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There's nothing to say, and she's got no idea how to start, so she hobbles back inside, leaving Brendan on the porch. It's fifty-fifty whether he'll come in mad or mollified. It's not like she can get back upstairs, not without his help, so she'll have to face him either way. Or else sleep on the couch the way she'd planned to earlier in the evening, before Amanda and Julian had each taken one of her arms and led her to her bedroom. Thing is, she doesn't want to sleep on the couch, not anymore, not when there are warm pillows and scents and memories to return to. She wants to roll around in it, in her well-used bed, before the sensory memories are gone.
By now, she's most of the way to sober, and starving. There was no one left to eat the food Amanda and Julian had returned with, so there are still multiple unopened bags and containers strewn around the kitchen. Doritos and two-bite brownies and a huge hunk of parmesan. The extra-garlicky hummus Jane has made for every party they've ever been to together is still on the counter, as untouched as it always is. There's a bottle of Cuervo and some fifteen dollar sparkling wine. Eve's kitchen looks halfway between a frat party and bridge club. Sounds about right.
Eve would chug the Diet Coke right out of the two-liter bottle, but Brendan is back now, and, as his mother, she feels obliged to put on at least a pretense of civilization. She takes a glass along with the bottle to the table—along with the two-bite brownies—just before her ankle starts screaming. Propping it up on a neighboring chair helps a little, but it's probably time for another pill.
She drinks and nibbles in a semi-stupor, kind of numb. She can feel ghosts of pressure, of sensation, playing across different places on her body. A squeeze here on her ass, the oily slide of Amanda's lipstick across her lips, the tickle of Julian's long hair across her shoulders, the solid pressure of his dick inside her. The wetness between her legs is still there.
Eventually, Brendan shuffles in. He walks right by her, not even looking at her. But then again, she isn't really looking at him. He's merely a shape, a shadow, moving around in front of her while she watches and rewatches a series of clips from recent events behind her eyes.
"You finished all the water?" she hears him ask.
"Huh? Oh. There's more in the pantry. Let me…"
She begins to get up, to get it for him. An eighteen year habit of doing things for Brendan, of taking care of him, isn't easily broken by only two months alone. Her foot snaps her out of it, refusing to walk for so little reason, so she collapses back into her chair.
"What's wrong with your foot?" he asks, staring down at her. Not 'are you okay?' (which, well, obviously, he's seen enough to know she isn't completely incapacitated). Not 'what can I do to help?' (which, okay, she isn't sure what he could have offered anyway).
"I sprained my ankle this afternoon down on Maple Street. It should be better in a week." She almost adds 'if I take it easy' like the doctor added earlier, but she swallows the words, thinking they might open her up to mockery, open the unnamable subject between them at all.
"How'd you get home? The car's not in the driveway."
"Someone gave me a ride to the hospital. Just a stranger, really nice woman. The car's still downtown."
"You didn't call me," he says accusingly, as though he ever picks up the phone when she calls.
"My phone got run over when I fell. I might need you to take me to T-Mobile tomorrow." This is easy, Eve thinks. She can make words, string them together. She can talk to her son. She's been doing it for years.
Brendan has already moved to the pantry, where Eve has always kept the extra water. But she hasn't been buying it recently. Margo got her onto that La Croix stuff over at Barry's bar one night, and now she's addicted to the black cherry flavor. She hasn't bought plain water in weeks. Brendan stares at the twelve-pack box where the Poland Spring used to live.
"What the hell?"
"That's all I've got. Sorry."
He shrugs and takes one anyway. "So you didn't get my text saying I was on my way," Brendan says, not answering her implicit question about helping her get to T-Mobile.
"No, I didn't get it. I wouldn't have thrown a party if I'd known you were coming."
All of a sudden, Eve feels tired, which is only normal at two in the morning when you're in a lot of pain. She also wonders if Julian's texted her; he does often enough, even on nights when they haven't…
Brendan looks at where empty wine glasses are lined up along the edge of the sink, obviously too many for three people. "A party? Is that what this was?"
