The Mother's Promise

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The Mother's Promise Page 8

by Sally Hepworth


  At the gate a senior guy bumped into her (heavily) and, after taking a quick glance, exclaimed, “Watch it, would you?”

  She jumped back, horrified. If there had been a hole to jump into, Zoe would have jumped. And she would have stayed in that hole all day, safe from people’s eyes. Safe, even, from her best friend’s eyes.

  Zoe hadn’t heard anything from Emily since the movies, despite sending several texts. She’d thought about calling, but the phone was terrifying to Zoe at the best of times—the pauses, the silences, the inability to read facial cues—and this time there were just too many uncertainties. What if she doesn’t answer? What if she screams at me? What if she is screening the call and laughing? In the end Zoe had just put her phone in a drawer and hadn’t looked at it until this morning. There was still nothing from Em.

  Zoe had known Emily would be mad, but the silence was not like her. It worried her. What had happened with Cameron? Had he been a jerk to her? Or had it all worked out and she’d spent the whole weekend in loved-up bliss, too busy to check her messages? Whatever it was, Zoe was fairly sure it wasn’t good news.

  When she arrived at her locker, she twisted in the code and shuffled books around unnecessarily until she noticed Emily. There were a few people around—Jessie Lee crouched at her lower locker next to Emily’s, looking typically weird in big bullet-style earrings and a red T-shirt with giant slashes over a black bustier and black lace-up boots. Lucy Barker was also there, talking to no one in particular about her haircut, which she hated. But this was probably the best opportunity Zoe would get. She steeled herself and came up behind Emily.

  “Em?”

  Emily kept her back to her. “Maybe your bangs are a little short,” she said to Lucy, who was now looking in the mirror on her locker door. “But otherwise I’d say your hair is totally on trend.”

  Zoe glanced at Lucy’s hair. Lucy was one of those people who on first glance looked really pretty, but on closer inspection she had a strangely equine look about her that had meant the majority of the student body, Emily included, called her Seabiscuit behind her back. Her hair, now cut into a short, shaggy style, only made her look horsier.

  Zoe waited, but Emily didn’t turn around. Had she heard? Lucy looked away from the mirror and right at Zoe, making it clear that she had heard.

  “Em?” Zoe tried to look casual, but her facial muscles were too tense. “Can I talk to you? In private?”

  “Emily?” Jessie Lee said, from her locker. “Zoe is talking to you.”

  The silence that followed was as long and uncomfortable as any Zoe had ever experienced. Emily stiffened but she didn’t turn or acknowledge Zoe. She didn’t even acknowledge Jessie Lee.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said to Lucy finally. “Hair grows! I mean, there’s just two weeks between a good haircut and a bad haircut, right?”

  A second later the bell rang and Emily shut her locker. “Okay,” she said, “time for math.”

  And she was gone. Zoe stood there for a moment, shame and horror ballooning inside her. All around, people headed off to class in twos or threes, chewing gum and laughing and being normal. Zoe longed to run to the bathroom and hide out for the rest of the day, or even just crawl inside her locker and shut the door. Instead, she went to class.

  During math, Emily didn’t once look in her direction. Seth and Cameron sat in the back row snickering, and though Zoe kept her eyes forward, she was sure they were laughing at her. Harry Lynch, once again, sat in the seat right in front of Zoe, and Zoe spent most of the time staring at his giant football-playing shoulders—actually, now that she looked at them, they weren’t as giant as she remembered—but even that came to an end when he got up in the middle of class and walked out. Harry did that every now and again. They’d be in the middle of class when, bang, he’d just get up and leave. The teachers rarely asked where he was going, and if they did, his answer was always “Fishin’.” It was weird.

  Science was next, then history, and Emily wasn’t in those classes.

  And then it was lunchtime.

  Zoe moved quickly through the cafeteria, grabbing a tray and joining the line. Alone. When the cashier spat her out the other end with a carton of potato wedges, she headed toward Emily in the back corner. She couldn’t give her the silent treatment forever, Zoe told herself. And if they could just speak privately, Zoe could explain everything.

