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  I want to feel the sound of his name on my lips, but I can’t talk about him to Emily. She seems irked by the mere mention of Leo. To drive the point home, she exaggerates relief he won’t be joining our Thanksgiving meal, since he already has plans with his brother.

  Emily is elusive when I try asking her why she’s this antagonistic toward Leo.

  “He’s bad news. I can feel it in my bones,” she tells me Tuesday afternoon, as we wait in line at the grocery store. She grabs a magazine from the rack and starts flipping through it.

  “Okay. Can you be a little more specific?”

  She meets my eyes and I prepare myself for the tirade of crudeness that is sure to follow. Instead, I’m surprised by the way her expression softens.

  “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Trust me,” I say as I begin to load our items onto the conveyor belt. “You don’t need to worry. It’s casual.”

  “I know you think that. I also know you, Lex, and I think a guy like him can do some real damage.”

  Her words settle into the pit of my stomach and leave a halo of discomfort. I’m trying to pretend otherwise, I’m trying to will it otherwise, but a part of me knows she’s right. I already can’t think of anything else but Leo. This isn’t good. He’s lodged into my every waking moment. I shouldn’t have let things get this far this fast, but how am I supposed to stop it now? Am I supposed to walk away from this, cold turkey? The thought of not feeling his touch again makes me ache inside.

  I need to get a grip on myself. There’s no need for harsh reactions. This doesn’t have to go anywhere I don’t intend it to go. I need to control my goddamn feelings. Reel them in, pull them taut.

  I can do this. I’m good at doing this.

  “Emily, don’t worry about me. We drew lines from the beginning. I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to go and get myself attached.”

  She shakes her head and the subtle glance she throws at me says it all: it’s too late for that.

  “Lex, be careful. I know his type. All he cares about is getting his cock wet.”

  The girl behind the cashier lets out a snort and her wide eyes dart to Emily, who stares back, deadpan, until the girl blushes and looks away.

  “Anyway,” Emily goes on like nothing happened, “I don’t want to have to strangle him for breaking your heart. He’s a womanizer if I’ve ever seen one.”

  I blink away my reaction and resist the urge to ask her why she thinks that. Because suddenly, I don’t want to hear any more about Emily’s opinion of Leo. I don’t want her to taint my impression of him. She doesn’t even know him.

  Do you? The question arises from the back of my mind. I blink that away, too.

  It’s Thanksgiving Day. I wish I could say I’m the vision of domestic elegance, but I’m more akin to a chicken with its head cut off. I have no clue what I was thinking offering to host a dinner. I’ve never been a cook. I nearly place the turkey in the oven before I remember to remove the giblets, then I can’t get the gravy to thicken. I keep adding flour to it. Until I realize I should bring it to a simmer first. It ends up cooling into the thickest paste I’ve ever seen. That should clog some intestines tonight.

  Emily helps me make some other dishes. She’s much more comfortable in the kitchen than I am. She doesn’t even break a sweat, whipping up green bean casserole and macaroni and cheese as if from thin air.

  “Damn, Lex. I thought you’re getting laid, why are you still so uptight? It’s only a meal. Let go of those grandiose, perfectionist ideals.”

  She knows as well as I do that anything going even slightly awry will set my nerves on fire.

  I end up having to take another shower after we set the table because my eyeliner is slipping off from the heat of the stove and the beads of sweat brought out by my stress.

  Julia is going to be released from the hospital today or tomorrow. I haven’t heard back from Giles yet about the time. But he did mention before that his mother will prepare a meal at home for the kids.

  Emily has two friends from college coming over. I guess I’ve met them in passing before but I don’t remember. I have two friends of my own joining us; one is a friend from the Jeremy era: Chloe, whom I grew fond of during the year she dated Jeremy’s brother.

  The other is Tracie, an old high school friend of mine. We’ve never managed to lose touch, regardless of how long we go without speaking.

