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My parents were never around much and never sober when they were. Margaret raised me. Put me through school. Loved me when no one else did. And God knows I wasn’t easy to love.
I clear my throat. “Okay. Who was that woman?”
“That was Trinity.” Then she tips her head to the side and adds, “You know, I think you and Trinity would be perfect together.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Like I said, in this situation, there are never easy answers.
Except right now, it’s obvious that the easiest solution I’ve been presented with in months is Trinity.
I want more of her. Everything about her, from the way she lit up the room to her goofy chicken with its goofy name, warmed a part of me I hadn’t even realized had gone cold.
But more than that, she’s helping Margaret. More than anything else I’ve seen so far.
There may not be any easy answers, but anything that helps at all is worth holding on to tight.
And if I have to choose between wanting Trinity for myself and wanting her to help Margaret, I know what I’m going to choose.
So, yeah, I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Or punch something.
Actually, yeah. Punching something would feel really good about now. Maybe I’d even do it, except I’m still holding the damn egg.
three
TRINITY
ONE MONTH LATER
I tolerate other people’s bad moods much better than I tolerate my own.
I guess it’s a good thing, since I’m currently three years into my graduate program studying to be a therapist. Nearly seven years, if you count my undergrad.
My point is this: I can put up with a lot of complaining, whining, bitchin’ and moanin’ from everyone except myself. That’s a good thing, right? After all, it is my actual job (or soon will be), to be sympathetic, empathetic, and generally kind to my patients.
But when it comes to myself, when I’m in a bad mood, it just makes me more grumpy.
Which is why I’m in a foul mood when I step into the elevator of the Prescott Towers—a sky rise in downtown Austin where I just visited the lawyer of my deceased father. Not that I actually talked to the lawyer. I didn’t make it past the receptionist.
Thus, the foul mood—and it’s getting fouler by the second.
Since I’m familiar with this pattern of behavior from myself, I don’t even try to fake it. I slump against the back wall of the elevator, arms crossed over my chest, a scowl worthy of a petulant teenager on my face.
The well-dressed businessmen already on the elevator give me a wide berth, as if my Doc Martens might snake out to trip them of their own volition. The derisive looks they give me … well, it’s scorn men who earn six-figure salaries reserve for poverty-stricken grad students.
When they get off one floor down, I have to fight the urge to flip them off.
They’re probably lawyers or something else equally horrible. Definitely people who think their time is too valuable to waste taking the stairs.
I have the elevator all to my miserable self for another floor or two. When the doors open, I’m glaring at the floor because I don’t have the emotional energy to even meet another person’s gaze.
This should be easy. Other people are rude to strangers in elevators all the time.
I have no social or moral obligation to be adorable and charming to every stranger, especially not the kinds of strangers who work in fancy-ass buildings and wear expensive leather shoes.
I expect the shoes to step onto the elevator and move straight to the opposite corner in order to steer clear of me and my tawdry display of outward emotion.
Instead, the shoes stop short between the open doors and a voice drawls, “Well. This is interesting.”
