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Fiona
“Did you hear that?” Fiona looked at the door. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her heart rate increased. Was she being paranoid, or had someone just knocked?
She heard nothing but the wind and almost laughed at herself. No one would be out in this storm.
“No,” Emma said without looking up from her phone, “I didn’t hear anything.”
Mrs. Patterson lit another candle, and the noise came again. “I think there’s someone there.”
Emma got to her knees on the sofa and pulled the curtain back from the window. She gasped. “It’s my mom!” She flew to the door.
Fiona’s chest tightened. Emma’s mother had come to get her. Emma was leaving her. That was all right, she told herself. The child did not belong to her, and Emma would be better off with her mother. Still, her absence was going to hurt.
Emma flung open the door and jumped out into the rain to wrap her arms around her mother. Over the wind, Fiona could hear them both crying.
The door started to swing shut, but Fiona grabbed it and opened it wider. “Get on in here, out of the rain.” She stepped back to make room, and they came inside, arms still wrapped around each other like they were a single entity. Fiona shut the door. How different her life might’ve been if she’d had children. Maybe she wouldn’t be so alone.
Emma stepped back to look at her mother but she didn’t let go of her. “What happened?”
“Your father threw me out.”
“He threw you out?” Fiona cried. That didn’t make any sense. Was there more to the story than she’d heard?
The pastor’s wife took a long shaky breath and tried to wipe her chin with her wet shoulder.
“Hang on. Let me get you some towels.” Fiona hurried to the bathroom. When she returned, the two were speaking quietly.
Tonya looked at her and explained, “The church just fired him. And his first reaction to that was to kick me out. I guess he was only keeping me around to keep his job.”
Fiona handed her a towel, unsure of what to say.
“You can stay here!” Emma said, her face bright with youthful hope. She looked at Fiona. “Isn’t that right?”
Fiona nodded. “Of course. There’s not much room, but if you don’t mind being cramped.”
“She can have the couch. I’ll sleep in a chair.”
“I don’t want to put you out,” Tonya said. “I’d be grateful for a roof for the night. Then, tomorrow, we’ll find somewhere to go.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Emma said. “Mrs. Patterson has been awesome through all this. I can’t just abandon her now.”
Tonya closed her eyes. “Let’s discuss it tomorrow. I’m a little overwhelmed right now.”
This admission spurred Fiona into action. “Of course you are.” She pulled the kitchen chair away from the table. “Here, please have a seat. You want me to get you some dry clothes? We’re about the same size.”
Tonya shook her head and sat down. “No, thank you. I’m drying out already.”
“All right. Let me at least get you some hot tea, take the chill off.”
Tonya nodded. “That would be nice.”
Hurriedly, Fiona grabbed the teakettle, filled it with tap water, and then stopped. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t have a way to get the water hot.”
“That’s all right. That’s sort of how my whole month has been going. You think of something reasonable, rational, something normal, and then something irrational kicks you in the face and you wonder how you ever thought anything could be normal.”
Fiona stopped moving, and the teakettle slowly lowered to her side. She stood there staring at Tonya. She could identify so strongly with what Tonya had just said. She’d been kicked in the teeth so many times by things completely unexpected, by people she’d thought would never hurt her. “Well then, let’s go to the living room. It’s more comfortable there.”
She led the way into the even smaller room.
“Your home is lovely,” Tonya said, and Fiona got the impression she would have said that no matter what her home looked like.
“Thank you. It had better be because this is where I spend my time.”
Tonya smiled through her tears. “I’m sorry we’ve never met before.” Her expression reminded Fiona of a politician.
Fiona studied her. “Do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Drop the niceties. You are a woman in crisis. Act like it.”
Tonya’s head snapped back a little, and then she studied Fiona in return. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure how to act, I guess. I’ve never done this before.”
Fiona smiled, trying to look comforting. “No need to be sorry.”
“I was just trying to be polite.”
“I’m sure you were. But there’s no need.” Fiona laughed. “I’m not asking you to be impolite, of course, but Emma and I decided a while ago that we would dispense with pretense.”
Tonya looked at her daughter curiously.
Emma shrugged. “Mrs. Patterson isn’t into acting.”
Tonya returned her gaze to Fiona. “I guess I can appreciate that.”
“I used to be a performer,” Fiona said, surprised at how easily the admission came this time. “I got enough of that for a lifetime. Forcing a smile when you felt like throwing up. Thanking them for coming when you wished they hadn’t.”
Tonya snickered, and her body physically relaxed.
This slouching brought Fiona significant joy.
“Why would you not want them to come?” Tonya asked.
“Because by then I knew what they really thought of me. They were pretending to want to be there, and I was pretending to want them there. It was a ridiculous make-believe existence. The only real things in my life were the things I fought to keep hidden and buried.”
Tonya’s mouth fell open a little. She didn’t say anything for several seconds, and then she said, “You wouldn’t believe how much I know what you mean.”
