Angela Clinton was scheduled to be released from prison on parole in less than a month, and the pending event loomed over them all like a storm cloud on the horizon. Each of her sisters seemed to be handling the situation in their own way. To help her process through her own myriad of emotions, Juliette had initiated contact with Angela via letters, and the two had been writing back and forth for over a year. Last summer, Angela had informed Juliette of her pending release, and had asked if the sisters might be willing to get together with her once she had settled back in Midtown. Renata had been hesitant at first, but had eventually agreed that getting together with Angela would bring a sense of closure, if nothing else. She hadn't known Angela the way Juliette had, so she didn't feel the same obligation Juliette did to repair a broken relationship. Phoebe, on the other hand, had encouraged Juliette, and subsequently Renata, to do whatever they needed to do to heal, but had remained uncharacteristically resolute about not wanting to connect with Angela. Ever.
Then, a little over a month ago, through a series of remarkable circumstances, Phoebe was introduced to Alice Masters, Angela's mother. She'd discovered a woman who had also endured devastating loss and grief because of the tragic accident. Alice and Phoebe had forged a fragile connection, and now, between Juliette's pen pal friendship with Angela, and Phoebe's developing relationship with Alice, it seemed inevitable that the two families—what was left of them, anyway—would converge at some point in the near future. Gia knew all three of her sisters, each in their own way, were looking forward to meeting Angela Clinton.
However, Gia felt completely detached from the situation, although she couldn't bring herself to admit as much to the rest of her family. Her sisters assured her that she, too, had been a mess, had cried at night, had begged to go home to her own house. They told her how she'd started wetting the bed again, and how she'd refused to eat anything unless it was served in the Little Mermaid dishes her parents had given her for a birthday present a few months before they'd died. How she'd religiously worn her daddy's tie and incessantly rubbed the end of it until it was just a frayed tassel that kept getting shorter and shorter as time went by. How she'd cried when it wasn't long enough to knot around her neck anymore. But Gia couldn't remember any of that. Even though she'd been well old enough to have memories of those months before and following her parents' deaths, she simply couldn't dredge them up. And so, in light of having no real concept of the loss and the grief that accompanied the loss, she also believed she harbored no bitterness or lack of forgiveness toward Angela. She simply felt no compulsion to connect with the girl, not even for the sake of resolution.
As far as Gia could determine, she had no unresolved issues with Angela. Her unresolved issues were much closer to home.
In fact, it was only a sense of familial obligation that drove her decision to agree to meet with Angela upon her release. If not for Juliette's desire to do so, Renata's need for closure, and Phoebe's curiosity about Angela's part in the connection she and Alice Masters shared, Gia could have gone her whole life without ever knowing what became of the Angela Clinton Gia didn't know who took the lives of the parents Gia didn't remember.
However, that sense of detachment seemed to permeate everything in her life these days. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life, but she felt no motivation to figure it out. She wanted to love and be loved by someone—Ricky? Jupiter? Someone she had yet to meet, some future man of her dreams? Or someone from her past? What about Jackson who had begged her to go out with him throughout their whole senior year, who kept in touch even now, claiming he loved her and wanted to take care of her? Of all people, Jackson Plains could do just that. He came from money, and even though he was off at college getting his business degree so he could one day step into his dad's big shiny shoes, she knew she had but to say the word, and he'd rearrange his world to make a place in it for her. Why couldn't she let herself love someone like Jackson?
And what about Ricky? He was her best friend. He was the brother she never had. He was her comforter, her companion, her trouble-maker twin, her conscience. They were already practically one person in so many ways, and she loved him to the point of obsession. But did she love him only like a brother? A friend? Or did she love him the way she would a husband? A lover?
Well, yes. Yes to all of the above. And that's what made it so confusing and frightening. How could she love someone like a brother and want him to also be her boyfriend? Where was the line between platonic and romantic, or even carnal love? It freaked her out to think about kissing Ricky, about his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his hands caressing her, his body hard against hers... and yet she longed for it, too. And that made her feel guilty, partly because he was her buddy, her pal, Rickaroni Baloney Thomas Zander she was thinking of in such a way.
And yet, still, she ached for it. Listening to her friends carry on about the guys they dated, about making out, about sex. Gia wasn't only the last virgin she knew, she was also the only girl she knew who hadn't even had a real open-mouth kiss before. She was a full grown legal adult, for Pete's sake, and she hadn't even been to first base with a guy. Did that make her a freak?
