“I should get to bed,” she says.“I’m working in the morning.You want help pulling out the sofa?”
I consider the couch for a moment, but I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to do anything less than pull out a sofa bed right now.
“I’ll just sleep on it,” I say.
“Cool,” she says, and points at a chair.“Sheets and shit.Night, Minty.”
“Night, Shay-shay.”
When she was little, she couldn’t say her own name, and it stuck.She sticks her tongue out at me, then heads into her bedroom.
I manage to brush my teeth and wash my face like an adult human before collapsing back onto the sofa, haphazardly wrapping myself in sheets and rolling onto my side.Then I try to fall asleep, but I can’t.
My parents’ divorce makes everything feel like it’s turned upside-down.Suddenly, I’m the adult here, the one who’s handling things maturely, and it’s bizarre.When you’re a kid, it’s normal to see your parents as a unit, so suddenly seeing them separate is strange, to say the least.
Especiallywhen you’re an adult yourself.Once you’re past a certain age, you just assume your parents are stuck together.And then, one day, they’re not.
Maybe nothing lasts, I think, feeling very dramatic.Maybe there’s no real love.Maybe everyone winds up alone and miserable either way, married or divorced or whatever.
I burrow harder into the couch, trying to make myself fall asleep.
Just bang Hunter,I think, half-asleep and drunk.You want to.If it goes bad it can’t be worse than last time, right?
Drunk me has a point.
My momand I go shopping for stuff to replace everything my dad took.There aren’t all that many stores in Ashlake, so I don’tthinkit’s going to take all that long, but I’d forgotten that my mom is legendarily indecisive.
Somehow, we debate between two different plate sets for twenty minutes.That’s not that bad, except they’re both white, and the patterns are barely different.
“I just wonder if it won’t be unpleasant to scrape a fork along this one,” she says, rubbing the slightly raised design with one finger.“Don’t you think it’ll be a little weird, Minty?”
“Get the other one, then,” I say, my patience wearing thin.
“But I do like this pattern,” she says.“I think it’s really nice, and it’s kind of a contrast to the pieces we already have.”
“I don’t think the fork scraping is a big deal,” I say.
She just looks at the plates again.
I’m getting annoyed, and I have to fight the urge to sayis your lover gonna be eating off these or something?but I know better.
Lord, do I ever know better.
I know her choices have nothing to do with me, and I don’t want to be mad at her.I’m pretty sure people can be complex enough to cheat on their spouses and still love their kids.
But I definitely feel some kind of way about it, and I’m having a hard time acting normal around her, knowing what I know.Knowing that she was married for almost thirty years, and then she justdidthat.
I guess no one’s ever safe,I think.You think things are fine, and then bam.
My mom takes a couple steps away and starts looking at different plates.
“These blue ones do add an exciting pop of color,” she says.
I grit my teeth and follow her.
ChapterTen
Hunter
