Days until Moon Cross: 12
Alonzo knew it was Julia’s day off; she’d said so the night before. Then why couldn’t he find her?
As a last resort, he tried the hospital. If she really was working on her day off, she was either a bigger workaholic than even he’d ever dreamed, or--
Or she was avoiding him.
But her cubicle was empty, and nobody he asked had seen her. Alonzo sighed, unsure whether to be frustrated or relieved. Of course, this didn’t mean she wasn’t avoiding him; just that she hadn’t retreated here.
He took one last wander through the offices, glancing absently into the cubicles he passed on the off-chance that Julia was talking to another doctor or something. Most of them were empty; a few held doctors bent industriously over datapads. The last one on the end was Rita’s. She sat at her desk. No datapad sat in front of her, just her own folded hands. She stared at them as if she didn’t know what to do next.
Alonzo stopped, balanced between one step and the next. He knew that look, too well. Not on Rita, but on his own mama.
She and Papi had always paid bills at the kitchen table after he and the boys and Mercedes had gone to bed. Every month, there were six mouths to feed, six bodies to clothe, the rent on a three-bedroom unit to pay--even if Mercy’s room wasn’t much more than a glorified closet. But before any of that could be attended to, there were six enormous passage debts to chip away at.
More than once Alonzo had come into the kitchen to get a glass of water for Davy or Lito and found his parents staring at the pile of bills, the numbers that always added up red, with that look of blank despair. After going back to his room, he would lay in the darkness, promising himself that when he was grown up, he was going to do something so his parents never had to look like that again.
And he had, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot.
He shifted his weight, arguing with himself. It’s none of your business. Walk away. He obeyed himself, striding off down the corridor. But his footsteps slowed halfway to the door.
She was family, which made it practically an obligation to butt in.
But he barely knew her.
But she was family. The first family there’d been for him for five or a hundred years.
He teetered in place, torn. Then he thought, She listens to everybody. Who listens to her?
With a deep sigh, closer to a groan, he turned around and went back. "Rita?"
She jolted and looked up. The bright mask slipped over her features in half an instant. "Alonzo. Hello. What can I do for you?"
"Nothing," he said, coming in and dropping into the chair she used for sessions. "What’s wrong?"
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"No estoy tonto. What is it?"
Her face crumpled, and she turned her head. "Go away."
"No," he said. Then, as if he were talking to six-year-old Mercedes with a skinned knee, he said, "What hurts, baby?"
She sniffed, once, hard. "It’s Miguel," she said, so low he could barely hear her.
Alonzo had already noticed they didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. "You have a fight or something?"
"He forgot," she said. "About last night."
"Was it your, uh, anniversary or something?"
"No, it was--I just wanted to take a walk. With my husband. I wanted to spend time with my husband. But he forgot."
"Okay," he said, trying to understand why this would bring on that terrible blank look. "So he forgot. He’s busy, right?" Everyone was busy, but the doctors were the busiest of everyone with the possible exception of Devon. He should know; he lived with one.
But Rita damn near pinned him to the wall with her glare. "Just because you both have dicks does not mean you get to be on his side."
"Whoa. Whoa." He held up his hands. "I didn’t say anything about either of our dicks. I’m on your side. I just don’t--why is this bad?"
"He forgot," she said again. "He said he got caught up, and he forgot, and he just went back to our rooms afterward. But I was--Where was Julia last night?"
"Huh?" It was a conversation of curveballs, and Alonzo was still two or three behind. "Why?"
"Was he was with her?" She didn’t even sound like she knew she was saying it aloud. "He said it was over, but this is exactly what happened last time. He forgot things and he got caught up and how dumb does he think I am?"
"Last time?" Alonzo’s voice rose. "What last time? What’s over? What does Julia have to do with your husband forgetting to take a walk with you?"
"What do you think?" Rita said bitterly.
And unfortunately, Alonzo had finally caught up.
The laundry basket pulled at Julia’s arms, a pleasant strain after a morning’s worth of heavy lifting in the sauna of the laundry room. She’d done laundry today because her schedule had stuck Alonzo with the chore for the past month.
She took her time over the folding, enjoying the clean smell of the clothes and the sun falling in through the window. She examined a seam, decided it would last another few wearings, and gave the shirt a businesslike shake before folding it. The cloth slid against her skin with the softness of thousands of wearings. She smoothed it down, tugging a button to make sure it didn’t need to be re-sewn. It didn’t.
What did it say, she thought ruefully, that the best half-hour she’d had in quite awhile was folding laundry by herself?
But there were no patients or parents here. No Miguel. No Alonzo. No Devon. Nobody wanted anything from her right at this moment. Even the clothes were content to go quietly in a pile, destined for her crate.
She had morning shift, she remembered. Six AM to ten, then again at night, 6 PM to ten. Ugh. The shit shift, True called it, imitating her dad. Julia had given up trying to stop her, and started calling it that too.
She concentrated on the long, free afternoon in front of her. Maybe Bess or Devon would have a drink with her after dinner. Since neither of them could drink alcohol yet--Devon because her liver was still too damaged from the viral infection the year before, Bess because of the baby--Julia knew she had the option of getting shit-faced if she wanted.
She thought, I’ll have to come up with some excuse not to be around Alonzo, and sighed again.
She concentrated on the socks.
