Page 58 of The Infinite Light of Dust

“My boyfriend is in the Army too. Newly stationed here.” She perked up.

I always considered myself to be an extremely grounded person, someone who could make anything make sense, but I was dumbfounded. Not only by the realization that Fischer had been in contact with this woman and his sister didn’t have a clue, but that she had a boyfriend in the Army and was acting like she hadn’t left her family in the middle of the night. It was obvious that she didn’t have a clue who I was or that I had a connection to Karina. It took every bit of my self-control not to be rude to her. In my head, I was screaming at her, telling her that she had some fucking nerve to just show up here like nothing had happened. I could feel my jaw ticking, it was so fucking hard to bite my tongue.

“Mom, Martin is also Karina’s boyfriend,” Fischer told her when my silence became awkward.

He knew me well enough to know that it would be impossible for me to smile and simply ask her about her boyfriend or pretend that I didn’t know how big of a deal this would be for Karina and should be for him. Her entire demeanor changed as she took in this information. She went from breezy and smiley to nervous and mildly defensive. She reminded me of a prisoner I had to babysit once in Afghanistan. The sudden change in behavior when held in captivity was a very specific human behavior. It said a lot about her that the mere mention of her daughter made her react this way.

“Oh. Karina’s dating a soldier?”

Her words weren’t what I had expected. I assumed she would ask where Karina was, what she was up to, how she was.

“I’m discharging, medical retirement, so technically only a soldier for another week or so,” I explained.

Fischer looked like he was going to vomit.

“I’m surprised, honestly.” She stared at me, taking in the details of my face. She had a curious, attention-to-detail gaze, just like her daughter.

“I was too. She always said she would never date a soldier, but these two are pretty serious. Like, marriage serious,” Fischer claimed.

Were we? I guess we were, but I had a feeling Karina would not like her brother talking about our relationship without her being present.

“Marriage? Really? I can’t imagine Karina married. Wow, she must be really infatuated with you.”

My fist tightened at my waist, and I tried to ignore the burning feeling of wanting to speak for Karina and wipe that look off her mother’s face. What did she know about her daughter? She had left when Karina was in high school and didn’t have a clue who Karina was as a woman, and her blasé tone made it evident that she didn’t feel nearly as guilty as she should.

I couldn’t help it, I had to react. “And what do you imagine Karina to be, exactly?”

The playfulness disappeared from her face. Her brows turned down and she glared at me. I hadn’t expected her to be so hostile. From the image Karina had painted of her, she was fragile, lost, and dreamy, desperate to be loved and have a purpose in the world. And maybe shewas, but the woman in front of me was not.

“I imagine her to be like you. Harsh and cold. Like her father.”

“Mom.” Fischer tried to interject but both of us ignored him.

“She couldn’t be further from that.” I defended Karina, entirely sure that she was wrong. Karina was nothing like her father; she didn’t have a ruthless bone in her body.

Their mother studied me further, looking for a hole to probe. I could practically read her mind now that the idea of who she was had evaporated.

She shrugged, and the butterflies on her chaotic dress looked like they were dancing. “I guess people change.”

“Are you planning on telling her you’re back?” I asked her. All pretenses were gone now. I may as well ask the most important question.

She turned to Fischer, as if looking to him for guidance. He was lost, unable to help her, but I could tell he would have done anything to make the room less tense. The machine in the corner beeped steadily as the seconds passed. It suddenly dawned on me that the person Fischer had been on the phone with was his mother, not a drug dealer. I didn’t need to know how long the two of them had been in contact—it would only make it worse that he’d hidden it from Karina. She overlooked all his bad behavior, his addictions, his selfishness, but could she overlook this?

“I do. I just need to get my grounding here first. I just moved back. Everything is going so well with my boyfriend, and I don’t want to rock the boat by throwing in any variables.”

Variables? What the fuck was this, a science lab? She was not equipped to be a mother and certainly didn’t deserve Karina’s empathy or sympathy. And her boyfriend? What kind of person puts something as trivial as a boyfriend before the child they’d abandoned?

Nothing I could say would change her mind, and I didn’t want to. If she didn’t want to see her daughter, I wasn’t going to force her. Karina deserved better than that. She was already a mess from Phillips’s breakdown, and with her not being aware of her father’s illness, it was too much.

“I’m going to go.” I didn’t want to spend another moment breathing the same air as this woman, and I wasn’t in the business of cussing women out.

Fischer nodded. His face told me that he had a lot to say but couldn’t. I wanted to flip him off. That casual little fucker always stirred up a storm and walked away unscathed. He had somehow become the favorite, easier child, and it didn’t make any damn sense to me. Given his current state, you know, being in the damn hospital because of a screwdriver being stabbed into his torso by his girlfriend’s husband said it all. What a headline.

I didn’t turn back around as I left, disappointment and worry filling every crack in my armor.

I couldn’t shake the memory of Karina’s mother’s face as I drove to Karina’s. She texted me that she was leaving her dad’s and going home, so I wanted to meet her there. I called my ma, hoping to get some advice. She was enraged and confused by Karina’s mother’s return and behavior. She immediately advised me to tell Karina, that I couldn’t hide something like this from her. While I knew she was right, she always was, I couldn’t imagine breaking Karina’s heart while it was already in recovery. By the time I pulled up to her house, I felt sick. I could have just walked in and told Karina that her mother was at the hospital, and she could go see her right now. As many times as I’d played the scenario in my head, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I went back and forth as I walked up the nearly finished deck and heard Elodie’s voice coming from inside.

Okay, so it wasn’t the time. I would have taken any excuse, and was grateful for Elodie’s presence. I knocked lightly on the door before stepping inside. Elodie had a small suitcase in one hand and a duffel bag over her other shoulder.

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