She grips the edge of the desk, steadying herself. “I told him if he wasn’t clean, not to come back. Emmy, I kicked him out.”
I can feel the remains of my lunch crawling back out of my stomach. I feel so angry I want to break something. I clamp my jaw, breathe through my nose until I can speak again.
“So Dad picked heroin over us?”
“Well, that’s not really how it works.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Look, if he didn’t have to be on the road all the time and if he wasn’t in constant pain, he might have had a better chance at getting clean. I know he tried. I know how much he hated himself at the end for leaving us.”
“How do you know that?”
Now Mom starts to cry. I go to put my arms around her, but she puts her hand out to stop me, covers her mouth. Gathers herself.
“You have to know how much he loved you, Emmy. You were his everything. He just wanted to protect you, that’s all. And so did I.”
I hear what she’s saying, but I’m not quite there in the room anymore. I’m not in Beleriand, either, though I wish I was. Instead I’m somewhere in the ’80s, listening to this story my father used to tell about riding his horse through the ghost town at the bottom of Round Valley Reservoir. He and his friends used to hang out there when he was a kid, before they filled it in with water. He watched them raze all the deserted buildings, and I’m not sure why I’m thinking about that right now, but as I do, I start to feel a trickle of something in my mind. It gradually grows until I start to feel that hole carved out of me by my father’s death, that endless, empty cavern starting to fill. It fills all the way up with sorrow like I imagine Round Valley filling when the river was turned loose. My mother’s arms are around me and now, years after the fact, I am finally crying. Crying for my dad. I hate crying so much, but I can tell you, this is one of those situations where late truly is better than never.
***
On Sunday morning, I’m staring like a stoned zombie into my coffee. The usual early buzz at Neubies, the clattering pots, the caffeinated chatter, the regretful faces of hungover locals, isn’t loud or distracting enough to get me out of my own head, unfortunately. All kinds of thoughts swirl around as I sit there, most of them dark and surly and full of regret. I didn’t even feel like leaving the house, but if Sonia is getting me a job here, then I need to talk to the manager, and I definitely need a job.
Otherwise, Neubies is the very last place I’d be because of how much it reminds me of Travis. Being here, just thinking of him ordering black coffee and an omelet, is pretty much hell. New Brunswick just isn’t the same without him, and neither am I. I really miss being mad at him, because this relentless longing and self-loathing combination I have going on sucks more than I can say.
From the corner of my eye, I notice someone moving towards me and my heart stops for a second. The shadow of that someone darkens my table and by the high lace-up Doc Martens I know it’s not Travis, but my stomach flips and all the color drains from my face anyway.
Because it’s Millie.
She taps her boot, clears her throat in that “ahem, dickface” sort of way. I glance up.
“Mi—”
“No, no, I get to go first.” She jumps down my throat the second I open my mouth. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Yes?” She stares, her eye daggers unrelenting, so I guess that’s not a good enough answer. I sigh, take another sip of coffee. “What do you want me to say, Millie?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were with Bean?”
I bristle. I know Travis and I aren’t even on speaking terms right now, but fuck, that is my name for him. Not hers. Not anybody else’s.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“No, it isn’t,” she says. “It’s actually quite simple. When I tell you I’m into him, you tell me you’re together. You know? The truth. Jerk.”
“We weren’t technically together,” I say.
“Come on, Emmy,” she says. “I talked to Travis.”
“When?” I grit my teeth because I still do not like the