“I have some things to tell you, Mother.” Stella’s chest heaves with a deep breath.
“No—how is Daddy? No—how is home? Just right to it, huh?” Rebecca says.
“Yes,” Stella says, unfazed by her mother’s reproach. “Right to it. Because it’s all long overdue. Because it’s about time I’ve gottenright to it.”
Stella steps into our house and I follow.
“Mom,” Stella says, tossing her purse onto our couch while never wavering from staring into the phone. “I was fired.”
I cough.Did she just say?—
“I thought you didn’t have a job yet. Roman said you were commissioned to do some work but not an actual?—”
“No,” Stella says, stomping one foot—though the action is lost on Rebecca. “From Clay & Crescent. I didn’t leave them to move in with Roman. I was fired for being too… creative. For changing the uniform designs they’d asked me to work on.”
“Stella, what are you doing?” I hiss, but the woman doesn’t look at me.
She flops herself onto the couch, next to her tossed away purse and kicks off her shoes.
“The day I got fired I was feeling a little flustered. My boss had asked to speak to me. And I knew she wasn’t happy. That morning, I accidentally put regular dish soap in my dishwasher.”
“Oh, dearest. You can’t do that. It’ll ruin your dishwasher.”
“It did,” Stella says. “It caused some insane malfunctioning, and the machine flooded my house.”
I stand back, watching Rebecca over Stella’s shoulder. Her face contorts and she gasps. “Your pretty little cottage?—”
“I didn’t end my housing contract early to move in with Roman.” Stella hiccups, but she isn’t finished yet. “I was evicted.”
“Evicted?” Rebecca brushes two fingertips to her forehead. “Oh dear.”
“Yes, evicted,” Stella says. “When you called me all those weeks ago, when I was at Willow’s, and you asked me about a slumber party. I was staying there. I was homeless.”
“But why wouldn’t you have just gone to Roman’s?”Rebecca asks. It’s like the woman is asking for more bad news. Don’t ask Mrs. E—if you don’t ask, she might not tell.
But then, Stella might be on a suicide mission. She’s telling. Everything.
“I went to one of Roman’s games, the beginning of November. Until then, I hadn’t seen Roman in nine years. Same as you and Dad.”
“No. That can’t be right.” Rebecca shakes her head, her eyes looking past her daughter to me—lingering in the background. “Roman?”
What else can I do? I give one simple nod, confirming Stella’s truth.
“That was only two months ago,” Rebecca says.
“Not even,” Stella says. “Oh, and you probably don’t remember but that piece I spent months on—my Spiral Song vase.”
“The one nominated for that award,” Rebecca says.
Stella’s face shows signs of life with her mother’s recollection. “Yes. That one. It broke in the flood and never made it to judging.”
“Can we go back to Roman?” Rebecca says, her face somber with bomb shell after bomb shell. “Are you or are you not married?”
“I am.”
Rebecca’s brows knit. She studies her daughter through that four-inch screen. “And was it a drunken night, like you said?”
“No,” Stella confesses. “No drunken night.”
