Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
The ancient pair of tiny, polka dotted rain boots lined up in the mud room of Lady’s childhood home solidified Faith's desire to understand why her best friend was self-destructing with such composure. The Thanksgiving weekend marked three months since they’d become roommates, and one month since Faith found the empty liquor bottles that Lady had left out in her room. Faith had always assumed Lady's lack of self preservation was part of her artist persona, that suffering is beautiful mindset that so many of their peers adopted. But Lady's partying and drinking had finally revealed itself to Faith as a real issue. When Lady invited Faith to her house for the holiday, she couldn’t say no. She needed to know where Lady came from and find out why this was happening. She had expected to find negligence, signs of a broken home, a place where falling apart was the norm. But the boots said otherwise.
Faith had met Lady the semester before in European Art History; they’d formed an instant bond with her over their mutual hatred for the class. (Learning about dead white guys was unbearable when the person teaching you is a living white guy, Lady had put it succinctly.) When Faith found an apartment off campus and approached Lady about living together, she was happily surprised when Lady accepted the offer. Lady had been especially pleased by the extra room, which she claimed as a studio space for her independent work. Faith let her have it. She was just thrilled to be buying groceries together and sharing a medicine cabinet. This would bring them closer, she thought, seeing each other every day, in their best and worst states. The notion would have been terrifying if she’d be living with anyone other than Lady.
In her three years in college, Faith had never gotten farther than the talking stage with anyone. Mortified by the idea of approaching a girl in person, she downloaded every app imaginable, but always found that the conversation stalled. She would say hi, compliment the girl on her smile or her skin, and ask about the shows she was watching or the classes she was taking, then get bored and frustrated and would eventually ghost. In high school, she realized that she was gay because she didn’t want to talk to boys like her friends did, but she had started to worry that she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
She couldn’t understand why she refused to let the relationships get deeper than What are you up to? Thoughts about the long term created a constant pressure in her mind. If she started dating this girl or that, how long would it last? How long would she be able to stand the various quirks and flaws that she tallied up in her head as the texts flowed? Cynthia sent massive paragraphs, indented and everything, and Mel only wrote a word or two, communicating almost entirely in images and emojis. No one ever passed the test, or perhaps Faith was the one that kept failing. The strict model of control she applied to the rest of her life didn’t seem to work here; she never landed a real date with any of them.
Lady was different. Faith never knew what she was about to say. They barely interacted in class, just a few lukewarm partner discussions, until, when the professor was lecturing about 17th century children’s portraiture, Lady leaned over, and, staring at the slide of the little girl in a full corset and headdress, said to her, “That’s what I picture when I think of you. A tiny adult.” Faith, ignoring the jab, was in awe to hear that Lady thought about her at all.
Lady was an artist. She didn’t like labels of any kind. Faith watched her kiss whoever she could at parties, but she never had a partner. Faith was never jealous; she was the one Lady chose to spend time with sober on a weeknight. They spent all their time together. Lady let her plan all their outings and never complained, even when Faith took them to a street food vendor that gave Lady food poisoning. Faith sat up with her the whole night as she shook and sweat and vomited. Lady claimed the experience gave her a new stance on the fast food complex and the limits of the human body. She introduced Faith to all her artist friends as her “muse.” Faith was never in her paintings, of course, as Lady worked in abstraction, but Faith noticed subtle changes in her work over time: a smoother application of paint, warmer fields of color. “She takes care of me,” Lady would say affectionately. The ambiguity of their relationship had Faith hooked.
Faith loved Lady, though in what way she wasn't exactly sure. The love was so big inside her she couldn't see around it. She liked the times they’d shared a bed, and she had enjoyed the one time they made out on a dare, but she longed for a closeness that went beyond the physical, that was deeper and indefinable. Their relationship had progressed remarkably fast, and Faith was realizing that she didn’t know Lady as well as she thought. She could name Lady’s favorite art supply store, every professor she had a crush on, which friends were secretly jealous of her and her work. But she knew hardly anything about Lady’s childhood, which was why the little boots in the corner made her pause.
