The Music of What Happens(81)

I should have known. How had I not seen it? Denial is a funny thing.

Of course. My mom has gambled away all the truck money.

I feel like I’ve been robbed at gunpoint. I feel gutted. Like someone has come and taken everything I have, cut everything inside me out. I feel like I want to scream, but screaming is useless.

“The money I gave you for the back mortgage?” I whisper, because my voice is gone.

“I have a problem, sweetheart. I’m so so sorry. You have no idea how sorry I really am.”

“Um,” I say, light as a feather.

“Every time I leave Casino Arizona, it’s like I get on the 101 and the shame is so deep that I just think, ‘I should turn the wheel all the way left.’ Slam into the guardrail. End this all. You’d be better off. Everyone would be. I failed. I failed at life, Jordan, and I know that, and I know it doesn’t help you that I know that, but I want you to understand. I get it.”

The voice that comes from my mouth is not mine. Someone else’s. “Um.”

“For what it’s worth, nothing you could think about me is worse than what I think about me. The level to which I hate me right now? It’s like, an insane amount, Jordan. I beyond want to die. Beyond, Jordan.”

I don’t even repeat um this time.

The rest happens really quickly. Too quickly. I don’t have time to say good-bye. I don’t have the words for it. I guess it’s good that my mom gets that, because it would be worse if she cried. But also it’s not enough. Time. Not enough anything. How do you say good-bye to your world in less than two minutes?

“So I’m gonna go,” I say.

“Probably a good choice,” she says.

I look back at Max. I want him to hold me. I want him to never touch me again. These are not thoughts that go together. This is not a scene that goes together. It’s all jumbled, disjointed. Unfitting.

I turn back to my mom. “Maybe we call nine-one-one?”

“Mercy,” my mom says, and I have absolutely no idea what that means. I should have mercy? Call them because she’s had enough? No idea. I just call, and tell them to come and pick up my mom because she’s a danger to herself. I say this in front of her. She does not stop me or contradict what I’m saying. She looks small, and scared, and not mine. Not anymore.

I mouth Bye to her but the word doesn’t come out. She isn’t looking at me anyway. I focus on her profile. Her left eye, half-closed like she’s wasted. Her expression oddly blank. Then I grab Dorcas’s leash, which makes her run over to me. I leash her up, turn, and walk to the door. Max takes my hand and squeezes. My mom hasn’t moved. She’s not going to. I finally have to look away.

“You’ll stay with us,” he says, and I’m too far gone to say anything other than what I say.

“Thank you.”



Ms. Gutierrez is standing in the doorway waiting for us when we get back from the house where I no longer live. Max must have texted.

She envelops me in an all-encompassing hug. I wrap my arms around her but don’t squeeze. I can’t cry. Bone-dry like the fucking desert we live in.

“I took the rest of the day,” she says, holding me tight. She’s dressed for work. “Of course you can stay here,” she says, answering a question I guess Max must have asked her via text. “As long as you want. As long as you need.”

“Thanks.”

Dorcas shakes her neck collar as if to say, “I’m here too.” Max’s mom pets him.

“Of course you’re welcome too.”

I say “Thanks” again. I don’t know what else to say, or how much I can just be normal right now, which I know they don’t expect but it’s kind of like, I don’t know how to show them what’s real right now.

She says, “Let’s get you situated,” and she leads me to the hallway where all the bedrooms are. I feel like I’m dreaming as I walk the hallway. In what used to be our house, my mom was in the main bedroom, I was across the hall, and the two rooms in between were storage. Here, Max is in one of those two rooms, and one is an office. Across from Max’s mom’s bedroom, the room that was mine at our house, is a guest room, painted bright yellow.

“This will be yours,” she says. “So you have your own space. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Ms. Gutierrez.”

“Rosa,” she says.

It’s weird being here and trying to get through my head that I’m a visitor but not really. That I’m not going back home tonight, because I have none. It’s strange to have one suitcase with clothing and toiletries and my backpack with my laptop, and that’s it. It’s like I’m holding all my possessions. I know I can go back and get more, but really, so much of the stuff that’s in my room back home is things I don’t use. I don’t even want my ’80s bordello room anymore. It’s tainted, because it was Mom and me who bought all that stuff. It was another life.

Mom has probably been picked up from our house now, and who knows where they took her? It feels like the blood has been drained from my veins, and I’m so, so tired.

Rosa lets me get settled, and Max lingers in the doorway.

“You wanna call the girls? I can call the Amigos. We can do a swim thing here.”

I shake my head. I don’t want to see anyone. I love my girls but the idea of everyone pitying me is way too much for me right now.