by Amber Burns
He held a salad bowl in his hands, but when Michel opened the door, the large glass dish fell from his fingers and shattered into a hundred pieces on the wooden floor. Annabelle clapped her hands over her mouth to keep quiet. He only said one word before Annabelle moved farther around to see who had shocked him so badly.
“Mom?”
***
I heard Annabelle gasp behind me, but everything faded into the background as I faced Lorraine Deverroux. I could not speak, I reverted straight back to the teenager I had been when I had walked out of this woman’s life so many years ago. My heart stuck in my throat, and my palms were suddenly coated in a slick of sweat. I felt Annabelle move up behind me, and then her hand was on my back.
“Hi, can we help you?” She said softly, in the absence of my voice.
The woman on my doorstep had aged badly, her hair was a dull grey, with only a few hints of the lustrous black it had once been still showing through. Her eyes sat sunken in a face that showed a hard life, wrinkles at her eyes and the sides of her mouth betrayed her smoking habit, and when she reached up to brush hair from her face, there were nicotine stains on her fingers. She looked from me to Annabelle and smiled faintly, uneasily.
“I’m… I am Mickey’s mother, I am sorry to pitch up so unannounced.”
She stepped from foot to foot.
“I heard that Andy had died, and Mickey was here, back from Afghanistan.”
I flinched every time she said that name, Mickey, it was as though I was being poked with a needle. I opened my mouth, closed it, and simply stepped aside. I didn’t know what to do. Annabelle sensed it and took over.
“Why don’t you come in, I can offer you a glass of iced-tea?”
She started picking up pieces of the broken bowl, and then gestured Lorraine toward the couch. My mother sat down on the edge and when Annabelle handed her the glass of liquid, I watched her to see if her hands were shaky, and they were.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, and picked up my jacket and walked straight out through the door, not turning to look at either of them; I very suddenly needed space.
Not at any point had I imagined seeing my mother again, and here she was. As I stood looking out at the sea after walking about a hundred feet down the beach, a sudden question popped into my head, why was she here alone? Where was my father? I can’t say I felt a ‘sudden surge of love’ or any major concern. These people had written off my existence when I technically needed their guidance most as a teenager, and I had a niggling concern as to why Lorraine Deverroux was suddenly on my doorstep. She knew Andy had been very wealthy, and she also knew he had not had any children.
I felt bad for leaving Annabelle with her, a strange woman, so I took a few deep breaths and turned around to head back. Anna was sitting on the sofa opposite Lorraine, and she also held a glass of iced tea, I saw Lorraine was talking, and there was a pained expression on Annabelle’s face. When I turned the door handle she looked toward me and I caught the glance that told me why my father was not here. There were tears on her cheeks which she hastily wiped away.
“I’m sorry, just needed to get out for a moment, I was not expecting you.”
I faced Lorraine. She nodded.
“I am sorry,” she mumbled. “I just told Annabelle, your father died a month ago Mickey, he had a heart attack.”
I sat down, “Oh, that why you came?”
She seemed offended by the lack of joy at her appearance, and it puzzled me. I frowned.
“What exactly do you want Lorraine? You wrote me off when I was only a kid, Andy is the one who got me back on my feet, and now, a month after Harry dies, you pitch up on my doorstep. What do you want? Were you expecting a welcome party?”
I noticed Annabelle’s discomfort at the tone of my voice, and turned to her.
“Baby, can you maybe go to your dad for a short while so that I can sort things out here? I don’t want to upset you, and I have a few things I might need to discuss with Lorraine.”
Anna kissed me, gave me a tight hug, and with a nod, stood to leave.
“Bye Lorraine, take care now.”
I waited for Anna to leave, waving at her as she shut the door on her way out. Lorraine nodded in her direction, and then glanced back at me.
“She seems like a very good girl,” she said softly.
I exhaled loudly through my teeth.
“She is, way too good for me.” I sat forward with my elbows on my knees, “What do you want?”
She put on an offended expression again, but I knew it was exactly that, put on, she spluttered and stuttered.
“I, do I have to want something to find my only child after my husband dies?” She wiped a tear from her cheek.
I snorted, “I am so not buying this, you don’t just pitch up after disowning me and not trying to find me for more than twenty years. Not after you just happen to find out a childless and wealthy relative has died, I don’t know you, but I know I don’t trust you.”
It took a lot of effort for me not to welcome her back, and offer to give this vulnerable looking woman whatever she may need. There was still a deep part of me that wanted to fix things, but my brain was winning here. She sat silently as I watched her, looking at the dull hair and sallow skin, all the signs of poor nutrition and a lack of good health. I stood and ran my fingers through my hair.
“You should stay the night, it is getting late and I didn’t see a car, how did you get here?”
