Page 25 of When People Leave

Charlie

W hen Charlie awoke the following morning and rolled out of bed, she wrapped her arms tightly around her body in the frigid room.

She couldn’t stop trembling as she pulled a sweatshirt over her pajamas and turned the thermostat from sixty-five degrees to seventy-one.

She looked out the window and saw a dusting of snow on the pavement below that resembled powdered sugar.

She touched the window with her fingertips, the raw, icy glass numbing her skin. Charlie had never liked cold weather. That was part of the reason she lived in Arizona—year-round sun.

Charlie stepped in the shower before her sisters got up. When she finished, Morgan was lying in bed looking at her phone, and Abby was still asleep. Charlie turned on all the lights in the room, and Abby groaned. Morgan smiled without taking her eyes off her phone.

As much as Charlie enjoyed giving her sisters a hard time, she wouldn’t have wanted to live without them for anything. Morgan and Abby were a part of her, and she of them, and with their mother gone, she wanted to hold on to them tightly.

“Time to get up,” Charlie announced. “I’m ready to go.”

“I’m moving,” Abby said, without opening her eyes.

“I’ll take the next shower, Sleeping Beauty,” Morgan said to Abby who nodded and rolled over.

By the time they were ready to go, it was noon. Charlie turned the do not disturb sign on the door so that it read, please make up this room. She looked down the hall and saw three hotel maids standing around their carts, talking.

“I hope they haven’t been waiting to clean our room.” Charlie gestured toward the maid.

“I doubt it,” Morgan said.

Charlie looked at her watch. “How do you know? What if one of them missed her lunch because you two took so long?”

As far back as Charlie could remember, if she thought she had disappointed someone, including a maid she’d never met, she perseverated on it for hours.

All the therapy she’d had hadn’t succeeded in eliminating that guilt within her.

After pressing the down button on the elevator, Charlie turned and, as inconspicuously as possible, looked over her shoulder down the hall. The maids still hadn’t moved.

Why did it matter if the maid judged her? What if Charlie wanted to stay in her room all day and night? Why couldn’t she do what she wanted and screw everyone else?

The maid was an example of a far more significant issue within Charlie.

Why was it okay that Rick put himself first during their entire relationship, but she wouldn’t make her needs known?

I’m thirty-two, and I can’t remember the last time someone took care of me.

Rick is never going to be that person. It’s time to end it. I hope I’ll be able to do it.

It was a half mile walk to the pizza parlor, but because of the falling snow and chill, the women hurried and got to the restaurant in under ten minutes.

When Morgan opened the door, the heat from inside rushed out to greet them.

For a moment, Charlie let her face absorb it like rays of sunshine upon her.

She shook her head to disperse the snowflakes that remained on her.

The freezing temperatures were why she reminded herself to stay away from the East Coast during winter.

There wasn’t anyone behind the hostess desk, only a sign taped to the front that read, please seat yourself. The tables all had the same black, red, and white plaid tablecloth that seemed to be required in every pizza joint in America.

As the sisters looked for a place to sit, they passed a woman with three very young daughters sitting at a table.

The infant cheerfully grabbed every piece of silverware and dropped it on the floor, the toddler was crying, and the oldest daughter had a tantrum about how long the food had been taking.

The mom’s ponytail had become loose, and strands of hair had fallen out, draping her face.

The woman reached down and picked up the silverware with one hand while, with her other hand, brushed her fingers through the toddler’s hair.

Then she spoke to her soothingly. When the waiter approached the table with their food, she thanked him as if he’d saved her from falling through the ice on a frozen lake.

Charlie imagined that was what it had been like for her mother when she was out with the three of them. She wondered if Carla had looked as harried as this woman did.

The sisters found a booth toward the back, removed their coats and hats, and placed them on a hook.

Morgan looked around. “So, this is the place,” she said as they sat.

“It looks like any other pizza joint to me,” Abby said.

“Why do you think Mom kept the magnet?” Charlie said.

“I don’t know,” Morgan said, taking a whiff. “But it smells good in here.”

“What do you guys want? I’ll go up and order,” Charlie said.

“Get a large pizza, half pepperoni and half olives and mushrooms,” Abby said.

A boy with shaggy light brown hair sticking out from a tan beanie slumped behind the counter, an adolescent in hibernation.

The faint odor of marijuana came off him, mixing with the scent of garlic wafting from the kitchen.

