Mom doesn’t say anything for maybe half a minute. “Mm-hmm. That doesn’t sound like you’re in a rebound relationship when you say it like that, does it?”
“No,” I admit, but there’s a cold, ugly feeling squirming in my guts. “I’m afraid I don’t deserve him.” The words sound harsh in my ears. “He’s just so sweet and pure andgood.”
My inner critic cackles at the irony of using all these words to describe Errol when, meanwhile, I’ve been having far and away thefilthiestsex of my life with him. But there’s also something about it that’s absolutely, indisputably true.
“I know I hurt him by getting wrapped up in college and work and just… dropping out of his life.”
Mom sighs. “Sounds like you wanted to get away from memories of being bullied in high school, not Errol.”
“But I still abandoned him.”
“You were a teenager, trying to cope the best way you knew how.” She gives my arm a squeeze. “Don’t say you don’t deserve Errol. I know you think highly of him, but you’re pretty great yourself, kiddo.” After I mutter out a wanthanks, Mom gives me a faint smile. “You should try to get back to sleep.”
My eyes actually are feeling heavy again, so I nod. As I get up, a sudden thought hits me. “Was there anything else?”
“Pardon?”
“Aside from not being able to sleep without him. Was there anything else about Dad that made you think, ‘Whoa, this is definitely the real thing?’”
She exhales a quiet laugh. “I realized I considered him my best friend.”
35
ERROL
“When are you boys staying until?” Allyson asks. I flick my eyes up from pouring coffee into two mugs on the counter. One of them says “World’s Best Dad;” the other is kind of lumpy and covered with clumsily-painted flowers. I guess it’s supposed to make it look handmade; maybe by a kid? But the bottom has a neatly typewritten label warning against putting the mug in the microwave, so I know I’m not looking at some art-class project of Ran’s from back in the day.
It’s kind of a relief. I’m glad I don’t have to feel a tug of sentimentality towards this ugly thing just because Ran made it. Because if he had, I definitely would.
I respond to Allyson with a shrug, out of habit more than anything else. After I put the coffee pot back and stir two giant spoonfuls of sugar into Ran’s, I look up to realize she’s studying me as she sits at the table with her coffee.
“Have a seat.” She motions to the chair across from her. “If you wouldn’t mind. Ran can come fetch his own coffee.”
“No, I don’t mind,” I lie.
“What are you doing with yourself these days?”
“I manage a bar in town —you might remember it, actually. Finnegan’s Wake?”
She nods. “That’s good.” Into the silence that follows, I feel myself shrinking.
“I mean, it’s obviously not acareerjob. Not like Ran’s. I’m never going to —” I cut myself off before I say too much or say something wrong, giving my head a quick shake instead to imply all of the different ways to sayhe’s successful and I’m not.
“Why didn’t you ever talk to anybody besides him?” she asks out of the blue.
I guess I should have expected this question sooner or later. I can hear how heavy my sigh is, so I’m sure Allyson can, too.
“I realized it hurt less to not say anything — to not ask for anything in the first place — than to be ignored. If I tried to say something, or ask for something — being just completely ignored screwed with my head after a while. I felt like I was invisible, or like I didn’t exist. I knowthat’s stupid and doesn’t make any sense, but as a kid, it was the best thing I could come up with.”
Something in Allyson’s expression sharpens. It looks weirdly familiar. An instant later, I realize why: It’s the same look Ran gives me sometimes.
“It wasn’t my place to comment or judge how anyone else raised their child —Lord knows I made plenty of mistakes myself —but your parents didn’t do right by you, honey,” she says gently. “I know they had a lot of hard things, a lot of heartbreak, but that didn’t excuse the way they… discarded you.” She looks directly into my eyes. “You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, dropping my gaze.
“It wasn’t my place to tell you that as a child, but as an adult, I think it’s important that you hear that. Our family has always been open to you. That’s certainly not going to change.”
“Ran was —is—my best friend.” Once I start thinking about him, I find that I can meet her eyes again. “It was always different with him. He never made me feel ignored or invisible. I never questioned that hemeantit when he asked me how I was doing, what I wanted on my pizza, which movie I wanted to see or whatever.I don’t know when I realized it, but Ran was the first person who made me believe that I really existed.”