The door opened. "Hi," she said, trying not to resent the loss of her solitude.
"Hey," Alonzo said. His voice sounded funny. His expression looked strange too--he studied her as if he’d never seen her before.
She looked at her pile of socks. Suddenly, there was a heavy feeling in her stomach. "Did you know," she said, trying to make her voice light, "that between the two of us, we have three pairs of matching socks? And my definition of matching is pretty loose right now."
He said, "Did you sleep with Miguel Vasquez?"
Her hands froze in the middle of folding the last pair of socks together. She took a breath, finished the action, and set them on her stack of clothes. "Not recently."
He let out his breath and sagged against the door jamb. "But . . . sometime not recently, you did," he said.
"Before we left the stations. It’s over." She picked up the stack of her own clothes and turned to deposit them in her crate.
"That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say about it? It’s over?"
Julia felt her shoulders hunch and straightened them. "I don’t know what else you want to hear about it."
"Why didn’t I hear about it?"
Anger started bubbling up in her stomach, a slow lava boil. "Why would I tell you?"
"Maybe it’s something I would want to hear. Something I should know."
She got to her feet, spinning to face him. "Oh, now you want to hear about something before you, Alonzo?"
His eyes narrowed. "What’s that supposed to mean?"
"I mean there’s only ever been one rule with us and that’s don’t ask, don’t tell!"
"When did I ever say that?"
"The past is gone and the future’s not here yet, so why worry about either of them?" she said. "Don’t you recognize that?" Without waiting for an answer, she went on. "You said it to me. Before our first winter. When I asked you something, in passing, about your childhood. You said it didn’t matter anymore. If your past doesn’t matter, why should mine?"
"Because he’s here!" Alonzo shouted back. "He’s here, now, today, and you didn’t think I’d want to know?"
"Rita’s here, too!"
He went white and still. "What do you know about Rita?"
"Nothing," she said bitterly. "I don’t know anything, because you haven’t bothered to tell me."
"H-how do you know there’s anything to tell?"
"How dumb do you think I am? It’s obvious to everyone that she’s special to you."
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. He looked down at the floor, shoved his hands in his pockets, and finally said, "I can’t--about her. I can’t talk about it."
She thought, I don’t care if you loved her, I don’t care if losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to you, if you would only tell me. If you’d only share that little piece of yourself.
But he stayed silent, still staring at the beat-up toes of his boots.
She took in a breath, held it, and when she let it out she knew what she was going to do.
"You’re right," she said.
He looked up, amazed and maybe a little afraid. "I am?"
"Maybe now is all we have, and nothing else does matter. But--" She stopped, her breath shuddering in and out of her as if it would break her ribs. "I can’t do this anymore."
He didn’t waste any time pretending not to know what she meant. "No--wait--"
"I think," she said with brutal gentleness, "that right now is the time to just--end this." She knelt down, picked up her crate of clothing, and set it on the bed. Then she picked up a few things from the bedside table--her gear, a badly carved duck that Uly had made, a string bracelet from Bess’s shed, and other scraps and pieces--and put them on top of her pants and shirts. Then she snapped the lid shut and hoisted it in her arms.
He still stood by the door, where he’d been throughout the argument. Now he moved to intercept her. "Jules, it’s only two more weeks. Don’t do it like this--"
"Like what?" she asked him. "What’s the difference? That I’m leaving instead of you?"
His hands fell away from the front of the box. "Please--" he said.
"No," she said, and pushed past him, through the still-open door, with her whole life in her hands.
Julia didn’t know how she got from her own front door to Devon’s office, but the next thing she knew, she found herself staring at a fat knothole.
Even through the door, she could hear the exasperation in Devon’s voice. "Bess, I know this is frustrating for you, but it’s hardly--"
"Frustrating? All my green wool’s gone and disappeared for the third time in the past coupla weeks."
"Don’t you have plenty more, in other colors?"
After a moment, Julia realized that in order for the door to open, she had to knock. She put the box down to do so.
Bess’s voice got louder, as if she were moving toward the door. "Of course I do, but it is the principle of the--" The door opened and Bess stopped dead, mid-ramble. "Julia?"
"Hi," Julia said.
Bess’s eyes fell to the box at Julia’s feet. Then they lifted to her face again. "Oh," she said, then, "oh."
"What is it?" Devon said, getting up and coming around her desk.
"My god, Devon, are you blind?" Bess said. She reached out and put her arm around Julia’s shoulders. "Honey, c’mere. C’mere."
Julia almost tripped over the box, obeying, but it didn’t register. She said numbly, as Bess led her to a chair, "I left. I couldn’t anymore and I left."
Devon said, "I’ll call Marcia and Danielle," and put her gear on.
Julia said, "He found out about Miguel and he got angry and he didn’t have any right."
"’Course not," Bess said, but she mouthed to Devon, Miguel?!
Devon mouthed back, Later, and said into the gear, "It’s Julia. She’s left Alonzo. Mhm. Bring the cider."
This roused Julia, slightly. "You’re not supposed to have alcohol," she scolded. "Either of you. Doctor’s orders."
Devon folded her eyepiece back for a moment in between calls and said, "Sweetie, we know. It’s for you."
"Oh," Julia said. Then she put her head down on her knees and sobbed.
Chapter End Notes:
Soundtrack Note - "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch