Jake and Blue have been together, expressed any disapproval of their dysfunctional dynamic.
“Mum . . .” he starts. But he’s whining and Laurel cannot possibly listen to her adult son whining, not now, not when everything is going so well, not when she’s finally, finally happy.
“No, Jake. I’m sorry, I know she’s your girlfriend and the center of your universe and I know you really, really love her. She’s your rock; I get that. But I have been sad for so long and broken for so long and finally I have something good, something special, and I am not having you and your whacko girlfriend tell me that it’s wrong. Dad liked him and Hanna liked him and that is more than enough for me.”
“I’m sorry, Mum,” says Jake.
But she can still hear the whine in his voice and she can’t stand it and so she says, in a very quiet voice, “I’m going now, Jake. I’m going to hang up. Tell Blue that I know she means well but that I don’t want to hear any more of her outlandish theories.”
She’s shaking when she hangs up and she feels nauseous. She grabs her wineglass and takes a huge gulp. She should phone Floyd back, but she can’t. What would she say? Oh, my son’s partner just told me that she thinks you’ve got a dark aura and now I’m too upset to have jokey conversations about cardigans with you?
So she sits instead and for an hour she slowly and deliberately works her way through her wine until her hands have stopped shaking enough to send Floyd a text: Sorry about that. Jake had lots to say and now I’m tired and heading for bed. I will be wearing gray jersey pajamas. They’re relatively old.
His reply arrives a few seconds later: That will give me plenty of food for thought to get me through the night. Sleep tight my perfect girl. Speak tomorrow x.
She turns off her phone, switches on the TV, finds something mindless to watch, and pours herself another glass of wine. For an hour at least she coasts through oblivion, feeling sweet numbness spread over her like a heavy cloak. Then when she feels nothing at all, she finally goes to bed.
“Oh,” says Laurel, coming into the kitchen at Floyd’s house the following evening. “Hi, SJ. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
SJ is standing at the sink, a pint glass of water in her hand. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she says. “Me and Mum had a big fight last night.” She shrugs, rests her left foot against her right foot and then the right against the left. She’s wearing a black lace top with black joggers and scuffed silver tennis shoes. A constellation of hoops and drops glitters at her earlobes. She reminds Laurel of one of the fairies in a book she used to read to the children when they were small. The fairy was called Silvermist and had silver hair and silver lips and was always dressed in black. It was a sad fairy. Androgynous. It had secrets.
Floyd comes in after Laurel and sighs. “To be fair,” he says, as though Laurel had said something, “it has been a very long time since Kate and SJ fell out.”
“We haven’t fallen out,” SJ snaps.
“Well, had a fight, whatever.”
“What did you fight about?” asks Laurel. “I mean you don’t have to tell me, obviously . . .”
Sara-Jade casts her long-lashed gaze to the floor and says, “She doesn’t like my new boyfriend.”
Floyd makes a strange noise behind Laurel and she turns to give him a questioning look.
“He’s forty-nine,” SJ says.
Floyd makes another noise and looks pointedly from Sara-Jade to Laurel and back again.
“He’s married,” says Sara-Jade. “Well, sort of married. In a long-term relationship.”
“Oh,” says Laurel, wishing she hadn’t asked.
“He has four children. The youngest is eight.”
“Oh,” says Laurel again.
“I’ve told her not to come here expecting validation or exemption from the usual rules of human decency.”
“No,” says Laurel. “No. I . . .” She tries and fails to find somewhere to bring her gaze to rest.
And then SJ starts crying and runs from the room, her thin arms bunched together in front of her chest.
Laurel looks from the door to Floyd and back again.
“You can go after her if you like,” he says to her, slowly and calmly. “I’ve said all I’ve got to say on the subject.”
Laurel looks away from Floyd and toward the hallway. SJ is brittle, like Hanna, but Hanna