We want you to feel safe,Anna said.There’s no alcohol in the house.
Regina glanced quickly at me before telling Anna,You didn’t have to do that.
I’d rather have grape juice anyway,Anna continued, oblivious, though not as oblivious as I was.Wine gives me terrible headaches.
Regina hugged herself, mined her fingernails. She wouldn’t face me. Meanwhile, Isaac quietly admonished his wife, eyes so wide they were practically bulging out of his head. It wasn’t until Anna clamped her hand over her mouth that I knew something was amiss.
What’s going on?My gaze darted between them as they avoided my question. Regina had been sober for three years. Whenever I took her out to dinner, she insisted I have a glass of wine, a cocktail. It made her stronger in her sobriety, watching other people drink, knowing she could withstand the temptation. It didn’t make sense that Anna would be so worried about drinking in front of her now. Unless she’d relapsed.
Did something happen?I tried again.
The grape juice never did get blessed. The challah never torn. Isaac jumped in to tell me a truncated version of what had happened, never once sayingrelapse. He told me about the center he’d paid for, the detox, how Regina was starting her sobriety journey anew.
You went to rehab again?I spoke directly to my daughter.
Let’s talk about this later,Regina whispered to me.
The anger was rising in me. It only had one way out. I lashed out at Isaac, Anna even. Never Regina. With Regina I pleaded. Didn’t she know she could always talk to me? I would have flown out. I would have brought her to rehab, visited her each day. I would have made sure she was cared for, loved.
Don’t you see?Regina said.You always make it your problem to fix. It’s not helpful. It just makes everything worse.
The next morning, I found a letter in my mailbox. In Regina’s crooked handwriting, she wrote that she loved me, but I wasn’t safe for her.I can’t be around you right now,she wrote.Please respect my boundaries. Please give me space.
I honored her wishes. I gave her space. At the time, it felt like mourning. It didn’t prepare me for the loss I’m experiencing now, massive and hollow at once.
Would Regina want me here? Am I making this worse? I turn away from the putrid water. The smell is beginning to repulse me.
A bright flash of color catches my attention as a striking woman in a tank top, clearly braless, carries two mugs across the bridge. Her magenta robe billows behind her. She brushes past me, the soft silk grazing my arm as she willfully ignores me and waltzes into the garden of the Spanish-style house beside the dilapidated one. The women in my book club complain about being infantilized, treated as feeble and dim witted. They lament the knowledge people miss by ignoring us. The thing that gets me is the invisibility. This woman didn’t even register my existence as she traipsed by.
My phone buzzes, and I assume it’s Isaac again. Instead, it’s Linda. She’s with our book club. They’ve sent a video text.
“We want you to know we’re thinking about you,” Linda says as Gloria shouts in the background, “We miss you,” and Delia promises they’ll wait to discuss our next book until I’m back. “We’re here if you need us,” Linda reminds me as the other ladies unanimously agree.
My chest flutters. My book club. I have them, even when it seems like I’ve lost everything.
By the time I close the video, I’ve received three more texts in our group chain, one with an address link to the canals where I stand, another to the LAPD office in Venice Beach, where I plan to go when I leave here, and one to Bagel Nosh, which Susanna insists is the only place in LA to get a real bagel.
The woman in the silk robe knocks on the back door of the Spanish-style house, and an extremely pregnant woman steps out, taking one of the mugs from her friend. They settle into the outdoor living room, the pregnant woman surrendering to a position that can’t be comfortable. A couple swooshes past me, tucked into each other. The canals are starting to get more crowded, yet these women, these locals, they drink their coffee as though on a private veranda. What’s it like, living here, with people constantly watching? What’s it like being pregnant here, raising children along waterways where strangers have drowned? When I was a new mom, I thought about death constantly. It became my companion, a tortured form of love, a preoccupation that kept real loss at bay. Now I have failed at my most basic job. I didn’t protect my daughter. I didn’t teach her to protect herself. I stare at the pregnant woman, momentarily hating her for all the life she carries, for her ability to ignore me, until she glances over and meets my eye. My legs wobble. My breath leaves me. She looks like Regina. Regina, if she didn’t dye her hair. Regina, if she didn’t have tattoos. Regina, if she were pregnant.
I don’t feel my knees buckle, but the burn radiates through my right leg, my bad knee, as I hit the cement walkway. I put my hands on my thighs, lean in to the pain, and breathe.
Vaguely, I hear someone ask if I’m okay. A hand rests softly on my shoulder. I see the pregnant woman standing above me, her friend a few feet behind her, equally concerned. Now that she’s closer, she has only a passing resemblance to Regina. They look no more like each other than any two short blond women, which LA has in spades.
“Let me get you some ice,” the pregnant woman says. She motions to her friend, who says “I’ve got it” and disappears into the pregnant woman’s house.
“Here.” The pregnant woman holds out her hand. Her nails are trimmed and buffed, painted cream, when Regina’s were always sparkly black or blue. She’s prettier than my Regina, or maybe just posher, even with limp hair and eyes engulfed in dark circles. I let her help me up.
Upright, I wave and scurry away, embarrassed that I’ve caused a scene. My knee throbs with every step.
“What about the ice?” she shouts once I’m halfway down the block.
“Thank you.” I wave behind me, focusing on the pathway ahead. Every nerve is telling me to run away from this woman.
Chapter Seven
Tessa
As the older woman limps away, I feel a rope tethering us, its tension slackening as she disappears. She wasn’t emotionally unstable or delusional, only unsteady on her feet. Although it isn’t the same as being pregnant, I understood her—how your body betrays you, makes you vulnerable to strangers in ways you don’t want to be.
