Kit graduates with his master’s. He doesn’t tell me, and the only reason I find out is because his parents send a card, which I find in the trash under an egg carton. Congratulations, Son!
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him, holding up the card. The Congratulations is smeared and bubbled from egg yolk. I hear the accusation in my voice, and I flinch. I sound like a nagging wife. `
He glances at me from where he stirs something in a pot, and grins.
“With everything that’s going on, I just didn’t think about it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I tell him. “It’s a big deal.”
He shrugs. “It kind of pales in comparison.”
“No,” I say. “It’s something to celebrate and be happy about in the midst of all the bad.”
“Hush, lonely heart. Pass me the paprika.”
He hasn’t called me that in a very long time. I get tingles all over.
“I didn’t have wrapping paper, I’m sorry.” I push a package across the counter. He stops stirring to look at it, then glances up at me.
“Did you wrap that in a diaper?”
I nod. Kit laughs, drying his hands on a dishtowel. He leans against the stove and holds the diaper-wrapped present in his hands, looking it over.
“You didn’t even need tape this way,” he says.
“It’s really quite genius,” I tell him. He keeps his eyes on me as he lifts the diaper tabs, smirking until my stomach flips. I know that grin. Nights wandering around Port Townsend, a bottle of wine in his hand. His nose was always red from the cold … smirking, smirking. Tonight I am in the kitchen with the Kit of Port Townsend. Lately, it’s been Kit the dad, Kit the worried fiancé. Tonight, he feels like my Kit. And I’ve missed him so much.
He opens the diaper wrapping and inside is three things: a blue crayon, a wine cork, and a sketchbook. When he looks at me it’s not with confusion. His jaw works as he touches each one and then sets the crayon and cork down to open the sketchbook. I watch, my heart racing.
“You did these?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Remember the—”
“Book I bought you. Yeah, I do,” he says. He nods slowly, and then some more like he forgets he’s doing it.
“You made me a coloring book.” His voice is raspy. I look away.
The pictures are a story, sketched in ink. I labored over each one for months. It was the story of the dream, and it hurt to make it.
“Helena…”
“I just want you to know that aside from any degree you get, or what job you get, or any accomplishment you make in life, you changed mine. You have that thing about you that changes other people.”
I don’t stay to hear what he says.
When Annie is five months old, Della takes her first steps. It’s a big deal in her recovery, those jittery five steps. While her mother totters across the hardwood, Annie watches from her blanket on the floor. She rolled over for the first time that very morning. Kit, Della, and I all happened to be in the room, and our reaction was so loud and spontaneous that Annie burst into frightened tears. Now, daughter and best friend watch from the corner of the room as Della’s therapist urges her forward. At first, I think she’s going to fall over; her legs are so frail and thin they don’t look like they can hold up anything. But, she makes it across the room, her face glowing in triumph. Perhaps my imagination, but does she glance at me in victory? Her hair is just past her ears now, and she’s put on a little of the weight she lost. She looks so much better. I like to think that my presence here is helping her recovery—and in a way it is—but the truth is, she wants me gone. That’s why she’s working as hard as she is. I would happily go, except Kit got a job at marketing firm, and there is no one to take care of Annie during the day. Della has suggested I take my leave and get back to my own life, but Kit won’t have it. “Annie knows Helena,” he says. “I’m not going to have some stranger watching her.” He says it so firmly, neither of us argues. Later, when Della is giving Annie a bath, I corner Kit in the yard as he’s taking out the trash.
“I have to go, Kit. She’s almost well enough.”
His eyes come alive with something, but he looks at a passing car to cover it up. “I know you eventually have to get back to your own life, I do. But stay a little while longer.” When I cock my head at him, he says, “Please, Helena.”
“Why?” I ask. “She doesn’t want me here.”
“I do,” he says. He clears his throat, and then repeats himself. “I want you here.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“Annie loves you,” he says, like it’s explanation enough.
“Yes,” I say cautiously. “And I love Annie. But, I’m not her mother; Della is. And I’m not your girlfriend; Della is. And I can’t stay here and play house with you. It’s hurting me. It’s going to hurt me to leave. I just want to get it over with.”
I didn’t intend on saying all of that, but I’m sort of relieved. Kit suddenly spins toward the street. Both hands go to his head, where he grips his hair until it’s standing straight up. I can’t see his face. Just the tensed up rear side of him.