Lady didn’t talk much about her parents, despite Faith’s probing. Of course, she knew the basics: Mrs. Craven worked part time as an interior designer for nursing homes and hospices, and Mr. Craven was a claims adjuster for a local motorcycle insurance company. They’d met on a white-water rafting tour in Colorado, which was the first and last adventurous thing either of them had ever done. They moved back to Mrs. Craven’s hometown, almost directly on the New York/Massachusetts border. They liked to claim they were New Englanders but really they were just in the middle of nowhere.
Adelaide, Lady, was their first and only child; both parents had come from large families, both born somewhere in the middle of their mess of siblings, and they’d agreed that their daughter should never feel the slight of being one of many. Faith knew this. It was Lady’s counterargument to the frequent question of weren’t you lonely, growing up? Faith thought she understood, being an only child herself, but now, seeing those boots in the mud room, reverently enshrined in the corner, almost like a relic, she wasn’t so sure she could relate. Faith’s mother was a conscious consumer and a minimalist; she donated Faith’s baby clothes as soon as she grew out of them. Mrs. Craven, on the other hand, seemed like the type of mother to preserve her daughter’s baby clothes in a commemorative quilt. Faith was anxious to meet her.
Lady kicked off her Doc Martens and entered the kitchen. Faith trailed behind, questioning for the first time her decision to stay here for the week. How much of Lady was real and how much had Faith invented? If her parents cared about her as much as she claimed, as much as Faith could tell from those little pink boots, how had they let her get this bad? How had they not noticed her downward spiral?
Mrs. Craven, home early from work, slid a casserole in the oven before she ran over and swept Lady into her arms, rocking her gently and rubbing her back. She was a short woman, stout, her hair ending in little flips at her shoulders that quivered animatedly, reminding Faith of the little teapot rhyme. Here is my handle, here is my spout. Lady pulled away and introduced Faith as her roommate, which sounded like a euphemism but wasn’t. Faith doubted Mrs. Craven would hear it that way, but Faith blushed all the same, wishing perhaps that it was true. Mrs. Craven pulled Faith into a hug, too, which Faith returned stiffly. She was used to hugging her own mother, who was stick-like and squeamish and never held on for very long. Mrs. Craven’s fleece sweater vest was warm and slightly matted under Faith’s hands, and she smelled like lemon soap and basil. “Faith,” she said, squeezing her shoulders. “What a beautiful name.”
Faith was flooded with a familiar warmth; not a feeling produced by her own parents, but by the various parental figures whom she had come to know well during her childhood. Faith’s mother had loved to set her up on playdates; she attended more birthdays, pool parties, backyard barbecues, and sleepovers than any child she knew. Proper socialization, Faith’s mother believed, would serve her daughter well. And Faith did socialize, not with the children but with their parents. Or rather, they talked while she listened. Sometimes they said nice things about her, her old soul and quiet intelligence, but usually, they spoke about boring things like canned food drives and 5K fundraisers. No matter what they were saying, Faith watched them, enraptured. She was fascinated by the way their legs crossed and arms folded, or the small inflections in their tone that marked real or forced emotion. She saw every uncomfortable, judging glance tossed across a table or a room. Mrs. Michaelson spoke louder when praising other parents’ children because her son Charlie was first in the class, and she made it a point to be humble. Mr. Stratton drank too much, and instead of telling him to slow down, his wife would bring him a bottle of water.
Faith studied them, learned what to do, and, most importantly, what not to. And she practiced—at every family function and neighborhood block party, she practiced. For her efforts, Faith was rewarded with praise. She was polite and respectful. She was helpful, pleasant, a delight, an example for the other kids. A good listener. Faith grew to expect these words, and became dependent on them. They gave her a sense of self. She was only slightly surprised by how quickly this need was revived by Mrs. Craven’s attention.
Mr. Craven was supposedly rushing out from a meeting with a client in the E.R. after a terrible twenty-bike pile up at the motorcycle rally, just terrible. Mrs. Craven said dinner would be ready soon, and would Faith like a tour of the house? Lady declined for her and drifted off. Faith asked to use the bathroom. Inside, she found an aged and curling potty training chart half-filled with Strawberry Shortcake stickers. Glued to the bottom was the apparent award, a toy magazine clipping of an American Girl doll with shaky exclamation points swirling around it. Faith was struck with the image of Lady vomiting into the toilet after stumbling home from a party, something that was happening with more and more frequency. She imagined holding Lady’s hair back while slapping a sticker on the wall. Keep this up and you’ll have a brand new stomach ulcer by the end of the month.
The decorative cornucopia on the shelf above the toilet reminded her that it was almost Thanksgiving. She had been grateful when Lady invited her to her house, for the first time since they’d known each other. It felt like a breakthrough, after weeks of Lady’s concerning behavior. As Faith had come to know Lady better, she could tell when her friend was playing up the “tortured artist” act. She would speak loudly at parties about her therapy sessions and the side effects of her ADD meds. She would wear paint-ruined clothes to class and pre-distress her eye makeup before going out. Whenever Faith tried to call her out on it, Lady would dismiss her and say it was part of her process.
This wasn’t like that. Lady had started sleeping in later and later, arriving late to classes or skipping them entirely. Her artwork had become dark and muddy, the white of the canvas glaring up from half-finished pieces. Last month Faith decided to tidy Lady’s studio after watching it grow messier—borderline unsafe with spilled paint on the floor, moldy food and open bottles of turpentine. Empty liquor bottles filled the recycling bin. Lady had happened to walk in as Faith was loading them into a garbage bag, and instead of scrambling to explain away the bottles or simply thanking Faith for cleaning, she’d smirked and said, "rooting through my trash now, are we?" and started priming a new canvas while Faith finished up.
Either Lady didn’t see her situation as a problem, or she was pretending it wasn’t one. And instead of saying something, Faith pretended too.
***
When Faith returned from the bathroom, she found Lady curled up on the couch in the living room, stroking the head of a practically senile cat. Curlicue, Faith remembered, after baby Lady’s garbled pronunciation of calico. Faith sat down next to her and the cat skittered into the next room.
Lady swung her legs into Faith’s lap. “I’m exhausted,” she said, even though Faith was the one who had driven the full three hours. She patted Lady’s shins vacantly. Sometimes, she missed the intimacy they had before getting the apartment off campus together. She had felt a certain excitement then that had now been lost. Waiting for Lady outside the art building, getting ready for parties together, hearing her phone buzz and knowing it was Lady, knowing that Lady was thinking about her even when they were apart—it was thrilling. Faith thought that by living together, seeing each other all the time, that feeling would only get stronger. But as the weeks passed, she saw Lady less and less. She would plan activities that Lady would bail on at the last minute. They would be invited to other friends’ houses, and the second they arrived, Lady would float away and Faith would have to hunt her down when she wanted to leave. It was painful enough to love someone; living with them could hurt like a bitch.
Faith scanned the Craven’s living room: it was small, but cozy, with plushy brown couches and soft green throw pillows. The big windows in front of her would let in a flood of morning light, though now they were black and reflecting her face back at her. The mantlepiece was filled with family photos in homemade frames, all graced by Lady’s budding artistic touch. In fact, the entire room functioned as a gallery of sorts for her art as it had progressed over her childhood. The walls were covered, from small drawings and what looked like school paper margin doodles to life-size portraits and still-lifes in oil and acrylic. Faith found that she liked them better than Lady’s current work. They were simple, direct, safe.
Lady caught her staring and clapped a hand over Faith’s eyes. “Don’t look, I hate all of them,” she said. Faith couldn’t help but laugh and hold Lady’s hand there. They heard footsteps from the hall and slowly pulled away.
Mrs. Craven emerged from the kitchen, straightening her shoulders and throwing the girls a dazzling smile. “Who’s hungry?”
***
Mr. Craven arrived just as they were sitting down to eat. He walked in, arms wide for Lady to jump and hug him. Where’s my little girl, Faith could hear him thinking. Lady ran over, and he hunched down slightly even though she was about as tall as him. Mr. Craven introduced himself to Faith and told her to call him Kev, but she planned to avoid referring to him by name at all. Faith was always particularly careful around fathers. Her own father had drilled into her the importance of self-awareness and protection from the attention older men tended to force on young women like herself. He was so concerned, he would never bring his male friends or coworkers to the house, always choosing to go out instead. When she came out to her parents as a lesbian, her dad’s relief was almost tangible.
