Dessert was a mute point after Alice and Dana finished talking about their days out. Dana was very hopeful about her job hunting and Alice was thrilled about Shane’s brother, Shay, coming to live with her. For Dana, you don’t walk out on family and get to call yourself a father or a mother. Dana had a little trouble picturing Shane as the maternal type. It seemed pretty useless trying to talk Shane out of the situation. When an angry mother leaves her boy after her asshole husband walks out on them, it takes more than 2 days for it to completely sink in, even for a strong butch woman.

Dana asked, ‘What about Cherie? Is she okay with it?’

Alice answered, ‘Cherie’s gone. She went all coky and Shane left her.’

Dana said, ‘That sucks. They seemed so cool together.’

Alice replied, ‘Oh please. They were dead and buried long before Shane cheated on Carmen that one time.’

Dana asked, ‘And you went along with it the whole time?’

Alice answered, ‘Uh…..huh.’

Dana asked, ‘Okay, forget Cherie. What about the kid? What’s he like?’

Alice said, ‘I don’t know. We’ve only met him, like, twice. He’s pretty quiet but he loves to eat.’

Dana asked, ‘Does he know what’s going on with Shane? What about everybody else?’

Alice said, ‘He seems pretty cool with it all and he’s going to school now.’

Dana said, ‘Damn. How’s Shane doing?’

Alice answered, ‘Shane is being Shane. But she’s totally into the big sister thing.’

Alice didn’t really think it was right for her to talk about Shane because she couldn’t figure out what was going on herself. All she knew was that Shane’s father, Gabriel, left his wife and son after meeting Shane. His wife, Carol, left Shay on the back doorstep at night and disappeared after telling Shane to go to hell. Alice didn’t know what they talked about or what happened but she was very worried about both of them. Shane had stopped being a player for Shay’s own good and was taking on 2 full time jobs; at WAX and for Hugo’s underwear. To think that it took a little boy to make Shane start maturing, all alone, was incredible and unbelievable.

Dana was a little worried about Shane too. She didn’t know how to act around them. She didn’t want them to feel like a charity case but she still wanted to help out. There was a fine line between being there for them and shouldering the world for them. Dana knew how it felt to be helpless and vulnerable. Even pride couldn’t keep the home fires burning.