Win for Love

by Isabelle Peterson

  “Well, this…” I say, digging out the envelope from my purse, “… will confirm the whole Jimmy Goodman part.”

  “What are you waiting for? Open it!”

  “What if it says Jimmy’s not my dad? And I’ve gotten my hopes up for nothing? And his? You should have seen how happy he was when we went for the test and then ice cream later. What if I was wrong?”

  Lainey puts her hand out. “Want me to do it?”

  I almost let her open it but decide to put on my big girl panties and do it myself.

  I tear open the envelope. “Should I wait for David? I mean, he was the first person I told. He helped me talk to Jimmy. And I should probably do this with Jimmy.”

  “Maybe. Your call. But I don’t know how you didn’t tear that envelope open at the post office.”

  “I know, right?” I laugh with her. It feels good to laugh. And who knows, with what’s in this envelope, I might not laugh again for a very long time.

  Just then, my cell phone rings. I glance at the screen and see it’s David.

  “Well, speaking of the devil,” I say, answering the call.

  “All good stuff, I hope,” he says back, a smile in his tone.

  “Um, I dunno. I just got the results from the lab.”

  “And… What does it say?” he asks tentatively.

  “I haven’t read it yet.”

  “Perfect. Can you wait for two minutes? Jimmy and I are almost at your place.”

  “You are?” I ask. “Why?”

  Is that a good thing? Does he know what the results are? Is it bad? He knows how high I’ve gotten my hopes up, and does he want to be here to console me?

  “Hey, you still there?”

  “Yeah,” I say trying to sound light, not like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. “Lainey and I can wait.”

  “Lainey’s there?”

  “Yeah. And… I… I filled her in.”

  “Good,” he says gently. I can hear the smile in his voice. It almost makes me smile. “I’ll be there in one minute.”

  “That was David,” I tell Lainey as I hang up the phone. “He and Jimmy are almost here. He knows the results are in.”

  Lainey must have read my face and puts a hand on my knee. “It’ll be okay, no matter the results,” she assures me.

  I know she’s right, but over the past couple of days, I’ve let my hopes take over. I like Jimmy. He’s a good man… Haha, I laugh to myself. Good man. Goodman. How appropriate.

  I’m paralyzed to the spot. My fingers are hot and tingly with the fear of what’s in the envelope, and my eyes are unable to shift from the paper as if they are trying to read through it. This envelope holds the answer to a question I’ve had my whole life. Is it the key to my happiness? If Jimmy is my father, then what? We’re too late for daddy-daughter dances, right? He won’t be able to teach me to ride a bike. And what if Jimmy’s not my father? Will I keep looking? Or can I go back to my blissful little bubble and not really care about finding my father? It’s information I’d given up on knowing more than ten years ago. And will he still be so willing with the ‘scholarship.’

  I’m so wrapped up in my barrage of questions and no answers that I don’t even hear the concierge phone ring, nor Lainey answering the call and letting David and Jimmy in my front door.

  “Hey,” David’s comforting voice says off in the distance. I feel myself relax a bit when his arm wraps around my shoulder as he takes a seat next to me and kisses my temple.

  Next, Jimmy pulls me up into his arms. I take a deep breath.

  “Shall we open it?” Jimmy asks, pulling his own envelope from his coat pocket.

  I step back and look into his comforting blue eyes.

  “Well, I don’t care what those papers say,” Lainey blurts looking at me and Jimmy. “You two are definitely related.”

  I laugh and introduce Lainey and Jimmy, and then we all take seats with Jimmy on my left and David on my right.

  I show Jimmy where I started peeling at the flap but nothing more.

  “What are we waiting for?” he asks.

  David rubs his hand up and down my back comfortingly.

  “I—I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know.”

  “Of course, you do, honey,” Lainey implores. “Knowledge is power.”

  “Open it,” David whispers.

  Jimmy takes the envelope and opens it for us both.

  I look over at the papers in Jimmy’s trembling hands. The first sheet is a form cover letter explaining jargon like alleles and genetic markers, how the samples are compared, and a brief explanation of ‘EXCLUDED’ and ‘NOT EXCLUDED’ and percentage of probability. He turns to the second page and I see a grid with three columns—‘Genetic Marker Tested,’ ‘CHILD,’ and ‘ALLEGED FATHER.’

