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“Your mom seems okay,” he says.
“She’s . . . still a little drunk. She’s probably going to start looking for the alcohol soon, so we need to dump all the alcohol in the house.”
Ian gives a nod, acknowledging that he heard me. “Pancakes, huh?”
“Always. I don’t know why. It’s her comfort food, I guess. We ate them a lot when I was growing up. There’s probably bags full of pancakes in the freezer.”
Ian takes the empty coffee pot from the cradle, rinses it in the sink, places the carafe back into place, and checks the basket. There are old grounds in there, and he dumps them.
I direct him to the fresh filters and coffee beans as I spoon more batter into the pan, the sizzle of frying batter as familiar to me as everything else in this house. The smell of coffee andcinnamon chips fills the kitchen, mingling with the all-purpose cleaner I used before. The stale stench of trash and old food has slowly started to disappear, replaced by more pleasant scents. I shift and something under my feet crunches. There’s more cleaning to do, but it’s a start.
The coffee percolates, and while Ian waits, he moves to the sink, donning the bright pink gloves hanging over the faucet. He turns on the water, pumps soap onto a sponge, and starts to chip away at the pile of dishes in the sink.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
“I know,” he says, but he doesn’t stop.
I scrape the batter bowl clean, making the last of the pancakes, and hand the bowl to him. He washes it, stacking the last of the dishes on the rack next to the sink. While I throw the warmest pancakes onto two plates and find some syrup in the fridge, Ian prepares two cups of coffee and brings them to the kitchen island, sliding one over to me without adding anything to it.
“You know how I like my coffee?” I ask.When did he learn that?
“I know how you like your coffee,” he confirms without revealing any more. He looks at me in a way that makes my heart trip.
“When we’re done, we need to dump all the alcohol in the house,” I say as I slide a plate of pancakes over to him.
Ian nods and douses his pancakes with syrup. “I thought I’d run to the store later and get a dehumidifier,” he says, and the fact that he thought about this without us ever having a conversation about it just about does me in. I try to swallow my pancakes, but my throat is too dry.
“You’re welcome to leave tonight if you want. I don’t know if you have any Monday classes, but don’t feel like you have to stay,” I say.
“I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
“You don’t have class?”
“I don’t have anything that’s as important as being here for you,” he says.
I know he means it, and that’s what scares me. Words like that are easily spoken and just as easily forgotten. But Ian is the kind of guy who keeps his word. Tears prick the backs of my eyes, and I force them away with a gulp of coffee.
I’m not alone.
Ian reaches out and rubs my back—small circles that feel so comforting that the tears spring back into my eyes. I lean on him, tired of resisting the urge to let myself be taken care of. Tired of fighting the impulse to trust this man in particular.
He plants a kiss on the top of my head. A boyfriend gesture, but I don’t mind. Not today. Not right now. Not while I’ve got bigger fish to?—
“Shit,” I say, realizing my mom never came back downstairs. My coffee spills as I practically drop it on the counter. “My mom.”
“Go,” Ian says. “I’ll clean up.”
“Thank you,” I say as I run out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
I find my mom curled up on the floor of her bedroom, clutching her phone, sobbing. I push away the guilt at playing house with Ian while she was up here for god knows how long like this.
She obviously can’t be alone right now, so I spend the next few hours with my mother watching reality TV and letting her cry all over my shoulder. My window of opportunity to talk to her about getting help is gone, and all I can hope is that I get another chance tomorrow. If I don’t convince her to get help, I don’t know how I’ll feel okay enough to take the opportunities after college that I actually want to take.
A Midsummer Night’s Dreamis one of the last shows that I’m costume- and makeup-designing at MPC, and it’s got me feeling all kinds of ways about the idea of not doing it again. I love makeup, but there’s something really special about being part of bringing a show to life with costumes that doing makeup for social media just doesn’t fulfill. Even if I don’t do it forever, traveling around the country doing regional theater would be fun for a while.
But it would be impossible with my mom the way things currently are. I try to put it out of my mind, but I spend most of the morning dancing around solutions and possibilities, having the conversation with myself in my head that I need to have with my mom. Of course, I’m entirely reasonable, so the conversation always goes well.
Around lunch, before I even have a chance to think about making something, Ian knocks on the door with two bowls of some gnocchi soup that must have been in the freezer. I can’t help myself—I follow Ian out of the bedroom for a quick kiss in the hallway before he goes back downstairs.
