“Oh, I couldn’t. I—”
“Why couldn’t you? It’s just going to be me and the boys, and they’ll be zonked by nine. We’ll order Chinese from Lotus and get sloppy on chardonnay.” She paused, grinning. “Okay, I’ll get sloppy on chardonnay, and you’ll get buzzed on sweet tea, and we’ll drool over the adorable but sadly unavailable Anderson Cooper. It’ll be fun! Certainly better than working on café menus. And you can finally meet my little guys. Say you’ll come.”
“All right,” she said grudgingly. “But only because you said there’ll be guys there.”
And because it was better than her inevitable New Year’s Eve stroll down memory lane.
FOURTEEN
Monck’s Corner, South Carolina
January 1, 1998
Christy-Lynn sits up, blinking heavily in the flickering blue gloom of the living room. The TV is on, the sound turned down. It’s how she falls asleep most nights, curled up on the faux leather couch, in case her mother comes home in rough shape and needs help getting to bed.
Her eyes are still gritty from sleep. She scrubs at them, then pushes the hair off her face. On the screen, revelers in paper hats are swapping kisses amid a shower of confetti and balloons, a replay she realizes, as the scene cuts away to similar shots from around the world. The New Year has arrived. Not that much will change. At least not for the better.
What would it be like, she wonders, to be in the midst of all that excitement—to actually feel like there was something to celebrate? To have the kind of life where there were things to plan instead of things to dread. She’s so very tired of the dread. Of the disappointments and the small daily disasters. Pots left to boil dry on the stove. Cigarette burns on the sheets. Rent money vanishing into thin air. Another lost job. Followed by another. And the excuses. She’s heard them all by now. Always someone else’s fault. It’s not that she’s keeping score. She stopped that a long time ago. But it’s exhausting.
The thought quickly evaporates as a sound seeps in through the front windows, the dull thud of a car door followed by a muffled giggle. Her mother is home and, judging by the sound of things, not alone. Out of habit, her eyes slide to the clock on the stove. Two thirty. She’s early.
A moment later, the front door bangs open, and Charlene Parker tumbles in, smothering another giggle as she hushes her companion. She reels a bit as she stands there, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke and liquor fumes. In the glare of the TV, she looks like a trashy ghost in her skinny jeans and black tank top, one dingy bra strap drooping down her shoulder.
“Oh . . .” She blinks at Christy-Lynn, as if she’s only just remembered she has a daughter. “Happy New Year, baby!” Her words are thick and slushy, harsh in the quiet. “You remember Jake from the bike shop, right? We’ve been celebrating!”
Christy-Lynn runs her gaze over Jake—tall and lanky with grease-stained jeans and a black leather vest—but can’t muster a memory. Last night it was Randy. Tomorrow it would be someone else. They never hung around long.
“Did you get dinner?” Charlene asks, fumbling with her purse as it threatens to slide off her shoulder.
Christy-Lynn is briefly tempted to ask her mother if she plans to cook but abandons the idea. In her present condition, the snark will only be wasted. “It’s two thirty in the morning, Mama,” she points out wearily. “I ate hours ago.”
“Oh,” Charlene murmurs, more sigh than actual response. Her eyes are wide and vacant in the gloom, unseeing. She’ll crash soon. Hard. And Christy-Lynn doesn’t want Jack or Jake or whatever his name is around when she does.
Resolved, she slides off the couch and crosses the room, taking hold of her mother’s stringy arm. “I’ve got her now,” she tosses at the man in the greasy jeans. “You can go.”
The man’s eyes go flinty, and for a moment, he puffs out his chest. He’s too drunk to hold the pose though and eventually sags against the door frame. “I look like a damn taxi to you? We was gonna ring in the New Year.”
Christy-Lynn fights back a shudder as she glares at him. “In about three minutes, my mother’s going to be on the floor, so unless you plan to hang around for that, you might want to ring in the New Year someplace else.”
She doesn’t care that he’s been drinking and has no business climbing back behind the wheel, or that there’s a very real chance he’ll wrap himself around a tree before he gets home. She just wants him gone and for this night to be over.
“What about you?” he slurs, lumbering a step closer. “I’ve got some stuff in the car. We could—”
“Go,” Christy-Lynn barks before he can get the rest out. “Now. Or I’ll call the police.” She can’t, of course. The phone’s been shut off for months. But she’s hoping he’s too drunk to test the threat. “I mean it. You can leave or deal with the cops.”
He holds his ground for what feels like an eternity, his eyes heavy lidded as he sizes her up, as if trying to decide if she’s worth the trouble. Christy-Lynn glowers back, prepared to belt out a bloodcurdling scream if he so much as flinches in her direction. Beside him, her mother is weaving precariously. She’s going to have to make a choice soon, between letting her mother crumple to the floor and fending off the vest-wearing greaser. And then, mercifully, he wilts.
“Snooty little bitch,” he grumbles as he pushes the door open and nearly falls out onto the stoop. “You tell your mama she owes me. Like I said, I ain’t no taxi.”
Despite years of practice, getting Charlene Parker into bed is never easy. She’s a crier when she comes down, whining and clingy, begging for forgiveness between sloppy sobs. But there’s always a moment between pleading and oblivion when she becomes quiet, almost docile. This is the window Christy-Lynn waits for. She doesn’t bother with her clothes, just drags off her boots and pulls up the covers, then flips on the lamp and moves the trash can closer to the bed—just in case.
She’s about to turn away when she notices the vacant hollow at the base of her mother’s throat. Her hand creeps to the half-heart pendant at her own throat. “Mama . . . where’s your necklace?”
There’s no answer, no acknowledgment of any kind. Christy-Lynn touches her shoulder then gives it a shake. “Mama?”
Charlene’s eyes flutter open briefly, unfocused as they swim about the room.
“What happened to your necklace?” Christy-Lynn’s voice is harsher now, a sick kind of knowing already taking root.
“Easy Street . . . Coin . . . something.” The words ooze out thick and slurred, but for Christy-Lynn, they’re clear enough.
“You pawned your half of our necklace?”
“Owed Micah . . .” She lifts a hand in the air, flapping it vaguely, then lets it drop back to the bed like a felled bird. “He wouldn’t . . .” The words fall away, but Christy-Lynn doesn’t need to hear anymore. He wouldn’t let her have any more of whatever it was she was into these days. That’s what she was too drunk or too high to say.
“Oh, Mama . . .”
Charlene’s eyes open again, glassy and dilated. She yawns, head lolling as she reaches for Christy-Lynn’s arm, patting it as if it were a puppy. “Happy New Year, baby.”
Something hot and bitter rises up in Christy-Lynn’s throat as she unfastens her own necklace. She stares at it, coiled in her palm, tarnished after nearly three years of wear. Her mother’s words echo in her head, as clear as the day she had spoken them. We’ll never take them off. Whatever happens—no matter how bad things get—we’ll always have each other.
Christy-Lynn swallows a sob. The necklace slips out of her hand with surprising ease, slithering through her fingers and into the wastebasket. She has kept her part of their pact, but it doesn’t matter. Half a heart isn’t good for anything.
FIFTEEN
Sweetwater, Virginia