Pieces of Eight Read online

  I looked out the window at the San Francisco skyline, staring at it with an equal mix of foreboding and wonder. I didn’t often travel out of the city, much less out of the state, and I don’t think I’d ever flown into the state under the cloak of night.

  The stewardess announced connecting flight gates over the intercom, but I barely heard her. Part of me wanted to buy another ticket, to continue on from this place—somewhere that wasn’t soaked with memories.

  I squeezed my eyelids tight, remembering holding the blade to my skin and how Six’s face paled. It was the first time I’d ever threatened to hurt myself if he didn’t leave me, and I knew it’d be the last—there was nothing after this for either of us.

  And damn if that didn’t suck the wind right out of my body in a whoosh.

  As the plane skidded to its stop, my body was pushed forward by the momentum and I felt the belt press hard against my now-empty belly.

  Instinctively, I slid my hand between my sweater and the belt, protecting the nothing that remained after my D&C. That empty feeling extended through my limbs. I hadn’t just lost the life growing inside me; I’d lost the love of my life as well.

  I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t comfort him. I didn’t have that ability. I was selfish, and he’d finally seen it. It’d only taken us ten years.

  As the passengers disembarked, I was grateful for the window seat. Small mercies. I didn’t have to get up and move out of the way for an impatient person.

  The passengers around me left their seats as I stared out the window. A drizzle had begun outside, and it dripped down the window, muting the blinking lights outside of it.

  I watched workers unload the luggage compartment and watched as my bag was unloaded.

  I wasn’t ready. I knew what I’d left. But I didn’t know what awaited me.

  My breaths came quicker, knowing I was coming home alone. I’d done it a handful of times, a handful of ways, but I’d never really been alone. Six was there, or he was going to be there.

  Now, I had to figure out how to get my things from the home we shared.

  It was then that I thought of Griffin, who was being babysat by Six’s mom. Fucking dog. Whose dog was it?

  I shook my head. It didn’t matter. I’d keep the damn thing. I’d suffered one loss followed quickly by another, and all I had left was Henry and the dog. I’d take her. After all, Six had given her to me with the hope that I’d become more domesticated. Because cleaning up after an eighty-pound ball of fur meant I was Suzie Homemaker, I guessed.

  Just thinking of the future we wouldn’t have made my heart clench.

  “Miss?” a woman called, pulling my head from the window.

  Her strained smile was wide, bright, perfect chicklet teeth. “Yeah?”

  “We need to clean the plane.” It was a nice way of saying, “Time to get off, bitch.”

  A few days earlier, I might have replied in an equally patronizing way, but I was spent. Even the voices had left me. I grabbed my bag, my jacket, and fled my seat.

  I collected my luggage from the baggage claim and hailed a cab outside in the drizzle. My hair plastered to my face, and I looked down at the white sweater, taking in the big, faded drops giving me polka dots.

  I’d tried. I’d dyed my hair back to its original mousy brown months before, a color that I hadn’t seen since 1999, something to acclimate me more to motherhood. I’d stopped the drinking and the smoking, though that wasn’t terribly impressive.

  I’d tried. I’d tried.

  Like an echo, the voices came back reminding me that I had tried.

  But my “try” hadn’t been good enough.

  My mother’s words came back to haunt me. “You fail at everything, Mira. Everything. You can’t even kill yourself when you try.”

  No, mother. But I can kill something else. Probably the only good part of me. And it was only good because part of it was Six’s.

  Six wouldn’t have let me fail as a mother. He wouldn’t abandon his child. He’d never abandoned Andra. And she was like family to him. Like I’d been.

  He’d never abandoned me.

  I couldn’t let that thought fester. Already, I was questioning why I shouldn’t toss it all away—go back to the drugs. Go back to the woman I was before Six found me, before he pulled me out.

  In the moment, it was hard to remember. And I hated that. I wasn’t so weak as to believe Six was the only thing keeping me sober.

  I’d wanted the freedom I now had from influence, at some point. Hadn’t I?