  Zoe walked purposefully toward her, but just a few paces away she pulled up sharp. Emily was sitting with Lucy Barker.

  “Hey!” came a voice behind her, a guy with dreadlocks. “Are you just gonna stand there? Move along!”

  Zoe jumped out of the way, and straight into someone else’s way. Finally she pulled up a seat at the nearest table and sat, trying to disappear. She crossed her legs so only one foot was on the ground. When she looked up, she noticed Harry, in the far corner of the table, hunched over what looked like another homemade sandwich. Did he always bring his lunch from home?

  “Oh.” Her chair screeched as she stood again. “Sorry.”

  You couldn’t just go and sit with anyone in high school. That wasn’t how it worked. Some people would be polite about it—just give you major side-eye and exchange glances until you went away. Other people would be more vocal about it. Zoe didn’t know which type Harry was, and she wasn’t willing to take the risk.

  “Zoe?”

  Zoe blinked. Emily was standing at the end of the table. “Em, hey,” she said pathetically.

  “You could at least have had the decency to come and say you’re sorry. And a text message isn’t the same.” Her voice was mortifyingly loud.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What is wrong with you anyway?” Emily stared at her for a long minute. “Why can’t you just be normal?”

  “Normal is overrated,” Harry muttered.

  Zoe and Emily both turned to look at him, but he kept his head down as if he hadn’t spoken. Maybe he hadn’t?

  Emily looked back at Zoe. “Do you know what else is overrated? People who can’t inconvenience themselves for one night to help out a friend. People who are so selfish they can’t see how their actions affect others. People who call themselves your best friend, when really their best friend is themselves.” Horrifyingly, Emily’s voice was climbing. Three or four people at the next table spun in their chairs and listened unashamedly. “People who spend so much time thinking about what other people think of them that it escapes them that no one thinks about them at all, because no one has a clue that they exist!”

  At the next table there was a gasp, and a snicker. Someone said, “Bitch fight.”

  The air in the room started to vanish. I can’t breathe, Zoe thought. Spots of purple and red appeared in front of her eyes, and her heart—it felt like it might burst. I am in a safe place, she told herself. I’m in control.

  But she wasn’t. And Emily was still talking.

  “Hey,” someone said. “Zoe? Are you all right?”

  Breathe, Zoe told herself. You know what this is. Just breathe and you’ll be all right.

  “Zoe!”

  “I have to go,” she said, and stood so fast her seat flew backward. She ran across the cafeteria, swerving to avoid someone and slamming instead into the wall.

  As if she weren’t humiliated enough.

  17

  As Sonja fed her prepaid ticket into the machine and the boom gate opened, she was thinking about Alice Stanhope. More specifically, she was thinking about Alice’s daughter. Supporting the patient’s family fell under Sonja’s job description as hospital social worker as well, and Alice had seemed, well, cavalier to say the least, when Sonja had asked about her daughter staying home by herself.

  This concerned Sonja. Teenage brains weren’t yet fully formed, at least that’s what George always said. He should know. When he’d been in private practice he’d seen adolescents almost exclusively. In the state of California, there was no law that stipulated the age at which you could leave a child home alone, i
t come down to whether the child was considered ‘fit.’ And so Sonja determined it would be prudent to do a home visit, to determine how ‘fit’ Alice’s daughter was.

  As she drove out of the hospital parking lot, Sonja’s phone began to ring. She tried to answer it, but it was harder than it sounded. George, who was far more technologically inclined than she, had paired it up to her car’s blue-tooth something or other, which in theory, made it “hands-free,” but in practice just made it unusable. She jabbed uselessly at the phone, which sat in its holster, taunting her.

  “Answer,” she said, feeling foolish. She remembered George saying something about voice activation. But surely saying “answer” couldn’t connect a call?

  “Sonja?” George’s voice filled the car.

  “George?”

