“You’re too observant for your own good, you know that?”
“What are you thinking when you look at her like that?”
He hands me a plate without looking at me.
“I don’t know. I worry a lot about how I’m going to protect her.”
“From what? Guys like you?”
He glances at me. “Well, yeah. I know what guys think. I’m researching all-girl schools.”
I cackle as I put the dish in the cabinet. “If you raise her right she won’t be easily wooed,” I tell him.
“Are you easily wooed?” He pulls out the plug and turns to look at me, leaning against the sink.
I shrug. “ I guess not. I’ve only really had one boyfriend, and it took me years to trust him enough to date him.”
“So, you don’t give your heart away easily?”
“If at all.” I avoid his eyes. I’m not sure where he’s going with this, and talking about myself feels like sitting in the gyno’s chair.
“Are you saying you weren’t in love with Neil?”
I lean on the counter opposite him and dry my hands on a dishtowel. It should be an easy question to answer, especially since it’s been turned over in my mind hundreds of times. “I wasn’t as devastated as I should have been. I’ve seen my friends go through breakups, and I didn’t feel that. I was hurt, I was sad, but I didn’t feel like I lost the love of my life. Is that … you know … it’s like…?” My mouth is dry. I grab a glass from the cabinet, but Kit is blocking the sink. He holds out his hand, half-grinning, and I give him the glass. Instead of filling it with water, he reaches for the cabinet and pulls out a bottle of tequila.
“I thought you were a wine guy,” I say. He ignores me, screwing the cap off the bottle and pouring a shot. I can taste it, even though it’s in his mouth. It’s the way he sucks in his cheeks after he swallows.
“He wasn’t the love of your life,” Kit says, pouring another shot and handing me the glass.
“Oh yeah? You knew us for what? Five minutes?”
When Kit is dipping deep into his own mind, he looks you right in the eye. It feels like he’s trying to find himself in your eyes. I’ve seen people squirm under his looks. I take my shot just so I can look away.
“I know you,” he says softly.
I know you; I walked with you once upon a dream…
“What? No. What do you know?” I hold the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle my laughter. Tequila doesn’t work that fast. I’m buzzing on something else.
Behind Kit is the kitchen window. I can see cars drive past, their lights illuminating him each time they pass, and I realize that at some point during our dish duty, it became night. We never bothered to turn on the lights, and we make no move to now, though we probably should.
“I think it’s hard for you to fall in love because you like control, and you can’t control what another person does or feels, so you keep all your cards.”
I’d gasp, except he can’t possibly be right. Can he? Also, gasping is for damsels, and I’m a gangster.
“Word,” I say. “Maybe, if I had something more to go on other than love…”
“Like what?” Kit asks. “A dream?”
I don’t gasp, but I hear my intake of breath. The refrigerator hums, ice drops into the tray in the freezer, a motorcycle drives by. I hold out the glass for another shot. There’s the clink of the bottle on the glass rim as he pours, never taking his eyes off mine.
“Have you ever had a dream like that?” I ask, licking the tequila from my lips. “One that was so real you couldn’t let it go?” Something passes across Kit’s eyes.
“Yeah, sure,” he says. I’m about to ask the inevitable What about? when Della’s voice calls from the bedroom. It’s rare that she will ever go to bed without Kit tucked in safely beside her. Most nights he complains about not being tired.
“Couples’ bedtime,” I grin.
“I hate you,” he grimaces. “Are you going to watch that stupid show tonight?”
“That stupid show you keep sneaking out of your bedroom to watch with me? Yes.”
He narrows his eyes and grins.
“You better go, you’ve been summoned.”
He takes one last shot before he leaves the kitchen. When he’s in the doorway, he turns around.
“I want her to be like you.”
“What?” I’m distracted, tidying up the last of the kitchen. I glance at him over my shoulder.
“My daughter,” he says. “I want her to be like you.”
