Sixteen #2
“I’m your only nephew,” Gage said.
“Heard a lot about you,” said the woman to Gage.
Holden clarified things. “And guys, this is my friend, Alicia. Alicia Zane.”
She smiled, extended a hand. I shook first, then Gage.
“Park your butts,” Holden said, retaking his seat. Gage sat next to Alicia and I settled in next to my brother. They were, in fact, drinking coffee, and on the table was a box of round, minidoughnuts in assorted flavors.
“Help yourself,” Holden said to Gage.
He needed no further encouragement, digging in and grabbing two, one chocolate, the other coconut.
Holden looked at me. “Want something to drink?”
“I’m good,” I said.
“Can I get something?” Gage asked me.
I dug a credit card out of my wallet and handed it over. He dashed to the counter, got some kind of iced coffee with the consistency
of a milkshake, returned, and gave me back my card. Holden had looked like he was ready to talk about something but wanted
to wait until my son was back in his chair.
Holden said to Alicia, “Might as well tell them, right?”
“Whatever,” she said.
I steeled myself. Was Alicia a girlfriend I’d never heard of? And was Holden about to announce an engagement? A pregnancy?
Hadn’t there been enough surprises for one day?
“Me and Alicia did time together at Sharnwood,” he said, grinning, as though his rehab center had been a prison and not a
treatment center. “And to be clear, Alicia’s not one of the counselors. She’s a recovering fuckup, too.”
Alicia grinned.
“Oh,” I said, feigning mild surprise, although Alicia had that weathered look that told me she’d traveled a lot of life’s
miles in less time than most of us. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”
She said, “Likewise. Holden says great things about you.” I didn’t know whether she was just being polite, or whether it was
true. “Good to have someone to talk to who understands firsthand the kind of shit you’ve had to deal with.” She grimaced,
turned to Gage next to her. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Holden. “Watch it. My nephew’s never heard that kind of fucking language.”
Gage smiled awkwardly and took a sip of his drink through a straw.
“Mom’s been kind of frantic,” I said. “Couldn’t reach you.”
“Feel free to tell her I’m alive,” Holden said.
“She’s been worried how you’re handling the news.”
Holden grew solemn. “Not well. I’ll admit, I went a little nuts this afternoon when she came by. Thought we should take a
world cruise, get away from it all, pretend none of this ever happened. I wanted to do something nice for her, you know? Show her that, as awful as it is, she is still alive. But what does she do? She gets on the phone with Sharnwood, so I beat it. Not going back there. I got Alicia
here to keep me straight.”
Alicia nodded, reached over, and took Holden’s hand in hers.
“And it worked,” my brother said. “I know when you came by, I was, you know, dipping my beak into it, but no more. It was
a blip. I’m gonna be okay. I don’t have to go back to that place.”
“Mom’ll be relieved.”
“Yeah, right,” said Alicia.
We all looked at her. Here was this stranger, at least to Gage and me, weighing in with a sarcastic sneer about someone she,
so far as I knew, had never met.
“What?” she said. “I’m just going on what Holden’s told me.”
Holden said, “In our, uh, sessions, we kind of open up about . . . everything. I’ve said stuff there I’ve never said anywhere
else, and even told Alicia things that didn’t come up in group. Guess I’ve talked about the effect Mom has had on me, how
she does her best to make you think she loves you but screws you up at the same time.”
It wasn’t my place to defend our mother, or side with him. His relationship with Mom had always been different than mine in
ways I found hard to articulate. I’d had the feeling Mom’s love for Holden was, in some ways, conditional. That it was dependent
on emotional capitulation, but what that capitulation entailed was a mystery to me. He was the older brother, although not
by much, and maybe the experiments in mothering she’d tried on him were deemed either inadequate, or unnecessary, with me.
“I didn’t mean to put my foot into it,” Alicia said. “But I feel I’ve got a pretty good handle on the Holden-Mommy dynamic.”
Gage popped another minidoughnut into his mouth, took another sip of his drink.
“It’s true,” Holden said. “Alicia knows me like nobody else.” He winked at me. “Even you.” And then a second wink, directed
at Gage. I would have to ask him about that later.
“And our group session leader,” Alicia reminded him. “Ben? Man, the stuff he knows about us.”
Holden laughed. “Wonder how he sleeps at night.”
Alicia grinned. “Bet he wakes up screaming at four in the morning.”
I wanted to know more about Alicia. “So, you’re from Yorkton Hill?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Family’s still here?”
Holden stepped in. “She had an older brother, but he died pretty young.”
Alicia looked surprised that he’d answered for her. “Yeah,” she concurred. “Waterskiing. On Pigeon Lake, near Bobcaygeon?
Went right into a channel marker. Big metal buoy thing.”
I winced inwardly.
“Her family could be a fucking Greek tragedy,” Holden continued. “You lost your parents, what, one after the other?”
She shook her head, as though shedding unpleasant memories. “So, okay, two years before my brother died, when I was seventeen,
my mom got cancer and passed and a year later my dad was killed on the 401 around Belleville when some guy fell asleep while
driving his semi and plowed into him.”
“Geez,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t heard the worst of it,” Holden said.
Alicia looked annoyed. “Well, yeah. My aunt stepped up to look after me but she didn’t get to do it for very long because
she was murdered.”
The table went silent. Gage stopped chewing his latest minidoughnut for a moment before swallowing.
I didn’t know what to say. I actually could imagine that much tragedy befalling one person.
When I was a kid, I’d had an eight-year-old friend whose parents and older sister were all killed in a plane crash.
He’d been left with grandparents while his parents flew out west to bring his sister back from college.
The cards some people are dealt.
“I know, right?” Alicia said, grinning at her own tragic history, attempting to lighten the mood. “And they wonder how I ended
up in rehab.”
What were the right questions to ask when someone told you that? I had at least three. How? Where? And did they catch who
did it?
I asked the third one.
She nodded. “Yeah. But there’s none of that closure stuff they talk about. It was a long time ago. Even if you never get over
it, you have to find a way to pretend you have.”
The time for chitchat seemed over. And Gage was making noises with his straw, trying to suck up the last of his drink.
“We should go,” I said to Gage.
It struck me that Holden was where he needed to be. Talking to someone else who’d been through some of the same shit he had.
And as of today, even more, considering our father had died a violent—if self-inflicted—death.
Gage and I said our goodbyes and headed for home.
“Yikes,” said Gage. “She’s sure had lots of bad stuff happen to her.”
“No kidding,” I said. Then I asked, “Was there some kind of secret code going on between you and your uncle?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“When he was talking about secrets, he gave you a wink, like you were in on them too.”
“I think he just didn’t want me to eat all the doughnuts.”
I let it go. Along the way, I had Gage text Diana that we’d be home shortly, that my brother was fine, and then I called Mom to report the same, all things considered.
Sober, having a coffee with a friend. She was still worried, but accepted my assessment, and said she would try to get some sleep at the Marriott.
It had been one hell of a day, but by midnight Gage was in his room with the light off and Diana and I were in bed, unsure
of what the next day would bring.
I couldn’t say whether Holden and Alicia’s group session leader woke up screaming in the night.
But a little after three, Gage did.