2019-03-15 - Food for fishes.

Sophia: Mom is pregnant. She just called me to tell me the GOOD NEWS. They're getting married.
Sophia: I thought you would want to hear it from me first.

Alex glanced down at this message, and he burst out in a sudden, cynical laugh. It sounded loud in his ears, with the earbuds in, and he wondered if the sound carried beyond his room in the B&B. Briefly, he pulled the earbuds out, and he was immediately assailed by the sounds of the headboard knocking against the wall of the room down the hall. He put the earbuds back in, and he looked at the message on his phone, and he felt something unfurl in the pit of his stomach.

His thumbs hovered over the QWERTY on his phone. He could tap this out to his daughter. He could tell her that he thought her mother was a selfish cunt, so it came as no surprise to him that she had trapped this guy. She hadn't trapped him, Alex, not really. They were just young and stupid. But she hadn't been young and stupid for a lot of years. She'd been spending his money like a goddamn grown-up for the past decade. He could share the aggravation that his ex-wife could ignite in him like no one else, loop his daughter into his frank assessment of her mother. He'd have to send something back to her soon, or she'd start -

Sophia: You okay?

...to worry how he was taking this news.

Alex: Si. Todo bien, monita. Y tu?

Fuck. Alex hated lying to her. He hated lying as a rule. Even little white lies rubbed him the wrong way, but what was he supposed to do? Come unleashed on her mother? Over text?

Sophia: En espanol? Now I know you are being mentiroso.
Sophia: I have class late, but I'll come down on Sunday morning. We can go to church, okay?

He was in the middle of tapping out a reply to her, that it sounded good, that she should shoot him a text when she was on her way, when his phone buzzed in his palm, and the caller ID identified it as being Amy. He clicked the ignore button and finished texting his daughter.

He was going to need to do something before he talked to Amy, or that conversation would go off the rails in a hurry. The phone buzzed to tell him he had a voicemail, and he snagged his coat, heading out into the drizzly afternoon. Another text, while he dragged on that coat.

Amy: pick up please. It's important

Alex: I'm at work. I'll call you later. Another lie.

Amy: what time?

Alex: Later.

Alex tucked the phone into his coat, released his second-hand bike from where he had left it leaning against the side of the B&B, and pedaled it down the road. Should he talk to a priest? Have a drink? Ride around town all day in this clammy drizzle?

He pedaled downtown, passed the antique store. It was dark, closed? He kept pedaling, thinking about the woman that worked there - Violet. He liked the name Violet. Violeta en espanol. - and the bizarre way that encounter had ended, the strange lure of another person like he was, if much more than he was. Like Sophia was, but even more than Sophia was. He found himself in front of the church, chuckled to himself while he realized he was locking his bike to a lamppost in front of a church. Was he really so jaded now that he thought someone would steal a well-used bike in front of a church? The only answer was that he drove the lock home.

Sitting in one of the pews, Alex let himself relax. He could smell candle wax, old incense, cleaning products. He could hear a choir practicing in an attached room somewhere. He could feel the dampness of his coat seeping through into his shirt, the uncomfortable humidity of it. And he emptied his mind, his thoughts draining out of him wordlessly, with no one between them, no language between them, directly from his consciousness to God's.

An hour or two later, he coasted to a stop beneath the big tree in front of the B&B, with darkness just gathering entirely around him. He could see the redhead on the front porch trying to read in the failing light. He glimpsed the man that owned it coming around the side of the house with a bag of trash. And his phone rang again.

He slid the button, accepted the call, put it to his ear, said, "Hi."

"Well, thank you for finally answering my call."

"Hmm."

"I need to talk to you."

Rain slipped through the branches overhead while she told him her Big News. Alex felt that thing inside him again. It wasn't unfurling this time. It was knotting up his stomach. It was twisting and making him angry, making him remember how selfish this bitch really was. How she had sat across from him at the arbitration table, with the lawyer that he fucking paid for, demanding half of everything. Everything. She wanted half of his retirement, half of the house, half of the money he had saved to send his daughter to college. He'd put his foot down about that, wound up giving her the whole goddamn house and everything in it, just to get out of this endless bickering argument with her.

And now what did she want? Why were they having this conversation? It wasn't for him. It was for her. So she could poke at half-healed scabs, try to stick it to him one more time. Amy was pregnant. She was moving on. She was starting the next phase of her life. And he was what? Still halfway between one step and the next, poised between his whole life up to that point and his whole life after it. He wished horrible things on her, on her and Phil, on her and.. Her unborn child? Was he that mad? Really?

The tree overhead popped with a heavy, waterlogged branch warning that it was going to snap soon. A shower of drops fell onto him. The redhead looked up from her book at him. The B&B owner paused with the lid of the trashcan in his hand and looked at him. He lifted his phone-free hand, smiling, ducking his head, signaling apology.

Logan.

Emily.

Violet.

When was the last time he had met three more people like he was and Sophia was in a month? In a year, even? Let alone the span of a few days? They were all much bigger fish than he was. And this was a much, much bigger pond. He was going to have to remember that.