I feel many things at once, but at forefront is hurt. I can still see Brandi in my mind, and yet I wouldn’t do a thing to change Annie’s existence.
“Then you should have had her with me,” I say.
Kit blinks hard, once, twice, then he’s gone.
I store the bottle of tequila, and rinse the glass in the sink, before putting it away in the cabinet to erase evidence of our night.
Kit graduates with his master’s. He doesn’t tell me, and the only reason I find out is because his parents send a card, which I find in the trash under an egg carton. Congratulations, Son!
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him, holding up the card. The Congratulations is smeared and bubbled from egg yolk. I hear the accusation in my voice, and I flinch. I sound like a nagging wife. `
He glances at me from where he stirs something in a pot, and grins.
“With everything that’s going on, I just didn’t think about it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I tell him. “It’s a big deal.”
He shrugs. “It kind of pales in comparison.”
“No,” I say. “It’s something to celebrate and be happy about in the midst of all the bad.”
“Hush, lonely heart. Pass me the paprika.”
He hasn’t called me that in a very long time. I get tingles all over.
“I didn’t have wrapping paper, I’m sorry.” I push a package across the counter. He stops stirring to look at it, then glances up at me.
“Did you wrap that in a diaper?”
I nod. Kit laughs, drying his hands on a dishtowel. He leans against the stove and holds the diaper-wrapped present in his hands, looking it over.
“You didn’t even need tape this way,” he says.
“It’s really quite genius,” I tell him. He keeps his eyes on me as he lifts the diaper tabs, smirking until my stomach flips. I know that grin. Nights wandering around Port Townsend, a bottle of wine in his hand. His nose was always red from the cold … smirking, smirking. Tonight I am in the kitchen with the Kit of Port Townsend. Lately, it’s been Kit the dad, Kit the worried fiancé. Tonight, he feels like my Kit. And I’ve missed him so much.
He opens the diaper wrapping and inside is three things: a blue crayon, a wine cork, and a sketchbook. When he looks at me it’s not with confusion. His jaw works as he touches each one and then sets the crayon and cork down to open the sketchbook. I watch, my heart racing.
“You did these?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Remember the—”
“Book I bought you. Yeah, I do,” he says. He nods slowly, and then some more like he forgets he’s doing it.
“You made me a coloring book.” His voice is raspy. I look away.
The pictures are a story, sketched in ink. I labored over each one for months. It was the story of the dream, and it hurt to make it.
“Helena…”
“I just want you to know that aside from any degree you get, or what job you get, or any accomplishment you make in life, you changed mine. You have that thing about you that changes other people.”
I don’t stay to hear what he says.
When Annie is five months old, Della takes her first steps. It’s a big deal in her recovery, those jittery five steps. While her mother totters across the hardwood, Annie watches from her blanket on the floor. She rolled over for the first time that very morning. Kit, Della, and I all happened to be in the room, and our reaction was so loud and spontaneous
that Annie burst into frightened tears. Now, daughter and best friend watch from the corner of the room as Della’s therapist urges her forward. At first, I think she’s going to fall over; her legs are so frail and thin they don’t look like they can hold up anything. But, she makes it across the room, her face glowing in triumph. Perhaps my imagination, but does she glance at me in victory? Her hair is just past her ears now, and she’s put on a little of the weight she lost. She looks so much better. I like to think that my presence here is helping her recovery—and in a way it is—but the truth is, she wants me gone. That’s why she’s working as hard as she is. I would happily go, except Kit got a job at marketing firm, and there is no one to take care of Annie during the day. Della has suggested I take my leave and get back to my own life, but Kit won’t have it. “Annie knows Helena,” he says. “I’m not going to have some stranger watching her.” He says it so firmly, neither of us argues. Later, when Della is giving Annie a bath, I corner Kit in the yard as he’s taking out the trash.
“I have to go, Kit. She’s almost well enough.”