When he turns back around, he’s angry. I’ve seen many things in Kit’s eyes—fear, wonder, play. I have never seen emotions boil. Irises hot and sharp and full of color. They’re zoned in on me, pounding out anger in between blinks. I back up a step.
“Go back where?” he says. “To my hometown? To Greer’s cannery? Why are you even there, Helena? Want to tell me that?”
I smooth down my hair. “Sure, Kit. I’ll tell you. I moved to Port Townsend because I fell in love with my best friend’s boyfriend. I wanted to get as far away from the both of you as I could, while also being as close to you as I could. Does that make sense, or does it sound too crazy?” He’s blinking fast, so I keep going. “Because when I say it to myself it sounds crazy. And here I am, taking care of your baby, falling in love with your baby, which, by the way, she’s so much better than both of you. Your girlfriend is a narcissistic bitch, and you’re an indecisive coward. Congrats on creating a little human that’s perfect. So, I’ll go home now, back to Washington, which you left, and I chose. And you stay here with the woman you chose. And I’ll keep loving all of you, despite the fact you’re all idiots. And Kit, take care of my little girl. If you fuck her up, I’m going to fuck you up. Now move your car so I can leave.”
I fully expect him to do as I say. Hands on hips, I wait. After all, I am angry, and yelling—channeling my inner Professor McGonagall like a bad bitch. Kit doesn’t leave. Son of a bitch. All Florida does is make my hair frizzy, and my brain crazy. I have to get out of here.
“Would you stop just standing there with your pretty hair blowing in the wind, and say something,” I yell. Kit’s eyes are focused over my left shoulder.
“My God,” I whisper, closing my eyes. Of course this would happen, of course. I turn around to face my former best friend. Former, as of five months, or five seconds, ago. I don’t even know anymore. She’s leaning against the side of Kit’s truck, her chest heaving. It must have taken everything she had to walk out here on her own. My impulse is to go to her, help her back inside, but the look on her face keeps me where I am. It feels like a standoff, no one really knowing how to break the silence. It should be me, I think. I’m the one who screwed up.
I feel the air move as Kit rushes to her. She lets him pick her up, never taking her eyes from mine. I can see the betrayal, the hurt. This sucks so badly.
“Della…” her name drops from my lips too late; they’re already inside. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave because Kit’s car is still in the way. What have I done? I shouldn’t have come back. Kit comes out a few minutes later, his head bowed, hands in pockets.
“She wants to speak to you,” he says. “She’s in the living room.”
I nod.
“I’m so sorry, Kit. I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” he says. “You should have. Just go speak to her. I need to take a walk.” He walks past me, down the street, and my stomach rolls with sick. I just admitted to being in love with my best friend’s guy. Out loud. To him, and unknowingly her.
I take my time going in. This whole situation has been boiling for months. I knew it was coming, but I still feel wholly unprepared. Della is sitting in her pink armchair when I walk in, like a queen. She’s always made me feel small, and I’m tired of it. She doesn’t look at me. No one wants to look at me. That’s how the truth works. If you avoid looking at it, you can pretend it’s not there.
“You’re not even as pretty as me.”
That’s the first thing she says to me.
“I’m having a really hard time believing you just said that to me,” I say. “Can you say it again, just so I can confirm to my own mind what a bitch you are?”
“You came here to steal my family.”
I shake my head. It’s sort of a slow shake because I’m trying to mentally catch up to the fact that my best friend of ten years just told me I wasn’t as pretty as her, followed by one of the most insane accusations ever.
“I came here to help you. To help you with Annie until you got better.”
“You’re a liar,” she says. “I’ve seen the way you are with him. You came here hoping something would happen to me so that you could have Kit and Annie. I’m not going to let you take my family. She’s my baby, and I don’t want you near her. Do you hear me?”
At twenty-five years old, I’d assumed I’d felt hurt before. But then Della takes Annie from me in one bitter sentence, and I am so grief-stricken I immediately sit on the couch. Annie has made my heart a delicate thing. Before, my heart cared about the things that were important to me, but it forsook me for Annie. A mute drummer, it constricts and aches in my chest until I reach a palm up to touch the place above it. There’s nothing I can do to change her mind. And do I blame her? Just this morning, Annie cried and squirmed to get out of her mother’s arms to come to me. I have no rights. I have no reason to feel angry. I am the bitch, not Della.
“I want you out of my house by tonight.” She starts to leave the room, when the monitor on the counter says that Annie is waking up. “He’s mine, Helena.” And then she’s gone.