I heard my own voice, and it had softened. She met my eyes.
“I took a bus to Galveston and got a ride with a man who dropped me here. I don’t know where else I’d go Mickey.”
I closed my eyes tightly.
“Look, I am going to ask Annabelle to bring dinner for all of us, let’s get one thing straightened out though, please stop calling me Mickey, that boy is dead. He died when he was thirteen.”
She nodded.
“Okay, thank you.”
The spare bedroom was still in a habitable state, our packing had predominantly started in the kitchen and living room, leaving us another night or two of sleep space, but stupidly no cooking space. So Lorraine took a small bag to the room, and I left her to freshen up while I phoned Anna.
“Baby, I am sorry, I am letting her stay here tonight, can you possibly bring dinner for the three of us when you come home? I am in need of holding you, I never thought it would be hard to admit it, but I feel stronger with you around.”
Annabelle smiled broadly when she pushed the door open later. The sun was just setting, and I felt like a right rat for having admitted a weakness to the woman I most wanted to see me as a strong protector, my future wife of all things. She came up to me and kissed me where I sat on the couch with a box of books in front of me,.
“I am glad you need me, what else would be the point of getting married?” She asked grinning.
I hugged her, “Just don’t tell anyone. Can’t go looking like a wuss in front of others.”
I watched her unpack Chinese takeout onto the coffee table, and then she disappeared off down the passage to call Lorraine. She had pushed me back down to the couch when I had tried to stand instead. We all sat on the floor around the low table to eat, and it was Annabelle who broke the odd and uncomfortable silence that hung in the air like treacle.
“Lorraine, where have you been all these years if you don’t mind my asking? I don’t know too much about you because it’s a difficult subject for Michel.”
She asked this gently, with a hand on my arm, and I nodded at her, kissing her cheek. Lorraine looked from Annabelle to me, and back before she spoke.
“I can see you two are very happy together, and I’m glad.” She gulped down a mouthful of noodles, “After Michel left, his father lost his job, and we moved to a little shithole down South. It wasn’t the easiest time in our lives, having lost him, and then having no money.”
She stopped speaking to eat a bit more. When she continued, she wiped more tears from her eyes.
“When I heard Michel was back I immediately wanted to come and find him, but his father…” she trailed off, “His father refused, and then when he died I had to try and get things in order. I came as soon as I could.”
I ate my noodles in silence while this monologue was being delivered, listening to her speak. Her voice changed tones several times, and I tried to pick up any falsehood, but I couldn’t at that stage. She looked down at her food then and ate the rest of her meal in silence.
Annabelle nudged me, and I took a breath.
“I am glad you are here, even though it took so many years. I didn’t exactly have it easy you know. Um, I guess I need to put the past behind me. Lorraine, Annabelle and I are getting married when we get to our new home, the farm we have bought. It should be in a few months, would you like to come?”
A smile broke across her face, and she nodded vigorously.
“I would love to! More than anything!” She exclaimed.
When we went to bed I curled up against Annabelle and held her as she lay with her back against my chest.
“Thank you,” I whispered into her hair, “Thank you for being a calm voice of reason.”
I kissed her and adjusted my position as she turned and wiggled against me. She turned over and placed her small hands against my naked chest, and I felt her breasts, the soft satin of her naked skin on mine. She rubbed herself against me, and reached a hand down…
“I’ll sometimes be reason, and I’ll sometimes be lust… My roles alternate lover.”
***
She felt him stiffen in her hand and lifted her right leg to throw it over his thigh. They lay on their sides, and it was an awkward, yet incredibly intimate position. She kissed him, and while their lips were locked together she lifted her hips to slide onto him, enveloping his body in hers. Annabelle felt him shudder against her, and started slowly moving her hips. Michel breathed against her lips, and dug his fingers into the skin on her back.
“I love feeling you, being inside you,” he said.
She sighed and changed position, moving away from him to stand on her hands and knees.
“I want you behind me Michel,” she groaned.
He quickly moved behind her, and just as quickly shoved himself into her wet sex, burying himself in the warmth. Annabelle straightened in front of him, standing on her knees to hold on to the head board so that her back stretched up in front of him, she knew he liked the sight. He ran his hands down her spine and elicited delicious shivers from her, along with soft moans.
“Shh, she will hear us,” he said softly, his breath in her neck.
When Annabelle could not contain her sounds, he reached around to cover her mouth with a hand, crying out in surprise when she bit his fingers. It was not malicious, just a sharp and playful nip. Michel placed his free hand in the middle of her back and moved faster, and she clung to the headboard to stay upright.