  I begin to relax as the guests arrive. It’s bound to be a nice evening, a girls night of sorts. We pretend it’s exciting we are all single and unattached. Instead of admitting it’s a little depressing on a holiday marketed toward family units.

  My friends seem to instantly click with Emily’s. April and Brenda are social, light-hearted, and keep the conversation flowing. The dinner feels comfortable and intimate. The blonde girl in particular, April, seems to have the same abrasive sense of humor as Emily, but we all enjoy it. We gorge on the meal merrily and snicker into our glasses of wine as the conversation grows wildly salacious.

  We are nearly an hour into the meal when the sound of the doorbell cuts through our reckless laughter. Emily and I regard each other, silently imploring if the other is expecting someone else. I shake my head, she shrugs. The laughter that lingers in my throat evaporates the instant I open the front door.

  A woman stands outside. Her long, dark hair seems to lay carelessly around her face. Her bone structure is stunning and her beauty lingers despite how shockingly thin and unkempt she is. She’s in her fifties, but looks a decade older. I feel anger snake through my veins as I notice how her green eyes are dilated and uncoordinated. She opens her mouth to speak but I push past her into the hall and close the door behind me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask my mother.

  She blinks at me, surprised by how menacing my tone is.

  “Emily. She mentioned a dinner. I thought that…”

  I let out an exasperated breath and run a hand through my hair. I’m sure my nostrils are flaring; I can feel the force of my exhales.

  “I’m sorry you misunderstood.”

  My tone says it all. I’m not sorry. I’m not fucking sorry in the least.

  Her lips part again, but she’s slow to speak. The door opens behind me and Emily peers out into the hall. I watch her shut her eyes as she whispers, “Oh fuck.”

  She comes out and closes the door behind her. I can hear the muffled sounds of our guests carrying on and laughing inside.

  I round on Emily. “You invited her. So here she is. High as a fucking kite.”

  My mother gasps. “I’m not fucking high. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Her voice is rapid fire and her mannerisms exaggerated.

  “Lower. Your. Voice,” I say through gritted teeth. “Jesus Christ.”

  I press the base of my palm to my forehead because I don’t know what else to do.

  Emily places a hand on each of our mother’s shoulders and looks into her eyes. “Christ, Mom, what are you on? How did you get here?”

  “We took the bus.”

  “We?!” I snap.

  She keeps her eyes on Emily as she answers. “Justin is downstairs.”

  I don’t know who the hell Justin is, but I say, “Are you kidding me? You brought your piece-of-shit friend to my house?”

  “Lex, hang on,” Emily says. She turns to my mother again. “Mom, where are you staying? Let me take you home.”

  Our mother doesn’t answer. She gives Emily a warm smile and presses a hand to her cheek. I wince as though I can feel her touch on my skin.

  A bitter taste rises in my mouth, I swallow it back. “I hate to interrupt, but you need to get the fuck out of my house,” I say.

  My words reach into my mother’s eyes and yank out a monster. She explodes into a fit of rage.

  “Fuck you! You think you’re better than me?!” she yells out, her lips trembling from the force of the words. “You always think you’re fucking better than me. But you’re not. You’re
a bitch. A cold fucking bitch.”

  Emily tries to ‘shh’ her, but it doesn’t stop. Instead, she wiggles from under Emily’s hands and rounds on me.

  “My friend is a piece of shit?! Huh?! You’re a piece of shit! Fuck you! Fuck you! That’s why Jeremy left you. You’re cold as ice. You’re gonna die alone, you cold bitch.”

  Emily pulls my mom to the opposite wall of the hall and yells at her, “Calm down!”

  I’m breathing hard, feeling shock, anger, and every blood vessel in my body throbbing with dangerous force. The noises from within my condo fall away. I know everyone heard my mother’s explosion and I feel the familiar, paralyzing embarrassment of my childhood turn my muscles to ice.

  “I’m taking her home,” Emily says.

  I shake my head. “Screw that, I don’t want you alone with her.”

