Twenty-Six
As it got to be eleven on Saturday morning, Alicia rolled out of Holden’s bed and planted her feet on the floor.
“Coooffeeee,” she said, reaching for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and lighting one up.
“Ermmm,” Holden said, his face in the pillow.
Alicia glanced back at him, at the rumpled bedclothes, at the dresser so littered with personal items including headache remedies,
tissues (still in the dispenser as well as used), crumpled receipts and parking tickets, dirty glasses and empty beer bottles
that there was hardly a spot to put anything else, and said, “Did you not hear me? I need coffee.”
Holden rolled over and stood. Wearing only his boxers, he trudged from the bedroom to the kitchen and could be heard running
water from the tap, banging around cups and plates and other items that had been left in the sink.
“You want toast or anything?” he called out.
Alicia was propped up in bed, waving her cigarette in the air. “This is my breakfast. I just need the coffee.”
“You think I deliver or something?”
“You delivered not half bad last night, for a man your age,” she said, thinking it might not be a bad idea to spend another
night here, though that was up in the air. Very much up in the air.
“Getting some cereal,” he announced.
“I’ll alert the media.”
She could hear cereal being poured into a bowl. Seconds later, Holden reappeared, spoon in one hand, bowl in the other, shoveling cereal into his face, milk dribbling down from the corner of his mouth.
“Coffee will be a minute,” he said, chewing.
He sat on her side of the bed, his butt up against her legs. “Thanks for everything.”
“Hey,” she said. “No problem.”
“I’ve been going through some serious fucked-up-edness.”
“No kidding.”
“I flushed everything when I thought the cops were here for me. And now I’m thinking, it was for the best. I wanna stay clean.
Not counting, you know, the odd drink here and there.”
“The odd one, sure,” she said, blowing smoke in his face.
“I mean it. Don’t want another day like yesterday. I can barely remember it. Like I had a blackout or something. It’s all
fuzzy.”
“You did kind of go overboard. Not saying I blame you. You can’t bottle up your feelings. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re
not allowed to feel the way you do.”
Holden spooned some more cereal into his mouth. Another drop of milk ran down his chin.
“Look at you,” Alicia said. “You should be in a high chair.” There was a ding from the kitchen. “Get me a coffee.”
“I have a more urgent matter to deal with,” he said, leaving the unfinished bowl of cereal on a bedside table and heading
down the hall to the bathroom.
Alicia got out of bed, wearing black panties and a black tee, went to the kitchen, tossed the end of her cigarette into the
sink, rinsed out a dirty cup, and poured herself coffee from the pot. She opened the fridge, saw a container of milk, gave
it a sniff, deemed it on the edge of acceptable, and poured some into her mug.
She blew on it, had a sip. She went back to the fridge and was looking for anything edible, when there was a knock at the
door.
“Holden!” she called. “Someone’s here!”
From behind the closed bathroom door, he called out, “Busy!”
She went to the front door, opened it an inch to see who was there. “Oh, hey,” she said. “Gage.”
Gage looked taken aback. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know—”
“No, it’s okay. Your uncle’s in the bathroom. Ordering a pizza for all I know.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, crestfallen. “I can come back.”
As he turned to leave, Alicia opened the door wider and grabbed him by the collar. “Get in here.”
He spun around and entered, but upon noticing Alicia’s skimpy attire, averted his eyes.
“I’ll put some pants on so you don’t die of a heart attack,” she said, heading back to the bedroom and leaving him alone in
the living room/kitchen area. Before Alicia could return, there was the sound of a toilet flushing, and then Holden was strolling
down the hall.
“Hey, my man,” he said, as he pulled the boy into his arms and hugged him the way he had at the coffee shop the night before.
It lasted a good ten seconds. “How’re you doing?”
Gage shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Holden gave him another hug, nearly as long as the first. “Everything’s good, right?”
Gage said nothing.
Holden nodded understandingly. “I get it, I get it, but I think everything’s going to work out. It’s normal to feel all sad
and fucked-up. I know I do.” He pointed to himself. “My dad, your grandpa, was a good guy. My heart’s broken.”
“I had bad nightmares last night.”
“Me and you both,” Holden said, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“There was something I was supposed to give you but never did.”
“In your dream?”
“No, like, for real.”
“Was it important?”
Gage shrugged. “I don’t think it really matters anymore.”
“You want some coffee or something?”
Gage took in the grimy carafe sitting in the coffee maker. “I’m okay.”
“I got cereal too. Where’d I leave that bowl?”
Alicia, now in jeans, strolled into the kitchen, bowl in hand. “Where do you think?”
Holden took it, scowled at the soggy flakes in the bottom.