Mr. Craven seemed nice enough, though.
They sat down and Mrs. Craven carried the food over from the counter. A bubbling tuna casserole. Lady’s favorite, Faith thought, before Mrs. Craven said it out loud. She wondered briefly if Lady even knew this; Lady definitely didn’t know Faith’s favorite meal. Though she had her moments of clarity, there was a certain obliviousness about Lady that Faith at first found endearing; it was the reason why Faith didn’t judge her art-related dramatics too harshly. But it was also frustrating, like when she would inevitably lock herself out of the apartment or get on the wrong train.
“You girls happy to be home?” Mr. Craven asked. Faith buzzed at the familiarity of the statement, the conjunction of you girls and home. She could imagine a future where she and Lady were really together and would come to visit every year for the holidays. Of course you’re my girl, Mr. Craven would say. You’re like a daughter to me. In this future, Faith realized, she didn’t include visits to her own home.
“It feels like I barely left,” Lady said, not really answering the question.
“You haven’t been back since August,” Mrs. Craven said with a tsk. She didn’t look in Faith’s direction, but Faith felt Mrs. Craven’s disappointment was directed at her. There wasn’t any malice in it, though, just a mother self-consciously wishing she was still her daughter’s best friend. Still, Faith’s ears burned with embarrassment.
Mrs. Craven seemed to notice her error and softened. "How often do you go home, Faith?" she asked. "Your parents won’t be missing you this week?"
"No." Faith found herself scrambling for an excuse as to why she wasn't home for Thanksgiving. She obviously couldn’t tell the truth, which was that her family didn’t celebrate it because her mom refused to glorify overeating. "My parents' summer cruise was postponed and rescheduled to this week,” Faith said instead. “Non-refundable tickets. And the ship was completely booked," she added, making it absolutely clear that even if her parents had wanted to, they regretfully couldn't have taken her along on this fictional vacation.
Lady looked at her strangely but said nothing. Faith chewed on the inside of her cheek.
Mrs. Craven sighed sympathetically. “What a shame,” she said. “But perhaps we can make it up to you.”
Faith’s chest swelled with gratitude. She hoped Mrs. Craven could sense it.
“Now, Faith, I hear you’re studying to be a graphic designer,” Mr. Craven said. Faith nodded attentively. In fact, she already had a job lined up with the marketing agency she had interned for over the summer, but she didn’t want to boast. She knew Lady was still waiting on an acceptance to one of the MFA programs she’d applied to. Program, singular, she should say. The rest of the applications were sitting half-finished in the open tabs on Lady’s computer. They all require their own essays, she had said when Faith questioned her.
Mr. Craven asked Faith some more basic questions and she answered dutifully. “Now, can you convince my daughter that that would be a better career path than being an artist?” He said the last word as if they would both find it ridiculous, which sometimes, Faith did. Other times, she felt it was dangerous. Distressing. Not the art itself, necessarily, but the “artist” label and everything that supposedly had to come with it: the act of making, that physical toll, and the artist culture Lady was becoming more and more entrenched in.
Both Lady and Mrs. Craven groaned at Mr. Craven’s comment and Mr. Craven grinned. It was then clear to Faith that he was only trying to get a rise out of them—an annoying joke, not a real argument. Faith flushed at her own misjudgement. The Cravens had never once seriously questioned their daughter’s choice to become an artist, or her ability to do so. They supported Lady implicitly.
Faith’s parents were nothing like this. Whenever she would bring her artwork home from school, they would make a point to say, what a lovely hobby. When applying to colleges she had avoided their judgment, playing the conversation out in her head and scaring herself instead. She would never make it as an artist, no matter how technically perfect and realistic her work was. Her art teacher told her as much in her Portfolio Prep class. They weren’t looking for that stuff anymore, he’d said. They wanted substance. Faith understood; she couldn’t give herself over to her work in the way good art required. And the lifestyle didn’t suit her. She would be much happier at a job with a salary and rules and growth opportunities. Once she had carefully explained this to her parents, they didn’t stop her from applying to art schools. They knew she’d be responsible and act in her own best interest, because that is how they raised her. Faith was happy with her decision. She would at least be surrounded by other creatives, if anything. She could experience life quietly through them.