  The cabbie pulled up and I slid in. It was on the tip of my tongue to give him my address. But it didn’t feel like mine, not anymore. It was Six’s. He’d bought it for us, but there was no longer an us. He and I didn’t exist in the same sentence anymore—let alone the same life.

  Call him, the voice told me.

  But the voice was wrong. The same voice that had encouraged me to follow him—and what? Here I was ten years later, more alone than ever.

  I’d been alone before, but I’d never been lonely. Wanting made you lonely.

  I could call him. But I didn’t want to. We weren’t good for each other. Jesus, it’d been ten years of this shit. It was a wonder he’d stuck around as long as he had.

  “256 Placer Place,” I said, and then quickly rattled off the neighborhood.

  “That’s a bit out there,” the cabbie said.

  “I have money. Just go.” Old Mira would’ve snapped that. But the voice that belonged to me then was despondent. It didn’t seem like it could belong to me. I sighed and turned toward the window again, watching as the traffic faded the farther out of the City we ventured.

  When the cab driver pulled up to Six’s mom’s place, I knew I’d still need a ride back, to a hotel, I guessed. “Can you wait? I just need to pick up something, and then head back to the city.”

  “It’ll cost.”

  “No shit.” I threw a twenty at him. “Five minutes.” No, five minutes was too long. “Two. Tops.”

  I slid out of the cab, not expecting but hoping he’d stay. When I didn’t hear the rev of the engine, I sighed in relief and hustled to the door. It was late, but Elaine was probably up painting, judging by the faint light across the side yard that bordered her studio.

  Knocking, I tried to remember the last time I’d knocked on her door. I usually just followed Six in. So intimate. The intimacy was gone. I didn’t have a relationship defined by any real word with Elaine. I was her son’s former girlfriend. Not really a friend, definitely not a daughter-in-law.

  It took several seconds longer than I thought it would, but the doorknob turned and Elaine stood there.

  The paint splattering her coveralls didn’t shock me. What shocked me was the complete lack of surprise on her face.

  “Uh,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “Hi, Elaine.”

  “Mira. Do you want to come in?”

  I shook my head, feeling thick, water-soaked strands smack my face. “No. I’m just here for the dog.”

  “Okay.” But she worried her lip as she took me in. “Let me at least get you an umbrella.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve got a cab.” I turned my body to the side to allow her to see the cab that waited in front of her driveway.

  “I’ll get her.” She turned away and was gone for roughly fifteen heartbeats before she was back, purple leash in hand, floppy-eared fur ball hanging from it like she was ready for an adventure.

  I couldn’t keep her in a hotel forever. She wasn’t an inside dog. She was a drooling, galloping kind of dog. But I couldn’t bring her back to Six’s. It’d be too familiar, and familiar was what I was trying to avoid at the moment.

  I reached for the leash and Elaine’s hand closed over my arm. “Are you all right?”

  Six must have called her. And, if he had, he hadn’t told her to keep the dog if I showed up. That must have meant he wanted me to have her.

  The little bit of me that had been left intact broke then, falling into the
abyss that was the space where my heart had been. I gripped the leash tight enough that my nails bit into my palm.

  Nodding curtly, I said, “Yep. Just want to get home before I get sick.” I wasn’t really worried about that. I was worried about getting the hell away from her and her worried eyes.

  Before she let the dog out, she dropped to the ground, wrapping an arm around her loose-skinned neck and squeezing her like it’d be the last time she would.

  Which it was. I wouldn’t be back on her doorstep for tea and painting. The dog wouldn’t be back here for babysitting.

  My nose itched with the tears that burned behind my eyes. “Okay, come on,” I said, and swallowed away the hoarseness of my throat. “Let’s go,” I said. I couldn’t subject myself to the same hug she gave Griffin. I’d fall apart right in her arms. Whatever was still holding me together surely had an expiration point.

  Six had his mom, at least. If our break-up—how trite was that term?—affected him at all, he’d be able to come here, to his mom, to have her lick his wounds.

