by Lara Hayes
“She’s up here!” Mother calls over her shoulder to Helen, who I can hear stomping around downstairs. “She’s fine.” I immediately regret the mess I left in the hall and what it must have looked like to them. They came home late to find my belongings scattered across the floor, but no sign of me, having no reason to expect me for hours.
“Mother, I—” She doesn’t let me finish. Her hand comes out of nowhere in a movement so fluid you’d swear she’s had years of practice, and she brings it sharp and flat against my cheek. One minute I was staring at her, and the next, I’m looking at my own reflection, watching the tears swell. I keep my eyes on the mirror.
“Do you have any idea what was going through my head?”
She doesn’t shout. She’s beyond shouting. My mother is at her most dangerous when she cannot muster the energy it takes to scream. Her mouth is a hairbreadth from my ear, and in the mirror, it looks as though she’s leaning in to kiss my reddened cheek. I take a step back and raise to my full height. I hold my towel shut in steady hands as Mother regards me with furious green eyes.
Helen edges into view, standing in the open door, clutching my purse. She surveys the scene in half a second and notes the palpable tension. Helen turns toward my bedroom and pulls the bathroom door shut behind her, disappearing without a word.
I step around my mother and retrieve my robe, letting the towel drop to my feet once my back is covered. Standing in the center of the room Mother sways slightly, expectant hands high on her hips, her mouth set in a thin line. I bend down to pick up my towel and blot the ends of my wet hair. The muscles in my back pull tight across my spine, winding me like a clock. Outrage, and the threat of violence, turning my legs and arms to metal as I remind myself not to react. She may not even realize what she’s done.
A smell like rust tangles in my nostrils, and I grip the towel tighter in my hands. My body shakes, my vision darkens and a black wall rises between rationality and the bizarre. My mother—still furious—fumes behind me, her eyes wide in a mix of fear and alarm, seeking me out in the mirror.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully.” My lips move in the mirror, but the voice is nothing I recognize and my mother rears her head back at the tone. My words tangle. I hold my neck with one hand to strangle myself into silence. “If you ever put your hands on her again, be that in anger or in love, I will break your arms.”
My mother’s lips part, falling slack. Whether the use of the third person, the steely delivery or the blatant threat, she’s stunned into muteness. My grip tightens around my throat, the skin of my cheeks and ears glowing red. I don’t know if I’m trying to stifle the threat, or choke myself before I can harm her. I am not a violent person, but the image of my only parent crumpled on the floor at my feet will not abate.
“Do you understand me?” Despite the constriction, my voice is steady and calm. I turn to face my mother, my arms falling to my sides. But it’s as though I’m staring at an inconsequential stranger. Mother’s eyes mist as she clenches her jaw. The space between us is full of everything she wants to say, but I swear her fear of me in this moment has a smell—acidic, an acrid stench like dried sweat. To my surprise, she nods her head, cradling her elbows in her hands protectively and retreats from the bathroom.
My muscles unfurl as soon as she closes the door behind her and I bend forward over the sink, keeping myself upright with my palms braced on the counter.
Once I’ve regained my composure, I step into the darkened hall and escape to the safety of my bedroom. I find Helen sitting on the foot of my bed with my purse draped across her lap. Just beyond the rounded edges of her ample hips, is a smooth black case resting on my white duvet. My violin, the bow and the crushed green velvet covering pulled back. I look from the case to Helen and back again, but she is locked in thoughtful silence.
There’s no way she placed the instrument on the bed, and more to the point, why would she? I can’t even remember which trunk I packed it in before I left for college. I step cautiously into the room for a closer look, my heart pounding—pushing against the soon-to-be bruises around my throat that I made with my own hand.
It’s a long, black case with brass buckles, the edges worn with age and rubbed smooth. The violin is a family heirloom, and belonged to my mother’s father who I never knew. Did Mother put it here? When? My mother can hold a grudge for years, and she never forgave me for quitting my lessons. But I can’t imagine she would venture into the attic by herself. And Helen would never allow her up there.
