Overprotected

by Jennifer Laurens

  He didn’t respond, and my eyes met his. The focused attention he’d had on me since I’d awakened hadn’t lessened. I wondered if I had smeared eye makeup on my face? Drool?

  I sat next to him and reached for the box of Kashi, covertly smoothing a hand over my cheeks in hopes I’d remove anything offensive.

  “I guess it’s all in what you’re used to.” Colin poured Capn’ into a bowl. “But the whole rigidity you live with, man, that would have driven me nuts. Have they always been this strict?”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes sense after what happened, I guess,” Colin observed. He wanted to say more, I could tell a million thoughts tossed in his mind, like clothes in a dryer. In his mind, the wrinkles in family shouldn’t be difficult to iron out.

  “Why do you think your mother put her hand through your dad’s gun chest?”

  Silence thudded in the air between us. I was relieved and surprised he’d asked the unspoken question. I poured Kashi into my bowl. His eyes held mine without breaking, waiting for my answer.

  I swallowed. “I’d rather know what you think made her do it,” I said.

  His study of me deepened, lengthened, widened until the moments stretched unbearably long and taut. “I think you were right.

  She wants your dad’s attention.”

  “You see that?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. His gaze lowered to his food but he didn’t pick up his spoon. For a long time he just stared at the bowl of cereal. I doubted he was thinking about eating.

  Finally he picked up his spoon, but he only poked at his breakfast.

  A sliver of concern dug into me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. But I knew. He was getting closer to the cave, and the dark abyss was disconcerting.

  A smattering of sound came from the front of the townhouse.

  My parents were home.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I quickly headed toward the entry, the sound of Colin’s barstool scraping and his footfalls behind me offering me relief that he was following me, I wasn’t alone.

  Dad had his arm around Mother, who was wilted as a dying rose.

  They headed up the stairs. I raced over. Mother’s head bobbed, her eyes half open. “Ashlyn, dar-ling.”

  Dad glanced at me and Colin briefly, before turning his attention to Mother and maneuvering her up the stairs. His courtroom perfect appearance had faded like a theatrical poster that had seen too much sun.

  “Do you need any help?” Colin asked.

  “I can manage, thank you,” Daddy snapped.

  “Is she okay?” I asked. Colin and I trailed after their near-crawl up the cold marble staircase.

  “She needs to sleep,” Dad stated with finality. His movements were robotic, emotionless. I was shocked that I saw little, if any, marital or even loyal devotion in his actions. The reality of my parents’ dead marriage sliced into me with the gravity of a layer of my heart being shorn away. I stopped. Colin came to a halt next to me, and I felt his curious eyes search my face.

  Dad didn’t notice, though I half expected him to turn and ask me what was wrong. He’d spent each day of my life picking up on everything from a flunked lie to an earned A. The numbness spreading through me prevented me from feeling anything at all, even the truth about the state of my parents’ marriage.

  Colin’s brief touch at my shoulder was assuring. What did he know of the counterfeit life of which I’d been no more than currency, an ivory pawn? His life had been authentic, with parents who didn’t care if he wore ragged jeans and mismatched tops, who let him choose his friends, trusted him to fall and pick himself up, shake off the dirt and keep going.

  Mother and Dad disappeared into her bedroom, and the door shut. I stayed fixed on the stairs. Numbness remained. I wondered what I’d feel next.

  I dragged to my bedroom, afraid I’d crumble in front of Colin, and shut the door with a single swing of my hand. But I heard Colin’s palm thud against it.

  Crossing to my bed, I stopped myself from plunging onto it, ready to dissolve into the comforter in a river of emotion I couldn’t hold back. Crying about it wouldn’t change anything.

  “Ashlyn?” His tone was caring, tentative. I’d spoken to Stuart enough times from the distance of the door that I knew Colin had kept Dad’s rule and remained in the threshold.

  I shook my head. Wasn’t sure I could speak. I understood the stage in New York City didn’t simply exist on Broadway, with actors playing out parts. The most dramatic, unforgettable and horrifying theatrical experiences happened within the walls of homes.

  “Ash.” Colin’s soft tone reached across the room for me. I turned and met his compassionate gaze.

  He hemmed in the door. I longed for him to break Dad’s rule, to prove to me that I mattered more than Dad, the job, and the rule.

  Colin swallowed. As if he gripped the doorframe for his very stability, his fingers tensed against the wood. A sudden movement behind him caught my eye. Dad.

  Seeing my gaze shift, Colin glanced over his shoulder. When he saw Dad, he cleared the doorway. “Charles.”

  Dad’s drained countenance sharpened on Colin. He eyed him a moment, then peered past him at me. “Everything all right, Princess?”

  “Yes, of course.” I crossed to him, wiping tears from my eyes.

  “How is she? What did the doctor say?”

