by C. D. Reiss
He held my hand across the back seat of the limo as the car moved ever so slowly onto the 10. Every hour was rush hour. Cars lined up on the freeway like pearls on a six-strand choker.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He leaned into me slowly, planting a tender kiss on my cheek. “It’s all right.”
“I know we weren’t supposed to spend Christmas with my family.”
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“They’re really overwhelming.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t come from nowhere.”
Six sisters. A brother who was really my son. A father whose moral code I could never figure out. A family tree dotted with criminal acts and questionably acquired wealth.
I loved them. Down to my crazy sister Fiona and my mother, whose emotions were so all over the place she was twenty women in a one-woman suit.
“And I didn’t leave for nothing. The drama’s nonstop.”
I loved them and they loved Drew. He’d let Fiona teach him how to tack a horse. Spent a Thanksgiving helping Sheila study for the bar. He’d been the one to drive Jonathan to the airport for his first national baseball championship, then called me from the plane to tell me he was going with him. He’d done everything and more to get close to us, but he was never fully comfortable with the drama.
We were staying at a hotel in Beverly Hills. It was central, but far enough from my family to give us some privacy, and the security was good.
The drama in question revolved around my sister Fiona. She was a camera magnet who loved being rich more than she loved money. She craved attention, living as if her only pleasure in life was pleasure. A pure bacchanalian.
“What did your mother say?” Drew asked.
“She has three days to prove she’s sane or they’re putting her away, which might be a good thing, because the tabloids are loving it. Rich girl goes crazy and stabs boyfriend. They’re ready to put her head on a platter.”
He waited a second to ask the obvious question. “Did she do it?”
I did corporate law, defending clients from accusations and arguing in courtrooms. Questions of guilt or innocence weren’t my job. Drew did copyright law, which was handled in boardrooms. His question of Fiona’s guilt was a consideration as a human, not a lawyer.
“Probably.”
“How’s Jonathan taking it?” he asked, knowing he was always my primary concern.
“Apparently, he and his girlfriend, Rachel, got drunk at Sheila’s Christmas party. He woke up on the lawn and she drove her car over Blufftop Cliff. He’s upset. I didn’t even know her. I would have known her if I was here. I can’t…” I said with no intention of finishing the sentence. I didn’t know what I couldn’t do. Anything. Walk. Breathe. Think. Exist.
“Jesus,” Drew muttered, looking out the window.
“It’s a mess. He’s playing it tough apparently.”
We fell back into a warm silence where he was my companion. Never my judge.
“They’re going to try to draw you back in,” he said once we were off the 10. He twisted around to face me, putting his leg on the seat and his arm around me.
“I’m a big girl.”
“You’re a cupcake when it comes to them.”
“What was the song? About the cake melting in the rain?”
“You stayed in New York for a reason,” he snapped. “Every time we go back and you have to look at that kid, your heart breaks.”
I opened my mouth to object, sitting straighter and stiffer as if I was going to spring, but he leaned on my shoulders and pressed his fingers to my lips. I wanted to bite them off. His words stopped me.
“Last Christmas, you spent the entire trip asking Jonathan how he was. Like you were trying to stuff fifteen years of motherhood into Christmas break. Then you gut-cried for two weeks.” He brushed his fingers along my cheek.
He’d stayed by me when I called in sick because I was so overwrought, grieving for a child who was always and never mine. I couldn’t allow myelf to have another. I felt locked up, as if I’d poured concrete inside myself to prevent it. Another child would be a betrayal of the one I couldn’t claim. Jonathan didn’t know he was mine, and I’d never tell him, but when I imagined having another baby, my insides recoiled at my treacherous desires. It felt like infidelity. Disloyalty. I was supposed to wait for something. I didn’t know what, but something. It didn’t make sense, but the wall of grief I stood against wouldn’t budge.
What if Jonathan needed me and I’d moved on? Or I stopped loving him?
That worry didn’t make any more sense than the deep, dark concern that he’d find out and hate me. None of it made sense.
I walked this road without a map and dragged him along behind me. It wasn’t fair.
So I’d decided to put the pills in a box and live my life as if it were my own, but here we were, in Los Angeles again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, referring to all the crazy, nonsensical shit I couldn’t say.
“I love you, Cinnamon.”
“I love you, Indy.”
“I can’t stand seeing you hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re just peachy.”
I kissed him, because kissing him made me believe I was, indeed, just peachy fine.
* * *
We drove back from Westonwood Acres— a mental institution for the wealthiest children in the country—in silence. Fiona was a mess. The media was all over it. Dad was calculating an escape route from shame. I was trying to figure out what he’d do before he did it.
Mom, graying hair pulled back, adjusted the pictures on the piano. No one in the family played, but appearances mattered. Any cultured house required a black grand piano. The more susceptible it was to the greasy ovals of little fingers, the more exquisite the cleanliness.
Outside, Drew stretched on a patio chair, enjoying the cold December sun. I wished I was with him, watching the pool man skim the water’s surface in a wooly 49ers beanie and letting the white noise from the gardener’s gas blower drown out the tense niceties between the family.
