Page 91 of Darling Beasts

“Gee! I wonder why! Our mom died suddenly, and nobody talked about it.”

“Yeah, because nothing changed. Right?” He gave an exaggerated wink. “It was no big deal, life goes on, blah blah blah. In your version of events, anyway.”

Gabby blinked. “Huh?”

“That’s what you said in the recreation pavilion,” he reminded her. “I agreed with you at the time. On some level it’s true, but also, not? Our day-to-day routines might’ve stayed the same, but our livesweredifferent from then on. And you completely changed.”

Gabby had the nerve to feign shock. “No, I didn’t!”

“You did. You used to be so open and free and game for anything. After she died, you were secretive and closed off and, honestly, a lot less fun. We no longer had our little adventures.”

“We were older,” she said. “And that’s when my PBS started.”

PBS. Her excuse for everything. “Whatever you say,” Ozzie said, shaking his head, now feeling more worn down than angry. He rose to his feet. “If you ask me, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario, but whatevs.”

“Chicken-and-egg,” Gabby repeated, narrowing her eyes. “Have you been talking to dos Santos?”

“The fuck? TwoSantas? Why are you attempting to speak Spanish?”

Gabby stared at him—glared, even—but then her expression shifted, like a light had turned on. One could dream. “Ozzie—”

“Anyhow. Good chat,” Ozzie said, grabbing his phone. “I’m gonna go fuck up some cafeteria fries. Stay here and watch Talia’s stuff.”

Chapter Sixty-Three

Gabby

I found Talia outside, sitting on a concrete bench.

“Well, three votes have been cast, and we’ve come to a unanimous decision,” I said, plunking down. I placed her water bottle and purse on the ground near her feet. “I’m the asshole. If I’d texted you or Dad, everybody could’ve avoided the pavilion.”

It was exactly what Diane said months ago when I was contemplating the flamingos in my pond.Your good intentions always spiral out of control.

“And in case you’re wondering,” I continued, “the cassowary should be gone soon. There’s some guy in East County who agreed to take it. He has a farm or something.” A farm with no other animals, I hoped. This was one flare I would not be checking up on.

“What’s done is done,” Talia said, her eyes fixed on a white Tesla pulling into the parking lot. “You weren’t trying to hurt anyone, and Spencer really thinks Dad will be okay. There wasn’t much blood.”

“I noticed the same thing!” I blurted, then promptly covered my mouth. But Talia didn’t react. Instead, she let out a long, sad sigh. I did not like this resigned side of her. I preferred quick-to-anger Talia, the gal with the short fuse. Thereasonablyshort fuse, I recognized. The rest of us didn’t make it easy for her.

“Just so we’re clear, I agree with the theory that I’m not actually nice.”

“Gabby—”

“And, also? Things did change for me after Mom died,” I said and Talia jerked her head toward me. “I chalked it up to the onset of my PBS, but now I think maybe it was only an excuse.” My instinct was to brush off Ozzie’s words, dismiss him as full of shit, but he understood human nature better than anyone. “We wereallin a state of shock. You’d dropped out of school—”

“Temporarily.”

“And Ozzie dialed up his shenanigans one thousand percent. I was initially kind of numb, and Dad kept praising my strength, saying he felt lucky he didn’t have to worry about me. And I thought, yeah, true, I’m totally fine. I barely saw Mom and still had Diane. That same old line.”

I paused to check Talia, but she simply stared, mouth slightly open, as she absorbed all this.

“You’ve always pressured me to talk about her,” I continued, “and I didn’t want to. One, because we had such wildly different memories. And second...” I batted this around in my mind. “Honestly, I was pissed!” The forcefulness of the words surprised me. Maybe Talia wasn’t the only person dragging Mom along wherever she went. She was just capable of admitting it.

“I shouldn’t have been angry,” I said. “What happened was awful and tragic and not her fault, but when we were there that summer, she was openly bragging about not taking her meds.”

It wasn’t the first time. Mom believed antidepressants made her foggy, less attuned to her work, and if it was a choice between art and mental stability, she chose art every time. She’d joke that her mind was “natural speed,” and if she could bottle it up, she’d be richer than Dad.

“I hated how she treated her mental illness like an extremelyhelpful drug she could consume as needed,” I admitted. “She was our mother. Didn’t she have an obligation to take care of herself? Put her oxygen mask on first, et cetera. Not a fair assessment, but here we are.”

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