  Dad stepped into the room and came to me, his arms extended.

  His embrace wound around me, and I hugged him back, accustomed to the rote response. Beneath my lashes, my gaze remained with Colin standing in the doorway. His brows drew together over an expression I couldn’t decipher.

  “She’s going to be fine, Princess.”

  I had to press myself against the lock of his arms to ease back, and the resistance I felt sent a flash of annoyance through me. “What did the doctor say?”

  Dad cupped my cheeks, his usual modus operandi, and a practiced smile filled his lips. “Don’t you worry about any of this, she’s—”

  “She’s my mother. Don’t tell me not to worry about her. Are you embarrassed? Ashamed?”

  His hands iced on my cheeks. The adept grin on his lips evaporated like water under flame. Dad’s hands slowly lowered to his sides. “Colin, would you mind closing the door as you leave?”

  Colin nodded, reached in and brought the door to a close. “I realize you’re in shock about what happened to your mother, but I will not allow you to speak to me disrespectfully.”

  “You’d rather I not speak about this at all, wouldn’t you?” I snapped. “Mother slamming her hand into your gun case isn’t going to go away. It happened, and everyone we know will know about it.”

  Dad’s jaw twitched. “Your mother had an unfortunate accident as the result of inebriation.”

  “Inebriation to drown her issues with you.”

  “You think your mother hurt herself on purpose?” His arrogant tone slapped my sense of intelligence.

  “I know it.”

  Neither of us said anything. Dad was expert in creating, holding and orchestrating silence, time, and other tools of manipulation for his benefit. Up until that moment he hadn’t given me credit for understanding his expertise. Could he really have thought nearly eighteen years of living with such proficiency wouldn’t create a student?

  “Your mother would never do anything so damaging to her persona. She’s too vain.”

  “She’s desperate.”

  “You’re blaming me for her stupidity?”

  “This is your vanity talking. I don’t believe for one second you don’t know what’s going on between you and Mother. That would be stupidity.”

  Dad’s eyes bulged. The skin on his face stretched over his jaws. “Is this behavior the influence of your friends? If so, I’ll suggest that Colin follow your every move at Chatham if I have to, to ensure your associations remain lady-like.”

  I blew out a breath, exasperated. Dad stood more erect. “Ashlyn?”

  “This is me, gro
wn up.” I lifted my chin. “Seeing things.

  Understanding reality.”

  “Reality is that your mother got drunk.” His tone was smooth and slick as oil. “She lost control, like all intoxicated people do, and she acted without thinking.”

  “No, Dad. Reality is that you and Mother ignore each other. You pretend. Your relationship sucks.”

  He slapped me. The force of the blow ripped my head right, fiery pain splintering through my jaw and skull. I reached up to touch the stinging burn and his hand cuffed my wrist.

  “Don’t use that street talk with me, Ashlyn.”

  My mind went blank. Stunned, I was paralyzed. His eyes widened, and I thought I witnessed sorrow flashing through his countenance.

  His shoulders drooped slightly and he averted his face.

  He’d never hit me before.

  I forced my body to turn and head for the bedroom door, my head a storm of burgeoning emotion.

  “Ashlyn?” Dad demanded.

  I crossed over the threshold and was out in the hall. Rain beat against the brick exterior of the townhouse, the sound like the glass of Dad’s cabinet, shattering. Would he follow me? Insist I formally ask to be excused? Ask me to apologize to him? I didn’t look back.

  Numbness spread from my bones to my trembling muscles. The slap still reverberated from my cheek, like a hit cymbal. Only one place could soothe the tumultuous storm raging inside of me.

  I slammed the doors of the music room closed. A hive of angry black bees was loose in my blood. Muscles eased and stretched the instant my fingers touched the piano keys. The first melody my brain released was Dad’s. The tune had once been a joy to play, but now, new chords in low, commanding octaves bombarded the piano keys, violent—tearing the air with raging noise.

  I closed my eyes. Tears raced for escape down my cheeks. Dad’s melody pushed the walls endeavoring to hold the raging flames of hurt in. There was nowhere for the captured melody to run but back to my wounded heart, and there it burned with the hostility of a brush fire.

  He hit me.

  The sting penetrated my cheek and jaw afresh.

  A presence. My hands stilled on the keys. The tune leapt off the empty walls in enraged flames.

  Colin sat next to me.

  Concern drew his features into an apprehensive expression.

  When the last remnant of the song burned out, he spoke. “Are you okay?”

  “My father…” I shook my head, bowed it over the quiet piano keys where my fingers rested.

  His arm slid around my shoulders and he drew me against him.

  “Ash.”

  Tears flowed, dragging remnants of anger, fear, sadness, and mourning for my family out of my heart and into the open. I collapsed into Colin’s side, my hands pressing into the ivory keys in a tumultuous chord that sounded like the final notes of a dying song, hanging by the noose of a lone note.

