By the time we park, my heart’s beating so fast I can feel it all over my body.
At the door, I show the guy my license and follow them inside. It’s hard to make out faces. My sister and her friends slip into a booth and I walk over to the bar and squeeze between two guys. The bar is busy and the men talk over me. I can feel them checking me out, assessing my body. I wait, holding up my credit card, as they talk about a model one of them used to date. I could turn to the fat one and grab him by the neck. I could reach into my purse for my mace and test it out, as I’ve been wanting to do for so long. If I had a gun, it’d be the same thing. I’d want to shoot somebody. Something would need to happen. I glance over at my sister and her friends and they’re all hair and eyes and teeth. One of the guys swivels on his stool, brushing his arm against my chest, and I turn and walk out. I don’t look at the door guy. I stand at the curb and lift my arm; my sweater slips down, exposing a slim wrist. I’ve never been so thin, not even as a teenager. I can see how bones could become a problem. They knock so pleasantly against counters, dig into the mattress while you sleep.
I’m nervous that my sister will find me before a cab pulls up, that the door guy is wondering what’s wrong with me, but then a cab pulls up and I’m settling into the backseat. I feel so much relief I want to tell the man to take me somewhere other than home, but I give him my address and ask him questions, engage him in the conversation he seems so desperate to have. He’s from Ghana. His family is still at home. He sends money, visits once every three years because the flight is so expensive. Hearing about his life makes me want to appreciate mine. He’s alone in a foreign country, speaking a foreign tongue, having the same conversation over and over with people who don’t care.
When he pulls up to my house, I tip him ten dollars and he gives me his card, which I leave on the backseat.
From bed, with my cat on my legs, I call my mother. She picks up on the first ring. As soon as I hear her voice, I regret it.
“I was worried about you,” she says.
“Did you think I might be dead?”
“No, of course not. Why would I think that? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know. I was kidding.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while. And then she says, “How are things with Beth?”
“They’re fine,” I say, wondering whether my sister has talked to her, what she’s said. They talk all the time. My sister only pretends like our mother gets on her nerves. It’s one of the things that make her likeable; she always acts like she can relate. And now they have a wedding to plan. It’ll be a destination wedding, I bet, and a flight will be required. The last time I flew, I was seated next to an obese woman who spilled over onto my side. Her arms were covered in some kind of scabs. She was very nice, asking me questions and offering me things so I wouldn’t complain, and I didn’t, but when I got up to use the bathroom, I found another seat. After a few minutes, the woman turned to look for me. She squinted and pointed like I had wronged her horribly.
My mother asks what we’ve done, who we’ve seen—questions that are simple and unobtrusive and yet I don’t want to answer them. I feel like a child, hiding in my bedroom and hating everyone from behind my closed door. I had no reason to hate them; my family always went way out of their way to make sure I felt included. They let me decide where we went for dinner, what movies we rented, but these things only made me feel like more of a stranger.
“Do you need me to come out there?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “Why would I need you to come out here?”
“To help you get settled.”
“I am settled.”
“I could help you decorate.”
“I already did that, Mom. You know I already did that.”
“I just miss you, is all,” she says, after a pause, and I tell her I miss her, too. I wonder whether she really loves me, if she’s had to fake it over the years. I haven’t been easy to love and it’s not the kind of not-easy-to-love that makes people love you more. I tell her she’s welcome to visit, but I don’t need her help. The cat climbs up my chest and peers into my face. She has such big pretty eyes: bright green, too close together. She begins to purr, a low rumble that grows and grows and I scratch her head, the place where her tail meets her body; the hair comes out in tufts.
“How’s Dad?” I ask. My father is on a weight loss diet through the hospital. He has two shakes a day and a small dinner at night and the food comes in boxes and powders.
“He’s lost twenty-four pounds,” she says. “The doctor took him off some of his medication.”
“That’s great.”
“He’s looking so good. He only cheats when we go to the movie.”
“That’s great,” I say again, and it is. My father is doing something that none of us thought he could do. He’s changing his life long after he seemed to have given up. Even he thought he would fail.
“I have to go,” I say. “There’s someone at the door.”
“Look through the peephole first,” my mother warns.
“I will. Beth probably forgot her key.”
We hang up and I try to rearrange myself without disturbing the cat. If I move too much, she’ll leave. I take off her collar, pulling apart the clasp, so she doesn’t jangle all night and keep me awake. She paws at it lazily as I place it on the table. Then I close my eyes and pray, which is something I do every night. It’s a habit, like so many things, but mostly I keep praying because something bad will happen if I stop. I say “Hail Mary” after “Hail Mary,” which I prefer to the “Our Father.” I remember the Protestants growing up, how they accused me of worshiping a false God. I would explain that I wasn’t praying to Mary, but asking her to intercede on my behalf, though I wasn’t sure I knew what the difference was and the Protestants were never swayed, not one bit.