18. Jenna
Jenna
“OK. I’ll just get to the point then,” Ma says. “I’m sorry.”
My mother is sober.
I hear it in the clean edges of her voice, and somehow that makes me angrier than yesterday’s Chianti slur. Yesterday, I could blame some of it on the wine. Today, every word will land exactly where she aims it. And I’m so fucking tired of bracing.
“You’re sorry?” I say, turning because Dominic is behind me, shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it over my shoulders.
He presses a kiss on the top of my head as he squeezes my upper arms in comfort and stays there, pressed full-length, like a line has finally been drawn and I don’t have to hold myself upright anymore.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” my mother says. “For yesterday. For the cake. For everything.” She clears her throat like it’s the cake needing slicing, not the history between us. “I was mad at your father, and I took it out on you. I know it wasn’t right.”
I say nothing. I let the silence work for me this time.
She sighs, and I can picture her in the kitchen, one hand on her hip, looking out the window at whatever version of Queens she’s decided to hate today.
“You worked hard for your life, Jenna. I should have been proud. I am proud. I just . . .” Her voice wobbles, then sharpens back to the bone. “It’s not easy watching you girls grow up and not need me.”
I wait, because there’s more, and because I can feel Dominic’s arms around me, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had backup on a call with my mother. It’s almost cheating—but I don’t care. I lean back into him and let the silence build so high I can barely see over it.
“I should have baked the cake myself,” my mother says, and the comment immediately raises my hackles because she’s never grateful when we make effort—she only notices when we do it wrong, or when we don’t do it at all.
And somehow it always feels like my fault. Like a problem I’m supposed to fix.
“It was your birthday, Ma. You’re not supposed to make the cake.”
“I suppose. But you girls don’t let me do anything for you anymore.
Hailey won’t let me fix her hair, you don’t call and tell me about your job.
When you were little, all you did was ask for things.
Spaghetti, stories, Band-Aids, cuddles. Now you come home, and you already have everything. ” A watery laugh.
The phone trembles slightly in my hand, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not from anger. It’s from this—this sudden, wrenching view of my mother as someone who knows she isn’t needed anymore and has no idea what to do when her reasons for living grow up and find a life outside of her.
“You’re always allowed to bake your own cake if you prefer it, Ma,” I say. “Just maybe skip the wine next time.”
She sniffs a little, the sound heavy. “I’ll try.”
“OK,” I say, knowing it’s a lie, but wishing it were true all the same.
I miss my mom. I miss the woman she used to be, before the wine and the bitterness took over.
I miss the woman who used to make grilled cheese when we were sick.
Who braided Hailey’s hair too tight for school pictures.
Who once stayed up until two in the morning sewing a hem on a dress I needed for the school play.
She’s been gone a long time now, but I keep wishing for her all the same.
“I have to go, Ma,” I whisper.
There’s a pause. Then my mother says, “I am trying, Jenna.”
My heart clenches tight in my chest.
“I know,” I say.
And I do. That’s the sucky part.
I hang up and let myself be held.
I lean back into Dominic, letting his warmth leak into my bones until I’m not shaking anymore. It’s a selfish thing to do, this collapse. I could have stood upright on my own. I always do. But for the space of a phone call, I let myself be the version of me that needs something. Someone.
He stays there, hands folded low over my ribs, head tipped forward until his cheek is pressed to the side of my hair.
“You OK?” he asks quietly, voice soft against my skin.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I want to tell him yes. I want to say I’m OK because I’m here, because the knot in my chest finally loosened in the arms of someone who looks at me like I’m a privilege, not a problem.
But my inventory has always included two contradictory truths: I need no one, and I’m always in need.
Dominic knows both. He stands with me in the quiet, facing out at the yard while his entire family moves around us in fragments—a long table, plates everywhere, two kids on the lawn fighting with empty soda bottles like swords, his brother sitting on the porch steps in his bowtie, studying the sunset.
“We don’t have to go back in if you don’t want to,” he says. “I’ll handle the cover story. Medical emergency. Unexpected plot twist. You name it.”