  “Guess what?” he said.

  “What?” Although the air conditioner was blasting, Sonja’s hands were suddenly sweaty on the wheel. She wondered if it was strange that her husband could make her feel that way.

  “I’ve got an appointment with the student counselor at Westleigh,” he said. “She sounded very keen for my input on their young-people-in-crisis program.”

  “Fantastic,” Sonja said, even though, in truth, she didn’t really understand his desperation to volunteer in the community. He wasn’t a student trying to get experience; he was a renowned psychologist who was asked to speak at functions all over the country. And he’d already done some work with two other high schools in Atherton. But if George was happy, everything was better.

  “Tonight we celebrate!” he said.

  “Can’t wait,” she said.

  Sonja didn’t know how to hang up the call, so she was relieved when it disconnected of its own accord. She stopped at a crossing to let some schoolkids pass. Sonja didn’t want to celebrate. She’d be happy if they never celebrated again. It was probably just that she was exhausted. She thought about last night.

  She and George had been eating oysters—oysters!—and drinking champagne outside on the deck. Shallow as it was, Sonja enjoyed the extravagance of it. Until she’d met George she’d never eaten an oyster. And she’d certainly never drunk real champagne.

  “You’re easily pleased, Sonja,” George had said when she’d told him, again, how nice everything was. He liked being the one to provide her with nice things.

  Afterward, they moved to the couch, ostensibly to watch a movie, though Sonja fell asleep within minutes—champagne always had that effect on her. But she was startled awake when she felt George’s hands on her hips. The sky outside was dark and the credits of the film were rolling on the TV. He pulled her to her knees.

  “George, what are you—”

  But she knew exactly what he was doing. It was silly of her to think that because she was asleep—because they’d had a very nice evening—she’d be safe. When had those things ever kept her safe before? She protested—sort of—in groggy surprise, but he’d just held her tighter. There was no use fighting. She knew George needed this. She just wished he didn’t need it to be so … aggressive.

  It hadn’t always been this way. When she and George were dating, he had been a considerate lover. Before him, Sonja had only had a few lovers, and they’d been more like boys than men. Fumbling around, asking what felt good. George, on the other hand, was authoritative. In control. It had been a huge turn-on. And it wasn’t just her sex life that had turned around with George—her whole life became amazing. After living in an apartment on the wrong side of town for most of her adult life, suddenly Sonja lived in a beautiful home on two floors. She didn’t need to check her bank balance before she purchased anything. She drank good wine and had discussions about politics and medical science and the state of health care. And best of all, she did this with George.

  A few months after they were married, George went on a business trip to Europe. He went on a lot of trips back then—conferences, meetings, addresses—but this was for two weeks, the longest they’d been apart since their wedding. He’d returned home in the middle of the night. When Sonja heard the bedroom door open, she started to rouse.

  “There you are,” she said sleepily, blinking to let her eyes adjust. George was in the corner of the room, looking down at her. At first she couldn’t see his face. But when light from a passing car shone through the window, she noticed he looked a little … different. “George?”

  And then, suddenly, he was coming at her. That startled her a little. He pulled back the blanket with one hand and with the other, ripped the underwear from her body in one stinging movement.

  “Ouch,” she said. “Wow, aren’t you…”

  After that everything happened pretty fast. He took a fistful of her hair and pulled so hard she felt light-headed—the next day, her scalp was swollen; she hadn’t known a scalp could become swollen. Then he lay on top of her with his full weight, stealing her breath. By the time he slid out of his own pants and slammed into her, she was silent and shaking. Her mind batted around thoughts she was unable to process. Was this happening? But this couldn’t be happening. He was her husband.

  When he was finished, Sonja was crying heavy fat tears. But George didn’t seem to notice.

  “God, I missed you,” he said, and fell asleep.

  Sonja lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling. Everything hurt, and when she went to the bathroom, she was bleeding. It felt acutely like she’d been assaulted but … was it possible? She asked herself what she would say if it had happened to a client. “What he did isn’t okay. It was abusive. If you want to leave, I’ll support you.”

