Heroine(45)

“It’s okay, just leave it,” Devra says, flipping the seat of the toilet down so she can sit, head in her hands, ready to be rid of me.

“I . . .” I struggle, wanting to say something to make it all better, to erase the horrible awkwardness of this night. A disappearing father. A frightened baby. A broken dish. A woman trying too hard.

“Are you okay?” I settle on a stupid question to ask someone who is crying on the toilet. Devra turns, one bright, red-rimmed eye staring at me through her fingers.

“Are you?” she asks.

I don’t answer her. I leave. I go home. I take an Oxy.

I feel better.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


accusation: the act of charging with an offense

I could almost be okay the next night.

Carolina comes over for dinner, and she even silences her phone before she puts it in her hoodie pocket. Mom gets takeout, and we’re falling back into a familiar pattern—dissecting the game just past, analyzing who did and did not do certain things, and talking about the next team we’ll face on Thursday. It’s almost the same, but not quite.

Dad isn’t here to listen intently to Carolina like he was last season, chin resting in his hand while she explains the best way to hit another pitcher’s curveball. And even though she did put it on vibrate, I can still hear texts coming in on her phone—probably from Aaron—as we talk. Carolina ignores it, which I appreciate, but every time I hear a buzz coming from her direction it sets my teeth a little more on edge.

We’ve almost put away the entire order of wonton soup, the egg rolls are gone, and Carolina is diving back into the General Tso’s chicken when Mom’s phone goes off. She’s on call again, so silencing is not an option. Mom pops a fortune cookie into her mouth and puts it on speaker when she sees that it’s Dad.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Um . . . there’s no good way to say this,” Dad says, his voice uncharacteristically cautious. “So I’m just going to spit it out. Devra thinks Mickey is on something.”

Mom’s hand slaps down onto the phone, taking it off speaker before he can say any more. I stop chewing, the last bits of Chinese food that I’ve managed to force down turning tasteless in my mouth. Carolina drops her eyes, suddenly interested in arranging her chicken a certain way on her plate.

“What the hell, Geoff?” Mom is up and leaving the table in an effort to make this a private conversation, but there’s too much emotion in her voice to bring the volume level down. I clear my throat, looking for words to use, anything to say that can drown out Mom.

“You get enough to eat?” I ask Carolina.

It’s a stupid thing to say, something a mom or a grandma would ask. Not a best friend. Or any friend. But it’s all I can come up with, a question that doesn’t require a vocal answer, so Carolina only nods her head as more of Mom’s responses drift to the table.

“Because she needed a tampon? Geoff, do I really have to explain menstruation to you again?”

“The soup was good,” I say.

“Right, right . . . of course,” Mom goes on, voice rising again. “Of course everything is falling apart here, without you. That’s right. The second you leave your daughter becomes an addict. I couldn’t possibly be a good doctor and a good mother—”

“Mickey . . . ,” Carolina says, turning her spoon upside down so that rice cascades off it.

“Oh, fuck you, Geoff. FUCK. YOU.”

“I think I should probably go,” Carolina says, pulling her phone out so she doesn’t have to look at me. I glance at it too, seeing texts from Aaron, as expected. But there’s also a group text with Lydia and the Bellas, one I’m not in on.

What are they talking about?

“Carolina, wait,” I say, getting up to follow her to the door.

“Thanks for dinner,” she says, pulling her jacket on. “It was nice to . . . hang out.”

It was nice, but it wasn’t like it used to be. And I can tell by the tone of her voice that she can’t quite figure out why either, and doesn’t know how to fix it.

“See you later,” she says, leaving without waiting for me to respond. I close the door behind her just as Mom finds me, white-knuckling her phone.

“Mickey, you never, ever have to go over there again if you don’t want to, okay?” She swipes angry tears from her face, flicking them away so that they splatter on a framed picture of us from last Christmas, Dad included.

“If you can’t even get a tampon without being accused of something . . .”

Except, I didn’t just get a tampon. I also rifled all the drawers in both bathrooms, and bolted from the dinner table.

“. . . just because he started a new, happy family, it doesn’t mean that this one is falling apart!”

“Yeah,” I agree, too shaken to even find the energy to be angry alongside her.

Because Mom just went somewhere I hadn’t expected. She got mad, sure, but she wasn’t just pissed that Devra thinks I’m an addict. She’s pissed that Dad thinks it happened on her watch, that she can’t hold down the fort here without him. She’s barreling down the hallway now, toward my room, and I hurry to catch up with her.

“You’ve still got pills,” Mom is yelling when I get into my room, holding up my prescription bottle and shaking what’s left inside. “If you were an addict, would you still have pills from a prescription filled that long ago?”