"Yeah. Jane and Dave came, and some friends from my writing class, and… It was a party."
"It's not your birthday or anything."
The plan was to tell him over Thanksgiving. Eve didn't think she'd see him in person until then. But now that he's here… Well, she's glad to have something to discuss other than, well.
"It was to celebrate. I, uh, I changed my name today."
"What?"
"Yeah."
"What did you change it to? What's wrong with Eve?"
Eve stares at him. Brendan is usually brighter than this.
"No, my last name. I changed it back to Mackie."
He splutters out his seltzer water. "Why?"
"I… It wasn't who I wanted to be anymore. It didn't feel like who I am."
"But my name is Fletcher. We're supposed to be a family," Brendan replies plaintively. "We're supposed to have the same name."
"You're in college now. It doesn't matter as much if we have the same name."
The thing is, even though she's saying the words now, even though they make sense, none of it factored into her decision to become Eve Mackie again. To move forward by moving back. For the first time since his birth, Eve made a major decision without thinking about Brendan at all. Everything she's done today, she'd done without thinking about him.
Maybe that's why he came home tonight, so suddenly, so unexpectedly. Maybe that's why everything feels ruined. Maybe she's being punished for selfishness, for not putting him first, even for a day.
"It matters to me," he says.
Eve can see Brendan getting heated, see him channeling his anger and confusion about the sex into this new news. He keeps glaring angrily at her ankle, as though it sprained itself just to piss him off.
"If I'd gotten married again, if I ever get married again, I'd probably change my name. It might have happened anyway."
"Are you getting married? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" He scoffs, nastily. "Who are you going to marry? Julian?"
"No, of course not," she replies, staring at the plastic container of brownies.
"Do you even know who he is?" Brendan explodes, finally, looking so much like Ted that something twists inside Eve's already booze-sloshed gut. "Did you know we went to school together? Did you know he was in my class? You think this was a coincidence? He's using you, mom. He's using you to get back at me. This is just revenge."
"Getting you back for what? Revenge for what?"
Brendan shrugs, and for a moment, instead of flashes of the little open-mouthed gasp Julian gave each time he'd come, Eve saw behind her eyes his avoidant gaze the one time she ever mentioned Brendan. Pain and embarrassment and… she never asked again because she could tell enough, and didn't want to know more. Didn't want to think about Brendan's worst impulses.
"Nothing." Brendan squirmed, as he always did when lying. "Stupid stuff. He's just a loser. You fucked a loser."
And there it is, she thinks. Despite her headache, despite the pleasant spasms that still gave her chills, like aftershocks following an earthquake, Eve sees Brendan clearly for the first time. Callous, selfish, stuck in his own head, confused about the past, frightened of the future, unable to commit to the present. All the worst things about a teenager. All the worst things about Ted. But also all the worst parts of herself, of the person she no longer wants to be. She loves him, of course she does, he's her son. But that doesn't mean she always likes him.
She doesn't have to take this. She's his mom, after all.
"You're going to take me upstairs now. I'll see you in the morning."
And, as he always does on the rare times when she puts her foot down, uses this tone, he stops. She never knows why she doesn't use the tone more often.
Only a few minutes later, when he's silently and obediently set her up for the night does she remember to ask, "So, how come you came home? What's going on?"
"Nothing special. Just wanted to get away for the weekend."
She doesn't believe him, but, fuck, her foot hurts too much to get into it now. She'll coax it out of him tomorrow. In the meanwhile, she buries her face in the left-side pillow, the one that still smells like Julian's shampoo.
When she finds herself wondering, just before she falls asleep, what she would text Julian—not 'if' she would text Julian—she knows that she's all in. She needs to think of something nice to do to thank Amanda next week.
Monday morning isn't anything like the morning after Roy's funeral. Eve doesn't feel any stress about going to work, about seeing Amanda. The difference, she thinks, is that she's got nothing to feel awkward about, other than her son barging in. If anything, Amanda might be feeling awkward about the whole Brendan thing, which will put Eve in the position of providing emotionally calm reassurance.