  The thought passed my head the moment the dog licked my fingers in greeting. I really should let Six keep her. But for some reason, I wanted her. Even though she was a pain in the ass.

  “Meter’s ticking,” the cabbie called out behind me and I tugged hard on the leash, hating myself a little more for the distraught expression on Elaine’s face as I pulled Griffin from her hold. I couldn’t stay here a second longer.

  “We didn’t agree to a dog,” the cabbie said with a sour look on his face.

  “Shut up,” I told him, and got into the back of his cab with Griffin, not allowing myself to look back at Elaine as he pulled away from the curb.

  At her new vantage point, the dog took advantage of my face being in such close proximity and licked me half to death.

  “If he pisses on my seat, you’re going to owe a lot more than cab fare.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I scooped the dog up and set her on my lap, all awkward limbs and frantic licks to my face. “He’s a she. And there. If she pees, it’ll be on me.”

  He made a sound and focused back on the road.

  The dog aggressively licked my face. No matter how many times I pushed her face away from mine, she kept going, her heavy tail whacking my knees. “You’re a dummy,” I told her, but felt myself soften slightly regardless. It was the hormones. Had to be the hormones.

  I pulled out my phone and debated who the fuck to call. I didn’t have a lead on a new place, though I bet a unit in my former building was open. But, considering Six had been the main provider of everything I needed, I was lacking there, too.

  There was no way I was calling my mother again. No, I could kiss that fucking thought goodbye. She had enough emotional ammunition to torture me with for the next year, at least. I thought about calling Jacob, from the Dry Run, but remembered he lived with his parents—one of whom was a shrink. I’d rather pull my fingernails clean off than crash at his place until I figured my shit out.

  Besides, I had an eighty-pound ball of insanity also known as Griffin. I couldn’t exactly dump her in an apartment.

  I should’ve left her with Six. He had the yard, after all. The space needed for an animal the size of a small bear.

  But she was the last thing I’d have that Six had given me, and I was reluctant to let her go.

  I scrolled further up, from Jacob all the way up until I reached the B’s. With my finger hovering over her name for a minute, I briefly debated calling her. I’d seen her quite often, that much was true, but she was still someone I kept at arm’s length.

  The cabbie hit a bump and I grunted when I fell against the door and Griffin’s wet snout pressed against my face. I cringed, and not for the first time debated sending her back to Six’s mom. But the idea of walking away from her, too, made me seize up, go a little numb from the cold shock that would bring me. Or maybe I was going numb from all that weight on my legs.

  I pressed on Brooke’s name just as Griffin licked the shit out of ear I was bringing the phone up to.

  It was late, but I knew Brooke slept during the day while Norah was at school. So while I didn’t expect her to answer, I wasn’t surprised when she did.

  “Hey, Mira.”

  I pushed Griffin away from my face with a scowl when she licked up my nose. “Hey. So. Uh.” I was going to have to just invite myself to her place. “I know this is super late and super super last minute, but is there any chance that I could crash at your place for a few days?”

  There was a pause; brief, and weighted. I imagined what she was thinking: Do I really want a crazy person here with my daughter? I mean, it was a good question. But, if I had to—and I didn’t want to—I’d guilt her. It was a language more familiar than English, a language my mother had taught me while I was young and a hindrance to her.

  “I mean…sure. That’s fine.” It sounded like she was trying to assure herself more than me. “Okay. Are you close?”

  “Yeah.” I scratched my head and winced, bracing for the no that awaited me when I asked the next question. “And I’ve got my dog. You met her. Big, crazy. Is she cool too?”

  “She’s good with kids, right?”

  I looked dubiously at Griffin. Good was subjective. “She’s great,” I said, possibly lying through my teeth. In the few visits I’d had with Brooke through the years, I’d rarely brought Griffin. She was mostly a bumbling pain in the ass around new people, so it was best for all parties if she was left at home. But…I didn’t have a home now. “Actually, do you think I could bring her by and then run back to my place for stuff? She’s pretty lazy, she’ll just sleep. You won’t have to do any actual babysitting.”

