Chapter Seventeen #2
I went over to Maurice’s. Sandrine was at Trader Joe’s.
His place had gotten a lot tidier since Sandrine had moved in.
His silverware each had their little compartment now, forks separated from spoons, from knives, and there was a cute towel with lemons on it hanging on the oven handle.
They had a small tree still up, with white lights and sweet, funny ornaments that looked like sushi and snowmen, sharks and memories—Baby’s First Christmas, with a photo of a newborn Sandrine.
“You’re doing it,” I said.
“I’m doing it.”
“Leaving Papa Angelo’s.”
“Yup.”
“Congratulations, Mo. That was brutal. But we have to do what we have to do, right? To look after ourselves. Even if it means going up against something big?”
“Or someone.” Maurice was hunting around for our controllers and their cords, so I was talking to his butt. He pulled them out from a stylish basket. Usually, they were half in the couch cushions or under the coffee table, wherever we last left them.
“Or someone.” I told him about you maybe moving. Probably moving. Would you really move?
“Aw, shit. I’m sorry. That’s tough,” Maurice said. “You okay?”
His kind eyes, his rumpled T-shirt with the faded red remembrance of ketchup—I almost started to cry.
But I stayed in my anger. It felt more proactive than sadness.
Like, maybe I could change things with fury in ways you never could with sorrow.
Oh, God—maybe that’s how my dad felt. “It’s not what he wants. Not at all!”
“The poor kid,” Maurice said. “It’s gotta be tough.
I know it’s been a struggle all his life.
” I could tell that he and Sandrine had talked about it before.
“Can you imagine? An only child? At least with Dad…His needs and wants and demands, the way we have to deal with his shit—it’s spread around between us.
One of us might get more of it during certain times, but we help each other carry it.
Mars, it’s just him. He’s got to hold the whole thing.
And I think it’d be so much harder, when the tyrant is fragile. ”
“Dad seems fragile to me sometimes.” It seemed like a big thing to say. I thought for sure Maurice would disagree, but he only nodded. I wanted to explain, too, that my brothers and I carried it differently. I was a girl, and they were guys, but it all was too huge to describe.
“How would that be, though? When the powerful person uses weakness to control you instead of rage? Jesus.” Maurice shook his head in sympathy.
It made me feel bad for you, and my own anger seemed shameful and wrong.
I wanted to call you right then and apologize.
Under the anger there was still so much love.
So much. And belief, too. I could maybe talk you out of it.
Me and Sandrine, and the rest of your family might.
Maybe we could help you carry it somehow.
I didn’t call you right then, though. I just played some Mario Kart with Maurice, zooming around in my little cartoon airplane.
I left before Sandrine got home. I wanted Maurice to be happy more than anything. But it might hurt, too, to see him and Sandrine so happy. To see her bring home their favorite cookies, their favorite cereal.
I almost called again that night. But I called Addison instead, and then Priya.
They did their jobs as friends, agreeing with me, bolstering me.
It was up to you to figure this out, they told me.
To stand up. And if you couldn’t…Well, this wasn’t going to work anyway.
I deserved better, they said. I tried to believe them, but I didn’t really.
It wasn’t the deserve part I struggled with; it was the better. You were golden.
I believed it enough not to call you, though.
Because, come on! God, Mars! I thought, again and again.
I was punishing you, let’s be honest. I still had that leaf from our last breakup.
I took it from my bookshelf, held it by its only sturdy part, its stem.
If I held it to the light then, I couldn’t see the magic—the beautiful highway of veins that gave it life.
It was opaque and about to crumble. It was a symbol, I thought.
Something I wanted you to realize. How we were fragile, too.
How easily we could be crushed to the point of goneness.
A new morning, an afternoon. The squeak of the ladder as my father took down the Christmas lights.
I took a photo of him reaching for a blue bulb as if it were a distant star.
Now, early evening. Dark already. No red and green and yellow and blue, only the stark white of the single porch light, only coldness.
Dad went to work, and Mom and I ate leftover pasta.
I mostly ate leftover pasta. I still didn’t hear from you, and I still didn’t call.
It had been one whole day and one night, and now we were edging into another.
I felt sick with sorrow and righteousness.
Look what you were doing! I wanted to make you see.
But the next day was New Year’s Eve. We’d been excited about that.
Kissing at midnight, a new year. I felt suddenly sick and anxious, full of self-doubt.
I’d wait to discuss this with Winnifred Evans, with her socks and her sandals, her skirts, the definition of calm in that chair.
But then, all at once, I ditched any idea of waiting.
In a rush of fear and regret, I texted.
I’m sorry, I said. I love you. Let’s talk.
It was 7:41. I’ve looked at that time stamp a million times.
You never answered.