Page 38 of Love Notes & Lifelines
Jane talks to Emmy while I tackle the little linebacker. Every muscle in my body aches by the time Ruby’s clean.
“Okay, your turn, lovebug.”
“Wub you, Stella,” Emmy says with the cheerfulness you’d expect from a four-year-old, but this time my ears are awake. She called her Stella, and now Jane is talking a mile a minute.
“So Emmy should be a lot easier. But you’ll need to teach her how to clean herself properly?—”
“Jane?” I interrupt.
“The same with brushing her teeth. She should make the first attempt and then you brush them after her.”
“Jane,” I say more firmly.
“You’ll also want to make sure you put extra ointment on Ruby’s little bum if she still has that rash. I think that’s it for now. You’ve got this, Beck.”
I’m about to open my mouth when Ruby tips over the tub seat and I drop the phone to fish her out.
Bath time’s over. I’ve got some shit to figure out. First and foremost, why an executive assistant I know is very well-compensated has so many damn jobs. Because one thing is for sure, Jane is my Stella—I hope.
I pause with Ruby held out at arm’s length. She gives me a funny smile, and just as I’m bringing her close to drape a towel around her, the kid pisses all over me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STELLA
“Laura,it’s okay. Take a deep breath.”
Today is the worst day I’ve had with my mom yet, and it’s only seven in the morning.
“Who are you?” she screams. “Are you the little slut who stole Charlie from me?”
Charlie. My dad.
I clench my teeth to keep the tears from falling. It’s true, what Anna Kapern said in PE when I was thirteen years old—he didn’t love me enough to stay. I’d told my mom, and she had said it was ridiculous mean girl nonsense, but we never stayed in one place long enough for me to make any kind of connection with anyone else after that either. Chasing fun was our motto and when life wasn’t fun anymore, we moved on.
“Remember, Stella, just because she says it doesn’t mean it’s real,” Lucía whispers as she readies my mother’s medication.
It shouldn’t be this way. She shouldn’t be here, requiring another sedative to calm her down. It’s so freaking unfair.
I can’t look away from the syringe Lucía is preparing.
Mom’s palm hits my cheek hard enough to snap my head back like a rag doll. “That’s what homewreckers get,” she wails right before Lucía injects her with medicine to calm her down.
The results are not instantaneous, so it takes some cajoling to usher her into the bed, but by the time she’s leaning back, and we raise the guardrails, her stare is vacant. I don’t know what’s worse—the rage that filled her moments ago or this.
At least we didn’t have to call security.
“Are you okay?” Lucía asks, pinching my chin and inspecting my cheek like a loving grandmother. “Let’s get you an ice pack.”
“No.” I choke back a sob. “It’s—It’s okay. I have work. I’ll be late if I don’t leave.”
“Stella, at least take one for the road.” The compassion in her voice breaks down one of my remaining walls. I can barely hold it together as it is. It would be easier if she just ignored me.
“Honestly, I don’t even feel it.” My voice pitches higher with each word because I do feel it. I feel it right down to every nook and cranny of my heart. I’m being erased from my mother’s mind, and it rips me in two. My entire existence fades with each of her memories.
Lucía reaches for me, but I back away, wishing I could sprint from my life and wake up in an alternate universe where my mother was still my mother, and I didn’t have to hide in my own life.
I hold myself together until I get to the street, then run in the direction of my office. It’ll take close to an hour to walk, but I need the exercise right now. I need the fresh air. I need to feel like I’m not suffocating in loneliness and sadness and grief that hasn’t even hit me yet.
