Chapter 74
My mom’s car was parked outside the precinct.
Legs unsteady, I walked toward it. She was asleep in the driver’s seat, chin drooping to her chest. I lightly rapped the window.
She didn’t move. I tapped again. The last thing I needed was for my mom to have died picking me up from jail.
I smacked it with my palm. She shuddered awake, bleary-eyed, confused.
Swiveling her neck around to find me, she went from confused to completely pissed.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” she said when I got in. I knew this wasn’t a real question. She shook her head. “Your father’s on the phone. Talking about some white boy you let in the house.”
“What?”
My dad was already talking when I pressed the speaker to my ear: “… shoulda made your butt walk home. You lucky we ain’t make your butt walk home.
” He kept saying this like me walking home would’ve been worse than being imprisoned and eating six baloney sandwiches.
“And who the hell is this white boy at my door saying he lives here now?”
“White boy?”
I’d completely forgotten about Brad. Logging into my Craigslist account, I saw he’d messaged me saying he was planning to move in today.
“That’s our new tenant.”
“Our who?”
“He’s living in our basement.”
“Not my basement.”
“He’s paying us nine hundred dollars a month.”
There was a pause. My dad said, “His butt better stay in the basement. I don’t wanna see him upstairs.”
My mom kept stealing sidelong glances at me on the ride home.
When the house came into view, she cut the wheel, sending us down a side street.
Putting all her weight on the brakes, she stopped abruptly.
“We never taught you to be like this. Running off in the night, breaking into buildings, winding up in jail. I don’t even know anybody who’s been to jail.
” This was a complete lie. Two of her cousins were in jail and my grandfather had gone to jail, but it seemed like a bad time to bring this up.
She dropped her forehead onto the steering wheel and let out a long sigh. “This is my fault. I’m a bad mother. You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I should’ve been here. I didn’t even…” She lifted her head, clamping her eyes. “What a mess I’ve made of us.”
I found her cool, pruned hand.
“Excuse me.” She reached into the glove compartment for a napkin to dab her eyes. “I shouldn’t be saying this to my child.”
“I’m an adult.”
She looked at me like I’d slapped her, then broke into a sob. I’d seen her cry like this only once before, after my grandmother died. Through the cracked bathroom door, her shuddering frame folded on the toilet seat.
“Do you think your dad and I confused you?”
“Confused me how?”
“Do you think our relationship made you afraid of being with one person?”
I felt nauseated. I saw it didn’t matter how many times I explained myself. “I’m not afraid of being with one person.”
She studied me. “Just because I ended my marriage doesn’t mean you can’t have your own. There’s nothing wrong with committing to one person. Sharing your life is a very intimate, important thing. Don’t take that for granted.”
“I’m not. That’s why I’m gonna share my life with seven people.”
She turned to stare at the license plate on the car in front of us.
For the first time, I truly noticed the “No Taxation Without Representation” on it.
I could see my comment had hurt her, that she wanted something for me that I was incapable of wanting.
There was no way to convince her the stubbornness I was displaying was actually one of the gifts she’d given me.
Tristan’s words came back to me, about love and understanding.
I was never going to understand why my mom had stayed with my father for as long as she had, or why she fled at the worst possible moment.
She was probably never going to understand this part of me either.
But it seemed to me then that parents and children weren’t placed in this ancient arrangement to attain perfect understanding but to test it, that most people didn’t understand their parents until they were gone, and even then it was a desperate understanding, too thin, too late.
There were limits to this kind of love, but it was still a love that I wanted.
I lowered my head onto her shoulder, turning to look up at her. Up close, the side of her face was sweet, almost innocent. “You know I could never hate you.”
“I know, baby.”
Her phone lit up with an email. She reached for it, staring at the screen.
“What is it?”
“Just another work email.” She’d gotten about three dozen of them, increasingly threatening in tone. Tell us what you did this week. Tell us who isn’t complying. “It’s like they’re tormenting us,” she said, turning her phone face down.
We looked at each other for a while until I said, “I’m proud of you for going after your own happiness. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you.”
This made her cry again.
My room was how I’d left it: a fucking mess. But it was my mess. I called Jay.
“Are you okay!? I couldn’t sleep. I—I’m not even kidding—I saw you being arrested on CNN. I called you but I’m guessing they took your phone? Please don’t be mad I told your parents. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Of course I’m not mad, I’m—” All the scrambled feelings I entered jail with returned with painful clarity, like life was restarting where it’d left off. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re the one who got arrested.” He laughed. “Why are you sorry?”
“I…” I put a hand to my throat as though to force out the confession. “I slept with Tristan. More than once. I mean, I guess I love him. Loved him. We had a threesome with Nia too. But it’s over.”
It sounded so much worse than in my practiced scenarios.
“Well.” Jay paused. “At least you told me.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Now I know why Tristan has been acting weird since you two met.”
I held my breath. This couldn’t be it. Actions had consequences. Except for sexual assault or destroying democracy—you could get away with that. But being a deceitful woman? Where was the guillotine falling on my neck? I looked up and saw only my dusty ceiling fan, creaking in agony.
“I’m not saying I’m not hurt. But I guess a part of me knew.
I’m not as flighty as you think I am.” He said this last part almost angrily, but then calmed.
“We’ve been through so much. I think I can move past it as long as it’s over.
Just the two of us from now on. I mean, you’re not going to see them again. ” He paused, searching. “Right?”
I didn’t know what to say. Seeing Tristan or Nia wasn’t even on the table, yet I couldn’t fathom passing up the chance. I was still holding on to that afternoon, the three of us in bed, the sun casting patterns on our skin, the version where I got to stay.
I brushed my finger over the fallen “FORM” Post-it on my nightstand. “What about Tristan? Are you done with him?”
Jay laughed impatiently. “Is that unreasonable?”
“Why are you forgiving me?”
“I love you.”
Jay had loved Tristan long before he loved me. But I didn’t say this. I could end this fevered nightmare by saying yes, I will never see Nia or Tristan again. I will never love anyone else again.
Say yes, Cat. Open your mouth. One word. The easiest word in the English language, a word that feels good even when you half mean it. Say it.
“No.”
There was a long pause. “No?”
My voice shook like something being rattled around in a box. “I love you so much. I never thought we wouldn’t be together. The idea has always been too painful. But I’m not what you want me to be. I’m not. I’m not like you. I can’t…”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Love is sometimes letting go, I think.” I could hear him crying. This made me cry too.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He paused. “I hope you find a way to be happy.”
This sent me over the edge. I cried, out of breath. We hung up. I stared at my phone, this silly block of metal.
Outside my window, my parents were talking, probably about me, the problem of me. Then, after a while, my mom got into her car and drove into the dark, my dad watching her taillights.