I laugh. “I’m not afraid of your family, Dominic.”
His chin drops against my head. “It’s not about you being afraid. I just . . . This is a lot. For anyone. You should be able to breathe if you want to.”
I listen to the thrum inside me, the old instinct that says you’re making a scene, get it together, put your mask back on. And the new feeling, the one that says you can keep breathing here, you belong.
Turning in his arms, I lift up on my toes and brush my lips against his. “I want to go back inside.”
We walk back in together. His hand is on my lower back and I let it stay there.
Inside, the tempo of the house has shifted.
A new tablecloth has appeared, and the population density has overtaken the furniture.
My seat’s still vacant, but now there’s a steaming mug at my place, dark liquid filled to the rim.
Dominic steers me toward it, but Dustin intercepts, dropping into the next chair like a satellite dropping into orbit. He’s beaming.
“Hey, Jenny,” he says. “I brought you something special.”
I eye the mug. “What is it?”
“Mud water,” he says with pride. “Best in town.”
“Real mud?”
“For you, Jenny, only the highest grade.” He leans in, confidential. “Don’t tell the others, but it’s from the river.” He waggles his eyebrows at Dominic, who doesn’t look impressed.
“Dusty,” he warns.
Dustin grins wider, the tips of his ears turning danger red. “I’m just kidding. It’s coffee! I have Down syndrome, I’m not crazy enough to serve you real mud.” He snorts, more pleased with his own joke than anyone else. Then he hitches a thumb at Dominic. “He’s so overprotective.”
Dominic rubs his forehead, muttering, “And you’re an asshole.”
“Takes one to know one,” Dustin retorts.
I risk taking a sip of the jet-black liquid. It tastes bitter enough to sand drywall. “Perfection.”
I cough. Dominic pats my back.
“Coffee does taste like mud water, though, don’t you think?” Dustin says, watching me. “I wasn’t even making that part up. Tea tastes like grass. Why do people drink it? Soda is way better.”
Dominic takes my coffee away and replaces it with a mug of peppermint chamomile tea sweetened with honey. I sip it gratefully because I’ll never sleep tonight if I drink any more of that coffee.
At the same time, Dustin regales me with another story about Dominic, this one involving a field trip gone so badly wrong the school district needed to call an emergency meeting to rewrite the school’s allergy risk protocols. Only one thing was clear: Dominic was at the center.
“Did he ever tell you about the peanut butter incident?” Dustin asks, wide-eyed with scandal and anticipation.
“I have not.” Dominic groans.
“Oh, this is good.” Dustin launches in. “Fourth grade. Nicky’s at lunch—”
“I was ten, Dusty. Stop calling it fourth grade.”
“—and he’s holding court, like always. This new kid comes in, and he’s got a peanut allergy so bad his mom sends a laminated card with him everywhere.”
“Lanyard,” Dominic corrects. “It was a lanyard.”
“Right, well, the lunch lady had some kind of crisis on her hands—meatloaf didn’t have enough sawdust or something,” Dustin continues, undeterred, “and the new kid gets given the peanut-butter-and-jelly special. He tells them he can’t have it, but they ignore him, because kids never tell the truth or whatever. ”
Dominic puts his head in his hands.
“So, anyway. Dominic, being, like, the world’s first hostile negotiator, stands up on the bench and yells, ‘Nobody eat the peanut butter!’ He throws all the sandwiches in the trash.
The other kids don’t mind, because the sandwiches are disgusting.
But the principal loses it.” Dustin pauses, eyes shining.
“They wanted to suspend him for destroying thirty sandwiches. But then they let him off because he made it a safety issue and got a bunch of signatures on a petition. Whole cafeteria cheered. He came home and made me sign the petition too, as, like, the ‘witness.’” He rocks back, satisfied.
“Nicky: always the hero and the asshole, all at once.”
My mug is halfway to my mouth, but I have to put it down because I’m laughing too much.
Dominic shoots me a look of pure exasperation. “You know how many weekends I was grounded because of that?”
“Not enough,” Dustin says.
I glance around the table, at the tangle of elbows and conversation and history.
