ASTRID

Too much today, Astrid, she chastised herself, squinting to get a clearer view of the downtown street ahead and make the split images into one. Too much today before heading on your errands. Errands which included getting more Smirnoff to replace the fifth she had just finished before coming out today.

Nathan had to have been discharged by now. She had longed to call the hospital but they wouldn’t have told her so either way, now that he was officially emancipated and on his own. She knew she had no say and no control, not that she ever did, anyway. Why should her relationship with who used to her son be different that the one with the boy’s father? George always said Nathan was more like her, useless and pathetically weak, but from her standpoint, from how things played out recently, she saw Nathan as a carbon copy of his father.

Who would blame her for indulging a little too much, considering her only child was no longer her child at all, and he was likely discharged from an inpatient eating disorders unit to be placed God knew where with God knew whom? Nathan’s medical team had set a target discharge date before the blind-side emancipation hearing and ruling, and Nathan was surely bound and determined to make his weight and get released. Astrid knew he wouldn’t have done anything to prevent that. Deep down, she knew he was out in the world by now.

Squinting more, she managed to make the two separate red lights join into one, just in time to stomp on the brakes of her BMW. Her Jimmy Choo shoes pinched her feet and her foot felt too sluggish. Perhaps she should have worn her Eccos. It was Saturday, after all. No one to impress and no need to worry about being seen. But no, Jimmy Choo and Eileen Fisher called out to her in her haze, and, since they were the only choices she could focus on, she put them on. George was at the office, working on an upcoming trial, thank God, so she was alone. Not that he would have been any help. She felt alone even when he was there.

Two orbs of green appeared and a horn honked behind her. Tooting her own horn, she slowly moved her Choo’d foot from the brake to the gas pedal and revved ahead.

She knew she should keep squinting. She knew seeing double is not exactly approved behavior by the DMV, or the police, or other drivers. But she didn’t care. She had to get to the kitchen store to pick up a tortilla press and skillet for tacos tonight. George proclaimed it to be taco night and he demanded homemade tortillas this time, not store bought.

She found a parking spot near the store and whipped into it, jerking the car as she stomped the brakes again, stopping just before hitting the curb. She slipped the gearshift into Park.  She needed to gather herself before going in. Opening her visor, she glanced at her face in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes jumped out against her lined eyelids, and the mascara only popped the red more. She looked like she had been crying, and she had been, only on the inside. Outer tears did no one, especially her, any good. She could pretend her allergies bothered her if anyone asked. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth it. She hadn’t run a brush through it before she left.

Then she stopped short. Behind her, on the other side of the street, stood a tall, thin, dark haired boy in front of the pizza parlor wearing the striped polo shirt and Levi’s she had bought for him. His face was turned away, but she would know the back of his head anywhere. She would know that cowlick anywhere. It was his father’s cowlick.

Nathan. He was out. He had been discharged. He was downtown. Did that mean he lived near here now?

Nathan. She looked away from the mirror, her heartbeat jack hammering inside her. She looked to the steering wheel for answers and found none.

She looked back up in to the mirror. He was gone. Nathan was gone. Had he ever even been there? Did she just imagine him?

He was gone. Nathan was gone. Like he had never even existed. But he was there. He was downtown, so close to where she was parked.

She beat back the urge to search for him. Not while she was drunk. Not while she looked a mess. He’d know. He’d know nothing had changed. He’d know everything was still the same.

That, she knew, was why she had lost him.