Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Devon
“Mom!” I shout up the staircase as I yank off my jacket and hang it on the hook in the hallway. “You are not going to believe how shitty my day was.”
Silence meets my somewhat whiny voice that I reserve only for conversations with the woman who is forced to love me by genetics.
“Mom?”
I hold still in the hallway, halting my progress toward the Friday-post-shitty-week beer that has my name on it. I listen for her snores. Another lucky inheritance for me.
Nothing.
“Kathy?” I try again, turning back toward the front of the house to check for her car.
As I pull back the curtain, something like hope courses through me. But it’s swallowed quickly. The old hunk of junk sits unmoved in the driveway. Why wouldn’t it be? She must be out back with the chickens—socializing.
Just before I let the heavy fabric slip from my fingers, the puttering of an engine fills the living room space and a hunter green sedan bumps its way up our long driveway between the leafless trees.
I stare, wondering who the hell is visiting my mother or myself on a Friday afternoon.
Well, really, on any afternoon. We don’t entertain often.
I hit my forehead on the glass trying to get a better look at the driver—a woman in glasses who I’ve never seen in my life.
But my focus is interrupted when my mother slips out of the passenger seat and slams the car door behind her, yelling and waving her goodbyes as the stranger reverses back from where she came.
I’m rubbing the place where I smacked my head, sure to be a horn within the hour, as my mother sort of skips up the porch and stops when she sees me staring out the window.
She lifts her hand in greeting, but I can’t find my muscles.
I just stare at her, my mind muddled with impossible explanations.
She was kidnapped. Then returned by the FBI.
Didn’t my phone ping a silver alert today?
My mother shrugs the shoulders of her sherpa-lined coat and pushes through the front door so that I’m left staring at the snow dust whipping around our front yard like ghosts.
“Hi, honey,” she says.
I turn slowly. Lift a brow.
“How was your day?” she asks.
I laugh. She rolls her eyes and hangs her coat beside mine.
“My day was shit. Principal Dickhead is still angry at me for initiating the crisis protocol for that student I told you about and then on top of that, he removed all of my mental health posters from my room.”
I feel rage about all of this—the insanity of being told not to save a child in the way I’ve been trained.
Jessica is where she belongs now thanks to that training—that protocol put in place to protect.
But none of that matters to the powers that be.
What matters is that I’ve cracked the ice Jess was trapped under, and while she can finally breathe, the cracks in the district’s veneer are now visible to everyone looking on.
I let out my anger on a breath and focus on my mother. “But none of that matters because I believe someone else had a good day. I believe someone has been hiding something from their favorite daughter.”
She moves toward the kitchen and I follow her.
“Hiding is a strong word, dear,” she tells me as she opens the fridge and takes out my Friday-post-shitty-week beer. “And I hide nothing from Tara.”
Low blow. But I shan’t be distracted.
“Is it? I just saw you sitting shotgun in an ugly green Taurus. You haven’t been in a car since I dragged you into my back seat when your appendix burst.”
I point to the beer and she slides it across the counter.
“I’ve been seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist,” she tells me.
We both twist open our drinks at the same time. The sound of released pressure pops and then fizzes in the space between us.
So many questions. But first, a sweet punch of joy. This is the biggest win since the Phillies took the pennant. My mother not only left the house, she left the house with a goddamned licensed professional.
“This is amazing news,” I tell her.
She nods and gives me a small smile.
“I’ve gotten to the 7-11 by the old Blockbuster,” she murmurs.
“Inside of it!?”
Another small nod.
“Holy shit, Mom. I’m so proud of you.” I lift my beer and she lets out a breath and clinks the rim against mine.
“My goal is to get to Tara’s with you in the spring,” she tells me, and I notice the glassy determination in her eyes for the first time.
“When did—how did you find this cognitive—?”
She walks away, cutting me off midsentence, and calls over her shoulder, “Gotta get changed!”
And just like that I know. I know how she found help—or how help found her.
This was Jeff’s doing.
I run after her, my clumsy footsteps stumbling up the stairs as she doesn’t even miss a beat.
“Jeff sent her, didn’t he?”
My mom’s hands go up.
“Mom, just tell me—”
She whirls on me.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself, Devon? You’re a big girl. And he’s obviously worth the text message.”
Uh oh. She’s using the same tone she used on me when she found cigarettes in my Altoid tin in ninth grade. Ingenious hiding spot, I know.
I look down at the grey carpet that runs through the upstairs hallway. I can’t.
