Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

Mom and I were left staring at each other. “You could have warned me he was here, Mom.”

“And when was I supposed to do that? You never leave your room.” She wobbled slightly and braced a hand against the counter.

Now I saw it—Mom’s face wasn’t just glowing from the heat of the stove. Her eyelids drooped slightly and one—the right one, as always—drooped lower. My eyes found what they were looking for behind the container of pasta but within reach, a glass of what I knew would be vodka.

I’d noticed that Mom’s predilection for “blurriness” seemed to have achieved new heights in my absence. After I’d been home for only a couple of days, I surfaced out of my bedroom when I smelled something burning. I discovered a batch of what I think were peanut butter cookies in the oven and Mom passed out in front of the TV, where they were replaying an interview with me—taken when I was just released and shouldn’t have been talking to anyone. I had turned my face to the side so my hair fell like a curtain and shielded me from the camera. I turned the TV off.

Her pink robe—or, as she would say in a really bad French accent, her peignoir —gaped, revealing the skin of her neck and the upper swell of her small breasts. I noticed that her skin, always her pride and joy, although there weren’t many parts of her body she didn’t consider her pride and joy, had begun to turn crepey. In her hand she gripped a vodka bottle—my first sign things had changed; she used to at least mix the stuff. She must have just fallen asleep, because the cigarette between her full lips was still burning. The ash at the end was over an inch long, and while I stood there it quivered, fell, and landed on her exposed chest. Transfixed by the cigarette cherry glowing closer to her lips, I wondered if she’d even wake up when it began to burn her, but I gently removed it. Without touching her, I leaned over and blew the ash from her chest, then threw the cookies out and went back to bed. I figured her drinking would abate some once I’d been home for a while.

Now, standing in her kitchen, she spotted my eyes on the drink and moved to stand in front of it. Her eyes dared me to say anything.

“You’re right. Sorry.” It was just easier.

Not able to think of a graceful way to get out of it, I soon found myself helping bring dinner out to the table while trying to avoid Luke’s eyes. His hands reached to take a hot bowl from me and I remembered those hands on me, then I remembered The Freak’s hands on me, and I dropped the bowl. Luke’s quick reflexes caught it right before it hit the table, but not before Mom noticed.

“You okay, Annie Bear?”

I nodded, but I was far from okay. I sat with Luke across from me and pushed the pasta around on my plate. I was all too aware of the clock above my head telling me I wasn’t allowed to eat at this hour, and my empty stomach curled in on itself.

During dinner my stepdad was trying to tell Luke all about his latest business idea when Mom interrupted to ask Luke whether he noticed her use of fresh parsley in the garlic bread she’d baked herself. Oh, and did she mention the parsley was from her own garden? Wayne got another two sentences in, then paused to take a mouthful. Mom was off and running. She explained the finer points of creating the perfect spaghetti sauce, which seemed to involve her touching Luke’s arm every twenty seconds and smiling up at him encouragingly when he asked questions.

After everyone else’s plates were empty there was a pause in the conversation as they all focused in on my still-full plate. Then Wayne said, “Annie’s doing much better.” We all stared at him and I thought, Compared to what?

Luke said, “Lorraine, that was amazing, and you’re right, ours at the restaurant doesn’t even come close.”

Mom tapped his arm and said, “I told you, didn’t I? If you’re nice to me I might show you a few of my tricks.” Another throaty laugh.

“I’d be honored if you’d share your recipe with me, but right now I’d like a few minutes alone with Annie, if that’s okay?” He turned to me, but the thought of being alone with Luke had frozen my blood in my veins and apparently my lips, because they couldn’t seem to form the words, No, it’s not okay, it’s really, really not okay.

I wasn’t the only one caught off guard. Mom’s and Wayne’s heads rose up in tandem like puppets on a string. Mom’s hand had been resting on Luke’s arm. She pulled it back like she’d been burned.

“I guess I’ll just start cleaning up the kitchen, then.” When no one moved to stop her, she pushed her chair back so fast it scraped the linoleum and she grabbed a couple of plates. Wayne got up to help, and after they were in the kitchen I heard him say something about giving the kids some privacy while he and my mom went outside for a smoke. Her muffled answer didn’t sound happy, but soon I heard the kitchen door open and shut and both of their feet on the outside deck. For a quick second Mom peeked in the sliding glass door that opened from the dining area to the deck, but when I caught her she moved out of sight.

I continued to twirl my spaghetti with my fork. Then Luke bumped my foot under the table with his and cleared his throat. My fork dropped with a clang onto my plate, splashing tomato sauce on me and, worse, on his white shirt like a spray of blood.

I leapt up to grab a paper towel, but Luke leaned over and gripped both my arms.

“It’s just spaghetti sauce.” I stared down at his hands wrapped around my arms, then tried to pull away. He released them instantly. “Crap. I’m sorry, Annie.”

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms.

“Can I not touch you at all?”

My eyes blinked desperately to hold back the tears, but one broke free when I saw the answering shimmer in his own eyes. I sat back down with a thump.

“I just can’t. Not yet….”

His eyes pleaded with me to explain it to him, to share my feelings as I always had, but I couldn’t.

“I just want to help you through this, Annie—I feel so damn useless . Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”

“No!” The word came out angry-sounding, mean -sounding, and his face flinched like I’d hit him. There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. It was that very knowledge that made me hate him in that second, and hate myself for feeling that way in the next.

His lips curled into a rueful smile. He shook his head and said, “I’m a real dumbass, aren’t I? I just thought if we talked, then I could understand—”

In my pain, I aimed to hurt. “You can’t understand. You could never understand.”

“No, you’re right, I probably can’t. But I want to try.”

“I just want to be left alone.” My words hung in the air between us like flies on the carcass of what used to be our relationship. With a nod of his head, he stood up. Inside I screamed, I’m sorry. I take it back. I didn’t mean it. Please stay.

But he’d already opened the sliding glass door. He was thanking Mom for dinner, saying he had to get back to the restaurant and he’d be sure to get the recipe, sounding so polite. So polite. While I sat there red-faced in my shame, in my regret.

Then he was standing at the door and with his hand on the knob he turned and said, “I’m so sorry, Annie.” The sincerity in his voice made me hurt deep inside, in places I’d thought were too full of pain to possibly feel any more, and I turned away, turned away from his beauty and kindness, and walked down the hall past him without even the grace to meet his eyes. From my bedroom, I heard the front door close and then I heard his truck pull away. Not even fast in anger like I would have, but slowly. Sadly.