Relative Strangers

by Paula Garner

  I glanced up, tuned in to a sudden silence. Gab was staring at Leila.

  “You speak from experience?” Gab asked.

  “Well, yeah.”

  Gab raised her eyebrows. “You and Brett?”

  Leila gestured and made a duh face. “I mean, we went out for eight months.”

  I sat frozen, my eyes going back and forth between them. This felt unprecedented. To Gab, too, apparently. But the awkwardness — and my own curiosity — soon got the best of me. “How many times did you do it?” I asked, leaning forward to see around Gab.

  Leila shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot.”

  “Where?”

  “His house, mostly. In the car a few times.”

  Gab lurched off the sofa and stomped upstairs.

  Leila sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Great.”

  I felt caught. I didn’t want to make anything worse, but . . . I was kind of stunned that Leila had never told me she’d had sex — and shocked that she’d withheld it from Gab. For what, a year? How could Leila think Gab wouldn’t be upset? Maybe it was the booze, because finally the question spilled out: “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  She glanced at me. “Probably because I was never drunk before.”

  I couldn’t help smiling, which made her crack, and then we were both giggling. And then, clutching our dangerous drinks, we scooted closer and Leila told me about her sexcapades with Brett, which were much more colorful than I would have imagined.

  “Are you going to tell Gab this stuff?” I thought about her upstairs — how hurt she must be.

  Leila shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  There was a time when I would have been happy that one of them shared something with me and not the other. But that time was gone. I needed Gab and Leila to be okay. I needed this stability.

  A wave of guilt washed over me as I thought of Luke, who had also needed some stability. I could have given it to him. Instead, I blew it all up.

  I had never regretted anything more.

  When at last we tiptoed upstairs, Gab’s door was closed, her lights off. I thought about checking on her, but the closed door and darkness seemed like a clear message. So Leila and I slipped into Daniel’s room to go to sleep, sharing the full-size bed.

  I was almost asleep when my phone dinged. I glanced at it, then shot up to sitting when I saw it was Luke.

  Hands shaking, I opened the message.

  Just wanted to let you know that we lost Mom early yesterday morning. It was peaceful. Dad and I were with her.

  My hand went to my mouth. No. I knew this was coming, of course. And yet. I wasn’t prepared.

  Mima. A mother of mine, at one time. Someone who had loved me was gone from this earth. I would never see her again.

  I typed back: Oh, Luke. I can’t find the words. I’m so, so sorry. Can I do anything?

  He wrote back: I’m okay. Makayla’s here.

  My chest tightened.

  Of course he’d want her there. She was practically a member of the family. Mima had loved her. She was an adult and beautiful and capable. Not a clueless, insecure high-school girl with zero judgment or moral compass.

  My phone buzzed again: Mom will be buried tomorrow in a private service. I just wanted you to know.

  A private service? As in, I wasn’t welcome? Was that what he was saying? I wanted to be there — for him, yes, but also for Buddy, and to pay my respects to Mima. Was Makayla going? As loath as I was to see her and Luke together, perhaps that meant that the definition of “private” could include me? Makayla had only been Luke’s girlfriend; I had been Mima’s child. Luke himself had said, She was your mother, too. I gathered my courage and messaged: Would it be all right if I came?

  An eternity passed, then finally: I think it would be best if you didn’t. I’ll pass your condolences to Dad, if you want.

  His words were an anvil to my chest. That he didn’t want me there, didn’t want me included — it was more than I could bear. But what was I going to do, argue? About his mother’s funeral? I had no choice in this matter.

  I wrote: Okay. You’ll be in my thoughts, and if there’s anything at all I can do, please let me know?

  It was almost incomprehensible that one stupid move on my part had caused all this destruction, that one lapse in judgment had rendered me a persona non grata. Before I did what I did, I was the one he wanted with him. I was the one he might have sought out for comfort.

  I hated myself for countless reasons — not least of which was the realization that I was as upset about losing Luke as I was about Mima’s death.