“I thought you might want your purse.” Helen lifts the bag slowly, and that blank stare has shifted to focus on my face. The imprint on my cheekbone from Mother’s slap is just a pinkish ripple under my left eye. But Helen’s hands twitch around my purse strap, resisting the urge to triage. With no small effort, I turn away from the violin and school my features into a mask of gratitude.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to clean up my mess.” I take the purse from her outstretched hand and set it down on the dresser. She pats the empty stretch of bed beside her. Warily, I oblige, and push the case aside. I’m almost afraid to touch the instrument, and regard its sudden appearance with as much suspicion as I would a Ouija board. Maybe the damn thing is possessed and seeking revenge for years of neglect. Anything is possible.
“I didn’t know you played,” Helen states when my eyes have lingered too long on the violin, and the silence has escalated from awkward to fraught.
“I don’t. I haven’t played for a very long time.”
Helen pats my folded hands, giving my fingers an affectionate squeeze. “Well, then I’m glad you’re taking it up again.” It takes all my effort not to shudder.
This has to be some kind of joke. The scents, the sounds, the face, the dreams, and now my violin. I get the distinct impression that someone is testing me, trying to ascertain just how much it takes to break me.
“Elizabeth?” Helen brushes a few tangled strands of wet hair behind my ear. I don’t move, or acknowledge her gentle touch. She’s waiting for me to breakdown, but that won’t happen. Meanwhile, I’m searching for a well of anger that has disappeared. I can’t touch the rage I felt in the bathroom. I can’t call it into being and wrap that thick, dark blanket around my shoulders.
“I know you’re angry,” Helen ventures. “I know that more than that, you’re hurt.”
“Hurt?”
Helen scrunches her sparingly wrinkled face into a disapproving frown, and lightly brushes her cold fingertips over my tender cheekbone. I stand up quickly, tightening my robe, and spare her a dismissive wave.
“She was upset.” I clutch the top of my robe closed. “I left a mess, and it worried her. I can only imagine what you two must have thought.”
“Violent outbursts are not uncommon at this stage.” Helen knots her gnarled, arthritic fingers in her lap. She cranes her neck to catch my eye and the silver hair that dusts her closely cropped head twinkles against her dark scalp.
“I know.” I tilt my head and wait for the words she’s working so hard to avoid.
“And before today?” she probes. “When was the last time your mother hit you?”
“Summer before sixth grade,” I answer reflexively. “She caught me kissing a neighbor behind the azaleas in the backyard.” Honestly, I can count the number of times on one hand my mother has even raised her voice to me. She was never one for loud or large displays of approval or disapproval. The memory of that stolen, summer kiss makes me smile privately. My skinned knees pressed in the dirt, Ashley’s warm palm on my cheek. Mother swatted the back of my head all the way into the kitchen.
Helen unfolds her warped fingers, and lifts her empty hands as though the answer is written on her palms and all I have to do is read what’s already there.
“And that doesn’t strike you as odd?” she presses in the concerned but dispassionate voice of any true healer.
“Hell no,” I huff. “If I caught my daughter with someone she barely knew—”
; “Elizabeth,” she reprimands, straightening her bowed back. She scratches her head. “I’m talking about the episode in the bathroom.” My face clouds over, and when I refuse to answer Helen stands. She takes my shoulders and levels me with prodding, dark eyes. Once again, I step away, lifting my chin as I go. Daring her to say it, to finally push the argument we’ve skirted every other week for the last three months.
“You’re not sleeping,” she accuses. “You look exhausted, and this isn’t the first time your mother has lashed out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s been aggressive lately with me too. For about a month now. I didn’t want to worry you.” Helen gives a long, weary sigh, holding her lower back in her hands. “Some days she’s fine. She’s her normal, impossible to please, but still surprisingly conversational self.”
My fingers flex and curl into fists. How does keeping this secret help anyone? If she’d told me, I wouldn’t have been blindsided in the bathroom. “She’s never hit me,” Helen intones gravely. “But she has started throwing things, occasionally. Knocking things over. She’s quick to apologize.”