Charlie wondered if he had smoked in the back alley before his shift started.

Teenage girls would have found him cute if it wasn’t for the large pimple that had made a home on his nose, resembling a mountain with a snowy white peak.

The boy turned to hide his face when Charlie placed their order.

When Charlie returned to the table, Abby looked uneasy, shifting in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“That old man near the kitchen is staring at me,” Abby said, holding her menu up so he wouldn’t notice her pointing at him.

Charlie looked in that direction. She saw a man in his fifties. He had an egg-shaped face, dark, bushy eyebrows, and wore a white apron covered with tomato sauce stains. His eyes were intently fixed on them as if he were trying to figure out the latest Wordle with only one correct letter.

“Maybe he’s staring at me,” Morgan said.

“No, he’s definitely staring at Abby,” Charlie said.

“You’re both delusional,” Morgan said.

“Do you think he’s interested in me or just a creep?” Abby said.

“At his age, if he’s interested, then he’s definitely a creep,” Morgan said.

The man untied his apron and hung it on a hook near the kitchen door. Then he smoothed his hand through his hair, and walked toward them, not breaking his gaze.

“He’s coming over,” Abby said.

“Excuse me,” the man said as he approached their table. “I’m so sorry to be staring at you.” He looked directly at Abby.

“See, he was looking at her,” Charlie whispered to Morgan.

“It’s just I’m a little taken aback at how much you look like a woman I went to high school with,” he said, not letting his eyes off her.

“Okay…” Abby said.

A light went off in Charlie’s head. “What was her name?” Charlie asked.

“Carla,” he said.

“Was she about five feet three with dark eyes and a dumb penguin tattoo?” Charlie asked.

“On her right wrist,” the man said.

“Yes! Carla was our mom,” Morgan said.

“Oh my God, you’re her daughters,” he said looking, like he had just been handed a box of his favorite candy. “I’m Antonio.”

The women introduced themselves by name and birth order, and he reached out to shake each of their hands.

“You said was your mom. Did something happen to her?” he asked.

“She recently passed away,” Charlie said.

“Oh no, she was so young. I’m so sorry for your loss,” Antonio said. The women thanked him, and he continued. “Is it just a crazy coincidence that you came in here today?”

“No,” Abby said, reaching into her purse and pulling out the magnet. “This was hers.” Abby held it up.

Antonio took the magnet out of Abby’s hand. He turned it around and around. “I haven’t seen one of these in years. I gave it to Carla a long time ago. I can’t believe she kept it.”

“It must’ve meant a lot to her,” Charlie said.

“Carla meant a lot to me,” Antonio said.

“We’re discovering things about our mother’s past we didn’t know. We came to Brooklyn to find out more,” Morgan said.

Antonio gestured to their table. “Do you mind if I sit? My legs get tired from standing back there all day,” he said, hooking a thumb toward the kitchen.

The women gestured to him to join them, so Antonio grabbed a chair from another table and pulled it up to theirs.

“Dylan, bring these ladies some garlic rolls,” Antonio called over to the one-zit wonder. Dylan nodded and went into the kitchen.

“Did you know our mom well?” Morgan asked.

“We grew up down the street from each other but didn’t start hanging out until high school. My dad owned this restaurant, so Carla and I would come here after school to do homework and goof off.”

“Were you her boyfriend?” Abby asked.

“No, we were just good friends.”

“Did you know our dad, too?” Morgan asked.

“Not really. Carla didn’t meet him until college; and she only brought him here once.

Then, the next time I saw her was a year later, and she was married and pregnant with you,” he said to Morgan.

After you were born, Carla would come here every other Friday, and then it wasn’t long before she became pregnant with you.

” He gestured toward Charlie. “And I wasn’t even aware that Carla had a third child,” he told Abby.

“Yep, I’m the one nobody seems to know about,” Abby said.

Dylan placed rolls and three small plates in front of them.

“These look good,” Charlie said, taking a bite, then grabbing her napkin and wiping off the little bit of butter that had dripped onto her chin.

“When you were two, Morgan, garlic rolls were your favorite. You’d keep eating them until you got a stomachache,” Antonio said.

“I guess things never change,” Morgan said, taking another bite.

“What was our mother like when you knew her?” Charlie asked, leaning in.

“Outgoing, sarcastic, funny.”

“Qualities we all inherited,” Abby said with a smirk.