  My crying woke Leila, who sat up and hugged me when I told her. But when she went back to sleep, I lay on my side, awake. Miserable.

  I had no idea I was capable of sinking so low.

  In the morning, I told Gab that Mima had died and Luke didn’t want me to come. And I just wanted to be alone. She drove both Leila and me home. None of us spoke.

  So much for Gab’s renewal of vows.

  I found my mom in the kitchen, making coffee. She glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

  “She died.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, turning and leaning back against the counter. “I’m sorry. Did — did Luke call you?”

  I sank into my chair at the table. “He messaged me. He doesn’t want me to come to the funeral. He says it’s private.” I lowered my head onto my arms.

  She sighed heavily. “Jules.” A moment later, I felt her hand on my back. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  I appreciated that she didn’t try to talk me out of feeling bad or make excuses or criticize Luke or anything. I didn’t want pep talks or platitudes. I just wanted to be heard, just wanted the acknowledgment that yes, it sucked.

  “We’ll send a card,” my mom said. “I know you’re worried about him.”

  I rested my head on the table, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of her making coffee. Mug from the cabinet. Pouring. The click of the fake creamer lid. The clatter of her spoon against the mug. What mug was she using now that she’d broken NO SOUP?

  I lifted my head. It was a black mug with white bold lettering: DEATH BEFORE DECAF. I hadn’t seen it before. Where had it come from?

  “Mom?” I asked, sitting up. “Who did you spend the night with? That night.”

  She stiffened visibly, her back to me. “He’s a friend.”

  He. Wow.

  “Where’d you meet him?” I picked at the old tape on the table. “At a meeting?”

  She laughed and turned to me. “No. He was . . .”

  When she hesitated, I watched her curiously. “Oh my God — you’re blushing!”

  She sighed and sat down next to me with her coffee. I could smell the amaretto creamer, almond-y and sweet. “Remember that time you walked into my studio? When I had a model?”

  My eyes bulged. “The yam? You’re dating the yam?”

  She tilted her head. “The yam?”

  “He was uncircumcised!”

  “Jules!” She put a hand over her mouth and turned away from me. I couldn’t believe how embarrassed she was.

  “So what does he do?” I asked. “Apart from dangle his bits in public.”

  “Oh my God, stop it!” She whacked me in the arm with the back of her hand. “He’s an art history teacher at the college. We became friends. He’s asked me out a couple of times, but I don’t want to date him.”

  “Why not? Do you not find him attractive?” I tried to remember his face, but it was useless; all I could think was yam. But it felt weird, asking her that question. I never thought of my mom that way.

  “No, I do,” she said, putting her hair behind her ears. “He’s definitely attractive. But young. Younger than me, I mean.”

  “How much younger?”

  She bit her thumbnail, fidgeting. “A handful of years. A generous handful.” She sipped her coffee.

  “So he’s, like, thirty?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Oh my God.” My hands went to my face
. “He’s in his twenties?”

  She cringed, nodded.

  Luke was in his twenties. Jesus.

  “Does he know how old you are?” I asked.

  She looked offended. “Jeez, Jules, it’s not like I’m eighty. Yes, he knows how old I am. And thirty-six is not actually that old. Anyway, we’re not really dating.”

  “But you spent the night with him. How did that work?”

  She gestured with one hand. “We watched TV. We got a pizza. We laughed. He showed me pictures of his daughter.”

  “He has a kid?”

  She nodded. “He’s divorced. His daughter is eight.”

  “Wow. Okay, so then what?”

  “And then suddenly it was two in the morning, and I was about to keel over. He offered me his bed like a gentleman, but I slept on the sofa. In the morning he made pancakes and joked that it was the best sexless date he’d ever had.”

  My eyebrows went up.

  “And that’s when I knew we could be friends. Because he let it be funny. Because we could laugh about it.” She sipped her coffee. “He’s a really nice guy. His name is Casey.” She looked at me curiously. “Didn’t you think he was cute?”