“Mother doesn’t apologize.”
“Well, no. But Claire does excuse herself, or rather, she excuses her illness. I guess I just take that as an apology, and clean up the mess.”
Half a smile spreads across my lips. Helen has learned to translate the unspoken. It’s probably why she’s lasted this long.
“It’s time to think about what’s best for both of you,” she says.
There it is. I nod, crossing my arms over my chest. Helen, knowing exactly what that stance means, parts her full lips, prepared to console and cajole me toward the “inevitable.”
“Perhaps.” I turn back to my dresser and open my purse, digging around for my checkbook. Helen goes quiet behind me, nervously shifting her weight. “But that will be a decision I make with my mother when the time comes.” The sound of the check tearing is the loudest thing in the whole house. In my extended hand, I hold out her severance pay. She’s done enough, more than anyone else in my life, and while she’s right—I am exhausted—her own exhaustion is equally obvious. This isn’t her fight. Not anymore.
“Elizabeth, please. Put that away.” She tries to push my hand aside, but I catch her wrist and curl her fingers around the crisp paper. She refuses with a stiff shake of the head. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m not alone.” I hold her hands firmly in mine, the check crumpling in our shared grip. “You’ve been a wonderful help to me. A true friend. But we do not require your services any longer.”
Helen stares dejectedly at check. Her work here is done, she’s officially a lady of leisure once more, and something tells me that after nearly a year spent chasing the whims of Claire Dumas, retirement will stick this time around. She couldn’t quit. She would never willingly abandon a patient or a friend, no matter how hard the going. She needed an out. She needed permission to walk away.
“You’ll call if there’s anything I can do?”
I smile warmly, but say nothing. We both know I won’t.
Helen grabs my elbows and crushes me in her strong arms. Rigid in her emotional embrace, I let the moment linger and fight the urge to pull away. She needs to show how deeply she cares. She expends a long exhalation over my shoulder, and the sound more than her touch, conveys the extent of her grief, her reluctance to leave. I pat the space between her shoulder blades and withdraw, incapable of meeting her eyes.
She folds the check in half, tucks it in her back pocket and disappears through my bedroom door. I listen to her swift, sure steps on the stairs, and then their steady cadence across the living room floor. The front door opens, and all is still for a few torturous seconds, until I hear her flip the lock and pull it closed.
I sink down on the edge of my mattress. A part of me believed she’d never make it over the threshold. She isn’t coming back this time and my decision weighs heavily. My mother’s care is truly my responsibility, and mine alone. I’ll have to scale back my hours, if not quit my job entirely.
The violin shines in the light of my bedside lamp. I stretch across the mattress, drawing close to her with all the hesitancy of long-parted lover. I drag the tips of my fingers up the strings, tracing her elegant neck. The strings are too dry to play, but she hums under my touch. I lift the glittering bodice from the green velvet interior and the instrument is as ageless and polished as I remember. The bow speaks to me of long forgotten glories, of solace and comfort, of triumphs and incredible loss. The muscles in my arms and hands remember her weight, my fingers itching to play. But I’ve put those fantasies to bed, and there’s no point in revisiting past failures tonight.
I retrieve my cell phone from my bag, set it in the docking station on the nightstand and hit play. The first crisp notes of Tchaikovsky’s “Allegro Moderato” swell new life into the room, inviting bittersweet memories and opening closed wounds.
I take the instrument in my hand, but leave the bow on the bed and push the white curtains back from the windows. With the chin rest in place, I stand facing the sleeping city, the fingers of my left hand darting up and down the neck, and my empty right hand sweeping over the bridge. I feel a bit foolish at first, miming a piece I had once mastered. The silliness is forgotten in favor of the escape, and for eighteen minutes I stand at the window letting my muscles remember and relearn. I hesitate briefly at the sound of footsteps somewhere in the house, but don’t stop to close my parted robe or chase the persistent ghosts away.
