Chapter Thirty-Two - Limburger Loss

THAT NAP WAS just what I needed. I did my best to clean even after that long night had drained me dry in the best ways. By the end, I was lying on the ground blowing the dirt into the dustpan. Convincing myself that my mother wouldn't know if I slipped off to catch some sleep, I locked the shop and returned to my uncle's old apartment.

"It's not so bad." After the deep cleaning, new linens, and actual food in the fridge, the place looks good. Livable. Though it could use an actual door for the bathroom.

Stretching to get out all the kinks, I crane my gaze up to the old picture of the guys above the door. "I understand why you stayed here, uncle. Even if it's just a shoebox, it's hard to miss out on those long nights with them. It's hard to leave them." I try to pull the frame off of the wall, but my tiny reach doesn't do much beyond knocking it off kilter.

So much for that dramatic monologue. I have to settle for leaning against the door and lightly brushing my finger over their feet. "I promised you three months and, I don't know how, but I'm going to get you them. I swear."

I've got a few hours until the guys return. Plenty of time to finish cleaning, maybe whip together another fondue, and we can get to brainstorming how to convince my mother she belongs back home. And I belong here.

Whistling to myself, I swing around my massive ring of keys and lock the apartment. There's a commotion outside from the rumble of large trucks idling on the street. I spot a few garbage men in the alley standing around the dumpster. After I slide down the ladder, I greet them with a cheery, "Hello."

They both hurl pieces of broken wood into the dumpster, then look back at me. One tips his head and the other smiles. So much for dangerous men lurking in back alleys, Mom. I bet they wouldn't even know what to do with my kidney if I gave it to them.

I shake off the idea of using that against my mother. My…

Mom?

At the end of the alley, my mother is standing with her arms crossed and her face stone. She's switched out the hotel bathrobe and slippers for her serious suit. I only ever saw that for funerals and therapy sessions. What's she doing here? She can't get in. I have the only key.

"I can't say I'll be sad to see it go."

Oh, she's talking to someone. It's that soap lady from across the street. I can't see her, but that meddlesome tone is baked into my gray matter.

"It is a den of debauchery. The sooner it's gone, the better the world will be," my mom says. I want to brush off her comments that I've heard hundreds of times before about places from casinos to public libraries, but the back of my neck's tingling. Why would she care about a random house of ill repute here?

The soap lady sighs. "I'd hoped your daughter would turn it around, but sadly…"

Why is she talking about me?

My mother scoffs and shakes her head. "My daughter is a magnet to temptation and sin."

Oh no.

"Scuse me." A man in a blue jumpsuit holds out a mess of paintings of the sun. Brie's paintings! "What do you want me to do with these?"

"It's trash, isn't it?"

"They're kinda pretty," he says.

"Either throw them in the garbage or pay me ten bucks for each one," my mother demands.

He tosses a painting toward the truck sitting at the end of the alley. Doesn't even look at them, just hurls all of Brie's hard work like Frisbees.

"Stop!" I shout and take off running.

The man keeps going, flinging the final painting into the pile of garbage. "What are you doing?" I shout not at him but my mother.

Gasping at the street, I pivot my head and nearly fall to my knees. A good dozen men are carting hundreds of cheese wheels and freshly installed shelves out on carts. The store's gutted, every piece of history, memories, love ripped from the walls and hurled into the dumpster.

"What have you done?" I shriek at my mother.

"What you need," she says smugly. I bunch my fists, my brain screaming in a continuous panic.

"You had no right. You have no right!" I shout. "Everyone stop!" The garbage men freeze in place and look at the woman who hired them.

"I have every right. I am your mother."

"No." My voice stops shaking and plummets to an icy depth I never thought I could manage. "This is my store, not yours. I own it, mother. Not you!"

Only the roar of the running truck engines cuts through the air. I stare my mother down, refusing to melt at her lava glare. I know that look. It's the same one a flower feels just as the tweezers come to pluck its petals away. I've let her take them one by one never weeping, or crying out as she tried to make me perfect by leaving nothing but a stem.

No more. I'm keeping this last petal. She can't have the store.

"Um, should we put this down?" a man asks me.

"Yes!" I cry.

"No," my mother counters me. "It belongs in the trash, along with your attitude young lady."

Young lady. That phrase was always a double-edged knife in my back. My youth enraged my mother. Every night she'd find a wrinkle then tell me I was ugly. Remind me that no one could want a creature as decrepit as me.

And lady. I was supposed to be pleasant, soft, and silent. A shadow in the background. A whisper in the wind. A…

"I am not your goddamn doll, Mother!"

"What are you going on about?"

"That's all you wanted. A breathing baby doll you could dress up, get to coo on command, smile, and dance. But I wasn't good enough. I'm defective, right? She's too short, too fat, too plain, too broken. All my life you've wanted to return me for a fucking refund."

The trucks stop. People are trying to listen to this fight while refusing to make eye contact. Instead of everyone gazing in wonder at my poor mother who has to suffer from raising a daughter with OCD, they're horrified at her. She can't stand it. "Violette, you are having an episode. Look at your arm."

I don't even stop scratching, vaguely aware of the blood dripping from my nails. "Yeah, I am, Mom. Have you figured out why?"

"Because you don't do your exercises. If you would avoid being in crowds…"

"It's not people, mother. All that quack told you were lies to keep you happy. You know why I do it. What Doctor Nevarie told you."

