by Megan Hart
Tristan shrugged, not caring.
It wasn’t that Stella didn’t trust Jeff, but she knew from past experience how happy he was to pawn off any sort of parental responsibility on his new wife who, God love her, meant well but was as helpless and fluffy as a bunny rabbit. Cynthia had married Jeff when she was twenty-two. She’d never had children, had never even babysat and had inherited a tween son who seemed to be as foreign to her as if he’d been born on Mars. Even after four years, it seemed cruel of Stella to expect Cynthia to pick up Jeff’s slack when dealing with Tristan was so clearly a constant adventure for her.
“Have a good day! Love you!” she called after him as he thundered down the stairs again. Tristan didn’t answer. The front door slammed.
Silence, blessed silence.
This was Stella’s shared-custody life. In the beginning, Tristan had been only eight, still in elementary school. Too young to go out with friends, still content to hang out watching movies with his mom. Still hopeful, maybe, that his parents were only separating, not getting divorced. They’d decided it was too disruptive for Tristan to move back and forth between households on a weekly basis, so he spent most weeknights with her. Stella had come to enjoy having every other weekend free once Tristan left for school on Friday morning.
Now, if he didn’t have a sports practice or a school activity or plans with friends, Tristan spent his time in front of the TV with his video games or an endless stream of movies. Their house had become the place to hang out, and that was fine with her even if the noise level sometimes became hard to handle. She’d rather he was at home than have to drive him around or pick him up from places. Now that Tristan was older, of course, he could get rides and so had been spending more random weeknights with Jeff, especially since he now required less “care” and could simply hang out.
There was no point in going back to sleep now. Stella stretched and wriggled free of her blankets. Every part of her creaked and crackled as she stretched. Time for another visit to the chiropractor. She needed to get there more regularly rather than waiting until she was in agony, but somehow time always managed to get away from her. She winced at the sharp ache in her neck as she twisted her hair on top of her head—time for a visit to the salon too. And maybe a trip to the optometrist, she thought as her reflection blurred briefly. She blinked away the sleep, bringing her face into focus. She leaned on the sink for a moment, staring in the mirror.
Stella gripped the porcelain until her fingers turned white. She breathed in. She breathed out. She breathed until the face of the woman in the mirror stopped looking as though she wanted to cry.
She smiled.
She frowned.
She looked concerned.
That last one wasn’t such a good look for her. It wrinkled her forehead and creased lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. It was almost as bad as feigning interest, which required a little more sparkle in the eyes. But all of it was better than the woman with haunted eyes and downturned mouth that had greeted her a few minutes ago.
Steam had wreathed around the showerhead, so she pulled her nightgown over her head and hung it carefully on the hook. It swung, loose, and she made a mental note to fix it even as she knew she’d forget again until the next time she hung something on it and it threatened to fall. In the shower, she bent her head so the hot water could pound away at her neck and shoulders and back—it was a quick fix that would ease the aches and pains for a while, at least. So would a double dose of ibuprofen and some stretches, if she could force herself to manage them. She should’ve worked out before she got in the shower, but the morning had already started off upside down—why bother to fix it now?
She slicked her palms full of soap and slid them beneath her arms. Over her belly and thighs. Something stung her there, and she turned to let the water wash away the suds.
A small bruise, the size of a quarter and already fading greenish at the edges. It hurt when she pressed it, but the pain was brief. She pushed it again, making it ache. Then harder. Her fingernail dug into her skin, and that hurt worse. She could’ve made herself bleed, but stopped before that happened. She had enough scars without giving herself more.
The tears fell before she could stop them, and even though the shower made them invisible, they still burned. The rippled floor that kept her from slipping and killing herself was also impossible to keep clean. The ridges collected all the minerals and iron from the water, forever tinted orange no matter how hard she scrubbed or how much bleach she used. They also hurt her knees and palms as she folded herself onto the floor. She stayed that way until the water began to turn cold. By that time she’d pushed the memory of Glenn’s mouth on her so far away she could pretend it had happened to someone else.
CHAPTER THREE
What Stella did would never hang in a museum, but there was an art to touching up photos. Smoothing the lines of concern in a forehead. Erasing blemishes bad enough to leave scars. The scars themselves she never took away, unless the client had specifically requested she do so. Consequently, photos that came in with a lot of scars ended up in her queue, and that was fine with her. She knew too well how scars could define a person, no matter how ugly.
Today, her job was to touch up a family portrait taken for a church directory. A set of graying parents, a sullen teenage girl. A young marine son in uniform. The parents and the girl made a triangle, the son slightly separate despite the mother’s clenching hand on his shoulder. Her grip had a somewhat desperate look to it that Stella wouldn’t be able to do anything about, but she totally understood.
The marine had clearly seen some action. The right side of his face had been burned. The ridges of his scars were still purple and red, the curve of his eyebrow bare of any hair, the lashes missing from that eye. His mouth pulled down on that side. But he stood straight, gaze fixed firmly on the camera. Not smiling, not frowning. It was impossible to tell if he was resigned, ashamed or simply bored.