Dominic’s mother sends me a wink from the sink, dabbing her hands dry with a dish towel before returning to her post at the stove.
Every so often, someone drops by to refill her glass or bring her a plate, but she never sits—she just hovers at the periphery, orchestrating.
I want to say something to her, to thank her for the food or the welcome, but language fails me.
It’s been years since I’ve belonged at a table with this much laughter.
Before I know it, the room is clearing, the cousins have migrated to the den for Mario Kart, and Dominic is standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder.
The kitchen is a riot of leftovers and Tía Marisol orchestrating the washing-up like it’s a military operation, and it’s exactly where I want to be, but there’s a look on Dominic’s face that says it’s time.
He leans close. “We should get going. Wheels up at nine.”
I nod. “Should I . . . ?” I gesture helplessly to the kitchen, to the table, to the house that’s still at full volume.
Dominic grins. “Just say goodbye to Dusty. My mom will chase you down with Tupperware before you get your coat on.” He’s not wrong. I’m barely through a hug with Dustin when his mother wraps me in a squeeze that’s half affection, half strategic immobilization.
“Come back soon,” she says, and I can tell she means it. “Next time, bring your family. We’ll have a real party.” She kisses my cheek, then, with the barest drop of voice: “He’s very in love, you know.”
I flush. Dominic looks up, sees us together, and holds my gaze for just long enough that the full, quiet weight of what she’s just said lands.
I want to protest. To play it cool, the way I always do, and roll my eyes and tell her she’s got it backward.
That she’s got a son who could talk the moon out of the sky if it meant someone at this table would love him for it, and I’m just the one holding the bill.
But I can’t. Because for the first time in my life, I see the way Dominic’s mother looks at me—not like a threat, or a curiosity, or even a guest, but like another one of her own grown children, temporarily home from stranger, colder places.
I feel the words that want to crawl up my throat. I’m in love with him too. But the only thing I can do is nod, and hug her back, and try not to let it show in my face as I move through the next and next goodbye.
Dusty gives me a high five and another hug, and demands a blood pact that I’ll learn Mario Kart before next time.
Dominic’s father gives me a soft handshake and thanks me for out-eating most of their direct bloodline.
Tía Marisol insists on swapping phone numbers and asks my opinion on rust chiffon instead of green for Luz’s wedding, because the debate continues and can’t be resolved with less than binding arbitration. I promise to weigh in.
By the time we get to the car, my chest feels too full and too hollow at the same time. Dominic drives to the airport with one hand on the wheel and one resting on my thigh, fingers interlaced with mine.
We are in the air by nine.
The jet hums through the dark, and I’m in the seat across from Dominic with my shoes off, my feet curled under me, and his jacket back around my shoulders.
For a while, neither of us speaks.
Below us, the world is black and scattered with light. Towns. Highways. Lives that look orderly from forty thousand feet because distance is a liar.
“Thanks, Dominic,” I say quietly, “for . . . all of it.” I try to play it off, but my voice is small and my throat is tight. “I know this weekend was kind of a lot.”
He tips his head back against the seat, watching me with a look that’s both content and starved. “Anytime, Pemberton. Even if you change the locks, I’ll find a way to get to you. Keys are for quitters.”
I almost smile. I want to say something light, about lockpicking or skeleton keys or the fact that he’s the only person I know who can make a threat feel like a warm blanket, but the words catch in my chest. I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or the fact that I just had the closest thing to a real conversation with my mother in over a decade or that Dominic’s family took me in like I was an eccentric cousin from overseas who finally came back home, but I’m feeling everything too close to the skin.
So instead I say, “I don’t know if I love that. Or if I hate it.”
“That I don’t quit?”
I nod, and he watches me a moment.
“Can I ask you something?” He puts his phone down and gives me his full attention.
“You can ask anything,” I say. “But I can’t guarantee you I’ll answer.”
He smirks. “Classic Pemberton.”
“What do you want to know?”
“That paperwork you had drawn up—why are you claiming you weren’t in your right mind?”
My stomach tightens.
“Because I wasn’t.”