Now…well, now I was persona non grata in a big way. I was exactly what Linden accused me of being. Everything was an engineered moment, a sound bite, a photo op. Always a political maneuver.
I had a run-down old house which I couldn't afford to repair. Not the big stuff, anyway. If it was only a matter of ripping up the shag carpets and tearing out the weird cabinets, I'd have this locked down. But I couldn't rewire a house or replace turn-of-the-century plumbing.
It was a mess but it wasn't like I could go home. No, home was nothing like Hogwarts—help wasn't granted to those who asked.
Even if I did return to Georgia, my pride and principles slashed and burned, it wouldn't make anything better. I'd get the same old bullshit as always, the same toxic stories about where I belonged, what was good for me, what I deserved, and the same trap of shame and powerlessness.
That place was like falling down a well. I could always see the light but it didn't matter because I'd already screamed myself hoarse and worn my fingers down to the bone trying to climb out.
Home wouldn't help. Even if I was allowed to stay there rent-free—doubtful—I'd be endlessly crucified for everything I'd done since leaving there almost twenty years ago.
Earning a college degree? Elitist.
Working for a progressive candidate? Baby-killing devil worshipper.
Moving to D.C., sharing a bed with a man before marriage? Harlot. I refused to repeat the word they'd use if they knew I'd also shared a bed with a woman before marriage.
Bad-mouthing that candidate's lactose intolerance on live television? Shrew.
That last one though…I wouldn't be able to fight that.
Home wasn't an option, and that was an ancient ache but it didn't trouble me. I'd solved that problem ages ago. There was no sense being sad about it now.
Selling Midge's house was an option. Even in this condition, the market was ripe enough to leave me with enough cash to get through a few years without a paycheck. If I played it right and made the place look a little less like a forgotten fallout shelter and more like an exciting fixer-upper opportunity, I'd walk away with enough money to reinvent myself.
All I had to do was bide my time and keep my ear on things, and I'd have my choice of campaign gigs.
That sounded fantastic but it also required me to sell the house. To hand it over to someone else and never return again. I wasn't sure I could do that. I wasn't sure I wanted to. It had taken me two years and a personal disaster to acknowledge Midge's death in a real way. Selling her house meant accepting it and I was nowhere near prepared for that.
Hell, I teared up every time I found another Country Crock tub filled with expired coupons or buttons or matches from restaurants she'd visited back when matches were still viable swag. I shed a tear or two when I ripped out the raspberry carpet in her bedroom, which she'd loved and treasured to no end, and again when I found a load of her navy blue nylon knee socks in the dryer, cold and waiting all this time to be paired. I cackled and cried over the boxes of All-Bran in her cupboards and the coffee can of Allen wrenches labeled L-shape things under the kitchen sink. And I didn't think I could stay in my skin after discovering the plastic bag filled with all the Mother's Day cards I'd sent her over the years, from the crayon-scrawled homemade ones to the drugstore For a Special Aunt variety as I grew up. There were Christmas and birthday cards in there too, and photos my mother must've sent from graduations and other celebrations.
I couldn't walk away from the only safe space I'd ever known, from Midge.
There was no solution to this problem for me, no amount of get-it-done to get this particular task done. I couldn't fix this, and that realization, more than the home I couldn't return to and the aunt I couldn't say goodbye to and the gut-punch email I'd ignored for nine days, knocked the air out of me.
7
Linden
Well, I was an asshole.
I'd known it when I stomped up those basement stairs. Known it when I cleaned up the mess from the broken box. Known it when I'd hopped in my truck and drove to the liquor store forty-five minutes away, the one that stocked the good white ale from Clown Shoes Brewery. And I knew it when I looked out my kitchen window and caught sight of Jasper sitting on her back porch, her shoulders shaking in the unmistakable shudder that accompanied sobs.
That was my fault. All my damn fault.
I didn't stop to think. I hooked my fingers around the beers and made a beeline across the backyard. I didn't know what I was going to say but I knew I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't do it earlier today, I couldn't do it now. And maybe that meant I was all the things Jasper accused me of being. Maybe I was a terrible neighbor. But I couldn't sit back and watch her cry out here, all alone.
She sat on the edge of the porch, her legs folded in front of her and one arm banded over her waist while she kneaded her forehead with the other hand. Loud, hiccupping sobs filled the night air—and made my arrival more stealthy than I'd intended.
I had to announce myself. It was that or wait until her tears slowed enough to notice me here, standing sentry to her meltdown.
Couldn't do that either. I couldn't just be here, I had to do something.
What the literal fuck was wrong with me? For real. What the fuck.
I set the beer down on the porch's battered floor, hard enough to grab her attention. "Hey, Jasper." I snagged a folded bandana from my back pocket and held it out to her as she lifted her head. "Sorry about, you know, everything."
She plucked the bandana from me and pressed it to her face. "Oh my god. Linden, seriously, I can't right now."
"I'm not—"
"Can we do this tomorrow? Please?"
I shook my head. "I'm trying to tell you—"
"I can't fight with you tonight and I can't just sit here and take it while you yell at me either."
I sank down beside her. "Would you shut up for a minute?" She sniffled. "I brought beer."
She dropped the bandana, just enough to eye the quartet of tall cans. Her brows lifted before she resumed mopping her face. A time that bordered on painfully long passed with only the sounds of early night mingled with her sniffles and shuddered breaths between us. It was a warm evening for this point in September, the breeze mild and dry. Hoots and calls echoed from the forest.
Then, "I have wine." Jasper held up an unopened bottle. "I don't need your beer."
"When did I say I was sharing any with you? I just said I brought it."
This pulled a splashy, hiccupping laugh from Jasper. "I can live with that. If you'd brought a cheese plate and refused to share, things might be different."
"That's your end zone? A cheese plate?"
"Oh, yeah. I'd fight you for that." She patted the porch floor, its paint nothing more than a faded suggestion of color now. "No one sits on my ramshackle porch without sharing their cheese with me."
I cast a glance over the structure, its wood planks rotted in some spots, warped and jutting up from the surface at others. "Goddamn, this place is one problem child after another."
Her shoulders shook as she pressed the cloth to her eyes again but her sobs seemed to mingle with laughter this time. "It's like you're physically incapable of keeping these observations to yourself, Linden." She glanced over at me. "Like, for once, do you think you could not call out my shit? Just once?"