​EIGHTEEN

Elena

I’m married to a fag. I know it’s not PC to say, it’s not Christian. But I imagine my brothers chanting the word over and over in my head, and that’s what gets me. Them knowing they’re better than me. And me knowing it, too.

I let Ronnie take home Sela, an impromptu middle of the week sleepover that makes Sela's face look like I'm selling her to the highest bidder.

“It will be fun!” I say, my skin scrubbed free of any last trace of makeup in the jammed hallways of St. Bonaventure Elementary. “Miss Ronnie will be back here to pick you up at three, and I'll have a bag packed for you.” She's unsure, and I know it’s because she's scared she'll pee herself in the middle of the night, and then it will be front page news tomorrow morning thanks to Trudy's unhinged jaw, but she can't be there when I talk to Mitch. Scream at Mitch. Kill him.

I want to kill him so bad.

I drive home shaky and have a “might as well” moment. My wheels scream into McDonald's, and I get a large Dr. Pepper, and then I head to Bubba’s Beer and Booze and doctor it up with two tiny bottles of whiskey. Then I head to the mall. He won't be home for hours, and there's something cracking at my skull, at the bones in my wrist. I'm breaking apart bit by bit, but first, I need to see Miss Snarly Nose one last time.

I need to tell her something.

I've gotten down three-fourths of the drink, so as I swerve into the parking lot near the food court, my idea has become one of those brilliant ideas, and if I had an arm long enough and could walk a little straighter, I'd be patting myself on the back. 

There's a blast of noise and cold air and a smell that's kind of like the aftermath of a cinnamon roll and Philly cheese steak making a baby, and the image makes me laugh. I go to turn and tell Mitch my joke, or maybe I think Ronnie's with me. And when I see no one's standing next to me, I wipe at my eyes even before the tears come.

I keep walking, and when I see the security guard chatting with a group of sloppy looking teenagers, I throw my shoulders back and lift my chin with so much force, my spine starts to ache.

I sniff her out really, because as I walk out of the food court and into the mall, I find my way by scent, by the perfumey cloud hanging around the doorway of Bath and Body Works. And then I take my bench, but afraid that she'll see me, I go and stand around the side of the store, pretending to look at my phone. I check the time—quitting time has arrived—and count out the Mississippis it takes for her to head toward Dillard's.

I've sucked the last drops of Dr. Pepper/whiskey and quietly trash the cup and clench my purse against my side. I pretend it's an arm guiding me through the gut of the department store, nimbly dodging the ladies with their glass bottles aimed at my face.

I pass the old maid dresses, over-sized handbags, shoes emitting the stench of dead leather and then emerge into the open air of Wednesday.

“You've got to be kidding me.” I look, and there she is. She's about my height, but that's all we have in common because she's wearing a belted jean dress with the same wedges as last time, and her hair sits high on her head in a slicked back bun. I have a toothpaste stain on my black pants, and I can feel the deodorant smearing into my sleeveless button down. The stray clump of hair in my mouth tastes like whiskey.

“I just want to talk,” I say. 

“What? What can you possibly have to say to me? I mean you're the crazy mall lady. That's what my husband and I even call you!” She raises her hands, and the sun shines off her gold rings, the red lunchbox smacking against her hip. There's a purse slung on her other shoulder, and I pray to God she doesn't have any mace in it.

I walk slowly to her like she's the wild animal, not me with whiskey flavored heartburn and a smelly belch in my throat. I hug her, and maybe she's too scared to move because her body goes stiff, and she's not yelling for help.

“Love her. Love him,” I say. I look out, and here comes the car carrying her husband and her baby, those things that make her scream and cry inside herself at night, that make her feel selfish because she doesn't want them, but she doesn't want anyone else to have them either. I pull back, and her eyes are scared, and I know I've lost her because I never had her in the first place.

So, I take off, summer wind whipping at my face as I toe-heel it back to the other side where the food court is and my car waits. But it's okay that she calls me “the crazy mall lady,” Miss Snarly Nose with her red lunchbox and flaming gold rings. Because what she doesn't realize is that I was her once, a blank sheet of paper barely written on.

And soon she'll learn there are things you just can't erase.

#

My hands are pink. Sore. Numb. They look like they're rotting off my body. I didn't open the garage door because I don't want the neighbors to see, and I also want to die. I take in large gulps of chemically sweet air, and each time the exhale is deep-chested tears, the kind that quake the cartilage in my joints. When he finds me, I'm hands and knees and concrete. When he finds me, I'm disappointed I haven't died yet.

Mitch walks in, and it's his work boots that keep my focus. Splotches of caulking on the toes and the frayed ends of his shoelaces. The smell of them almost takes over the bleach.

“What happened?” His lips on ears, his hands on shoulders. That feeling of being lifted foot to spine to head, snapped straight up and into his arms.

“Aaron,” I say. And just like that, he's the one who quakes.

I go over to the garage door button drilled near the door that leads into the house and close the scene on our miserable little play.

“How?” But then real quickly, “I'm so sorry.” Look, I get it. All the anger and the vile taste that's been in my mouth all day—and my hands, my horribly chewed up hands that I can't quit rubbing raw—all these things should be stacked like blocks, like bricks so I can drag his body up them and push him off the side. But then see, I can't. I just can't do that. Because looking at him isn't looking at him now. Looking at him is looking at him in his room in Helena, a rock with “faggot” on it in his hands and his brain struggling to process and refuse what his heart is telling him.

He's her father after all.

He's there near the bucket of bleach, near the sponge that's barely sponge and more like a holey mess. This time, it's my arms around his shoulders, lifting him up. Keeping him on his feet.