His eyes come alive with something, but he looks at a passing car to cover it up. “I know you eventually have to get back to your own life, I do. But stay a little while longer.” When I cock my head at him, he says, “Please, Helena.”
“Why?” I ask. “She doesn’t want me here.”
“I do,” he says. He clears his throat, and then repeats himself. “I want you here.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“Annie loves you,” he says, like it’s explanation enough.
“Yes,” I say cautiously. “And I love Annie. But, I’m not her mother; Della is. And I’m not your girlfriend; Della is. And I can’t stay here and play house with you. It’s hurting me. It’s going to hurt me to leave. I just want to get it over with.”
I didn’t intend on saying all of that, but I’m sort of relieved. Kit suddenly spins toward the street. Both hands go to his head, where he grips his hair until it’s standing straight up. I can’t see his face. Just the tensed up rear side of him.
When he turns back around, he’s angry. I’ve seen many things in Kit’s eyes—fear, wonder, play. I have never seen emotions boil. Irises hot and sharp and full of color. They’re zoned in on me, pounding out anger in between blinks. I back up a step.
“Go back where?” he says. “To my hometown? To Greer’s cannery? Why are you even there, Helena? Want to tell me that?”
I smooth down my hair. “Sure, Kit. I’ll tell you. I moved to Port Townsend because I fell in love with my best friend’s boyfriend. I wanted to get as far away from the both of you as I could, while also being as close to you as I could. Does that make sense, or does it sound too crazy?” He’s blinking fast, so I keep going. “Because when I say it to myself it sounds crazy. And here I am, taking care of your baby, falling in love with your baby, which, by the way, she’s so much better than both of you. Your girlfriend is a narcissistic bitch, and you’re an indecisive coward. Congrats on creating a little human that’s perfect. So, I’ll go home now, back to Washington, which you left, and I chose. And you stay here with the woman you chose. And I’ll keep loving all of you, despite the fact you’re all idiots. And Kit, take care of my little girl. If you fuck her up, I’m going to fuck you up. Now move your car so I can leave.”
I fully expect him to do as I say. Hands on hips, I wait. After all, I am angry, and yelling—channeling my inner Professor McGonagall like a bad bitch. Kit doesn’t leave. Son of a bitch. All Florida does is make my hair frizzy, and my brain crazy. I have to get out of here.
“Would you stop just standing there with your pretty hair blowing in the wind, and say something,” I yell. Kit’s eyes are focused over my left shoulder.
“My God,” I whisper, closing my eyes. Of course this would happen, of course. I turn around to face my former best friend. Former, as of five months, or five seconds, ago. I don’t even know anymore. She’s leaning against the side of Kit’s truck, her chest heaving. It must have taken everything she had to walk out here on her own. My impulse is to go to her, help her back inside, but the look on her face keeps me where I am. It feels like a standoff, no one really knowing how to break the silence. It should be me, I think. I’m the one who screwed up.
I feel the air move as Kit rushes to her. She lets him pick her up, never taking her eyes from mine. I can see the betrayal, the hurt. This sucks so badly.
“Della…” her name drops from my lips too late; they’re already inside. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave because Kit’s car is still in the way. What have I done? I shouldn’t have come back. Kit comes out a few minutes later, his head bowed, hands in pockets.
“She wants to speak to you,” he says. “She’s in the living room.”
I nod.
“I’m so sorry, Kit. I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” he says. “You should have. Just go speak to her. I need to take a walk.” He walks past me, down the street, and my stomach rolls with sick. I just admitted to being in love with my best friend’s guy. Out loud. To him, and unknowingly her.
I take my time going in. This whole situation has been boiling for months. I knew it was coming, but I still feel wholly unprepared. Della is sitting in her pink armchair when I walk in, like a queen. She’s always made me feel small, and I’m tired of it. She doesn’t look at me. No one wants to look at me. That’s how the truth works. If you avoid looking at it, you can pretend it’s not there.
“You’re not even as pretty as me.”