The clients had requested some shadow removal, along with the standard pimple erasure and taking away the reflection on the father’s glasses. The last one was the hardest thing to do, so she left it for last. Stella focused on getting rid of a few flyaway hairs and bulges, things not even checked on the client’s list and that they wouldn’t even notice had been improved. But they’d notice if they weren’t, she knew that much.
Her gaze kept coming back to the marine’s face and the digging curve of his mother’s fingers. Stoic, she decided. That’s how he looked. Not bored or anything else. Simply stoic.
His mother, however, looked faded and tired, her mouth pursed, her hair limp. Maybe she’d sat by his bed while he recovered from his injuries, holding his hand. Or maybe he’d suffered alone, healing enough to be sent home. How terrible it must’ve been, no matter how it happened, the first time his mother had to look at that ravaged face.
Stella closed her eyes suddenly, fingers stilling on the mouse she’d been manipulating. She took her hand away and folded both in her lap while she gathered herself together. Slow breath. Deep breath. Counting to five, then seven, then ten.
It would never stop haunting her, she thought with a mental shake she echoed with a physical one. Opening her eyes, Stella let out an embarrassed laugh when she saw her coworker Jen peeking around the edge of her cubicle. Wordlessly, Jen held up a coffee mug and an e-cigarette.
“Sure,” Stella said. “Give me a minute.”
Stella had taken up smoking in college, but quit when she got pregnant. She’d never stopped missing it. She sometimes took a cigarette when she was flying, depending on the situation and who was offering her the smoke. So far as
she knew, Jen didn’t really smoke either, other than the e-cigarette she’d bought a few months ago and used with nicotine-less cartridges. They’d simply both figured out last year that smokers got breaks and nonsmokers didn’t.
Grabbing a fresh cup of coffee from the break room, Stella pushed through the back doors of the building and found Jen waiting. Phone in one hand, coffee in the other, she lifted her chin in greeting as Stella came out.
“Chilly as fuck out here,” she said around the e-cigarette tucked between her lips. “My nipples could cut glass.”
Stella rubbed at her arms, grateful she’d grabbed a cardigan today. She sipped hot coffee, making a face. “This is swill.”
Jen laughed and pulled the e-cig from her lips. “No kidding. I guess they think if they make better coffee we’ll drink more of it? And then spend more time in the bathroom, therefore getting less work done?”
“Diabolical.” Stella laughed, though it made sense. “Remember when they had the coffee and sandwich service?”
Jen sighed wistfully. “Yes. That guy was so cute. I spent more money on shitty, stale bagels than I made in this place.”
Stella didn’t want to sit at the splintery picnic table, so she settled for leaning against the brick wall while she warmed her hands on the already cooling mug. “I don’t know why they stopped him from coming.”
“Because they can take a percentage from the vending machines,” Jen said matter-of-factly.
Stella hadn’t thought of that.
Touching up photos for the Memory Factory was far from a terrible job, especially if you could get past the deathlike near silence in which they worked. The hours were good, and the pay based on completion of training levels meant that Stella was earning the top rate. More than she’d make in an office anywhere else. But it was no secret that the company itself, which had started off as a small mom-and-pop photography service and was bought by a national corporation, was money hungry. Famished, actually.
Jen drew again on the e-cig, blowing out a plume of mist into the October chill. “I heard Randall’s going to be pulling people in for performance reviews soon. Guess we got too many complaints this past quarter.”
“I’m not worried about that. Are you?”
“Girrrrl,” Jen said with a grin, “no way. But some of the temps are shaking in their boots. Which is good, because maybe they’ll get fired, and we can get some hours back.”
The previous holiday season, the company had hired on a bunch of temps to handle the extra workload that always happened around Christmas and lasted until just after New Year’s. For whatever reason, four of the temps had been asked to stay on. None of them were any good, none had passed more than the basic level of training and none of them got along with anyone else in the office. Stella was sure two of them spent most of the day getting high in the supply closet, when they weren’t fucking in there. She wouldn’t have minded, if their presence hadn’t meant, as Jen said, a cutback in some of the overtime that they and the other eight people who worked in their department had come to count on over the summer during vacations.
“They’ll just hire more next month anyway,” Stella said.
Jen snorted softly. “True. But different ones. Maybe ones that aren’t assholes.”
Stella laughed at how unlikely that would be. Her coffee had started off bitter, but now it was cold too. She dumped it to the side of the concrete slab and watched it make a stain in the gravel, already thinking ahead to the evening. She was going to dig out her flannel sheets tonight.
“...with me?”
“Sorry, what?” Stella looked up.
“I said, what are you doing tomorrow night? Jared and I are going to hear one of our friends sing at open mic night. Want to come along?”
Stella lifted a suspicious brow. “Are you trying to set me up again?”
