All Good People Here(62)

They walked to Jodie’s room, then tumbled into it, breathless with laughter, their fingers still intertwined. The heavy door swung shut behind them and they fell against it, shaking. Eventually, the laughter slowed and they caught their breath, smiles lingering on their lips. The moment came when it would have felt natural to let go of each other’s hands, but neither did, and soon the moment passed, and then another and another.

“Um.” Jodie turned toward Krissy, her shoulder still pressed into the door, her eyes downcast. “Would you mind if I just tried—” Her voice cut out and suddenly she was leaning forward, pressing her lips against the spot between Krissy’s jaw and ear.

Krissy’s breath came out of her in a fast rush. Her body melted; her mind swirled. “Have you, uh…” Her voice was hoarse and breathless. “Have you done this before? With a woman, I mean?”

Jodie pulled her head back to look her in the eyes. She nodded. “Have you?”

Krissy swallowed, shook her head.

“Are you…Do you want to?” Jodie’s eyes flicked over Krissy’s face, lingering on her lips.

But Krissy couldn’t speak. She just nodded, and suddenly Jodie’s mouth was on hers and Krissy no longer cared that she wasn’t gay or that she didn’t have a label for what she felt for this woman. That spark between them had ignited a flame, and now she simply surrendered.

The next time they saw each other, at lunch in South Bend a few days later, Jodie invited Krissy over afterward and they were kissing the moment the front door shut behind them. To Krissy, their connection felt both magnetic and safe, and when Jodie told her that she loved her a month later, Krissy didn’t hesitate before saying that she loved her back.

Although she initially worried Billy would discover her secret, it turned out to be relatively easy to hide an affair from him, as long as it was a gay one. She simply told him the truth—that she’d reconnected with Jodie Palmer from school and they’d struck up a friendship. As long as she was home when he woke in the morning, and as long as there was food in the fridge, he didn’t seem to suspect a thing. Meanwhile, Jace had grown into a volatile teenager, sometimes sullen, sometimes angry, always in trouble. Krissy, who often wondered if she’d done the right thing all those years ago by protecting him, had long since learned that the best way to deal with him was the path of least resistance. It seemed if she didn’t ask questions about his life, he didn’t ask about hers. She and Jodie knew, however, that not everyone would be so blind, so they made sure to enter and exit hotel rooms separately. They only touched each other behind closed doors.

The years passed and their affair soon grew into something solid. Although they didn’t live together, it was Jodie, not Billy, with whom Krissy now shared her life. The only thing she didn’t share was her secrets.

But then, in 2009, something happened that changed everything.

It was a Saturday morning and Billy was working the farm while Krissy did laundry and cleaned. She’d just retrieved the mail, tossed the little stack onto the kitchen table, and was turning to the stairs to switch the sheets from the washer to the dryer, when an envelope caught her eye. The return address was a PO box. In the center, her name was scrawled in neat, slanted letters. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. She hadn’t seen Jace’s handwriting in years.

Four years earlier, when Jace was seventeen, he walked down the stairs and told her he was dropping out of school and moving out. To where, he didn’t say. He was packed by lunchtime, and as Krissy watched his old hatchback retreat down the driveway, her knees almost buckled with relief. She didn’t know how to be a mother to this strange ghost-like creature, the boy who killed his sister. Unexpectedly, though, another emotion that felt oddly like regret bloomed in her chest. She didn’t know how she could’ve done better, but she felt she’d somehow done something wrong.

Now, Krissy stood in the kitchen, staring at her son’s handwriting on the envelope for a long moment. Then, with a trembling hand, she reached down and plucked it from its spot in the stack. The letter inside was handwritten in blue ink.

    Mom,

When I left a few years ago, I didn’t think I’d ever want to talk to you or Dad again. But I’m going through a program now and I’m supposed to make amends. Though if I’m being honest, I don’t really think I need your forgiveness. There’s no way everything I did to you could even begin to balance our scales. Yeah, I know I messed up, but I was the kid. You were the adult. You should’ve done better.

I know losing January was hard for you—she was your daughter—but it was hard for me too, and I never understood why her death meant I had to lose my mom. And please don’t act like you don’t know what I mean: For eleven years, you never even looked me in the eye. Do I really have to tell you how unfair that is? I was alive. But the only thing you ever cared about was January.

I knew you loved her more than me long before she died. All those dance lessons for her, while you stuffed me into a corner. And after she died, it was like I ceased to exist. Dad was just as bad, don’t get me wrong. But he’d never understood me because I wasn’t like him. You were different. We had a chance and you threw it away. And there’s nothing that feels shittier than not being loved by your own mom.

I know I’ve gone and fucked up the “making amends” step with this letter, but I don’t really care. I haven’t been good in my life, but I think you need my forgiveness much more than I need yours.