  “That’s fine.”

  I narrowed my eyes. She was more readily accepting of Griffin than me, but—to be fair—Griffin was better house-trained than I was. I often managed to do more damage than she did, and she was larger than me. “Great. I’ll be by in a bit.”

  I gave the address to the driver and scrolled further down my phone until I hit Six’s number. Instantly, my fingers hovered over the ten digits, concealing their order from my eyes. If I didn’t look, it wouldn’t sear into my brain. Pressing his face, I diverted my eyes, as if not looking at him somehow lessened the mother of all pain in my heart. I hit “Block caller” before I could stop myself, and then quickly deleted the contact and dropped my phone to my lap.

  My head fell back to the seat and Griffin lapped furiously at my face. My heart was thundering so loud, like it was a force all its own, demanding its release from my body.

  Though my phone was now on the floor of the cab, likely making friends with various disgusting fluids or objects left behind by other patrons, I made no move to pick it up. I couldn’t believe I’d actually done it; I’d actually deleted him from my phone.

  It was the first step to deleting him from my life.

  Brooke took possession of Griffin with a tight smile and tired eyes. “Here,” she said, slapping a silver key into my palm. “How long will you be?”

  “Just a couple hours. You have to work tomorrow?”

  She nodded and pointed to a door down the hall of her tiny little house. “There’s a linen closet there, it’s got blankets and a couple pillows. You can take the couch.” She put her hands on her hips, looking at the couch and then at me. “I’ll be asleep when you get back, so please just be quiet. I need a quick nap before I go in.” I watched her worry her lip before she continued. “I’ll be back early. Marco will let me leave to take Norah to school.”

  “Cool.” I was itching to get back to the house, to grab my shit—paintings mostly—and hightail it out of there.

  “The key sticks in the front door—so it might be best if you come in from the back. I’ll leave Griffin in this room. I’m sure I’ve got some baby gates around here.”

  I tried to get Griffin to look me in the eyes, so I could communicate to her to not be a dick while I was gone. She wasn’t much of a barker—more of a whiner—but that was mor
e annoying. “Griffin will be good,” I assured her, hoping that by putting it out into the universe, Griffin wouldn’t be a total fucking shitshow.

  “All right. Well, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Thanks, Brooke,” I told her, thinking of our role reversal, which was likely the only reason she was allowing this anyway. “I’ll be quick.”

  And I was. My keys to Six’s house—not ours anymore—still worked. His car wasn’t in the driveway and the lights were dead.

  Just in case though, I climbed the fence into the tiny yard and peeked into the windows like a fucking creep. It looked exactly as I’d left it, weeks earlier, which led me to believe that Six hadn’t retuned yet.

  That gave me relief. But it also made my stomach hollow a bit, allowing room for my limp and decaying heart to settle there. It was heavy, being in the graveyard of what once was us.

  My key slid in like butter and the door opened smoothly. A chirping sound greeted me, making me stop in my tracks.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered. It sounded like a mechanical bird, and I crept around the house, searching for its source. Upstairs, where the bedrooms were, I found the culprit—a smoke detector beeping to signal a battery change.

  Instinct had me jumping up and swatting it off the wall. Instinct led me to the trusty junk drawer in the kitchen, where I found the rectangular battery to replace it. Instinct had me carrying it back up the stairs, but reality set in the moment I started to search for a stool to lift me to put it back in place. This wasn’t my home anymore. This wasn’t my responsibility.

  For a moment, I stood and looked around the space that had once been mine. In the cloak of darkness, with only the glow from the moon spilling light across the floor, it felt eerie; unfamiliar. Like the shadows of us had left when I’d pushed him out of my life. It didn’t feel like mine anymore—and maybe that was just my head talking…okay, it was definitely just my head talking.

  I couldn’t even remember which floorboard it was down the hall that creaked. I tested each of them with my foot before remembering I wasn’t here to fucking tap dance, I was here to get my shit.