Taking an Uber to work also helps her positive mood. There's something about being driven around like a princess that makes her feel, well, like a princess.
So, she's ready to hobble into the senior center, in a good mood and ready for anything, when she spots Julian standing out front, shifting from one foot to the other.
"What are you doing here?" she asks with a wide, welcoming smile, so different from the last time he showed up at her work.
"Hey," he says, rocking his skateboard to his chest, a little nervously. He looks beautiful, but then, he always does. There's a happy light in his eyes as he watches her get out of the car—the light that never fails to do it for her.
A single beat, and then he runs over to help her. Gently, so gently, as though she's made of the most precious glass, he walks her to the bench near the front door. She's been thinking about how he touched her all weekend. This new, totally innocent pressure around her arm is nothing like the other night, and yet she likes it just as much. She leans into it, feigns more pain than she really feels, and has only the tiniest pang of guilt about it.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
"Yeah, it's better than it was."
"I've been worried. You didn't… You usually answer my texts. I didn't know if you…"
"I never got them. I still don't have a phone." Eve doesn't tell Julian how Brendan decamped to his dad's on Saturday morning, only to hear the news about the pregnancy and come running back. She doesn't tell him how Brendan dutifully did everything she asked except for taking her to the T-Mobile. It was Brendan's way of chastising her without having to talk about it, his way of saying he didn't approve, of fruitlessly trying to keep her away from Julian, to keep his mom all to himself.
She'd let him do it. It was only a couple of days. A day and a half, really, since the only bus back to school left at lunchtime on Sunday. Eve packed him all the snacks and told him that if he needed to withdraw and start again next semester, she'd support him. He said he'd stick it out, try harder.
She was proud of him for at least wanting to try, for being as wrung out about anything as he was about whatever was going on at school; she had a feeling there was more to the story, but with the little she knew, she was glad of these challenges for him.
She was also relieved when the Uber that took him to the bus station pulled away from the house.
Julian looks just as relieved to hear that she hasn't been purposefully ignoring him.
"It's my day off. I can take you to the store at lunchtime. If you want me to, I mean."
It's his way of asking… everything, and it's so sweet.
Eve laughs and brushes her hair out of her face. She should be going inside, getting to work. She shouldn't be sitting out here, in the open sunshine, with this gorgeous boy. "You don't even have a car," she says, by way of answering 'yes'.
"I can drive yours. Just tell me where it is."
The part of her that knows she should say no is so done. It stopped trying around the time that she first felt his mouth on hers, his hand between her legs. She's actually about to say "okay" when she's distracted by Amanda walking towards them, just arriving at work for the day. She sees the two of them sitting together and smiles, but only after rolling her eyes. Julian and Eve grin shyly up at her.
Amanda moves her pointer finger in a fondly accusatory circle, drawing and tying them in it together. "This is cute. Early as fuck, but cute."
Eve was right. There's no awkwardness, not even a little, not even about the fact that whatever is going on here, between her and Julian, is a different sort of thing from what went on with the three of them. She remembers, very belatedly, Amanda having talked about having a Bumble date this weekend. She notes that Amanda's wearing… not Monday morning clothes.
Someone's had a very good weekend.
Julian doesn't seem to feel any awkwardness either, because he complains, putting on a false plaintiveness, sounding more like a kid than she's ever heard from him, except not, because it's a joke, "Eve still doesn't have a phone."
"What's the point of having kids if they don't run errands for you when you're sick?" Amanda asks.
Eve shrugs. "He wasn't here for long."
"You good? Is he good?"
"I have a feeling we're never going to talk about it," Eve replies. "It'll be fine."
Amanda nods. "I get that. Hey, Julian, why don't you take Eve home?"
"What do you mean?" Eve says.
"You have a sprained ankle. Take the day. I can handle things here. You gonna take care of her, Julian?"
Julian sneaks his hand behind their backs, to where Eve's hand is resting, holding her up. "Yeah, I'll take care of her."