“I can’t,” I whisper at my feet.
I can feel her staring at me like two hot pokers are being stuck into the top of my head.
“You can’t,” she repeats. But there is no anger this time. Her arms go around me and I let myself sink into her hug. She gives the best mom hugs. “You know, I can’t leave the house, but I just tasted all the Slurpee flavors at 7-11. So sometimes can’t just isn’t the right word.”
I sigh into her shoulder. Mom wisdom is the worst. I’m about to ask her if they had blue raspberry when I hear the front door open and close below us.
“Mrs. G, we’re heeeerrrreeee,” Syd yells.
I push out of my hug and look up at my mother.
“What else are you keeping from me, woman?” I ask.
She smiles and my hair stands up.
“Go downstairs and greet our guests. I’ve gotta change my shirt.” She points to a red blotch on the hemline and I imagine her beneath the cherry Slurpee nozzle, mouth open, head back.
Guests? Syd doesn’t count as a guest. I crane my neck around the hallway corner and try to see down the stairs as I navigate downward, but they’ve moved on.
I arrive in the kitchen just in time to hear Meredith telling Syd that she had to saw through a sternum today.
Syd’s eyes are so wide. Awe is dripping from her bottom lip.
“Devon!” Syd wraps her arms around me then releases just as quickly and barks, “Sit!”
Kevin stands and gives me a look that I got from my teacher in elementary school when I put the chicks in the class toilet to go for a swim.
I’m in trouble. I swerve for the fridge and grab another beer before circling back around and heading to the chair Kev pulled out between him and Mer.
My mother’s seat at the head of the table is left empty and waiting.
The queen’s chair. I slide into the pauper’s chair and meet Kev’s clear blue gaze for a long second before he looks away and pats me on the back. A pity pat.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this little visit? Saturday dinners usually happen on a Saturday not a—”
“Alright, so first, thank you all for coming,” my mother says as she breezes into the kitchen and slips into her throne. “I promise to wine and dine you after this—”
“What is this?” My voice no longer belies my suspicion, and Meredith’s hand gives my thigh a reassuring squeeze. Which makes my suspicion worse.
“This is your idea, honey.”
I have many great ideas. Edible Chapstick. Magnetic wallpaper. Disposable vibrators. I can’t keep track.
Luckily, Syd clarifies, “An emotional intervention.”
I shake my head. “Firstly, I did not come up with the idea of emotional interventions. And secondly, aw hell no.” I start to stand.
“Sit down, Devon Michelle.”
Ugh. The middle name. I sit with a juvenile harrumph. Syd mouths my middle name to Meredith who nods sadly.
“Mr. Gallagher had a thing for Grease 2 and Michelle Pfeiffer,” Mer explains.
My mother begins, “So, we are gathered here today—”
“You forgot ‘dearly beloved.’ Can we get a bottle of wine opened first?” I sip my beer.
“—to help Devon understand that she has a problem. And, hopefully, give her a plan to move forward.”
Sweet Giuseppe. We are doing this.
“Who would like to start?” my mother asks.
I raise my hand. She ignores me and chooses Mer. I note how that feels so I don’t do it to my students. Meredith swivels in her chair so she is looking right at me. My heart skitters left then swerves right.
“Alright, here we go. Devon—” She pushes her lips together, and I can see her mouth rebelling against whatever she’s about to say. “You are my dearest friend and I love you very, very much. So you need to stop being a complete ass—”
“Remember, Mer. ‘I’ statements,” my mother corrects.
“Right. I can no longer sit by and watch you be a complete ass.”
I lift my brows waiting for my mother to correct her obvious misuse of an I statement. Mom just folds her hand in front of her and nods.
“You have found someone who you want to sleep with more than four times,” Mer continues. I give her a warning look and incline my head toward Syd. Young ears. Syd rolls her eyes. “And you are pissing it away because of your fear.”
“I statements—”
“I feel like you need to stop being a little bi—”
“Ok, thank you Meredith. Kevin, would you like to go next?” my mother asks.
He nods. Grants me a small smile.
“Devon, it’s hard for me to say this—we’ve always shared so much and I’ve been in love with you for so long—”
What in the? Who’s loving who, now?
“Until I saw you and Jeff together and recognized that there was something more. The way you look at him—that’s what I want. I want someone to light up like you do when Jeff walks into a room. And I want to laugh at her dumb jokes.”
“My jokes are not—”
He lifts a hand. “I still love you—just less pathetic-stalker and more hoe-bro.”