She felt her orgasm building, the friction of his hard cock rubbing against just the right spot in that upright position, and the pressure of his hand on her mouth arousing her. She liked the mild feeling of helplessness, paired with his hand on her back, spanning almost the width of her waist, making her feel small next to him. She breathed hard, and stars formed in her vision as she closed her eyes. She bit down hard into his fingers as her back hollowed in front of him, the muscles contracting as she came. She heard him groan as she clenched down on him, and felt the pulsing in his member as he let go and spilled himself into her.
After they had both collapsed onto the sheets and caught their breath for a moment, Michel stood and put on a pair of shorts, then opened the doors that led out onto the porch straight from the bedroom. Annabelle joined him in the doorway. The lights were still out, and the night was pitch-black with nothing but the crescent moon to light the beach and landscape. As their ears adjusted, they both heard Lorraine’s voice in the dark, she was talking on a cellular phone.
“Yeah Brody, he is stinkin’ well-off. He has a house, has bought a farm, and is plannin’ a fancy, big wedding. They invited me. I am staying in the house with him and the fiancé.”
She went quiet to listen to the other person.
“I think I can get a good amount out of him if I keep playing the role of woe-be-gone momma. I’m good at it, yeah. He is feeling sorry for me and will give me what I ask…”
At this point Michel turned from the door and walked back inside, Annabelle had felt the muscles in his back stiffen before he had left and followed him, closing the door. They slipped under the sheets, and she curled against his side. He sighed.
“I knew it, I wanted to believe differently, but I knew it deep down inside,” he said softly.
Annabelle stroked the hair from his face.
“I am sorry my love, I wanted to see the best in her too.”
They fell asleep eventually, but Michel was restless, and eventually Annabelle felt him leave the bed, and she knew he was going to sit on the beach. She left him, he needed space to think.
Lorraine walked into the lounge the next morning with a timid smile on her face, completely unaware that both Annabelle and Michel had heard her conversation with ‘Brody’. She seemed surprised to see them both sitting on the couch in the lounge already, and on the coffee table in front of Michel sat an envelope, and Annabelle had set out three cups of take-out coffee.
“Sit,” said Michel, harshly.
She frowned and sat on the edge of the chair facing the couple. Michel glared at her.
“Who’s Brody?” he asked, watching as the color drained from her face,
“He, um, how…” she faltered, falling over her words.
Annabelle interjected at that point.
“Lorraine, I highly advise honesty, we both overheard your phone call last night.”
Annabell watched as the other woman picked up a cup of coffee and exhaled harshly.
“I met him a few days after your father died, we are… Friends, you could call it.”
Annabelle drank her own coffee too, her one hand resting on Michel’s leg. When Michel spoke, the calm and measured tone of his voice was more terrifying than any amount of screaming and cursing could have been.
“Lorraine, I was willing to see the best in you, give you a roof over your head, and invite you to my wedding. After years of not knowing you, of you writing me off as a son, I wanted you in my life again, but you were here simply to get whatever you could because I was ‘stinking rich’ as you said to Brody.”
He picked up the envelope.
“This is enough cash to get a taxi to a station, buy a bus ticket, and go back to where you came from, I want you to leave and never come back to me again. Don’t contact me, or Annabelle, don’t phone, write, or arrive on my doorstep ever again.”
With finality he stood and walked out of the lounge into their main bedroom.
Annabelle watched as Lorraine sat, dumbstruck, and then said, “Go, even I wanted to see good in the mother of such a good man, but there is none. Leave.”
Lorraine stood, and a few minutes later left the house with her small bag. She stood ar the street until a taxi arrived, and looking back toward the house before getting into it once before climbing into the large yellow car.
15
Moving from the coast to the farm was a stressful undertaking, and for a few days both of them were snappy and short-tempered. The moving truck came and went, and they had to drive both their cars up. Her father had at last decided he would come, and his house had flown off the market, sold to a young couple who bought both it and Annabelle’s land as a parcel. He’d used the same moving truck as them to transport his few things, and when the day arrived to drive up in convoy, all three cars were parked outside Michel’s house.
Annabelle handed her dad a cup of coffee and package of muffins, cookies and sandwiches. She had prepared the same for them, and by nine in the morning they were on the road. Annabelle turned on the music, and sang along to Bruce Springsteen while she followed Michel
’s car at a comfortable speed.
They arrived at the house hours later, tired, sweaty from the heat in the cars, and ready for a rest. Michel was the first to jump out of his car, and to their surprise, Art and Eva were there. They were welcomed into the kitchen, and all sat down at the table. Michel had negotiated buying the house with a lot of the furniture and appliances, so there was a kettle and coffee machine. Eva had placed a plate of cookies and mugs of coffee on the table, and though they had their own drive ahead, they sat and had coffee with Michel, Annabelle and Roy.