Tuesday & Max

43

COME OVER HERE, LADY

LET ME WIPE YOUR TEARS AWAY

Tuesday starts crying at some point during the train journey. The tears persist as she walks home, the breeze stinging her cheeks.

She isn't sure exactly why.

Things just add up, don't they?

Julia's at home when she gets in. She looks weird, slow and jittery, and Tuesday can't hear the sound of her voice over the ringing in her own ears.

They sit together on the sofa for

a minute

an hour

a week

and then the clarity of the world returns, slowly, bit by bit.

"I'm sorry," Tuesday gasps, finding herself once more in the arms of her aunt.

"For what?" Julia asks. She sounded exasperated. It occurs to Tuesday that maybe she's been apologising over and over again the entire time they've been sitting here—however long that's been.

"I've been so horrible to you since Mom died."

Julia looks puzzled and opens her mouth to disagree—

"And don't say I haven't!" Tuesday says, her voice a strangled whine. "Because I have. I've been acting like you're the most annoying person I know and you're not, you're not—"

Julia holds her as she dissolves into more desperate sobbing again. "Tuesday, you haven't. Family annoys each other sometimes. You've just been acting... normal, how you are."

Julia's words are like a knife.

"But that makes it even worse. I don't want to be a horrible person. I don't want to snap at you and ignore you and you just think that's the way I am."

"I didn't mean it like that—"

"And I was like it to Jack as well. I was too scared to break up with him because Mom liked him so much, and you told me he's good, and you must know because you keep going out with so many dickheads—"

Julia interrupts with a laugh that makes Tuesday cry even harder.

"I did it again, I'm sorry, I'm so—"

"Listen," Julia says, wriggling away and taking Tuesday by the shoulders firmly. "Calm down. Stop. Just breathe."

"I—"

"No. Breathe."

Tuesday does. It's hard at first, catching her breath, but when she's got sort of feeble control over it, she copies Julia's rhythmic in-and-outs. Her throat tastes like salt but the urge to vomit starts to dissolve. To busy her mind, which feels like a match about to burn out, she stares at the pattern on Julia's dress. Blue. The birds have little feet. She counts the claws on each of them.

"Okay," Julia says, her grip on Tuesday's shoulders loosening slightly. She sighs. "I'm really sorry that my disastrous love life has affected yours. I wish... I wish you'd talked to me about Jack."

Tuesday sniffs and nods.

"I liked him. I can't say that I didn't. But it doesn't matter what I think. Or your mom." She forces Tuesday to meet her eye again by chasing her gaze. "It matters what you think. What you want. If Jack wasn't the one for you, that's okay. There's a million more maybes out there. One of those maybes is just being by yourself. I've never been very good at it, but something tells me you'd be better."