Faith dug into her casserole. She wasn’t expecting much and she got it.
***
“Do you like having me here?” Faith whispered as she settled into Lady’s bed.
“I invited you, didn’t I?” Lady whispered back.
They had to share because the Cravens were currently using their guest room as a personal fitness center. They only had a stairs-master and a couple sets of weights but they took up most of the space. She wondered briefly why they hadn't offered her the air mattress she'd seen in the hall closet, if perhaps they suspected that there was something more between her and Lady that necessitated sharing a bed. Though that wasn’t likely; Faith was reading into it too much. She sometimes forgot how intimate female friends were allowed to be. They could hug, and cuddle, and hold hands, and hardly anyone would bat an eye. She remembered that in middle school, when she was just beginning to understand herself, she would never touch her friends; the smallest brush of a thigh or shoulder felt like she was trespassing. At sleepovers or before dances, Faith would watch them sit in each other’s laps and cup each other’s cheeks to apply makeup, while she would melt into a corner, legs crossed, hands clamped at her sides. With Lady, Faith didn’t feel this same anxiety, but the ambiguity of the relationship remained.
As they were saying their goodnights, Faith had caught a couple of Mrs. Craven’s glances and found a kind of pride or camaraderie there, like she could recognize something in Faith, a love for Lady that they shared. It felt good to be acknowledged by Mrs. Craven in this way. Over the course of a single evening, she had learned how to pick up on the subtleties of Faith’s emotions and administer the comfort that was needed.
But how perceptive was she? Had she noticed the extra glasses of wine Lady slipped in the other room while she was cleaning up after dinner? Or the rise in her voice when she asked her how classes were going?
“Are you okay?” Faith asked. It was a question she often asked Lady, but in the soft pink glow of the night light in the corner, it seemed to hold more weight.
“You’re so cute when you worry,” Lady mumbled into the close space between them. She had forgotten to brush her teeth; her breath was sour and stale.
Under the covers, where Lady couldn’t see, Faith pinched her arm until it hurt.
She thought again about what had drawn her here to Lady’s home. Faith knew that what they needed was confrontation, an intervention, even. She had been considering it for a while. But in their chilly apartment, surrounded by the rush of the city and Lady’s disturbing artwork, her art friends all enabling her destructive habits, Faith knew she’d lose. Now, in the quiet of Lady’s childhood bedroom, her parents snoring in the room down the hall, there was the small hope that she could fix everything. Here, Lady was safely secured with the people that truly cared about her, that wanted the best for her. If only Faith could make the Cravens see that Lady needed their help. She knew they would be grateful, and, eventually, Lady would be too.
Lady flipped over in bed and gestured vaguely behind her. “Play with my hair?”
Like many other drunken nights, Faith combed her fingers through Lady’s dark, smooth hair until they both fell asleep.
***
The opportunity for Faith to confide in Mrs. Craven came in the form of a trip to the grocery store.
It was just the two of them; Lady was sleeping in and Mr. Craven was watching football highlights on the TV. Mrs. Craven hadn’t asked Faith to come with her, but Faith volunteered readily and she could tell Mrs. Craven was appreciative.
The entire car-ride over, Faith repeated the question in her head. Have you noticed that Lady’s been acting strangely? Mrs. Craven talked about Lady non-stop, so Faith figured it would be easy to slip her concern into the conversation. But in all her ramblings, Mrs. Craven gave no indication that she would know what Faith was talking about. As they drove, Mrs. Craven would point something out and somehow connect it to Lady: this was the street she learned to ride a bike on, that was her piano teacher’s house before she got divorced and moved away.
Everything Lady did was an immense accomplishment. Lady was thriving, in her work, in her relationships, in life.
