A Perfect Mess

by Zoe Dawson

  I sat down. I was prepared to hear what she wanted to say. She wasn’t wrong. There was a new openness in me. I’d lost that rigidity and self-righteousness in the fire of my revelations.

  She set the shot glasses down on the table and settled herself on the couch. “Aubree, before I moved here to Hope Parish, I did missionary work in Indonesia, teaching English. I met and married another missionary while there. We had a daughter. She was wonderful. Happy, sweet and very squeezable.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “There was a tsunami. A devastating one. I lost them both.”

  Instead of deflecting the pain in her voice, I absorbed it, my compassion for her welling up and spilling over. “Oh, God, Aunt Lottie. That must have shattered you.”

  She sat there for a moment and I could only imagine the emotions that must be swamping her. When tears gathered in her eyes and her breath hitched, I watched as she valiantly fought them back.

  “Yes, it did,” she said, her voice still wobbly. “I came back to Hope Parish, and I settled here and taught English. Then, as you know, I inherited this house and a substantial sum of money from a distant relative. That gave me a lot of freedom to do as I wished. I never got over their deaths, though.” She paused again the pain bleak in her eyes. “Mike encouraged me to get closure, find peace, and I decided he was right. I made a trip to my husband’s home town. That’s where I saw you, at his boyhood home, coming home from school the day your mother died.”

  “What?”

  “The minute I saw you, I knew who you were.”

  I clasped her hands. I looked into her eyes and I knew who I was. “We didn’t die,” I whispered brokenly.

  She took a deep, uneven breath. “No. Take a drink.”

  I picked up the shot glass and threw it back. The whiskey burned down my throat all the way to my stomach.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded. “I want to hear the rest.” I was vibrating with this news, my whole world just turned upside down, again.

  Her smile was bittersweet. “I had searched for you. But everything was so chaotic. Records were lost, and there were so many bodies. The authorities said you both had probably been swept out to sea. That they would never recover your bodies. I can only assume that the same thing happened when my husband was looking for me.”

  I couldn’t contain it anymore. “I’m your daughter! That’s why I have red hair, just like you.” I didn’t think I’d ever felt such joy, such an ecstatic release of adrenaline. I felt like I had truly, truly come home. Thomas Wolfe, eat your heart out!

  My aunt covered her mouth and tears slipped from her eyes. “Yes. It took me two days to talk to a lawyer and a social worker. I didn’t know what kind of fight your aunt would put up for you, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I’m just so sorry that you were there alone with her like that. I’m your mother, Aubree.”

  “Oh, my god. You’re my mother! You’ve always been my mother.” How could I feel so good and so bad at the same time?

  She hugged me so hard, and when she let me go, tears were streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away and took my face in her hands. “I know this is a shock.” Her voice was thick with the emotion and loved. She loved me. She really did.

  “I hope you can understand that I believed that not telling you was for your own good. I consulted a therapist when I got back. He cautioned me about revealing this information too soon, especially after you’d already been through so much.” Her eyes were brimming with her love for me. “He told me to wait. God knows I debated myself sick about it, but I decided to tell you all this when you were old enough to understand why we make the choices we do.”

  “I love you, Aunt…Momma. I’ve loved you for so long. I was just never able to say it. This is the most amazing, the best news, to find out that I’m part of you and not part of her. My father?”

  “He died in a car accident when you first got back to the states. I was heartbroken. It was like losing him all over again.”

  “And my mother?”

  “Your father’s sister. She took you in, and she let you think she was your mother.”

  “She never wanted me.”

  She closed her eyes, squeezing my hands. “I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea that you were still alive, and where you were, I would have come for you sooner.” She said fiercely. “I know she wasn’t a very nice person. I tried to make up for that time, but you were so closed and so driven. I was afraid if I told you then, I would lose you again, that you might never forgive me.”