  As a social worker, it was clear-cut. As a woman, it was murkier.

  The next morning George snuggled against her. “Good morning,” he murmured. He was dozy and gentle and a different person from the one he’d been the night before.

  “George,” she said. “About last night…”

  There were already so many things wrong with her approach. As a social worker she would have counseled her client to be upright when they had this discussion—a safe distance away, and near an exit in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Sonja was in bed with George. She’d slept the whole night there, wondering if it would be the last night she spent in it, grieving the life she’d had with the man she adored.

  Mourning her abuser. Another social-worker fail.

  “Thank you,” he said, nuzzling into her neck. “I was thinking about you the whole way home, on the plane, in the cab. I thought I was going to explode.”

  Sonja sat upright and stared at him. Put like that, it sounded romantic. Sexy. But it had been neither.

  “Sonja,” George said. He sat up too, suddenly on guard. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  What is it? Was it possible he didn’t know? He certainly seemed confused, half-awake, blinking to catch up. He was the very image of husbandly concern. She scanned his face, but he appeared to be genuine. Did he really not think anything was wrong?

  She felt her conviction waver. If he didn’t think anything was wrong, maybe nothing was? After all, an evening of rough sex after a trip away didn’t necessarily constitute abuse. It probably happened between married couples all the time. The problem was simply that no one in George’s world talked about it! She pictured her old school friends, what they would have said.

  “Uh-huh. Jeff always gets so kinky after he’s had a few! He gets it in his head that he wants to try some of that Fifty Shades of Grey stuff!”

  “Adam’s the same. I just go along with it … they love it and it gets it over with faster.”

  Yes. Sonja could hear them now. It was no big deal, just part of marriage. You had to give if you wanted to take. She was just letting her inner social worker run away with her.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said finally, and slowly slid back down into the bed. But a tiny voice inside her asked: Was everything really fine? Or was she being weak-willed, skittish, making the excuses she’d heard other women make a million times before? It’s not so bad. He’ll change. I love h
im.

  Sonja didn’t have an answer. She also didn’t have an answer to the more pressing question that had circled in her head that day, and had every day since.

  If you are this weak-willed and skittish with George, what on earth will you be like without him?

  TWO

  There’s nothing more calming in difficult moments than knowing there’s someone fighting with you.

  —MOTHER TERESA

  18

  Looking back, Alice could almost separate Zoe into two people: Zoe before and Zoe after. The funny thing was that Zoe had been a happy baby. A pudgy, giggly smiler. “Isn’t she lovely,” people would remark when they saw her. And then, invariably, their gaze would linger on Alice. She could practically see the questions lurking in their minds. With her dark hair and nearly black eyes, Zoe looked nothing like her. “Must take after her father,” they’d say (and they’d be right, not that Alice would admit it).

  Alice’s mother had passed away while Alice was in her third trimester of pregnancy, leaving Alice grieving and alone. Her father managed to pick himself up and get on with his life, more or less. Paul continued drinking. Alice was the only one who seemed to be having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Why? Wasn’t she the one who had the most to live for? Alice had never been the prayerful type, but one night, when Zoe was five months old, she got down on her knees and asked for help.

  The next day, Alice’s father told Alice that her great-grandmother needed a live-in helper in her home in Atherton. Atherton was twenty-five miles out of San Francisco, and was a lovely family area. Alice looked at it as an opportunity for a fresh start. And it was. Her great-grandmother, Joan, adored Zoe, and while she wasn’t much help physically, her sage advice was a great comfort. (“Forget what the book says,” she’d say. “You’re her mother. You want to pick her up, you pick her up.”) Alice probably wasn’t a typical mother during those years. While other moms were joining “Mommy and Me,” “Charlie’s Music Time,” and signing up for swimming lessons, Alice was driving Joan to her appointments, grocery shopping, and looking after Zoe. But they were happy. This was their life.

 

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