“Don’t you agree, Faith?” Mrs. Craven said. “You must know even better than me.” Faith didn’t think Mrs. Craven meant to make it a competition, but she hesitated to bring up Lady’s issues now that it would directly contradict Mrs. Craven’s view of her daughter. Faith did know better, though. She knew better and it was her duty to say something.
So when they stopped by the liquor store, Faith watched Mrs. Craven stock her basket with wine and champagne for a few moments before she cleared her throat and asked, “Are you sure we should be getting so much alcohol?”
Mrs. Craven glanced at her. “We can always save it for another time,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows as if she and Lady and Faith would party together later that weekend.
Faith backtracked. She decided to start by saying something she knew Mrs. Craven would agree with. “You care a lot about Lady.”
She hadn’t meant for it to hold any deeper meaning other than being a way to begin what was about to be a very difficult conversation, but Faith heard the self-pity in her words as soon as they left her mouth. Mrs. Craven cared for her daughter in a way that Faith had never experienced with her own mother. Mrs. Craven gave her a kind, knowing look. “I do,” she said, cupping Faith’s elbow. And I recognize that you might not receive that same care from your own parents, the gesture seemed to say.
Instead of politely shrugging off Mrs. Craven’s gentle affection, Faith leaned into it. “You would do anything for her,” she continued.
“Of course,” Mrs. Craven said. “And I can tell you would as well.”
“Yes,” Faith breathed. She forgot what she was going to say next. Her concern for Lady momentarily lost its shape at Mrs. Craven’s touch, and she imagined that this was her own mother’s hand warming her skin through her stiff denim jacket, comforting her as if she had done this countless times before. But then Mrs. Craven let go to adjust the shopping basket on her arm and Faith remembered where they were, and who she was, and felt that speaking up was the right thing—the only thing—to do.
“Lady isn’t doing well,” she said.
Mrs. Craven smiled like she thought Faith’s concern was unfounded but endearing. “You don’t need to worry about her, sweetheart.”
She moved towards the cashier but Faith stopped her. “She’s been missing class and staying out all night,” she said and looked pointedly at the bottles in Mrs. Craven’s basket. “And drinking more.”
“Lady’s a young woman, she’s well within her rights,” Mrs. Craven said. “And with how much she works, she deserves to relax and have a good time every now and then. You know what an artist’s process is like.”
Faith started to disagree but Mrs. Craven turned to her, face suddenly serious, almost grave. “Lady is doing very important things,” she said, voice low.
Faith retreated. “I never said she wasn’t. I think Lady is very talented, but—”
“She is,” Mrs. Craven said, smiling again, satisfied. She nodded her head once, her hair bouncing around her shoulders. “We raised her right.”
***
Mrs. Craven didn’t mention their liquor store conversation for the rest of the day. It seemed she had completely forgotten about it. She continued to treat Faith like she had the day before, with general pleasantness and motherly gratitude. And when she unpacked the bottles from the car, she asked Faith to place them on the small rack in the dining room. Faith obeyed, cheeks burning from humiliation and anger. She saw now that not only did Mrs. Craven know about Lady’s behavior, she was actively doing nothing about it. Faith had stupidly assumed that because Mrs. Craven cared so much for her daughter, she would protect her at all costs, even if that meant protecting Lady from her own actions. But Mrs. Craven, too, was caught up in the romance of the art world and had been deluded, likely by Lady herself, into believing self-destruction was necessary to the creation of beauty. Or perhaps she was simply in denial that her perfect daughter wouldn’t tell her she was struggling.
A bottle was missing from the rack from when Faith had counted the night before, but she said nothing, knowing now that it would do no good.
To make things worse, Faith finally got a text from her mom asking how she was doing. In her text, she made no reference to Thanksgiving and spelled Lady’s name wrong. Faith didn’t respond.
***
Lady found Faith later in the afternoon as she was scrubbing down the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Faith wasn’t sure why Mrs. Craven needed to do a deep-clean of the house if no one else was coming to Thanksgiving dinner, but Faith’s hands were itching for a task, so when Mrs. Craven began pulling out the cleaning spray and sponges, Faith jumped in and took control. By noon, they had finished with the first floor, and Faith immediately proceeded to vacuum the stairs and start on the second.