* * *
The room is cloaked with such dense shadow that when I notice him hesitating in the doorway, I bolt upright in bed and clutch the white sheets to my chest. Silently, he steps over the threshold, and my heart races when I hear the doorknob snick closed in his hand. I can’t discern more than a silhouette until he’s standing over the foot of my bed. His dirty blond mop gives him away, and even in the utter blackness I can tell he’s smiling.
Only the faint rustling sound of his starched blue scrubs falling in a soft pile on the floor. He walks up the length of the bed and the light from the open curtain shines around the sharp edges of him. Self-conscious, I let the sheet slip from under my arms and pool around my waist. I’m suddenly painfully aware of my hands, and can’t decide what to do with them. Every movement feels awkward and unnatural. He senses this and sits on the edge of the bed.
The mattress dips beneath his weight. He takes my hands from their fitful nest in my lap and brings his dry lips to my open palms. My body leans into his touch, and I run my hands along the stubble that dusts his jaw, brushing my fingers over the bristly hairs on the back of his neck. I should ask him to leave, but it’s been so long since I’ve felt the weight of another person. James dips his head in the crook of my neck and I tilt my head back in mute acquiescence. He litters the length of my collarbone with rough kisses, while strong fingers press into the small of my back, guiding me down against the mattress.
Warm and pliant under his rushed caress, my body glories in the sensations. His hands rake down the ripples of my ribs, wrap roughly around the backs of my thighs. For all his eager entitlement, his tongue burns a hot trail up the length of my chest and hesitates above my lips, as though this is the line, and here he needs permission. I dig my fingers into the finely muscled shoulders and close the space between our bodies to fit my mouth to his. Ragged breath and the clumsy knock of teeth, we pull at each other’s skin searching for a way inside. We find a rhythm and settle there, the anxious fumbling little more than a memory, and handle one another with a sudden familiarity.
Chapped lips become soft against mine, no longer filled with the haste to conquer but content to learn. Everything slows and I shudder at the change of pace, snaking my arms around his waist—slightly smaller than I’d imagined. The shudder of excitement gradually turns to chill as I pull my hands across the finely arched spine to a swath of soft hair hanging just past the shoulders. I push hard against the chest that cov
ers mine, tearing my mouth away.
We don’t move. I’m not sure I can. She has one hand wrapped around my right wrist, and the other planted on the bed beside my head to brace herself above me. Wide, black eyes bore into mine. She doesn’t blink, she doesn’t appear to move at all, but I feel the thigh pressed between my legs slide away in retreat.
“Wait.” My voice sounds strange, a distant echo. Not half as odd as my actions.
I hook the back of her thigh in the curve of my calf and because she can’t be moved, I slide myself back down against her leg. She’s as still as a statue staring down at me, no outward indications of life, or want, or tenderness, suspended in vague curiosity above me. Hesitantly, I lift my head to hers, not bothering to wonder why, and part my lips against her mouth. She remains deathly still, eyes wide. It frightens me to be so near to them, magnetic in their depths, and as cavernous and unwelcoming as staring down into a dark well.
I focus on the precise angle of her jaw, the sloping symmetry of her strong nose, the planes of her face completely smooth and unblemished. Not even the crooked etching of a wrinkle in her stern brow. She remains so utterly motionless that I’m not certain she’s real.
Gently, I press my lips to hers again. They remain fixed in a firm line, and just before I pull away she presses back delicately. It paints both our faces with surprise, and as the realization washes over me that the ivory cast above me is alive, the hand that holds my wrist clenches like a vise. A growl, almost canine, rumbles in her chest and with one swift pull she brings my arm across my chest, pinning my body into place.
I close my eyes and scream, kicking my legs and pushing the darkness of the deep night away from my face, until I wake to find myself sitting in bed with arms outstretched in front of me.
My body is coated with cold sweat. I don’t fall back to sleep, certain she would find me again if I risked a few more hours’ rest. Around dawn the rain picks up. The droplets on the windowpane paint a murky watercolor of the cobalt sky and rooftops.