Speakeasy (True North #5)(27)

My grandpa has a TV to yell at. He doesn’t fuss over me, for which I’m grateful.

My mother, though. She sounds like a second-rate therapist. “Time heals all wounds,” she says to me at least once a day. And, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

I’m knitting the early rows on Alec’s sweater while she’s saying this, nodding along as I count stitches in my head. Knitting is very Zen.

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling Zen enough to keep my mouth shut when Mom attacks Daniela again the following day. We’ve just had dinner, and Mom and Dylan and I are sitting on the sofa in the TV room.

I’m knitting row number seven when she starts up again. “There is something broken inside that girl,” she insists as she stirs honey into her tea. “That’s the only reason someone could ever mistreat you. I’m glad you can see her now for what she is.”

“There’s something broken about everyone,” I grumble. “I took a risk on her, and it didn’t work out. But if I held out for the perfect person, I’d be single for the rest of my life.”

My mother sets the spoon down and frowns at me. “She didn’t deserve you, and I don’t know why you would even disagree at this point.”

“Because I’m not blind or deaf,” I shoot back, my voice getting high and angry. “You guys walk around here explaining to me how bad Daniela was, like I was always too dumb to notice that she wasn’t always good to me. News flash—I knew that already.”

“Then why on earth did you put up with it?” My mother’s face is incredulous. Dylan is eyeing both of us warily, wondering how he can make his escape.

“Because,” I squeak. “People can change. She’d been good to me once, she could have done it again. I didn’t want to give up too easily.”

But that’s only half true, and that’s why my throat is closing in on itself. Because there’s another reason, too. There’s something broken about me—something a little too needy. The minute I let myself really want someone, I always wreck it.

Maybe Daniela could sense my desperation. She stopped being attracted to me because I wasn’t feeling very attractive.

I stare down at my seven rows of knitting with a critical eye. The first few rows of every knitting project look horrible. Every time. There’s no way to see the beauty that will emerge. It’s always just a little snake of nothingness at this stage. You just have to hang in there until it takes a real shape.

Pushing the needle through the next stitch, I loop the yarn and pull it through. Knitting is a lot like sobriety. One painstaking little loop at a time. The whole is more beautiful than the sum of its parts.

On the other end of the couch, my mother is struggling not to say anything more. She’s angry at Daniela for hurting her baby girl, and she doesn’t care who hears it. But she is a woman of great restraint, so all she says is, “Have you called Dr. Reynold’s office?”

“No. Why?”

“You should get tested, honey. Anyone who discovers that her relationship wasn’t monogamous owes it to herself to check her health.”

“Annnd I’m out,” Dylan says, leaping out of his seat and dashing from the room.

My neck gets hot. Although I want Mom to talk about something other than my relationship failures, I didn’t realize that a segue meant we’d move on to my vag instead.

Also, she’s right, damn it. I owe it to myself to get tested.

And to poor Alec.

“I believe that Dr. Reynolds is on a cruise around the world,” my mother says calmly. “But there is probably another doctor who can see you.”

“Okay.” I sigh. “I’ll call them tomorrow.”





It takes me two days to call, because I dread it. But when I finally get around to it, the receptionist confirms that our usual guy is on vacation. “I can get you in with him two weeks from now, or you could see our newest nurse-midwife tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow would be great,” I tell her. And I’m almost relieved to be seeing someone who doesn’t know me or my mother or my sister. It’s not that I don’t think Dr. Reynolds would keep my patient confidentiality. It’s just that I don’t want to look him in the eye.

So I end up telling my sob story to the fresh faced Miss Goldman instead. “I just broke up with a girlfriend who was cheating on me,” I tell her as she hands me a cotton gown. “So I’ll need a full battery of STD tests.”

My voice doesn’t even shake. It’s only my ego that quivers with fear and frustration.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she says, patting my hand. “You’re really smart to get tested. Not everyone has the courage to walk in here and face it.”

“Thanks.” I swallow hard, because I really needed to hear that. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Put that on and I’ll be right back to examine you. Should we take care of your pap smear while you’re here?”

“Okay, why not.”

She makes a note on a clipboard. “One more question—should I be asking you about birth control? If your last relationship was with a woman, the topic probably didn’t come up. But do you anticipate having intercourse which could lead to a pregnancy?”

For a moment I just blink at her. She has lovely blue eyes and exactly the sort of nonjudgmental face that someone working in a gynecologist’s office needs. “Well…” I take a breath. One thing you learn in AA meetings is to be brutally honest with yourself. “It’s possible that I should be thinking about birth control.”