“Oh, c’mon. One time. One!” Jen held up a finger. Then another, and after a hesitation, a third. “Okay. Three times. But you have to admit, all three times it was totally legit.”
“Jen. I can’t date guys who are just a few years older than my kid. Anyway, I told you, I’m not interested. Too much effort.” Stella shook her head, looking at the sky, which had gone gray with the promise of rain. Too early for snow, right?
Jen sighed. “How can you not be interested?”
“I’m just not. Boyfriends take up too much time. Too much work.” Stella shrugged. “I don’t want to deal with a guy on a regular basis. I’m happy being alone.”
“Nobody,” Jen said darkly, “really wants to be alone.”
Stella shrugged again. “Not forever. No. But right now I have enough to deal with at home. Tristan goes to college in two years. I’ll have plenty of time to put up with bullshit then.”
“It’s not all bullshit,” Jen said.
“That’s because you’re in looooooove.” Stella grinned and made kissing noises that had Jen ducking her head with laughter. “Things are different when you’re in love. You put up with all kinds of shit you’d never tolerate from someone else. Love makes people lose their minds.”
“So does great peen,” Jen said solemnly.
Stella carefully kept a straight face. “All the more reason to avoid it.”
“If you’re not careful, your vajayjay’s gonna dry up like a tumbleweed and blow away.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Stella said.
CHAPTER FOUR
At birth, Tristan had weighed six pounds, four ounces. He was sixteen inches long. He had no hair, bald as an egg, and had cried nonstop, round the clock, insatiable and inconsolable for the first month and a half of his life.
Sixteen years later he was taller than both his parents, outweighed Stella by about sixty pounds and had the same insatiable appetite, though fortunately he’d replaced the constant screaming with incessant commentary on the world. At least, he used to talk all the time. Now, instead of the hugs and the “love you, Mamas,” Tristan’s conversations had become stilted and intermittent. He’d replaced his formerly goofy sense of humor with a more sarcastic edge that sometimes bordered on cruel but was nevertheless bitingly funny. Stella hated to laugh at him but usually did, especially when he was making fun of his stepmother.
“That’s not nice,” she murmured at his demonstration of how Cynthia’s mouth was always slightly parted. “Eat your grilled cheese.”
She’d made his favorite with thick slices of rye bread and cheddar, along with a few strips of crispy bacon and thinly sliced tomato. Not the healthiest dinner, but Tristan had grown up and stretched out so much she figured he could stand the extra calories, especially with all the running he’d been doing. For herself, she had a grilled chicken and spinach salad.
Tristan looked at the plate, then at her. “Can’t I have what you’re having?”
She paused with her fork ready to stab the spinach. “You love grilled cheese.”
Tristan said nothing. He cut his gaze from hers, looking so much like Jeff it hurt her heart. Tristan pushed the plate with the tips of his fingers. “No, I don’t.”
“Since when?” Stella tried to keep the edge from her voice, too aware how easy it would be for them to slip into an argument. He not only looked like his dad; he had a lot of Jeff’s personality too. All the things that had driven her nuts about her ex-husband were blooming in her son. No matter how much she’d determined Tristan would never be the sort of man who expected the world to hand him a living on a platter, it seemed nature sometimes did win over nurture. She loved her son, always, with every breath inside her. But there’d been a lot of days lately where she found it very difficult to like him.
“Since always.” He muttered something else and moved the plate another half an inch away from him.
Stella stabbed her salad. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say an
ything.”
“You did,” she said. “I heard it.”
“Nothing. Forget it,” Tristan repeated stubbornly. He got up from the table, leaving the plate. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I’m going out for a run.”
He was already through the kitchen doorway before she called out to him, “Hold up. Put the sandwich away for later and put your plate in the dishwasher.”
He did, dragging his feet and heaving a sigh as if she’d asked him to amputate all his limbs with a rusty carrot peeler.
“I shouldn’t even have to ask you that. C’mon, Tristan.” She managed to keep her voice steady and focus on her salad. “You should know better.”
“Yeah?” he challenged. “Well, so should you!”
Before she could ask him what the hell he meant by that, he’d stomped away. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and down the hall to his room. The door slammed.
Stella’d lost her appetite too but forced herself to eat anyway. When Tristan thundered down the stairs and toward the front door, she called out again, “Where are you going and how long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“For a run, I told you, and I don’t know.”
There was no way for her to force a different answer from him without a fight, and she was tired of arguing with him. “You have your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t go too far,” she said. “Remember—”
“Yeah, I know, it feels twice as long on the way home as it does on the way there. I know, Mom.” Again, the muttered exclamation that probably included the sort of profanity she heard all his friends using when they thought no adults were listening.
She thought of something else as the front door slammed. He was already halfway down the driveway by the time she got to the door. “Tristan!”
For a moment she thought he was going to pretend he didn’t hear her, but then he turned. “What?”
“Be back before it gets dark.” That didn’t give him much time, but the thought of him running alongside the rural roads or even the highway in the dark twisted her stomach. “I mean it!”