Page 72 of Things We Do in the Dark
“I looked her up,” Drew says, and they both burst out laughing.
His mother opens the bag of takeout and starts eating. Her second bite goes down with more enthusiasm than the first, and he notices she’s lost more weight. She was hit by a drunk driver four years ago, and two surgeries and several complications later, she’s permanently in a wheelchair. It was her suggestion to move into assisted living. As a retired teacher, she has an excellent pension, so at least there’s no financial burden. She seems to like it here. The staff is friendly, and there are plenty of activities. She even has a gentleman friend his sisters have seen her giggling with a few times, which Belinda refuses to acknowledge.
“I did have a nice chat with my granddaughter today,” his mother says.
“Sasha calls you more than she calls me.”
“I don’t grill her about her love life.”
“She’s too young to have a love life.”
“You were living with Simone when you were her age,” Belinda says pointedly.
“Yeah, and look how that turned out.”
The TV is playing an episode ofReal Housewives. Drew can’t tell which city it is, but all the women are blond and drunk. He reaches for the remote to switch the channel, but his mother stops him.
“Don’t,” Belinda says. “I’m getting into it. These ladies are crazy. All this money, and they still fight about the pettiest things.”
Drew opts not to share his opinion of the reality show. At least she’s not watchingThe Bachelor.
“What’s going on with you?” Belinda asks. “You seem distracted.”
“No, ma’am. I’m right here with you.”
“Me and the girls finally finished listening to season five of your podcast,” his mother says. “I was surprised to hear you say that your next series is going to be about Ruby Reyes. You always said you’d never go there.”
“That was before they decided to let her out.”
“I’ve been reading all the controversy about her parole.” Belinda shakes her head. “The way it’s being written, Ruby is coming across like another one of Charles Baxter’s victims. Which is a damn insult to his actual victims.”
“I fully agree.”
“But at the same time, who really knows what went on?” his mother muses. “He was the bank president. The power balance was completely off. If Ruby had wanted to say no, would she have been able to?”
“She didn’t want to say no, because she was the one who pursued him.”
Belinda looks at him with knowing eyes. “Is that the objective journalist in you talking, or the very biased friend of Joey’s?”
“Just stating the facts.” Drew swallows what he has in his mouth. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for all of Baxter’s victims, including his own daughter. But I will never agree that Ruby Reyes was one of them.”
“Joey was such a sweet girl. Remember that time you and Simone brought her to Thanksgiving? She took a huge helping of Monica’s cranberry sauce, when your sister forgot to put sugar in it. Poor thing didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to taste like that.”
“She ate the whole thing, too.” The memory makes Drew smile. “She didn’t want to be rude.”
“You still have all those articles from the Buffalo papers Uncle Nate used to mail you?”
“I kept everything. Been reading them all again to prepare for the podcast. It’s been a real mindfu—” Drew clears his throat. His mother abhors bad language. “It’s been a trip, reading back how different the conversation was about Ruby back then, compared to now.”
“You know, if your daddy and I were living in the time of #MeToo, he probably never would have asked me out,” Belinda says. “And you and your sisters might never have existed.”
They fall into a comfortable silence as she turns her attention back to the TV.
Drew ponders what his mother just said. His parents met at Belinda’s first job, where she was the social studies teacher and he was the principal. She was twenty-five, Carl Malcolm thirty-nine. They were married six years, long enough to have three children, until his dad died of a heart attack at the age of forty-five. Drew, the baby of the family, was only two.
His mother cackles as she eats, thoroughly entertained by the two blond women arguing on TV. Drew picks through his sisters’ abysmal magazine selection before settling on the Jimmy Peralta issue ofPeoplehe didn’t get to read earlier. A much younger version of the actor’s face takes up the whole cover, and the headline reads:
Jimmy Peralta, 1950–2018