  “What do you suggest?” Emily snaps. “We can’t push her out onto the street.”

  Why not? An acidic voice prompts from within my head.

  But instead, I bite the inside of my cheek and say, “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  My mother starts screaming again, “You stay the fuck away from me!” She jabs a finger at the air toward me. “Stay away! Cold bitch!”

  Emily leads my mother away as the tirade of insults continues to trickle down the hall.

  I have a throbbing headache now. This is not the way I thought my Thanksgiving would go, certainly not the type of scene I want to expose my guests to. Everything’s gone to shit. The whole day is ruined. Damn it. I take a minute to rearrange my features, taking a few deep breaths before entering my condo again.

  As I expected, the light-hearted mood is gone. It’s replaced by a tense silence as every eye in the room darts toward me. They want an explanation. Of course they do.

  “I—” The words lodge in my throat.

  I haven’t seen my mother in years. Why she chose this Thanksgiving to show up at my door, I’ll never know. Her presence still permeates the air around me as effectively as a poisonous gas, seeping into my blood through my skin.

  Everyone is still looking at me; my headache is pounding between my eyes now. I raise my fingers and press them there.

  Tracie gets up from her chair. Everyone looks over at her as she pulls on a smile and says, “Well, ladies, thank you so much for your company.”

  She says it kindly, but her smile strains at the edges. I feel a surge of relief. At Tracie’s words, everyone graciously gets up, mumbling to each other about forgotten plans after dinner. They feign careless chatter as they gather their things. No one betrays the discomfort I’m certain we all share.

  Tracie shoots me a sideways glance where I stand by the door. The brief look tells me she knows exactly whose voice that was screaming out obscenities in the hall. She’s heard it before, a lifetime ago, when we were just young girls.

  Everyone leaves fairly quickly, thanking me with warm hugs and kind words. I can’t even speak, but they pretend not to notice.

  Suddenly, Tracie is the only one left. She looks at me for a long time and I find a lump rising in my throat. Wrapping her arms around me tightly, she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

  I want the floor to open up and swallow me. There is nothing that makes me more uncomfortable than talking about my mother. Somehow, I manage to say, “Thank you.”

  “I’d offer to help clean up, but I know you probably want to be alone.”

  I nod again. She squeezes my hand before walking out the door.

  The instant the door closes, I sag against it and slide down to the floor. I drop my head into my hands for a few minutes, feeling the headache, my dry throat, and my revolted stomach, all pulsing to the tune of the guilt and humiliation.

  XXIV

  Leo

  “Uncle Leo!”

  My niece squeals, sprinting toward me. I swoop her up into my arms and give her a tight hug. Her enthusiasm brings a tightness to my throat. She always shows me so much love and I don’t deserve it. A better uncle would make a real effort to be part of her life. I used to have the excuse of living in another state, but now we are a short drive away and my excuse no longer holds up.

  I set her down and pat the top of her head.

  “Holy cow, Ellie, you’re already taller than you were two months ago.”

  Her eyes light up. “I am?”

  I nod. She beams from ear to ear.

  “How old are you now?”

  She sticks out her chest when she answers, “Five and three quarters.”

  I smile. “Why not three nickels?”

  Ellie giggles at me, shaking her head. “Uncle Leo, that's not even a real age. Come on, let me show you the table.”

  She takes my hand and I let her guide me up the driveway and into the entryway of the house. I forget how huge William’s house is. Rancho Santa Fe has one of the top ten priciest housing markets in the country, the top in San Diego County. The median price trails above two million dollars. A house like this costs twice that, easy.

  I allow the thought to cross my mind that I, too, could’ve purchased a house this nice by now. If only I cashed into the trust fund our father set up for us. A sizable portion of our trust fund is reserved for investments. Our father encourages property investments in particular. I’ve had access to it since my twenty-fifth birthday, but I simply don’t touch it. I used to tell myself I didn’t want to give my father the satisfaction of holding it over my head, but the truth is that my father isn’t the type of man to do that. I can’t think of a good reason to explain my stubbornness anymore.