Despite the bedecked Christmas tree, the mood in the house was not festive. Daddy had disappeared to read the fine print in the Wall Street Journal as if he had an investment to move.
A man making 550K in interest per day only moved money to engage in fiscal masturbation.
Done adjusting, Mom went to the kitchen to wipe the sterile counter as if it was her job, which it wasn’t. Her lack of facility at it was illustrated by the way she wiped around the glass vase of flowers without lifting it.
Theresa watched Mom as if she wanted to bore a hole in her head. At eighteen and change, she was the “good girl,” the one we could always count on to do the right thing. Her red hair was tied in a low ponytail, and her pearls made a perfect line against the neckline of her sweater.
Needless to say, it was tense.
“Where’s Jonathan?” I asked, getting juice out of the fridge. I thought the query only meant something to me, the mother-not-mother who was worried-not-worried about his absence.
Apparently, I was wrong.
“He’s fine,” Mom said thickly.
“That’s not what she asked, Mom,” Theresa snapped.
“He’s at a friend’s,” Mom relented.
“Hey there,” I said to Theresa. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t know. Mom, what’s my problem?”
Mom shook her head as she folded the paper towel in halves and threw it away. “Nothing that’s your business.”
Theresa pounded the marble countertop of the kitchen island. “It is. She’s my friend and no one can find her!”
“Wait, hang on.” I held up my hands for peace. “She’s your sister.”
I’d thought she was talking about Fiona. It occurred to me too late that her friend was Rachel, Jonathan’s girlfriend who had driven over Blufftop cliff to her death two nights before.
“It’s not—” Mom started, but I c
ouldn’t hear the rest over Theresa, who turned all her unexplained rage toward me.
“No one cares because Fiona’s got all the attention. Rachel is my friend, and Jon’s as upset as I am. But all you can talk about is Fiona the fuckup.”
“Wait—” I was about to ask her to explain, but she was too wound up.
“You don’t get to live three thousand miles away and come here on Christmas—when we call you with something serious—so you can waltz in and take over stuff and not know what’s going on. You don’t get to tell me who I’m talking about. You get to ask.”
“Okay, who—”
“No one!” Mom shouted.
“Don’t say that!”
“Theresa.” Dad appeared in the doorway, paper folded in one hand. His voice cut coldly through emotion and objection with a single command for one girl to be quiet.
Theresa obeyed because that was what she did. But when Drew opened the sliding glass door to the patio, letting in the air and the blower noise, he opened the tension a crack.
“Hey,” he said, making eye contact with me, where I spoke volumes.
Shit’s hitting the fan.
You don’t have to be here.
As a matter of fact, go back outside.
Theresa wedged her anger through the crack in the tension. It was enough for action, not words.
She picked up the vase of flowers and smashed it against the counter. It broke with a pop.
“Theresa!” Mom burst into tears.
“I hate all of you!” She ran out.
I started after her, but Daddy said, “Leave her,” so I did.
It’s worth mentioning that Drew was the one to pick the glass up from the floor.
“How did this happen?” Mom was in full blubber, eyes dripping like a broken vase of flowers.
I put my arms around her. “It’s okay, Mom.”
Drew put the largest pieces on the counter and crouched for more. Daddy shook his head, looking at his daughter’s boyfriend on his knee like a servant.
You might wonder how I knew what he was thinking.
Trust me. I knew the guy.
“She and Jonathan. They were my sweetest babies.”
Drew made eye contact with me as he dropped a handful of glass shards on the wet counter.
I know it hurts you to hear that, he said.
It hurts so bad, I agreed. But keep quiet.
I won’t watch you hurt quietly much longer
Mom separated from me and reached for a paper towel.
“Maria can do that,” Daddy said, pushing the towels out of her reach.
“The staff is off today.” With nothing to do with her hands, Mom sobbed again. I snapped off a length of towel and handed it to her.
Daddy left the kitchen, shaking his head. By the time we’d squeezed out the last towel, Drew had slipped away too. It was just as well the men had left. I couldn’t talk around them.
Mom stood next to me at the sink, letting the hot water run over her hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Tell her,” Theresa said from behind us.
“Leave it be,” Mom said.
“She’s one of us. Just tell her.”
“Leave it be!”
“Can we dispense with the drama?” I shut off the water.
“Daddy was cheating on Mom with my friend.”
Mom and I spun around, me in shock, and Mom in something like rage but more like angry resignation.
“Which friend?”
“It’s complicated,” Mom said.
“Which friend?” I repeated, knowing the answer. When they didn’t reply, I spoke it aloud. “The same one Jonathan is dating?”
Yes. The answer was yes. The word wasn’t spoken and didn’t need to be. While I’d been shacking up with my lover in New York, building a career and a life, my family had been twisting in on itself. Eating its tail. Collapsing in slow motion.
We had secrets we didn’t even speak of under pledge. Secrets about Daddy and the way he looked at young girls. Mom was fifteen years older than her oldest child. So we watched. Declan Drazen’s seven daughters had promised to speak up if they were touched. Pledge was solidified among us for that purpose, but we’d never once used it for that.
