Beneath the Surface(54)

“Fuck.” Kristin didn’t swear often, but this occasion called for it.

“He gave me his number.” Sheryl fished a flimsy piece of paper out of her jeans pocket. “And I don’t know whether to tear this up or frame it and hang it on the wall.” She huffed out a disdainful breath. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Sheryl’s eyes pleaded, as though searching Kristin’s face for an answer.

“What did you say to him?” Kristin wished she had been there.

“He asked me to think about it and I said I would.” Sheryl looked around, got up, and found the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter.

“Will you?” Kristin tried to keep her tone as gentle and light as possible.

Sheryl refilled her glass in which the ice had not had time to melt, then cupped it between her hands—as though she could draw strength and a clear head from doing so. “I have no choice but to think about him now.” She sighed. “All these years. It’s not that I never thought about him anymore. Of course I did. It’s not even that I didn’t understand his reaction after Mom died. But I wished so hard for him to pull himself together for such a long time, and when he never did, I had to let him go. Had to push thoughts of him away as soon as they popped up. It was hard enough having one parent desert…” Her voice caught and she sipped from her whiskey, more carefully this time. “As far as I’m concerned, he left me too. They both did. And we never, ever talked about it. About why she did it. Not even on the rare occasions when he was sober.” She went silent.

“He probably just wants to know you’re doing okay.”

Sheryl shrugged violently. “Maybe. But we don’t have a relationship, despite sharing DNA. I don’t know the man, and I don’t feel he has the right to know me. Not anymore.”

Sheryl drank more, finished her glass; Kristin had barely touched hers. Then she let her head fall into her hands. Kristin caressed her back, squeezed her shoulder, listening for sounds of her crying, but didn’t hear anything.

“I could have gone the rest of my life without thinking about him. Now he has given me no choice,” Sheryl said as her face reemerged.

Kristin sidled up to her, put her arm more firmly around Sheryl’s shoulders. “Maybe it can be a good thing. Maybe you can get some closure.” The barely broached subject of Sheryl’s family always threw up a certain distance between them. Because Kristin didn’t know that much about them, only the bare minimum facts. Maybe she should have pushed more in all the years they’d been together, perhaps even taken advantage of Sheryl’s more frequent bouts of drunkenness.

“I always believed I already had closure.” Sheryl put her head on Kristin’s shoulder. “They put me in therapy after it happened. My dad was supposed to take me twice a week, but he forgot half of the time. He refused to go himself. He even told me once, when I asked him about it, pointing at the six-pack he was putting away, that it was all the therapy he needed, because my mother had been seeing a therapist for years and what good had it done her?” She finally put her glass down, keeping her head on Kristin’s shoulder. “I stopped going. Between everyone’s distress, and me splitting my time between living with my dad and living with my aunt, I was hard to keep track of. My dad didn’t care. Didn’t seem to at least. Then he didn’t have to pay for it, I guess. More money for booze.”

Despite never talking about it much, Kristin had often wondered, mostly while staring at Sheryl sleeping it off, what such neglect would do to a twelve-year-old girl. Sheryl might have had her aunt, but she no longer had her mother and the attention she needed from her father. To her surprise, Sheryl had always seemed so utterly composed. If she hadn’t told her about her harrowing family history, Kristin would never have guessed.

To her dismay, she then realized it was one of the reasons why Kristin had never gotten too much on Sheryl’s case about her ever-increasing thirst for alcohol. Sometimes she even caught herself thinking that if anyone deserved a drink, it was Sheryl. Sheryl who always held it together. The respected professor. The LGBT rights activist. The woman who believed in so much with such fervor, it had surprised and charmed Kristin in equal measures when they’d just started dating.

“There are people you can see now,” Kristin said. “You don’t have to go through this alone. You are not alone anymore.” Kristin held her tighter, as if the closer she pressed Sheryl against her, the more she could bring this point across.

“I have you.” Sheryl’s tone, though injured, was resolute.