Because I would rather let Dom think I didn’t take our relationship seriously than reveal that I was a pathetic teenager moping after him, watching starry-eyed when he didn’t even know I existed. Past dating faults can be righted; my adolescence cannot.
I blink a few times to get rid of the stinging at the corner of my eyes, and my pumpkin roll returns crystal clear in my vision.
I memorize every crumb and then move my gaze to the empty spot where my potato casserole used to be.
We’re all still silent, but there are words dancing on my tongue, begging to be let out, pushing—
Until it becomes painfully clear in my mind, and in my heart, that nothing is more important than what I must say right now, at this very moment. She needs to know; she has to know. Mothers have to be able to feed their young. They have to.
So I speak.
“I don’t like turkey,” I say faintly. “I’ve never liked turkey.”
Another second of silence, and then Alvina lets out an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, really,” she says. “How am I to know—”
“You’re my mother,” I cut her off, barely able to speak past the knot in my throat and the weight on my chest. My bones are cracking, my heart infected and inflamed, and my body shakes in a way I don’t understand—my fight-or-flight frantic in the face of the one person who should be safe.
But it’s occurring to me, in this moment, that maybe it isn’t enough that she tried.
“You’re my mother,” I repeat, and my voice tremors now as the words tumble forth, scattered and broken. “In the wild—the birds. They regurgitate worms for their chicks. They know what their babies eat.”
I stand up without waiting for a reply; the motion is jerky, even awkward. I hesitate only briefly before grabbing my plate, which still contains my pumpkin roll, and then I nod aimlessly.
“I need to go,” I say to no one in particular. “Have a good evening.”
And I leave.
I don’t mean to walk all the way back to Dominic’s.
I mean to go to my car. But when I arrive at the parking lot, my legs continue to carry me, and so I let them—down the side of the road, another fallen leaf being carried by the wind.
I become aware maybe halfway that someone is following me in the darkness, an echoing set of footsteps, but a quick glance at the shadowy figure reveals Dom’s stature, his easy walk, his hands shoved in his pockets.
Distant but watchful, he follows me all the way home.