Milk by Emily Hammond

older, wiser people bestow on the younger and less experienced. My cue. I’m supposed to agree: we’ve had our little talk, I feel better now, and by golly, she’s right; it’s time for me to get on with the business of living.
    â€œWhat are you saying, Aunt Lyla? That you can’t remember or you won’t?” The bag of limes swings on my wrist.
    â€œNeither one, dear. I’m tired. Can’t we call it a night?” A smile that’s supposed to appear gentle.
    â€œWhat about the baby, then? What about Charlotte? How come no one will talk about her either?”
    If I’m not supposed to bring up my mother, I’m never, ever to mention Charlotte. A thin white arm, a cry—did she even exist? Aunt Lyla looks furious.
    â€œWe don’t talk about Charlotte because it’s too painful, Theo. You should know that. It destroyed your mother.”
    â€œIs that why she killed herself?”
    â€œI keep telling you, I don’t know why she killed herself. Charlotte was one reason, absolutely. She was unhappy, Theo, and there was her drinking too, and her pills. Can’t you just leave it at that?”
    â€œI can’t leave it! It’s what’s been wrong with me all these years—I can’t stay married, I can’t settle down, I can’t do anything.…” And, I’m thinking, I’m going to have a baby now besides. My child, my mother’s grandchild. I want to tell this to Aunt Lyla, scream it at her, but instead I just leave, just walk out the door.
    I don’t trust her and I don’t know why. Telling her about Jackson was a tidbit. I run to the car grateful that I’ve kept the one thing I care most about a secret. The baby, my baby.

T EN
    â€œJackson? Did I wake you?”
    I’m calling at nine o’clock in the morning and I know just how the winter sun filters in through the windows, backlighting the red butte across the narrow canyon.
    â€œTheo?” Jackson says. The mattress, our mattress, squeaks as he sits up suddenly.
    â€œI did wake you. I’m sorry.”
    â€œI’m on a Tuesday-Thursday schedule this semester, so the other days, I …”
    â€œSleep in.” Code for hung over. All the little codes we used to have for everything. Sleeping in for hung over. Do you want to keep me company? he’d say, meaning did I want to get sloshed with him? Going to the store roughly translated to no beer in the house, if he said it; no food in the house, if I said it. Not all the codes related to his drinking. I’m going to go read meant I wanted to be left alone for an hour or so, after which maybe we’d have sex; watching TV meant Jackson wanted to be alone to drink. No sex.
    â€œWhy did you wait all this time to call me?” Jackson’s voice is husky—how it sounds when he’s close to tears—and I realize we’ve been waiting in silence, each of us, for the other to speak.
    â€œI guess I wasn’t ready yet.”
    â€œYou scared me, Theo. I didn’t know where you’d gone, no one knew. You could’ve been injured, something could’ve happened to you. I had to call the police, I called your father—”
    â€œSo I heard.”
    Neither of us says anything for a while.
    â€œWould you at least tell me why you left?” he asks.
    As if he hasn’t a clue. The injured party. The last to know.
    â€œJackson,” I say as tactfully as possible, enunciating my words—or maybe it’s that I’m filled with hurt and anger and distrust, incensed that he acts so in the dark. “You knew I was leaving. You saw me get the suitcase out, you just chose not to say or do anything.” I’d put in an item and wait. Pair of jeans. Wait. Blouse. Socks. Wait. Toothbrush, toothpaste. Wait some more. Jackson never got off the couch, never said a word.
    â€œAll right, you left. I let you go. Huge mistake. Is that why it’s over?