“You guys, like, a thing?” Gage asked, prompting Holden and Alicia to exchange glances. “I thought you were just, you know,
like when people are in Alcoholics Anonymous, supporting each other.”
“I don’t know,” Holden said, looking at her. “We a thing?”
She shrugged. “This morning we are. I’m sure Ben would disapprove.”
“Ben?” Gage said, although he thought the name had come up before.
“Our counselor at Sharnwood,” Holden said. “Rehab’s not supposed to be for hookups.”
Gage took a seat at the cluttered kitchen table. “So will you get in trouble?”
Alicia laughed. “No. There’s no rehab HR that’s gonna come after us. It’s more like a workplace romance. Sitting in a circle
pouring your guts out, you kind of start bonding with people who’ve been through stuff as bad as what you’ve been through.”
“Yeah,” Holden chimed in. “Getting it off your chest, you know. Like how your parents screw you up.”
“My parents haven’t screwed me up,” Gage said.
Holden grinned. “You just don’t know it yet. You need some distance. You look back and think, okay, when was the moment when
things really started to go south? For me, I know the exact second. For other people, it’s lots of little stuff that builds
up over time.” He gave Gage a knowing look. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Gage nodded slowly.
“I kept it in for a long time,” Holden continued, “Finally opened up to you. But then I end up in therapy with a bunch of
fellow fuckups—”
“Thanks,” Alicia said.
“—and meet her and she’s like the best listener ever. Better than Ben, God’s honest truth. I can tell her stuff I could never tell the group.”
Alicia shrugged. “I should have one of those newspaper advice columns.”
“We had shared experience, you know? I mean, mine was very different from hers, but we’d both been through stuff that scarred
us.”
Gage, thinking back to the night before, said to Alicia, “You said your aunt got killed?”
“Yup.”
“How did you deal with something like that?” Gage asked, like he was looking for tips.
“Well, I got high. I don’t recommend that. But hey, if that hadn’t been my strategy, I never would have met your uncle.”
“What happened to your aunt, if it’s okay to ask?”
Alicia thought before she answered. “She was a bank teller, you know? In Oshawa? And one day, these three guys came busting
in wearing ski masks, and one of them, he tells her to open the till and give him everything in there, and she did just like
he asked her, and after she handed over the money, the bastard shot her.”
“Oh my god,” Gage said. “And they caught him?”
She nodded. “Him and the other guys. Someone walking by the bank saw what was going down, called the police, and they were
waiting for them when they came out. There was a big shootout and all three guys were killed by the cops. One of the cops
got hit in the shoulder but he was okay.”
“That’s wild,” he said. “When was this?”
“Ninety-nine. Before you were even born.”
Gage was shaking his head in wonder. “What was her name?”
“Huh?”
“Your aunt. What was her name?”
“Mary. Mary Zane. I was living with her. She was looking out for me after I lost the rest of my family. And once she was gone, I was on my own. I already had a job, but it didn’t pay much, and I sure couldn’t afford to stay in her place, which was really fantastic. She was making so much money and—”
“I didn’t think tellers made that much,” Holden said.
“Huh?” Alicia said. “Right, you’re right. I’m just saying, compared to what I was making, what she was getting paid seemed like a fortune. And when she died, I got nothing. She had this older brother
in Montana she hadn’t been in touch with in years but he was the closest relative and all her money and the house sale, it
all went to him. He didn’t give me a dime.”
Gage had nothing to say to all that.
“Listen,” Holden said to his nephew, “you hang in there. If you need to talk, you call me. We good?”
Gage could tell he was being dismissed. He got up from the table, accepted one last hug from his uncle, then half of one from
Alicia, and left.
Outside, he put one foot on his skateboard and started for home. It was a few miles, but he always made good time on his board.
Along the way, he kept thinking about Alicia’s aunt getting blown away in a bank robbery. No wonder she was so messed up,
he thought. Something like that would screw with your head big-time.
He heard a text as he rolled along, figuring it was his parents wondering, as always, where he was. He took out his phone,
saw the message before he actually read who’d sent it.
How u doing?
Who wanted to know? He came to an abrupt stop, one foot on the pavement, one on the board, and took a closer look.
Moira.
He’d last seen her Thursday night—or was it Friday morning—just before her mom crashed a party being hosted by a mutual friend whose parents were away.
Passing around a joint, chilling out before a long weekend because there was no school Friday.
Gage had slipped away seconds earlier, departing down a different path so he didn’t run into the mother.
Was Moira’s question general in nature, or did she know something?
He typed back: Kinda shitty.
Heard.
How?
Come by and find out. I’m grounded.
That sounded like a plan.