“I think my mom is in love with you,” Lady said, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. She was still in her pajamas: a tight cami and flannel bottoms. Her hair was perfect. “You always make such good first impressions.”
Faith wrung out her sponge. She was in a rotten mood. “I think she just likes the free labor,” she said.
“You have such a talent for putting yourself down,” Lady said casually, like she was stating a well-known fact.
Faith felt an urge to grab Lady by the face, not violently, but firmly, so she’d get the message: tell me what this is. Every time Lady spoke Faith struggled to decipher her words, their hidden meanings and contradictions nauseating. She was always half-convinced that Lady was flirting with her, but her body language, so unconcerned, made it seem trivial, like this was simply her default. And other times, she was sure Lady knew Faith’s feelings towards her and was toying with her. But at the same time, she felt Lady was just clueless.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start cleaning the Lady’s throne,” Faith said without thinking.
“What’s your problem?” Lady asked, crossing her arms.
Faith rounded on her. “Do you think I haven’t noticed everything going on with you?”
Lady coughed as if she’d swallowed wrong. Faith felt a brief satisfaction at striking her speechless. “Why can’t you admit that something is wrong?”
Lady had regained her composure. She straightened up slowly, eyes trained on Faith, unblinking. The action reminded Faith of a cobra unfurling its hood. Then Lady struck. “Why can’t you admit that you’re in love with me?”
It sounded cruel, greedy, almost, like Lady enjoyed holding that question over her, Faith’s discomfort distracting Lady from her own. And with that, Faith knew that Lady would never love her the same way she loved Lady.
Faith dropped her sponge into the sink and stared down her own reflection in the mirror, unable to meet Lady’s eyes. “I am so worried about you,” she said slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Worry about yourself,” Lady said, and left.
***
Faith woke up early the next morning feeling miserable. Lady was still asleep, curled away from her and on top of the sheets so their skin wouldn’t touch. Faith had gone to bed early, citing an upset stomach, and hadn’t heard Lady come in. Dinner had been awkward. Mrs. Craven sang Lady’s praises with every other sentence, gushing over her new work when Lady showed her pictures on her phone and admiring the sketches she’d made furiously that afternoon. Mr. Craven, perhaps sensing Faith’s agitation, tried to make conversation with her but she couldn’t answer with more than a few words. Every time Lady raised her glass to take a sip of wine, Faith would stare at Mr. Craven, wishing hopelessly that he would understand what the issue was. But just like everyone else in the Craven family, he ignored it.
Faith crept out of Lady’s room and down the stairs. It was still dark outside. The floor chilled her feet through her socks. She heard noises coming from the kitchen and found Mrs. Craven chopping vegetables at the island, the tie of her robe knotted dutifully around her middle. She looked up from her work, and briefly, before she smiled, Faith was struck with the alarming image of her own mother. Then Mrs. Craven walked away to grab something from the pantry, and Faith automatically picked up the discarded knife and continued chopping the celery that was on the cutting board. Mrs. Craven made a sound of approval and began peeling potatoes in the space next to her.
Initially, Mrs. Craven had seemed nothing like Faith’s mom. She was warm and physically affectionate and cared for her daughter with reverence, letting her pursue her passion, even if it was impractical. But Faith was starting to think that maybe they were more similar than not. They were both pretenders. Image-makers. They remained purposefully ignorant of any unpleasantness, ignoring signs of struggle or viewing them as character-building, as necessary evils. They both believed they had raised their daughters right.
And yet, working side by side in the slowly-brightening kitchen, Faith felt at peace for a moment. The smell of coffee and butter and rosemary mixed in the air and Faith longed for a past that was different from her own. Longed for a future she wasn’t sure she would find.
Lindsey, the Editor-in-Chief of Laurel Moon since 2019, recently completed her BA in English and Creative Writing at Brandeis University. She loves writing short stories and has more recently taken an interest in writing poetry. You can usually find her reading, crocheting, watching Marvel movies, or bothering her cat, Sister. She hopes to be a writer and an editor in the future to continue to help others improve their writing.