  “That wouldn’t have been true. You were so good to me. I’m so relieved to finally know.” I wrapped my arms around her and we held each other for a few minutes, both us crying from both the joy and the revelations. “I was so terrified that if I wasn’t good, you’d get rid of me. That’s what she used to say to me all the time. Now I realize she probably only said it so that I would behave.”

  Silently I thanked Booker for opening me up, for giving me the capacity to accept and embrace love without conditions. No matter what my mother had done in the past, it wasn’t important now. Against the odds she had found me, nurtured me, and loved me without strings.

  “I would never have gotten rid of you. It was a miracle I found you. I see your father in your face every day, and it gives me peace to know that I have you, a part of him. I can only be thankful for this inheritance, and for Mike’s encouragement to find peace and closure. If I hadn’t, I would never have found you.”

  “What was his name?”

  She looked at me blankly. “She never told you his name?”

  “No. And I was always afraid to ask.”

  A soft look filled her eyes and I knew she was remembering him. “Oh, Aubree. His name was James. I called him Jamie.”

  “James Walker. He had a beautiful name.”

  “He did.”

  “The town doesn’t know the truth?”

  She shook her head. “How do you feel about that?”

  “I don’t care who knows.”

  “Good. Because I don’t care who knows, either.”

  “So you’re getting married and you’re my mother. That’s a lot to take in.”

  Her face grew serious. “Are you okay with Mike? He thinks you’re great, by the way. He calls you ‘that smart cookie’”

  “Yes. He’s a good guy and pretty handsome for an old man.”

  “Hey! He’s not old.”

  “You’re just saying that because that would make you old.”

  She laughed. “What about you, Aubree? Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  I thought about Booker and the two text messages that I’d received. Old habits died hard. I didn’t know what I was going to do about it all just yet. I really wanted to talk to Booker, but I knew that was over.

  “I’ll take a rain check…Momma. I was thinking about going back to Tulane now that you’re doing fine and you have Mike. I do have this RA.” Old habits did die hard. I couldn’t do or say anything to help Booker. He would have to come to his realizations without me. Maybe I had matured. In the short time I’d been back home, my life had changed in so many fundamental ways. Maybe being away would allow me to find more clarity.

  Her face fell. “Oh, but you’ll come back for the wedding, right?”

  “Yes. Of course! I won’t stay away from you like I did last year, ever again. I promise.” No matter how painful it would be to come here knowing that I couldn’t have Booker, I didn’t want to live without my newfound momma in my life.

  “Good. I’m serious. If you ever need to talk about anything, anything at all, I’m here for you.”

  There was a knock at the front door. I squeezed her hands. “I’ll get it.”

  When I opened the door, I gasped and for a moment my heart soared, but then I realized it wasn’t Booker. It was Boone. Something broke in me like a damn. Reality crowded me, reminding me that I had been foolish to expect anything.

  “Your aunt wanted to talk abo
ut putting in a pool.”

  I just stared at him. Trying to get myself under control, but there was nothing I could do. This locomotive I was on was going off the rails and heading for a terrible train wreck.

  My work had consumed my life for so long, and saying out loud that I was going back to it, back to Tulane, I realized in that moment that it wasn’t enough. That I wanted more. I struggled just to keep myself from falling into a million tiny broken bits.

  He looked so achingly like Booker. But I knew he wasn’t Booker, and I couldn’t figure out how I could ever have gotten them mixed up in high school.

  And I remembered how Booker had taken those blows, how he had stood up to the Langstons while I stood in the shadows and did nothing. The blood on his face, his anguish and tears. All of it was just too much for me.

  Boone saw my struggle and compassion flooded his eyes. He reached out, but I burst into tears, turned and ran up the stairs, throwing myself on my bed. Only minutes later my mother came in.

  She didn’t ask me what was wrong. She just pulled me into her arms and held me. I couldn’t numb myself anymore.

  It wasn’t going to be enough, the work.

  Not enough.