  Seeing the term ‘ALLEGED FATHER’ has my heart pounding.

  I’m afraid to look under the columns.

  Doubt and fear have me shutting my eyes.

  “What does it say?” Lainey asks.

  I open my eyes to find Lainey grinning and wide-eyed. I turn to see Jimmy handing David a cigar with a pink bow.

  “Wait,” I say, totally confused. “What does it say?” I ask, grabbing the papers from Jimmy.

  David says calmly, “Jimmy’s your father.”

  Jimmy scoops me into his giant embrace, and I start crying.

  I don’t know why. The tears just stream down my face. I’m so emotional I hardly know what to do.

  “Talia? Hey, are you okay?” Jimmy asks, fatherly concern crinkling his forehead.

  “I have a dad,” is all I can say.

  Jimmy scoops me in his arms again and hugs me so tightly that if I could breathe at that moment, I wouldn’t be able to. I. Have. A. Dad.

  “I knew it! I just knew it!” Jimmy’s bright blue eyes are shimmering with tears, and he’s grinning so enormously that I’m almost afraid his face might crack. “I can’t wait to tell Deb, but she knew it, too. Dinner. Tonight. Okay? Lainey, would you like to come?”

  “Oh, thanks, but it’s Lance’s night off from performing, so we were just gonna hang out. You go be a family,” she says, grinning just as huge as Jimmy.

  Jimmy nods and rattles off some details about dinner with Deb and David’s parents. He hugs me again and kisses my forehead, and I feel totally disoriented.

  When Jimmy leaves, I try and figure out my feelings, but I’m so confused.

  This should be a good thing. A very good thing. But somehow, right now, all I can think about is my mom. How will she handle this information? Jimmy has done well. Very well. How will she be when she learns?

  I’ve been thinking about her a lot over the past couple of weeks.

  “Guys,” I say to Lainey and David, "I need to call my mom.”

  “Sure, hon,” David says, a kiss to the top of my head.

  I grab my cell phone and head into my bedroom without a clue of what I'm going to say to my mother.

  The phone rings a few times, and I’m preparing to leave a voice mail when the call connects. My stomach drops when she doesn’t say anything.

  “Hi? Mom?” I say tentatively.

  “Ooohhh, Gryztalll-baybeee,” she slurs into the phone.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I know this voice. She’s… no, she can’t be!

  “Mom? Are you okay?” I don’t know why I ask the question. I know the answer. She’s drunk.

  34

  The Ugly Truth

  CRYSTAL

  Before I can fully process what’s happened, I’m on the roof of the business building David’s family owns and runs their business from. I'm being strapped into a seat of a helicopter with giant headphones to cover my ears with a microphone attached so I can communicate and receive communications from Chip and David. Chip, who apparently drives more than cars, is running down safety information as though I’m able to focus on a single word he’s saying. All of my thoughts are with my mother. Hearing her so clearly drunk, and only a week
shy of her sixty-days of sobriety is soul crushing. Just as everything was looking up, I get slammed back down.

  David and I don’t talk much, he just sits next to me, his hand wrapped around mine as he supports me silently. He lets me talk when I want to and lets me be silent when I want. When I do talk, mostly it’s just that I’m so crushed about my mother’s situation. I wonder what triggered this latest bout. It can’t just be that it was a bad week. Sure, it’s Friday, but she’s been through many Fridays so far. Were my questions earlier last week about Jimmy her undoing? Did she learn about me and my winnings and that I left her behind?

  The bus ride that took more than seven hours when I first came to Chicago is only a mere two hours by helicopter. When we land, there’s a rental car waiting for us, and after I give Chip my old home address, we’re on the road. It’s almost eight at night, but it’s still light enough. Pulling into the trailer park, things looks worse than I remember, but maybe that’s because I’ve been in Chicago and in an upscale condo and home for the past couple of months. I’m filled with so many horrible feelings. Fear and dread about my mother’s possible situation. Shame at leaving my mother. And beyond self-conscious about David seeing where I grew up.