That’s the first thing she says to me.
“I’m having a really hard time believing you just said that to me,” I say. “Can you say it again, just so I can confirm to my own mind what a bitch you are?”
“You came here to steal my family.”
I shake my head. It’s sort of a slow shake because I’m trying to mentally catch up to the fact that my best friend of ten years just told me I wasn’t as pretty as her, followed by one of the most insane accusations ever.
“I came here to help you. To help you with Annie until you got better.”
“You’re a liar,” she says. “I’ve seen the way you are with him. You came here hoping something would happen to me so that you could have Kit and Annie. I’m not going to let you take my family. She’s my baby, and I don’t want you near her. Do you hear me?”
At twenty-five years old, I’d assumed I’d felt hurt before. But then Della takes Annie from me in one bitter sentence, and I am so grief-stricken I immediately sit on the couch. Annie has made my heart a delicate thing. Before, my heart cared about the things that were important to me, but it forsook me for Annie. A mute drummer, it constricts and aches in my chest until I reach a palm up to touch the place above it. There’s nothing I can do to change her mind. And do I blame her? Just this morning, Annie cried and squirmed to get out of her mother’s arms to come to me. I have no rights. I have no reason to feel angry. I am the bitch, not Della.
“I want you out of my house by tonight.” She starts to leave the room, when the monitor on the counter says that Annie is waking up. “He’s mine, Helena.” And then she’s gone.
Since I didn’t bring much, it takes only a few minutes to gather my things and throw them in my bag. There’s a flight leaving in two hours if I hurry. I text Greer and ask if she can pick me up at the airport. It’s a long drive for her, but I don’t know who else to ask.
She texts back right away: Thank God you’re coming back. I’ll be there.
I leave Della’s car keys on the counter, along with the spare house keys, and step outside to call a cab. Kit is leaning against his truck.
“You don’t have to leave tonight,” he says softly.
“That’s not what Della said,” I say. My throat is burning, and my eyes are burning. I am humiliated, heart tired. In the two minutes I stand outside, I have five mosquito bites.
“She doesn’t mean it. She almost died, Helena. She’s been in a wheelchair for five mont
hs.”
“You’re dumb,” I tell him. “She’s defending her own. She means it. I would mean it too. You can’t tone down what just happened. It’s fucked up.”
“You’re right,” he says. Then he looks up at me suddenly. I can see the light of determination in his eyes, and I know that what he’s going to say next is going to be hard to hear.
“Don’t go. We can make this work. Just give me some time to get her situated.”
“No. She needs you. You chose her. You have to stay. I’m okay.” All these words come tumbling out of me. Lies and excuses.
“She won’t always need me. She doesn’t need to be with someone who loves another woman. I did the wrong thing. It’s you I wanted; it’s you who I came to find. I should have told Della the truth.”
It all hurts too much. Don’t make someone burn, and then try to douse the flames with the things you should have done. Those regrets are gasoline not water. I have to make him stop. This is madness.
“Annie,” I say softly. And that name holds enough weight to slow us both down.
His lips tighten, and he shakes his head from side to side. How dare you bring her into this. But I have to. She’s what matters.
“She is my daughter regardless of who I give my heart to. What type of message am I giving her by not choosing to be happy?”
It’s cruel, but I say it anyway. “You made your bed, Kit. Now lie in it.”
He opens the passenger side door to his truck. “In,” he says. I make to argue, but then I decide I don’t have the energy. I climb in, hugging my bag to my chest.
“Kit,” I say. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to Annie.” I try to keep my voice even, but it cracks on her name. Kit nods, then strides toward the house. I didn’t expect him to do that. I can’t imagine Della allowing it, but a minute later he emerges carrying Annie, who is covered in sweet potatoes, and I smile. He passes her to me, and I let her stand up on my thighs while holding her hands. I can feel Della seething from behind her poplin curtains. Kit will probably return to a fight, and for that I feel bad.