  #

  Booker

  The sound of the motor seemed like the alien thing here in the swamp. I steered the boat away from my house. The scenery grew lusher, wilder. Trees crowded what land there was, shoulder to shoulder, their crowns entangling into a dense canopy of green that filtered the afternoon sun, leaving the ground beneath a latticework pattern of light and dark.

  Colors were just as wild as the swamp. Flame-flowered trumpet creeper braided together along the edge like embroidery, twining with the white of spider lilies and the green of water lettuce.

  I cut the engine and anchored the boat. I used to come out here a lot, but it hadn’t been in a fancy boat like the one I now owned. No, that boat had been modest and had no motor. Nothing but a paddle.

  I’d come out here to read my stolen manga and transfer the made up stories in my head to paper, reading them out loud to myself with a kind of addicting pleasure I had never experienced in anything else. I’d never had anything to be proud of. My daddy was a thief and had only perpetuated the stigma we already lived with.

  But my stories were good. Lottie had thought so. She’d given me the confidence to take a chance.

  Aubree. How I had fantasized about having her. The reality, well, that had been a little tougher. My ma might be right about me. I tried to shy away from the truth, think about what I had learned with her, get past it.

  Bury it.

  Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t like pain, but who did? Who wanted to prod and poke at it? Was maturity about understanding and forgiveness, or gaining the capacity for it? Or was maturity just about building bridges between what you thought you knew and what you now saw completely and clearly. Accepting the poignant understanding that sometimes it took that deep pain to come out the other side having learned that life was always about the possibilities.

  Maybe it had been more my wounded pride over the reality that Aubree had chosen to ignore me and fall prey to her own demons. I knew she had them. They were in her beautiful eyes. I wanted to save her. I wanted to save her from herself. In that moment, it was easy for me to forgive her flaws. After all, like that apple from the market, flaws were just as beautiful as perfection. Aubree Walker was perfect just the way she was.

  The trouble was I understood demons and what drove people. I was a writer. She was no different. She was human. Real. So why couldn’t I just go over there and talk to her? Make her mine?

  Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  I closed my eyes. This was all moot. I was going to let her go. I had to. The pattern would follow blood. And I was descended from a bunch of riffraff and no-accounts. In that way, maybe I was too much like my father, believing our own hype.

  I headed back to the house. When I pulled up to the dock and hopped out, Boone was there. He helped me secure the ropes.

  “What the hell did you to do Aubree Walker? I liked her! Here I thought you two would be here cuddled up like two bugs in a rug. Instead, I get to her house, she takes one look at me, bursts into tears, and runs upstairs.”

  My heart felt like it was dying when I heard that. I wanted to go to her, now, right now. I let the pain in and I felt it like my ma said I should. Hey, I didn’t like it, but it was part of our relationship. Part of me and part of Aubree. I let myself feel it and tried not to shape or mold it. Just let it be that aching, open hurting. But it was better for both of us that I stayed here and she went back to Tulane. That was her future. “I didn’t do anything to her, Boone.”

  When I went up the stairs onto the deck, he followed me. I avoided looking at the place where we had made love. Walking in the house, I spied Braxton.

  “What the hell is this? A fucktard convention?”

  Braxton looked at Boone. “Nope. We’re here for a…what was that again, Boonie?”

  “An intervention.”

  “Right,” I said. “A fucktard intervention.”

  “What is going on with you? We might be fucktards…”

  “Hey speak for yourself.”

  Boone shot Brax a dark look. “…because we don’t get it. You’ve been after this girl since you were twelve years old and, now you’ve gotten her. Is the challenge over, the chase? Is that all she was for you? A good fuck?”

  I had Boone up against the wall before I’d even realized that I’d moved.

  “Don’t talk about Aubree like that. She was more—” I cut myself off. There was no use discussing this. I’d made my decision. “Why do you care so much about her?”

