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I have to find my mom.
I swing open the car door and call my grandmother as fast as my shaking hands will let me. She picks up after one ring.
“Grandma, hi. Rob left Mom, and I’m home now. Where are you?” I cradle the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I dig around my purse to find my key.
“I’m on vacation, honey, remember?”
Fuck.I forgot she was going on a trip with her girlfriends.
My grandma and I have always tag-teamed helping my mom recover. It started when my biological father left. I was barely two and my mom stopped taking care of me. My grandma stepped in, and when my mom got back on her feet again—a.k.a. into another relationship—my grandma backed off, but not entirely. My childhood evenings and weekends were spent at her house while my mom went on dates. And every time there was a breakup, my grandma would be the one there to pick up the pieces and take care of me. Eventually, she helped less and I started to help more as I got older. When I was a teenager, Grandma started going to Al-Anon. She started talking to me about loving detachment, and I didn’t really want to hear it—Ijust wanted my mom to stop drinking, and I wanted to survive high school while trying to take care of my parent who should have been taking care of me.
“Right, when will you be back?” I ask.
“In nine days,” she says. “Are you at home now, Jade? Did you leave school to be with your mom?”
I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or glad that I’m here, but I don’t have the energy to dissect that right now.
“Yes, and I’m about to walk inside, so let me call you later,” I say, hanging up without a goodbye. Probably a bit unceremonious, but I’ve got a one-track mind right now, and I’m not interested in a lecture.
I find my keys in my bag but fumble and drop them as I try to juggle my phone, keys, bag, and purse.
“Shit.”
I reach for them, but Ian is there, snatching them up, unlocking the door with steady hands. My hands are too shaky, and I shove my phone into my pocket before I drop that too.
He opens the door for me, and I hold out my hand for my keys.
“I got it,” he says and nods for me to go in the house. “Go ahead—I’m right behind you.”
“No,” I say, standing in the doorway, blocking him from coming in. I have no idea what my mom is like right now, but I’ll be damned if Ian sees it. Not after meeting his dad and seeing how well-adjusted they are. Not after I’ve already been vulnerable with him in more ways than I meant to be. If I have any control over this—and I do—Ian is not coming inside.
“Jade, I?—”
“Thank you for the ride,” I interrupt. There isn’t anything he can say that will convince me he needs to stay. Maybe it was shitty to ask him to drive me up here just to send him away, but I’ll deal with the guilt of that later. I’ll find a way back when mygrandma returns from her trip. I’ll miss a couple rehearsals and classes, but I have no choice. I have to be here for my mom.
“What if you need me?” he asks.
“I won’t need you. I can handle this on my own.”
I’ve always done this on my own.
“But you don’t have to,” he says.
“I want to. Text me when you get back to campus. Again, seriously. Thank you for the ride.” I snatch my keys out of his hand and close the door behind me.
I wait three seconds to see if he’ll try to just come into the house anyway, but when I see movement in the glass beside the door, I know he’s walking to his car.
Good.
“Mom?” I yell into the house. I check the key holder next to the front door. The keys are still there, which means her car is still here, thank god. I snatch them off the ring and stuff them into my pocket.
It’s eerily quiet. The stove light in the kitchen is on. The TV is going, with no sound. None of the lamps in the living room are on. The stairs are dark, and I don’t see any lights on upstairs from here.
I check the kitchen and the garage first, just in case, but my mom isn’t there. There’s an ache in the back of my throat.
Heart hammering, I wander back to the stairs and knock my toe against something.
An empty bottle of vodka. A fifth. I didn’t notice it when I came in, and the tips of my fingers go cold. I rush back to the kitchen, checking under the sink where she normally keeps part of her stash of alcohol. Empty.