  “Lot two-forty?” Chip asks.

  “Two-forty-two,” I squeak, correcting him. “It’s the one on the right.”

  Chip pulls into the lot, and my heart sinks. For as much work as my mom and I had put into sprucing up the place before I left, it seems like it was all for naught. There is a pair of broken lawn chairs in the yard along with a few empty beer bottles, and Mrs. Schwarzkopf’s flowers are mostly withered and dead. The house still looks drab, and the shutter we’d nailed back into place I now see had been secured crooked. Mom’s habit of setting the trash just outside the door instead of bringing it to the dumpster has persisted, and a rodent had gotten into one of the bags, and the garbage has spilled over the three rickety steps.

  David curls his finger under my chin and turns my face toward his, locking eyes with mine. “Breathe, Talia,” David quietly urges.

  We breathe a few breaths together, and I feel myself relax.

  David laces our fingers together and starts to open the car door.

  “No,” I say, gripping his hand. “Please. Stay here. Let me check things out first.”

  “Are you sure? I—”

  “Please.” I can’t bear the idea of him seeing my childhood home. Compared to his homes, he wouldn’t let a dog live in mine. And my mother? No. Just no.

  David studies my face before leaning in and kissing the tip of my nose. I love when he does things like that. So sweet and simple.

  I’ve only been gone ten weeks, but it seems like ten months. Stepping out of the car, the scents that surround me are an assault. I can smell the dumpster just two lots away. I can smell dirt and dog crap. I can’t believe I grew up surrounded by all of this and couldn’t smell it.

  Stepping onto the doorstep, I don’t know what to do. Do I knock? I didn’t tell my mom I was coming. But I grew up here. I should just walk in.

  Suddenly, I hear a crash inside and instinct kicks into gear. I push open the weathered door, bursting in, not much of an idea of what to expect.

  “Mom?” I call stepping into the grimy living room, the smells of the place—my childhood, now a disgusting and pungent stench. In the cold light from the TV with its static reception blasting with the news from St. Louis, the station that comes in the best, is the only illumination in the shabby space. There are dishes, pizza boxes, and garbage all over the place. The seat cushions on the ratty couch are askew, and the lampshade of the floor lamp is bashed in. A pair of inside-out jeans are just next to the door, and I don’t want to know the story there. In short, the place is a disaster. But I don’t see Mom. A banging in the kitchen to the left draws my attention, and I see my mom’s head poke up above the table.

  “Gary?” she croaks.

  “Who’s Gary?”

  “Crystal! Bayyybee!” she croons as she stands and stumbles my way. She practically falls on me in her attempt to give me a hug. The stench of whiskey is radiating from her.

  “Who’s Gary?” I ask again. “Shouldn’t you be calling your sponsor? Candy?”

  “Hey, who’s the motherrr? Bezides, Gary is just a friend. He waz gonna pick me up, and we were gonna hang out, but he’z late!” she says looking at her wrist which doesn’t have a watch. “Whatryou doing here?”

  I walk her to the sofa, ignoring her question. “Where’s Jude?” I ask noticing that he’s mysteriously absent.

  Mom falls eerily quiet.

  “Mom?”

  “He’z not been home all week.”

  “What? Why? Where is he?”

  “He wants to move outta here,” she grunts, jerking her thumb over her shoulder emphatically. “He wants to go to ‘nother town. Not juz that, even out of state. His cellmate moved to Arizona to be with his dad an’ told Jude how it was a good ‘fresh start’ or something like that. Now Jude’s got it in his head to go as soon as his initial probation is over.”

  I watch my mom as she breaks down inside. Tears run down her face, and she looks so lost and sad. I pull her into my arms.

  “Why does everyone always leave me?” she sobs. “Jude’s dad. You. Now Jude…”

  “Hey. Mom, Jude and I… we’re your kids. We’re supposed to grow up and move out. I’m twenty-four. Jude is twenty-eight. We’re ready for our own lives. I can’t say why Alexander left.”

