Page 57 of Alfie: Part One
“I almost flipped my lid in traffic the other day,” I mentioned. “Someone dumped a McDonald’s bag right out the window on 95, and I honked and dusted off my middle finger.”
He shook his head. “People suck.” He had Ellie next to him, and she watched her fingers, as if figuring out which the middle one was.
When the kids had food on their plates, they didn’t waste a second. Trip dove for the ribs, and Ellie went nuts for the cornbread and pulled pork. The burnt ends were terrific, but my mac and cheese was better.
“This has nothin’ on your mac and cheese.” Alfie echoed my thought.
“I was just thinking.” The trick was to use real cheddar and to pour a mix of shredded cheese and crumbs from nachos on top. In addition, finely chopped jalapeños. “Oh—remember the steakhouse in Nashville?—”
“—where you got jalapeños on the mac and cheese?” he chuckled. “Yeah. That’s where it’s at.”
I’d thought my heart couldn’t sink any lower. I was wrong.
It hurt so goddamn much to know we were still so in tune with each other. Because we shared too many memories and views.
I ate on autopilot and tried to direct all my attention to the children, who weren’t as chatty as I needed them to be. Trip was rocking sideways in his seat, humming to himself and mumbling how much he “appreciated” the food. He didn’t say it was yummy or super awesome; heappreciatedit. And Ellie, our rambler, was eating and looking over at the petting zoo.
Alfie and I had shared countless moments of comfortable silences over the years, but never during a meal. We were talkers. We could start off with something we’d seen on the news or read somewhere, and by the time our plates were empty, we were two hundred topics away without having noticed a single segue.
Sitting here quietly with him felt entirely unnatural and forced, yet I had nothing to say. My brain was chock full of all the stages of grief. Part of me wanted to bargain. Part of me wanted to forgive and forget. Another part couldn’t close the open wounds that were still bleeding too heavily. I was so profoundly hurt—and angry—that it was like Groundhog Day. It felt like I was going to recycle all these emotions every day for the rest of my life.
I was constantly going back and forth with his blurted-out confessions, his texted rambling, and his apologies laced with finality and defeat. He’d admitted to having screwed up majorlyenough that even he didn’t see a path to forgiveness. For no other reason would he let me know he wasn’t anywhere near ready to see me move on with someone else—but…he knew it was what I deserved.
I scratched my cheek, only to make a face, which in turn tugged at the dried paint. Why did kids want that cakey nonsense? My face felt like it was full of cracks, like a desert with dried-out soil.
Biting into a cornbread roll, I was struck with a loss of appetite so forcefully that I immediately returned the roll to the tray. It was difficult to swallow.
Too many voices, set to different volumes, argued in my head. To forgive or to scream. To apologize for my family or to…scream.
Fuck.
Pressure was building up inside me, and I had a feeling I knew how I was going to self-medicate tonight when I came home to an empty house. It was going to be me, my phone with his texts, and a bottle of something very strong.
Like so many times now, I’d scroll past the whole thing about Phil being his stepdad. I truly could not care less. I understood Alfie’s reasoning on that point, and there was nothing to forgive. But after that…?
I didn’t know what hurt the most. The complete lack of trust in the person I thought I could trust the most at one point, the fact that he might actually be in the mafia today, or his most recent confessions and the blame he was taking—because what could I do? How could I find an outlet to express my anger? He didn’t have to argue with me anymore. We were over. So I just sat here with all this shit dumped in my lap, and I had to process it alone. Then…how he’d taken a job with the Sons of Munster shortly after we’d moved back to Philly, keeping it from me with millions of tiny lies about his job search…how he couldbe gone all day and then say he’d worked for his dad, or my own gullibility over how rarely he’d needed money.
For months and months, I’d had him pegged as a frugal spender when I went through our credit card statements. Turned out, he had cash hidden away!
I clenched my jaw and?—
“Okay, I’m done!” Ellie declared. “Can I go over there, please?” She pointed at the petting zoo.
Alfie nodded. “Just stay where we can see you.”
“Me too!” Trip scrambled out of his seat and shoveled some more mac and cheese into his mouth. “I wanna pet the baby goats.”
“All right, uh—be careful,” Alfie cautioned. “Don’t touch any animals unless someone from the staff is watching.”
“I wanna hold a bunny!” was Ellie’s excited response. And then they were off. They ran over to the little zoo, and I glued my stare to them.
Dread crept up my spine at being alone with Alfie, almost as much as relief loosened tension in my shoulders. Not because I wanted to be alone with him but because I didn’t have to put up a façade. I’d lost the will and energy to care about his seeing me upset.
I took a swig of my water and wiped a hand across my forehead. The heat wasn’t helping. Even in the shade, under the trees, it was brutal.
Farther up toward the widest part of the park, a concert began and attracted some of the children from the petting zoo.
Alfie cleared his throat, and I automatically tensed up.