Some days, I thought the fact that he’d never touched his daughters made my father a saint. Most days I thought my standards were too low.
I should have been shocked and horrified by what I learned in the kitchen that Christmas. I wasn’t. I was just glad he hadn’t touched Theresa.
“If you’re not leaving,” I asked my mother, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I moved into Carrie’s bedroom.” She laid her hands flat on the counter. One on top of the other. The tops were scalded from the water. “And I had… a procedure.”
My eyes met Theresa’s. Whatever it was, it was news to my sister too.
Mom held her chin high, but the effort to do so was evident. The procedure hadn’t had a mole removal or a face lift. No. Something else. Something that stank of revenge.
“Mom?” I said. “Was this an obstetrical procedure?”
“Might have been.” She ran her hand over the marble as if she missed the busywork of the paper towels. “If he’d let me get my tubes tied years ago, I wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.”
“You had an abor—?!”
“You’re forty-six!” Theresa snapped with a touch of disgust.
“And Catholic,” I added, as if that mattered. When push came to shove, those who could choose inevitably did, one way or the other. The church could rail against it for the rest of eternity. The government could send it to back alleys. Abortion was always a choice. Always.
“If either of you are so devout you have a problem with it, you can pack up and go any time,” Mom said, straightening her spine. “But I’m not bringing another child into this family. No more. And as far as my age goes”—she pointed her chin at Theresa—“the doctor said perimenopausal fertility is common. We weren’t trying, but things happen. God willed me another baby and God can send me to hell if He wants to.”
“You could just leave him,” I said.
She spat out a laugh. “And go where?” She reached for a high cabinet, revealing a row of tall bottles. “God, do we not have any… here.” She pulled down a blue bottle of gin and set it on the counter, resting her hands on it.
I took down three glasses, and Theresa pulled out the ice tray. When Mom didn’t move, I took the bottle from under her while my sister filled the glasses with cubes.
“I know you don’t respect me,” she said.
“Not true,” Theresa said.
“I have eight children. Most of you are settled. But not Jonathan. He’s strong but not strong enough. Not now. If I split this family now, what would happen to him?”
How many years had I asked myself the same thing? My mother had shouldered the same duty with a seriousness I’d never given her credit for.
“He’ll be fine.” Theresa, who wasn’t old enough to drink, picked up her glass as soon as I’d filled it. “Trust me. He’ll be okay.”
Mom and I took our glasses. She looked at me, and an understanding passed between us. I’d never told her Jonathan was mine. Maybe she knew. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe it didn’t matter. In whatever way she could, Eileen Drazen was watching over him.
Why had I felt so alone? Why had I held off having my own life to do what others were already doing? I wanted to run to Mykonos and let Drew fuck me pregnant. So god damn pregnant.
I let the flavor of the cold gin flower on my tongue and swallowed. “Can you bear it if you stay?”
Theresa put down her glass without drinking. “She shouldn’t.”
“I have to,” Mom said. “This family is all I’ve ever had.”
She was protecting Jonathan, but she was also protecting herself. I couldn’t deny her that. I had to trust her with the son we secretly shar
ed.
“To us then.” I raised my glass. “To all of us.”
Mom touched her glass to mine, and with Theresa reluctantly joining us, we drank to our family.
“Ugh!” Theresa cried. “This is gross.”
I laughed and watched her take the rest like medicine.
“What’s gross?” Sheila stood in the doorway, carrying a briefcase. She wore a matching pantsuit that had to cost two grand, but the line of her fly didn’t match the line of her blouse, and her right lapel was half folded under her shoulder bag. Twenty-six years of twisting rage was taking its toll on her posture. She put down her case and bag. “None for me?”
I poured her a glass. “How’s Fiona?”
After finishing her law degree, Sheila had gone right into a white-shoe law firm Daddy had retained for decades. I’d refused the same kind of job in favor of making my own way.
“She’s nuts.” She slammed back the drink and waved me for another. “Our lawyers are saying Westonwood might be the best thing for her.”
“Sheila Drazen,” Mom lectured, “don’t you say that.”
Mom didn’t like broad insults of her sweetest babies.
“Ma,” I said.
She looked at me, eyes a little wide. I met her gaze and let her read me. Without a word, I told her I’d handle it.
I went out to the back patio. Sheila followed as I knew she would. She’d always been ambitious. The faster I walked, the harder she’d chase.
“Hey,” she said, sliding the door shut behind her, “wait up.”
I didn’t. She caught me in the rose garden.
“You don’t think she’s crazy?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.” I let her walk next to me. “But it’s not relevant. Your job is to get her out. You think you’re working for a law firm. You’re not. You’re working for the Drazens..”
“Well, no, Margie, it’s not like that.”
“Yes. Yes, Sheila, it is like that. Have you done any background on your bosses at Smithson & Klein? Sixty percent of the firm’s income isn’t from billable hours. Do you want to know the source of the other forty percent?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Your boss is on the board of Harmony Health, which owns Westonwood. Keeping Fiona Drazen locked up does wonders for their brand.”