She shakes her head rapidly. "No."

"It's you, mom. It's always been you."

"He lied!" she screams. "He said that to—to turn you against me."

"I didn't need him to turn me against you. You did that on your own. What about the medication?"

Her nostrils flare, her eyes threatening to drag me out by my arm, but she touches up her hair and turns away from me. "I flushed those before they did any more damage to your already fragile mind. You're welcome."

"I got better on them. I could control it, and you…you took it all away." I can't stop the mess of angry tears gushing down my cheeks. For a few glorious months, the gremlin was quiet. I didn't get strange looks or have to wear long sleeves in July. I was happy.

She hated that I was happy.

"Vi-o-lette," my mother tries her tone, but I won't hear it.

"You like me broken, don't you? It makes you feel important. Better."

My mom shakes her head and gives a laugh like we're all having a goof. "You're being silly. Everyone, get back to work."

"No." I whirl on the men who haven't moved an inch. "Put it back. Put all of it back."

"Don't listen to her. She's mentally ill," my mother shouts with a little wave.

Don't listen to Violette. Ignore her. She lies.

My whole life I've been screaming underwater and everyone would look to the woman holding me under instead.

"This is my store, and if you throw one more piece of it in the trash, I will sue you!" I shout and hold up the keys like they're the deed.

Everyone finally freezes, the line of trash ending. The men sway on their feet and stare at the boards they've ripped up and nails they bent. "Put it back," I order, "and we'll call it even."

With an angry grumble, they finally start to march the shelves back inside.

"Stop," my mother cries out.

"Lady,"—a man in a jumpsuit holding a clipboard walks up to my mom—"unless you can prove you're the owner, we ain't doing shit."

"I…I…bah!" My mother hurls her hands up and spins away.

"We're gonna need a crane or something to get those vats out of the basement."

A man walks through the door. In his hand, he holds a charcuterie board decked out in crackers, grapes, and four cheeses. My heart plummets.

"What?" I swallow hard, my brain screaming as I notice how broken the cheeses are. How little remains. "What are you eating?"

He dips the cracker into the melted brie, and I'm paralyzed. "There was so much cheese. She said we could eat it." Without a thought, he lifts the cracker to his gnashing teeth.

"No!" I scream, dive-bombing for him. It's not pretty, but I manage to wrench the board and the cracker away. Through a mess of tears, I try to mash the bit of brie back onto the melted whole. It'll be okay. Maybe they only took small bites.

Or maybe it's not them at all.

"Where did you find this?"

"Downstairs in that creepy cellar," he says.

They found it.

They found them!

My heart pounding, I cradle the charcuterie board and rush into the shop. The crate's been shoved to the side and the door's tossed open. Who? I glare over my shoulder and catch the soap lady, Alva, meeting my eye. She told them. She told them about the mysterious men in the shop. Not just with me, but all those years back. She watched my uncle spend time with them. Spread those horrible rumors that trapped the guys, that banished me from the store, that isolated my uncle until his dying day.

She ruined everything.

"Violette," my mother shouts to me.

I don't even glance back as I dive down the ladder. Construction lights chase away every comforting shadow, blinding me. They're still here. They're where I left them. They have to be.

Blinking, I make my way to the table where Brie and Cheddy bent me over. Where I clung to Roq's legs and Cam ate me out.

They're not eaten. They can't be. They're safe. They're here.

"They're gone," I whimper, staring at the long empty table. Maybe they fell. I plummet to my knees, scraping them on the cold stone. Only that weird box from the first night sits underneath. There's nothing else…no one else here.

The cheese! Maybe they're in one of the dumpsters or trucks.

I almost put the board down on the table, but it could be them. The Camembert doesn't look too touched, he could be okay. And the Roquefort's only got an edge cut off. Brie looks half gone and the Cheddar… I close my eyes, certain it's not them. But still, I keep a tight grip on the board as I climb one-handed up the ladder.

"Put it back!" I shout.

"We are."

"The cheese. All of it. Put it in the store, now!"

The men look at each other in concern. "But it's on the truck in, ya know, garbage."

"I don't fucking care! Do it!"

They think I'm crazy, but it doesn't matter. Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Everyone but them.

I fall to my ass, not even noticing the hit. All I can do is stare at the piece of slate holding what could have been my future. True to their word, the men dragged back in the cheese that was sitting in fetid garbage. If it's one of them, they can be cleaned. They'll be okay.

I just have to wait for nightfall, and everything will be fine. We can rebuild. Make more cheese. Be happy.

For once in my goddamn life, I can be happy.

"Violette, this is—"

"Leave."

Her authoritarian footsteps falter. She pauses just at the door's threshold as men try to get around her. "You're upset. You're lashing out and letting your emotions do the thinking for you. For now, it's best if you—"

The tears dry. I lift my head so she can see. In a dead, dry tone, I tell my mother, "I never want to see you again."

"Violette."

"Leave, before I call the cops on the thief who broke into my store."

She jerks like I slapped her face. Maybe she expected me to one day, maybe she was hoping for it. It'd be a great excuse for her to commit me. But I can't be bothered. My hands are too busy holding the board to lash out at her.

Hang on guys. Just a few more hours and…and you'll be okay.

You'll be okay.

You have to be.