Days of Awe by Lauren Fox Read Free Book Online

friends.” He shakes his head a little bit. “I actually kind of hate her.”
    Last night, when I told Hannah that I would be going to the Relationships in Transition support group, she got up from the table, looked me in the eye, and yelled,
“Goddammit,”
which is still one of the worst things she can think of to say. Then she stormed out of the kitchen and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night, her half-finished spaghetti congealing in the bowl until I finally dumped it. I left her alone until bedtime. The house sucked up our sounds and felt huge. Finally, late, I went in to kiss her good night, and she reached up and pulled me toward her, her arms around my neck, her breath warm and a little vinegary. “Mommy,” she whispered, half asleep, her eyes closed. “I don’t want you to be sad.”
    “I’m not sad,” I said, then immediately, like an idiot, started crying. I swiped my face and hoped Hannah couldn’t tell. “You make me happy,” I whispered. “Usually!”
    She opened her eyes and looked at me, confused for a second, then laughed. The pinkish glow from her ballerina night-light illuminated her face. While the rest of her room has transitioned into a cave, remnants of its previous incarnation remain, like pottery shards from a lost city. “You make me happy
sometimes,
” she said.
    “That seems about right.”
    Now Hannah is over at Chris’s apartment, probably belly laughing with him at one of the disgusting reality shows they like to watch, shows about rodent infestations or revolting jobs people have involving sewage.
    And here, in the warm basement of the East Side Community Center, Jillian fixes her gaze on the pretty young woman next to my mother who looks like she would rather be yanking out her own toenails than sitting on a metal folding chair, poised to reveal her deepest pain to a roomful of strangers.
    The woman’s long brown hair is held back from her face by an arrangement of bobby pins. She glances around and realizes that it’s her turn, that there’s no escape.
    “Um?” she says, her palms open in front of her. I have a sudden vision of the kind of girl she was in fifth grade, an occupational hazard of mine. I imagine her hair in a tight braid down her back, clipped by those same bobby pins, her eyes wide and serious. The funny canvas shoes she wears that were popular last year. How hard she tries, the B minuses she gets on her spelling tests and math quizzes.
Good improvement!
Super effort!
The small group of sweet, plain girls she hangs out with, steering clear of the clever, beautiful, mean ones. How in that way, she’s smarter than she seems.
    “I’m Lee Ann?” she continues. “My husband and I met in college, and we’ve been married for six years.” She’s wearing a gold band, and when she says the word “husband,” she touches it with her thumb. “One night he came home and told me that we’d gotten married too young and that he wasn’t in love with me anymore, and that he probably never had been?” Her voice rises and breaks on the last word, but she soldiers on. “Even though he was the one who proposed to me.” She sniffles.
    My mother is digging around in her purse while Lee Ann is talking, probably searching for a mint. “Mother,” I hiss. “Helene!” Helene looks sideways at me and hands Lee Ann a tissue.
    “So, last week he moved out,” Lee Ann says. “And that’s why I’m here.”
    “That sounds really painful, Lee Ann,” Jillian says. “Thank you for sharing.” She waits a few seconds, then turns to my mother. She reminds me of a doctor delivering bad news to a patient, dispensing a careful dose of sympathy, then moving on to the next case. “And you?” she says to Helene. “Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here?”
    “Oh!” Helene says, pretending to be surprised. She shrugs and smiles like the little old lady she is not. “I’m just here to support my daughter.”
    And then it’s my turn, and a river of