  “It’ll be okay.” His comforting whisper tried to soothe and reassure. I’d lived with my parents’ mock marriage long enough, even if some of those years of living had been lived in innocent bliss, to know not that the end was inevitable, but that the charade would surely, and sadly, continue.

  With me forever caught in the middle.

  “I’m tired,” I mumbled against him. “Tired of the whole thing. The fakeness of it all. I can’t believe he doesn’t take some responsibility for this.” I eased back, my weeping gaze on his. “Can you believe it?”

  Colin’s eyes darkened. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s more than he said.” Fresh anger boiled through my veins.

  “He hit me,” I murmured.

  Colin’s body turned stony and hard.

  “He’s never hit me,” I whispered. “People who love each other don’t hit each other.” Colin seemed to fill like a balloon overflowing with boiling water.

  “Wait here.” His tone struggled with control.

  He jerked to his feet, his stride long and fast across the hard wood toward the doors. Minutes later, I heard Dad’s voice, and Colin’s, the two jabbing like swords.

  I quickly went to the door, stepped into the dark hall. Their sharp voices sliced the air up from the main floor.

  “I will not have my employee overstepping boundaries.” Dad’s tone was courtroom.

  “You hit her, Charles.”

  “She’s my child, and she needed to be reprimanded.”

  “Open your eyes. She’s not a child, she’s a woman, an adult. It won’t be long before you won’t be able to keep her here like a—”

  “That’s enough,” Dad’s command boomed, causing the sconces to tremble. “This conversation is over.”

  The doors to Dad’s study slammed. My heart thrummed. Colin marched up the stairs. I stepped into the shadows thinking he wouldn’t see me, but his fierce gaze latched on mine as though he sensed me. At the landing he paused, looking barely able to contain rage. Then he continued up to the third floor, and closed the door of his bedroom.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mother lay propped on her bed in the bloodied, stiff clothes she’d worn when she’d left the townhouse. Dad hadn’t had the decency to help her change?

  I crossed to her bed and stared at her pallid, sleeping form. She looked like the branch of a fallen aspen. Sadness cloaked me. I sat on the bed, and the depression on the mattress caused her to stir.

  Her eyes blinked heavily. “Darling.” She reached for me with her good arm, and winced.

  I took her cold hand in mine. “How are you feeling?”

  Mother’s consciousness labored for clarity, like she was blinking through mud to see. She focused on me and seemed to remember everything that had happened, her eyes latching on mine as though last night’s events played behind her irises and into her awareness.

  She sighed and closed her eyes, her head rolling to the side. Then she peered through cracked lids at her bandaged arm, in a sling, tight to her chest. A tear escaped the corner of her eye and raced down her cheek.

  I squeezed her hand.

  “Is my hand—is—am I—”

  “Yes, you’re okay. Don’t worry about it now. Sleep.”

  Pity gouged my heart. I eased next to her and she stirred, cracked open her eyes and they held mine for a moment. She turned her face from my view.

  I cuddled closer, like I had when I’d been little—on the occasions Dad had been gone and she’d let me sleep in their bed with her—

  when they’d shared a bed.

  My mind sogged with sadness. For Mother. For Dad. For our crumbling family. Where do we go from here?

  I closed my eyes.

  Mother’s weeping awakened me. I wasn’t sure how long I’d lain there next to her, but the light outside the windows was like a black and purple bruise.

  I sat up, touched the side of my face Dad had slapped, but the burning was gone. The outrage over the assault remained, and I closed my eyes against a wave of tears. No tears. Not for him. Not for that.

  “Ashlyn?” Mother’s voice was groggy.

  “I’m here.”

  She nodded. “I know. Darling, you didn’t have to stay with me.

  Hand me a tissue, will you?”

  I plucked a white sheet from a box sitting on the table next to her bedside and handed it to her. With her free hand, she dabbed at her eyes. “I must look dreadful.”

  “Mother, you just got back from the hospital.”

  “Help me sit up, please.”

  I slid off the bed and rounded the foot of the mattress. Once at Mother’s side, I propped four feathery pillows behind her back and neck and helped her sit erect.

  `“Much better.” She adjusted the blankets and sheets around her waist, wincing from movement that compromised her arm.

  I crossed to her bathroom, wet a washcloth until it steamed and brought it to her.

  A weary smile quivered on her lips. “Thank you. That’s just what I need.” She took the cloth with her free hand and gently padded it over her face. Then she held it out to
me and I took it back to the bathroom sink.

  “Want some water or anything?” I asked, noticing the crystal goblet she kept permanently in the bathroom. A tiny drop of red wine sat at the bottom, like blood.

  “I’d take a Rockstar,” she said.