  Naturally, I’m the black sheep of the siblings. Simply because, though I make a good living, it will never be good enough to afford the standards my family sets.

  We walk past the living room. Ellie points out some new furniture she says she helped her mother pick out. I contemplate that my niece is the perfect age. She’s old enough engage in often interesting, candid conversations, but still young enough to view the world through a rose-colored glass.

  Ellie’s too young to be jaded. The dark realities of the world are abstract ideas to her, never tangible enough to make her doubt people’s intentions. Whenever I consider this, I feel overwhelmingly worried for her. I can only imagine her parents feel the same, times a thousand.

  We walk into the dining room and I see the table is prepared, draped in a white tablecloth and set in an abundance of elegance. The table sits eight and every place is set. I wonder who else will be joining us. William and Samantha don’t tend to entertain more than a handful of people at a time. Neither one of them is particularly social.

  I don’t see my brother, though I chance a double-take around the large kitchen to make sure. I do see my brother’s wife, Samantha, leaning on the counter. She acknowledges my arrival by smiling at me and pointing to the phone pinned between her cheek and shoulder. She mouths the words ‘I’m sorry.’

  I respond by waving away her apology and raise the bottle of wine in my hand, silently asking her where I should put it. She points to a place in the table and I set it down there.

  “What can I help with, Ellie?”

  I get down on one knee so we are eye level.

  “It’s all done,” she says in an exhausted voice. You’d think she’s been up since the crack of dawn preparing a huge meal. I vaguely notice that Samantha is no longer on the phone and is now hovering in the kitchen, listening to our exchange.

  “How many people are coming?” I ask Ellie.

  She stares off at the ceiling and begins counting out on her fingers. “There’s me, you, Mom, Dad...Mom’s friend, Mom’s other friend, and that friend’s husband and their kid. Mom doesn’t like her friend’s husband because he’s a jerk, but she had to invite him anyway. So please don’t say anything to him about it.”

  I nearly laugh, but keep my face stern to match hers.

  “Talking about me?” a voice asks from behind me.

  I turn to see my younger brother standing there and get to my feet. We give each other a firm hug, patt
ing the other’s back with excessive force. The sounds echo around us and the impact of his hand reverberates inside of my chest. But it’s William who starts coughing and pulls away. I give him a short, mocking laugh, acknowledging that I’ve won.

  It’s a stupid thing we’ve done since we were kids.

  “What’s going on, man?” he asks, taking in my appearance from arms’ length, pretending it’s been long enough he can't even recognize me.

  “Nothing much. Started that new job and just working a lot.”

  “And chasing women,” he adds with a smirk.

  I think for a moment of Alexis. But mentioning her now will result in a tirade of questioning from everyone in the room. Instead I shrug and say, “Not so much these days.”

  William and Samantha exchange a look.

  “What?” I ask, “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she says a little too innocently.

  I don’t figure out what their exchange is about until all the guests are settled around the dinner table. That's when I notice that, aside from the two children, everyone appears to be paired off. Including me. Samantha intentionally sits her friend Laura beside me. Laura is a pretty woman who also happens to be single. She looks at me with an enthusiasm in her eyes that tells me she was in on the plot.

  I’m not interested. Simply because I’m not.

  I do my best to be polite, without encouraging her flirting, though everything I say seems to make her smile or break out in laughter. Finally, when the night comes to an end, she asks me if I want to go have a drink with her. I can see in her eyes that she is paraphrasing her invitation, leaving to the imagination what she’s implying.

  I find a polite way to decline. At her request, I take her number on a tiny piece of paper, which I crumble up in my pocket.

  Later that evening, I get in my car and realize I’ve left my phone behind. I have a missed call from three hours ago. It’s from Alexis.

  I return her call. The phone rings four or five times and I’m about to hang up when she finally answers.