Selena decided to extend her stay with Whitney indefinitely. Mom thought Selena’s ongoing absence was due to lack of support from her and Dad with Gavin and Nashville, an assumption I was in no position to disabuse her of.
“I think my room was just getting a little crowded,” I told her on Tuesday while school was canceled due to a power outage. We were grocery shopping, a task that she positively loathed and always needed company to complete. “She doesn’t have to share a bed at Whitney’s.”
Mom was scowling as she turned down the cereal aisle, her flip-flops slapping on the worn linoleum behind her. “She doesn’t come to the game, and she’s suddenly working double shifts and can’t come to dinner.” Mom shook her head. “This is about more than a bed.”
I added a box of my favorite cereal to the cart, tugging the front of it along behind me until Mom’s resistance on the other end stopped me. I looked back.
“Forget something?”
I stared blankly at her.
“Your dad’s Raisin Bran?”
With half a nod, I knocked another box in the cart.
“Well, you’ve talked to her. What did she say?”
I shrugged, randomly adding nonlist items to our cart. I wasn’t paying attention to which aisles we turned down, grabbing whatever Mom directed and continuing to make noncommittal responses to her questions, until the cart not-so-gently hit my back and pitched me forward a few jerky steps.
“Mom!”
“Oh, are you alive? You’ve been shuffling along like a zombie since the canned-goods aisle. You’re supposed to make grocery shopping less soul sucking, not more. Between your moping and Selena’s absence, I’m starting to question my mothering skills.”
“Me too. Maybe don’t ram your kids with grocery carts.” I rubbed the small of my back for emphasis.
“This is the most alive you’ve been in days, weeks. Dana, is something wrong? You know you can tell me anything.” She shifted from the somewhat playful tone to something more earnest. “Even if you think I’ll be upset, I want you to know you can come to me.”
I found myself wanting to believe she meant even something as horrible as Dad cheating and fathering a child. That I could talk to her about Brandon the way I’d always been able to talk to her about anything. That she could fight her way through all that and somehow still love him enough to grieve over the son he never knew. And maybe she could, but not without me and Sel there with her.
“I’m sorry, Mom. School and softball have been a lot lately.” When she didn’t nod at my feeble excuse, I gave her something a little closer to the truth. “And Selena and I got into this fight. That’s the real reason she’s staying over at Whitney’s.”
Mom shot a hand toward me. “And were either of you going to tell me this? You know you could have said something.” The cart started moving again, and I relaxed, knowing she was accepting my half-truth. “Do I want to know what the fight was about?”
“No,” I said, turning away from her. “You really don’t.”
Mom sighed. “And as long as you work it out before tomorrow night, I won’t say another word.” She picked up two boxes of cake mix from the shelf.
“What’s tomorrow night?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Now help me pick.” She turned the boxes toward me. “Chocolate or yellow? He changes his mind every year.”
Sweat prickled at my neck as I looked at them.
She tossed them both in the cart. “We’ll do one of those swirl cakes,mármol—what is the word in English?”
“Marble.” My steps slowed to a halt as she continued down the aisle to grab frosting and birthday candles.
Thursday was Dad’s birthday. We always had a family dinner just the four of us. From the moment Nick had told me about his DNA test results, I’d been dreaming of that dinner and the look on his face when I gave him my gift and told him I’d found a family member of his. Finding Brandon had consumed me so entirely that I’d forgotten why I’d gone looking for Dad’s relatives in the first place. I’d forgotten about his birthday and the fact that I no longer had a gift for him, but something much more horrible for all of us.
I pulled out my phone and read the last text I’d sent to Selena.
Me: Please talk to me.
That was two days ago and she still hadn’t responded.
Mom was right about my being a zombie lately. I’d felt even less alive since that night at Lava Java. I missed Chase. I had no right to miss him, but I did. And I missed him forhim, not because of what I could learn from him. He was a channel of information that had been cut off, and I wouldn’t have cared if I could still see him.
Brandon remained a distant figure. I was no closer to him than I’d ever been, but knowing I’d wasted my one real opportunity to forge a relationship with him was more devastating than I could have imagined. In the span of two months, I’d gone from cursing his existence to mourning his loss. But as often as my thoughts strayed to Chase and Brandon, the absence I felt most acutely was Selena’s.