  I shrugged an apology. “Not gonna lie. All I remember is his dick.”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed her phone. “Here.” She turned the phone to me.

  Whoa. Yeah, he was cute. He had short blond hair and a blond beard. Cornflower-blue eyes. Amazing smile. He was wearing a T-shirt and he had muscles. “Um, Mom?”

  “I know, right?” She put a hand to her eyes. “So not what I need right now.”

  I squinted at her. “Why? I mean, you’ve been alone my whole life. You’re young. You’re attractive. You’re interesting. You’ve finally met someone who’s really into art and really into you. . . . What’s the problem?”

  She blew a breath out, thinking. “It just feels risky. I feel like I’ve been trying my whole life to get my shit together. And I still don’t have my shit together. And I have no one to fall back on but myself.” She raised her eyebrows at me as she lifted her mug for a sip. “Sometimes it’s better to play it safe.”

  I wanted to tell her to follow her heart. But the thing was, maybe she was right. I wished I’d played it safe with Luke. She could end up fucking wrecked, like me. And at least my wreckage didn’t cost me my sobriety. I suppose one rough break for her could be deadly.

  She stood up to top off her coffee. “I’m seeing a few apartments this afternoon,” she said, “if you want to come.”

  “Are they all boxes?”

  “Probably.” She stirred creamer into her coffee and glanced at me. “There’s something I could consider, but I don’t think it probably works.”

  “What is it?”

  She sat back down. “There’s a three-to-eleven shift at the library. It pays more than my shift. Not a ton, but it would be two, maybe three hundred dollars a month more.”

  “Three-to-eleven shift would suck.”

  “Not for me.”

  Then it hit me. Duh. “Your painting,” I said. “My God, you’d have all the daylight.”

  “Yup.”

  “You have to do it.”

  She shook her head. “Jules, think about it. I’d barely see you in the morning, I’d be gone before you got home from school, and I’d get home after you went to bed. We’d never see each other. And these are your last months at home!”

  “We’d see each other on weekends. And we’ll see each other more over the summer; you’ve seen my schedule at Tina’s. And I can get myself dinner — I usually cook anyway.”

  She chewed her lip, watching me. “You really wouldn’t mind? You’re not just saying that? You’d be alone all the time.”

  “I really wouldn’t mind. It would change your whole life, being able to paint. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice your dream just to eat Hamburger fucking Helper with me at night.”

  She turned her eyes to her lap. “I feel like I’d just be putting another nail in the bad-mother coffin. I should be here for you.”

  “Mom.” I leaned toward her, forcing her to look at me. “I don’t need you to be here. I just need you to be here. Just, to love me.”

  Her shoulders went slack. “Of course I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

  “Well . . .” I shrugged, feeling a sting in my eyes. “Maybe love me louder.”

  She smiled. “I can do that.” She took a breath. “I’ve always felt sort of . . . like a fraud, I guess. Like I don’t deserve you. Impostor syndrome. And I’ve been waiting your whole life for you to figure it out and call me on it.” She blinked rapidly. “I thought . . . I thought that when you found your foster family, that would be it. You’d see a family more like Gab’s or Leila’s and you’d —” Her voice broke. “You’d think you got a bum deal, and you’d never forgive me for it.”

  “Oh, Mom.” I hugged her, but even as I did, I thought of how close I’d come to this very thing — to blaming her for depriving me of a better life. I still struggled with thoughts about that other universe, but I was working to make peace with this version of reality. “If I’d grown up with the Margolises, I would have spent my whole life wondering about my real mother.”

  A choked sound came out of her. She hugged me tighter.

  “Look,” I said, pulling back to look at her. “Nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s life is perfect. But . . . we’re okay.” I tried to smile. “And, you know, you kind of have your whole life ahead of you yourself. You’re in your thirties! You should start living the life you want, doing what you want to do. I’m all grown-up. And I turned out okay, right?”