What she really longed for was a mother to talk to. For Simone to sit beside her on her bed and help her sort through these feelings. She couldn't ask Granny G to help her. As much as Gia loved and respected her, the woman was almost four times her age and when she and Gramps had met, things had been different. They'd known each other six months before they married. Six months! They hadn't witnessed each other’s ups and downs of adolescence and puberty. They'd never had to sort out their conflicting feelings about each other. They'd met, fallen in love, and agreed they couldn't live without each other. She couldn't talk to Phoebe, either; there wasn't a maternal bone in Phoebe's body. Well, at least there hadn't been until recently. And although the heartbreaking story of Phoebe's daughter had been exposed and her sister had begun the process of freeing herself from the pain of that person she'd been, it was still too early to lean on Phoebe as a mother figure. Juliette, as soft and gentle and loving as she was, wouldn't be any good to talk to either. She'd never understood why Gia and Ricky had stayed 'just friends' all this time. "He's perfect for you in every way, Gia, and I can see how much you both love each other. I don't get it. Why is nothing happening between you?" But since Gia couldn't explain it herself, it would do no good to confide in Juliette who seemed to have the same questions she did. And Ren? No. Just no. Not because she didn't trust her, but because Ren would over-analyze the whole thing, come up with some insane intervention plan, and the whole thing would backfire, and without a doubt, someone would lose an eye. At the very least, someone's heart would end up broken.
Her friends from high school? As much as she'd believed they'd be forever friends and closer than sisters, in the time since graduation, she felt the separation that came from everyone taking different paths. There wasn't one of them who could relate to what she was dealing with—they knew Ricky in the same context she did, and she really needed a fresh perspective.
So what about Jupiter? Maybe she should see where things went with him. Not that she really believed he was interested in her. Sure, he flirted and teased and touched her in ways that made it seem like he was attracted to her, but everything about him felt polished, like he'd had a lot of practice at playing the Casanova.
Gia toyed with a long curl, winding and unwinding it around her finger as she thought about the disruption Jupiter had brought to her life in the course of one day. She marveled at how self-assured he was, how he seemed to know exactly what he wanted and went after it. Perhaps he wasn't exactly serious about her, but his behavior did indicate that he wanted her on some level, even if it was just a physical attraction. How could it be anything else in less than seven hours spent together?
And yet, maybe the fact that he wasn't serious about her—and indeed, couldn't afford to be since he was only here temporarily—was just the thing she needed to help her break through whatever barrier kept her from letting anyone love her.
The idea thrilled her and terrified her at the same time and she found herself growing more and more antsy, fidgeting in her seat. She certainly wasn't paying a bit of attention to the television show. She glanced over at her grandparents. Gramps' eyelids sat at half mast, heavy with sleep, but she found her grandmother studying her, a look of concern on her face.
Before the older woman could ask her any questions, Gia sat forward and said, "I'm going to call it a night. I'm having a hard time concentrating on the show, and I think I'm just super tired. Do you want me to take your cup, Granny G?" She stood and reached a hand out to her grandmother.
"No, sweetie, I'm not finished with it yet, but thank you." Granny G took a sip as though to validate her statement. "Are you sure everything is all right?"
"Absolutely," Gia assured her. "It was just a long day and I think I'm still coming down off the wedding high from the weekend, that's all."
"A good night's sleep often cures what ails ya," Gramps interjected, his voice groggy with fatigue. He muted the volume on the television and reached a hand toward each woman. "Come. Let's do our prayer here then." Together, they bowed their heads and lifted up their nightly prayer of thanksgiving for family and friends, for provision, and salvation.
It took Gia a few moments to quiet her spirit enough to feel the gratitude Gramps claimed for them, but she was grateful. For her grandparents who'd taken them in without hesitation, for her sisters and how close they'd remained over the years, despite their differences. For Ricky... yes, for Ricky, her best friend in all the world. For her job, her cute little car, her grandparents' health, for the way God had provided for the whole family in the aftermath of the tragic accident.
Angela Clinton. Could Gia be thankful for her? With her head bowed, she tried to imagine the petite girl with corn silk hair and the voice of an angel her sisters had told her about. A girl beloved by all who knew her, a girl from an upstanding, church-going family that was prominent in the community... getting plastered all alone on what should have been one of the best days of her young life.
A girl who'd spent the last sixteen years in the women's prison forty-five minutes away from her home town where her mother, Alice Masters, waited with the support of her new husband for her daughter's safe return.
Could she be grateful for the girl who had turned the lives of so many people upside down with her irreversible actions that day? Something in Gia longed to say yes, but the longer she thought about it, the longer she considered how desperately she needed her mother these days, the more difficult she found it to even be content with the way things were, no less grateful. She loved her grandparents, her sisters, and she loved what they'd made of the life that had been forced on them, but would any of them have chosen this for themselves? No. A thousand times no. Of that, she was certain.
Gramps squeezed her hand as he ended with a reverent "Amen," but Gia didn't echo him the way she usually did. A dark cloud of disquiet hovered over her as she leaned down to plant a kiss first on Gramps' cheek, then on Granny G's. And although neither of them said anything, she could feel the weight of their concerned gazes on her as she headed down the hall.