  “Ohhh, Alexanderrr…” she wails at his name, her first husband. Her only husband. I kick myself for bringing him up. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

  She sobs into my shoulder, and I do all I can to get her to calm down. If she gets any more emotional, she’s likely to puke in my lap. I’d held her before when she had cried over his leaving her, and yes, she was plastered then too. But now, the abandonment is so much more because I left. And Jude is talking about leaving.

  “What about Candy?” I ask, trying to change Mom’s thoughts.

  “She’z on vacation. Went to Florida, Disneyland or some shit like that with her grandkids. I can’t call her about my fucked-up life while she’s with Mickey fucking Mouse.”

  “That’s what she’s there for. Or why didn’t you go to a meeting? You were doing so well.”

  The front door creeks open, and David pokes his head around the corner.

  I feel like dying. David’s about to see all my warts. If I thought this place looked and smelled bad after having lived in it for more than twenty years, what would he be thinking? The house and my mom, both trashed, and she’s bawling her eyes out in her drunkenness.

  In my mom’s foggy brain, she hears the door and turns toward the sound. “Jude? Is that you? Are you back?” She wipes at her face with the hem of her filthy t-shirt to mop off the tears and sniffles back the snot buildup in her nose.

  David clears his throat and steps inside. “Um, no ma’am.” He looks at me nervously and mouths, Sorry.

  I pull up my proverbial big girl panties and straighten up. “Mom, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend.” I get up and walk over to stand at his side. David seems bigger in this place than he’s ever seemed before. Must be the low ceiling, I think dryly to myself. “This is David Waterston.”

  My mom squints into the dimly lit space and then reaches to the floor lamp next to the couch. She flips it on then shields her eyes from the sudden harsh lighting. Once her eyes adjust and she catches a glimpse of David, she seems horrified. “Oh my God. I must look a fright!” she says, sounding comical. She picks up the old souvenir cup from Six Flags and drains what was left in it, and judging by the four or five gulps, there was quite a bit left in there. “I’ll be right back.”

  She staggers off to the bathroom. I want to go after her, so she doesn’t fall and crack open her skull, but the door to the bathroom is closed before I can move.

  “I’m sorry,” David apologizes again, this time aloud. “It was several minutes, and I got worried.”

>   I swallow my pride and say, “It’s fine. You had to see this sooner or later.” I flip the wall switch turning on another lamp and sweep my arm carelessly ‘showing off’ the dilapidated living room, dismal dining room, and catastrophic kitchen, all of which could fit into my apartment’s living room, or David’s foyer. “Home sweet home.”

  I try to see the space with David’s fresh view. I’m used to looking at it all, and while it used to bother me as a kid, it’s utterly embarrassing now after my current apartment. I can’t imagine what David is thinking knowing what his childhood home, and his current home, look like. The brown carpeting is worn and matted. The sofa was actually from my mother’s childhood home, a true relic from the early seventies with caved-in spaces from butts and backs. The dining table is equally as old with the finish long rubbed off and multiple rings and stains all over the surface. It’s not even level as one of the feet has a small piece missing under the leg, so it’s propped up with a small thin block of wood. The four chairs that surround the table aren’t a matched set. Two of the chairs match, chrome and yellow vinyl pieces. Of the remaining two, one is a ‘find’ as a discarded wooden chair, and the last is a folding chair, but it at least has a padded seat. The kitchen is the… highlight? Mismatched handles on the cupboards except for the spice cupboard which doesn’t have a door at all. The white oven range is filthy, even worse than what I’d remembered, and has only three of the four electric coils in place. Above the stove, there’s still the scorch mark from several years ago when Jude was trying to cook popcorn and had forgotten the pot of oil on the hot stove. He lifted the lid and Whoosh! Flames. Clear up to the ceiling. Somehow, he had the presence of mind to put the lid back on the pot and tragedy was averted. The countertops are—well, nothing to see because they are completely covered with bottles, boxes, and packages of food that didn’t fit in the cupboards. The sink is overflowing with dirty dishes, and the faucet is dripping. I don’t think there was ever a time when that faucet wasn’t dripping.

  I wonder how I ever lived in this place. Was it as bad as when I lived here, or am I just a snob now?