  She looked at me with an expression that gave me goose bumps. Love. It was what love looks like. “You turned out amazing.”

  I smiled. “Now, what are you going to do about that late shift?”

  Excitement washed over her face. “It would be incredible to be able to paint every day. I mean, if we found an apartment with a room that had good daylight —”

  “We can! We can find a place. You can take the three-to-eleven shift and earn more. And if you can paint more, you’ll sell your work — I know you will. You’re so talented. And we’ll have that extra six thousand dollars from this lease. We should just expand the stupid budget and find the perfect place!”

  “But what about college? I still worry.”

  “Mom, we’ve done the math, and my college counselor at school has done the math. Between grants, scholarships, and work study, I should be fine. I’ll save my earnings this summer for books and stuff. It’ll be okay. Really.” I almost joked that when times were hard, I at least was the ramen queen. But I couldn’t joke about ramen.

  I didn’t want to think about ramen.

  She reached for her phone. “You’re positive about this? Because I’m going to try to get that shift. If you’re sure.”

  “I am totally sure.”

  She smiled as she poked in a number. She walked off toward her studio, and a few seconds later I heard her talking to her boss. It was a short call. She came back still smiling.

  “It’s mine. I can start a week from Monday.” She clasped her hands together. “I’m excited for us to see apartments today.”

  Today.

  Today, in the wee hours, I found out that Mima died. And that Luke still wanted nothing to do with me. I hadn’t even begun to process all that.

  “Would you mind if I didn’t go today?” I asked, feeling bad for dampening her good mood.

  But Mom surprised me yet again. “Oh my gosh, of course you don’t want to go. You’ve had such a rough day. Do you just want to crash? I’ll take pictures and show you later, okay?”

  “Crashing sounds good,” I admitted.

  But before I did that, I went over for one more hug.

  When I finally did join my mom in the apartment search, it did little to lift my spirits. The endless depressing string of dark and boxy cookie-cutter apartments was beyond demoralizing. But then a small miracle came from an unlikel
y source: Eli.

  I was at Laroche’s one afternoon, drowning my apartment sorrows in a chocolate croissant, when Eli asked if we’d seen the rental on Linden.

  And so it was that we found an impossibly charming vintage coach house on a pretty street right in Eli’s neighborhood, surrounded by gorgeous old homes and beautiful gardens and mature trees. The enormous bank of north windows convinced my mom that we could splurge a little — the coach house cost a little more than the brown box, but it was worth it.

  The rental was above a three-car garage that originally was a carriage house — an idea that excited me and sparked my imagination. It had two tiny bedrooms with slanted ceilings and low sidewalls. A good-sized living room with built-in bookcases. A bathroom with vintage fixtures and a claw-foot tub. Radiators. A small but functional kitchen that shared space with the living room. And — best of all — a screened porch! And the windows — the windows! The light was glorious. I hoped my mother’s days of wrecking skies were over.

  We wrote a check for the security deposit and started packing. Things filled the days, and the days passed.

  But, even with the passage of time, I could not get over what had happened with Luke. I missed him dreadfully and thought of him constantly. I fantasized about reaching out to him — I had composed dozens of messages I’d never send. Knowing he really didn’t want to hear from me — and worse, imagining Makayla there looking over his shoulder — was enough to keep me from pulling the trigger. I dreamed of him often. In some of the dreams, he called and everything was warm and wonderful and okay. But he didn’t call. And nothing was okay.

  Sometimes the dreams were awful — he said terrible things or I did terrible things. In one, I walked in on him having sex with Makayla. It was confusing and graphic and passionate. I woke up crying, in an agony of jealousy I wasn’t sure was all dream or part real.

  In another dream, it was me having sex with him. And it was tragically good sex. There was amazing kissing. There were sounds; there were feelings. There was that particular brand of often-elusive dream ecstasy. I woke up out of breath, still coasting on the relief of an ache I had tried (and failed) to repress.