  “I don’t, Book. I care about you. You believed in us when no one else did. You. So, I don’t care about Aubree’s sad tears. You’ve loved this girl ever since she moved here. She makes you happy and you deserve it. So why are you fighting so hard against it?”

  “She and I are not compatible. My love for her was an illusion.” It was a partial truth. I didn’t want to get into a discussion that terrified me, so a fabrication worked just fine.

  “Really? You’re really gonna try to feed me that crap?”

  It figures Boone would be too smart for that. So, I switched to anger, guys were so good with anger. “Get out,” I ordered, my jaw so tense I thought it was going to snap.

  Something blossomed in Boone’s eyes. That smart fucker. I willed him not to say it. “Is this about Dad?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing in anger.

  I didn’t say anything, just walked away into my bedroom and started to change into my running clothes.

  “It is,” he said, materializing in the doorway. “Fuck, Booker. Dad was a bastard. But this won’t be on him this time. It’ll be on you.”

  I wanted him to shut up because he was making too much sense. I shoved past him and slipped on my running shoes and started to lace them up.

  “Why don’t you man up? Because he certainly didn’t.”

  “When I get back, I expect you’ll both be gone.”

  “You want to know what I think,” Brax said quietly. “I think you’re not worried that you’ll leave her. I think you’re worried she’ll leave you.”

  I swallowed hard, swinging around to face Braxton, who stood with his hands tucked into his belt. That fucker didn’t say much, but when he did…

  “Aubree’s not a dream or Little Miss Perfect. She’s a woman, a real one. It sucks to be a grownup, doesn’t it, Booker?”

  “Right. You’d know, Boone.”

  He sighed and it hurt when he looked at me and I saw the disappointment in his eyes. “Come on Brax. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Is the intervention over?” Brax glanced at me, and although emotion wasn’t his thing, for a moment I saw that he didn’t want to give up on me. Because I hadn’t given up on him. I felt a rush of emotion, so strong, for both of them. I understood they were trying to help, and God knows we had always stuck together, b
uilding a bond that could weather anything. We would weather this, too.

  “Yes. We’re done.”

  “Is Booker coming, too?”

  Boone met my gaze, too, and his expression one of compassion and support. Damn him and his sensitive and knowing heart. “No, he’s got something to do. It’s all up to him.” It made me cringe to realize that Boone expected me to do the right thing. But the problem was—I was doing the right thing. I had to let Aubree go.

  When they left, I stood in the hall and seethed with an anger that welled up inside me. Damn, Boone!

  I went out the door and down the stairs. Trying to get back the Zen of the swamp that I had achieved on the boat. My decision was over. It destroyed me because I wanted her so bad! I’d made it and I wasn’t going back. I pushed back the thought that I was still letting Langston’s words all those years ago affect me. I’d let him win somehow. Was this really about Aubree being better off without me? Or was the truth closer to what Braxton had said?

  I pushed all that stuff away. I was about the good times and about enjoying myself. I wasn’t going to delve too deep into the morass. Better to leave it alone. Maybe I needed to grow up by degrees.

  But Braxton’s words shredded my gut. I couldn’t get them out of my head.

  I started to sprint, then I was full out, running away, running, running.

  When I got back to the house it was dark. I climbed the stairs and let myself in. I heard a noise and my mouth thinned. I would freaking skin Boone if he was back for round two.

  I came into the living room and went to flip on the light, but a furtive footfall and the sound of displaced air made me pivot. The sense of danger had been just a hair too late, but the move probably did save my life as something hard cracked against my forearm, pain biting. The figure in the dark was already going for another blow, and I was too slow, caught off-guard by the sudden attack. I backed up as the object swung at me again. The tip hit my temple hard, snapping my head around, clouding my vision to a gray blur.

  Oh, fuck. I’d made a mistake. A miscalculation. I knew this attack wouldn’t stop with me. Aubree! Brain synapses shorted out. I tried to stand, tried to block the next strike, but the messages never made it to my muscles. The blow landed, and everything went black.