Surviving Valencia

“Sure.” He set down the wine and took off his coat and scarf. I went to my old bedroom, now an office, and set our coats on the chair. It was freezing in there. I closed the door and exhaled, surprised I didn’t see my breath. There was new carpet, new beige walls, new drapes. Nothing about it was anything like it used to be. It looked so small and tidy. I opened the closet door and looked inside. It was filled with my parents’ summer clothes.

Someone was knocking at the door, so I answered it.

“What are you doing in here?” asked Adrian. “Don’t leave me out there with those people.”

“Come in and shut the door,” I said.

“We can’t hide in here the whole time.”

“I know that. I only want to hide in here for a few minutes. This used to be my room, you know.”

“Uh-huh. It’s nice. Twenty degrees below zero in here, but really nice.”

“There is nothing in here to show it used to be mine. It’s like I’ve been completely erased.”

“Parents do that when their kids grow up.”

“I know. Well some don’t. Some leave a reminder here or there.”

“True.” He picked up his scarf and wrapped it around his neck.

“So what was it like,” I asked him, “the first time you ever came here? The first time you saw pictures of Van and Valencia hanging on our walls, and thought ‘I’m in their house’? How did it feel?”

He shook his head at my crassness.

“Remember when I showed you the juice glass that Valencia always used, and I was sad. That had so much more meaning to you than I knew.”

He removed his scarf and set it back on his coat, making a move for the door.

“Tell me,” I said. “I want to hear it in your words.”

The door swung open.

“Oh, hi,” said BobbieMae. “Farnie is going to play in here.” The little boy I’d seen when we arrived came in and dumped a bucket of Legos on the floor.

“Come on,” said Adrian, reaching for my hand, always able to snap right back to normalcy. “Let’s get out of here and go mingle.”

“My room,” said Farnie, slamming the door after us.

We stood in the kitchen, awkwardly, munching on pickle spears. My mother and grandmother insisted there was nothing we could do to help. I felt big and very much in the way.

“Whose little boy is that?” I asked.

“That’s Farnsworth. He’s Beatrice’s grandson,” said my aunt Louise.

I had no idea who Beatrice was. I nodded my head, desperate for the time when I could get smashingly drunk again. I noticed Adrian pouring himself a Gatorade-sized serving of thirty-dollar merlot and I gave him a dirty look. He ignored me, throwing back his head and downing it as if it were a shot of tequila.

I took a ginger ale from the cooler on the floor and sat down on one of the old, tippy stools at the breakfast bar.

“No fancy wine for you?” asked Aunt Louise.

“She’s drinking for two,” my mother quipped. So she hadn’t forgotten.

“Oh, that’s what I heard. In my day you could drink wine. I don’t know why they changed that. When are you due?”

“March,” I said.

“You’re big already!”