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“Lisa, if there’s a wedding, I’m going to want you standing right beside me,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too. Merry Christmas, Lisa.”
“Merry Christmas, Mel. If you love him like you say you do—and I can see that you do—leave him alone. He’s been through so much.”
I give her a noncommittal nod, and we head in opposite directions. I glance longingly at the now-empty Christmas market before returning to my childhood home.
When I get inside, I throw my purse and my keys down on the kitchen table, find a bottle of whiskey, and slide down onto the kitchen floor.
I got my answer: it really is over. If I’m honest with myself, it should be over. After all the time that’s passed, I should be over him, too.
But in the pit of my stomach, at the core of my being, I’m still holding onto ghosts. And I fear they’ll haunt me until the end of my days.
“Mel?” Emma asks from the top of the staircase. “Are you okay?”
“Help. I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up,” I say, then laugh at my own joke.
“Seriously,” she says. “You don’t look good.”
She descends the staircase and then sits next to me on the kitchen floor.
“I don’t know if I am,” I tell her. “I thought I was.”
“Well, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m afraid it’s no one thing; it’s an entire collection of issues that have sort of…knotted together into one giant, indistinguishable catastrophe no therapist will ever be able to sort out.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Emma says.
“Me either, kid. You want some?” I ask, extending the bottle of dark liquor.
“What? I’m twelve,” she says, appalled.
“And you’re not drinking yet?”
“No!”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “This place really has changed.” I take a swig from the bottle. “How’s Mom treating you?”
“Good,” she says. “She’s actually really cool now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she shows up to all my dance recitals and art shows. She takes me shopping, even hiking. She lets me have slumber parties. We got a satellite dish, and I never have to go stay with Stella anymore. She’s home every night, and the utilities never get shut off.”
“Really? Well, I don’t want to rain on your parade or anything, but…don’t get too used to it. These parenting kicks of hers always wear off.”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “She’s been like this for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Ever since you left.”
I scoff. “Wonderful. What about the men?”
“No,” she says. “No men. She hasn’t brought a man home in years. Although, I do suspect she has a boyfriend at work. If she does, she’ll never tell me.”
