“I said those things at the funeral because I was angry with you and with her! I just couldn’t believe that she’d actually done it! I should have done something, warned someone! I didn’t!”
Ava cringed. Marta watched him carefully, but she hadn’t interrupted... not yet.
“I think about what I should have done every single day. But it can’t be changed!”
Marta raised her hand – a visual cue – and Ava shifted closer to Cole while Frank continued to rage.
“Believe me, I know you weren’t to blame,” he roared, “I wish... I wish you had been there, Cole, but I wasn’t either, and NEITHER of us can change that!”
Frank was still in control, barely, but it was making Ava uneasy. It reminded her a great deal of her mother: the unleashed temper. Her eyes slid over to Nina Thomas, and that’s when she saw it. Nina’s eyes were narrowed to slits, her hands in white-knuckled fists, her lipsticked mouth a blood-red slash across a white mask of a face.
She was seething with fury.
“God, I’m so sorry I said those things to you!” Frank cried. “So sorry for hitting you at the funeral. Son, I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”
Ava blinked in shock, her chest tightening in reaction to Nina’s emotions too. ‘There’s more?’ her mind shouted. She could see Nina changing. Could see the stoppered-up emotions welling up from somewhere deep inside. Chim’s voice suddenly came to mind: ‘What’s her angle... what’s she getting out of this...?’
There was still no explanation ... no reason for Nina to open up this whole closet full of skeletons in the way that she had. Across from Ava, Nina’s usually calm face contorted in fury as Frank continued to rant about his ex-wife.
“Angela made that choice!” Frank shouted. “She was sick, and she chose her own way out of it! I can’t take the blame for that, Cole, and neither can you! “
“Frank...” Marta warned.
“Jesus Christ, Cole,” Frank continued, voice breaking, “you were just a teenager! I should have done something! Something more, and I DIDN’T! I’ve never forgiven myself for her death! It was my fault! Mine!”
Ava watched, horrified, as Nina’s fists rose. Gone was the speech position Ava knew so well. This woman was ready to attack. Everyone else was focused on Frank’s release of pain, but Ava could see Nina’s own frustrations flaring, emotions unchecked. Released.
“I KNEW how your mother was!” Frank howled, his hands shaking with tremors. “I’d LIVED with her moods for YEARS!”
“Stop it!” Nina screeched. “Just STOP IT!”
Everyone turned. For a moment, Frank’s eyes darted to Nina, then Marta, then back to his son. He was as taken aback as everyone else. Nina was vibrating with long-suppressed anger.
“I am so GODDAMN TIRED of Angela Thomas!” she shrieked, face twisting into a sneer. “Do you know how many years she’s been a third party to our marriage?! How often I’ve had to listen to this? For God’s sake, Frank, she was the reason we went to counselling in the FIRST place!”
Ava glanced over to Dr. Langden, shocked to see her calmness. Not everyone in this room was surprised by the outburst.
‘Marta knew...’
“Angela always used threats to control you,” Nina snapped. “She KNEW how to control us ... and she might be dead and gone, but it has never EVER stopped!” Her chest heaved, voice shrill and bitter. “After Hanna died, you put the flag at half-mast, but you put it back up again the next summer!”
Ava felt Cole sit up straight in shock.
“When Angela died, you pulled the flag down again. Do you KNOW how angry that made me? That she gets your undying LOVE after everything she did!? That whenever things get really, really bad, it’s HER grave you visit!”
“Nina, no,” Frank muttered, face aghast.
“You have never EVER gotten over her death!” she taunted, arms crossing on her chest, fists under her armpits. “Do you have any idea what that’s like for me? What it felt like to live in your dead wife’s house? To see her pictures on the wall? To see you grieve for her year in and year out and never, EVER let go?!”
Frank’s face was grey and sickly. He reached for her arm but she jerked angrily away.
“If I’d died in that car accident last fall, you would have NEVER have grieved me in the same way! You’d had moved on. Kept going… kept talking to Angela the way you do now when you think I’m not listening! She’s never left us, Frank! You’re still in love with her! You always have been!”
“It isn’t the same, Nina,” he gasped. “She was the mother of my children.” He was bereft, his voice quiet. Horrified.
“It IS the same!” she cried. Her arms were no longer crossed, hands slashing the air to punctuate her words. “You sit in that den, night after night listening to that goddamn tape! Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I’ve never listened to it myself?!”
Twisting around, Ava saw that Cole's face was just as confused as she felt. She’d heard the tape, but all she remembered was Cole and Hanna. She looked back to Frank and then to Nina.
The answer was just out of reach. She could feel it there… waiting.
“The rain,” Ava muttered. There was something else there. For a moment she could almost hear the voices of Cole and Hanna as little children. They were telling stories… suddenly – in much the same way as Oliver often did, she simply knew.
“It’s the stories in the rain,” Ava repeated, louder this time.
“You’ve heard it too,” Nina answered, voice strangled with tears. She started to cry, her face crumpling like wet tissue paper as pain and frustration finally broke through the dam of her resolve. Around the room, all eyes were now on Ava.
“There’s a recording that Frank listens to,” she said, her voice nervous. “It’s a video that Hanna had taken. One night when there was a storm. Hanna borrowed the camera from a neighbour to—”
“To film the lightning,” Cole interjected.
Ava turned back to look at him; his face was full of awe, as if remembering the event for the first time in years. Ava smiled sadly.
“Hanna set up the camera in the den as the storm began and then she and Cole came in,” Ava paused, squeezing his hand. “They sat down to wait, and they were telling stories…”
She turned back to the room, voice gaining volume. “The stories were about their life... about Angela... Hanna, in particular, talked about what a good mom she was... about how much she loved her mother.”
She looked up to see Frank, his mask of anger torn away. He looked like a man who’d been flayed alive. When he spoke, his voice was grief-stricken and ravaged.
“We were happy once...” he gasped, before dropping his face down into his hands; the next words came out half-broken. “She was happy once. Hanna talked about it. She knew her mother had been happy.”
Angela.
Everyone in the room had gone still, the revelations peeling back the layers of the years. There were ghosts here now. Too much pain to be managed all at once. It surprised Ava when Cole broke the silence.
“She wasn’t.”
Frank’s face lifted from his hands. There were tears wetting his wrinkled cheeks.
“What...?”
Cole shook his head. Ava could see him warring with something. His body was tensed, but the set of his jaw steadied her. ‘Cole’s okay,’ her mind assured her.
“She wasn’t happy,” Cole said resignedly. “She was never happy, Dad. It just wasn’t Mom’s nature. She was depressed, but it wasn’t because of you. It wasn’t because of us... or even Hanna. She was always like that, as far back as I can remember.”
Frank’s eyebrows pulled together in pain and confusion.
“But you and Hanna... I’ve listened to what you said on the tape...” he stopped, glancing over at Nina sheepishly. He reached out for her hand, and this time she let him take it.
“It might be on the tape,” Cole answered, “but it isn’t true. It’s what Hanna used to do: tell me stories
to make me feel better. Those nights when you two would be fighting in your bedroom... or when you were gone and Mom was trying to cope on her own, and she just couldn’t.”
Cole’s hands wrapped even tighter around Ava, pulling her against him. She fought down the urge to burrow her face against his neck. This story was too awful and raw.
“Hanna used to make up stories about our life,” Cole explained. “She could always find a way to make me laugh... keep me going. In these stories, Mom was always happy, even though she never was.” He laughed sadly. “It was all just a fairy tale.”
Ava watched Cole’s father. She saw his face break as the truth was finally revealed.
“Hanna made that up...” Frank murmured, the words barely a whisper. “Angela wasn’t happy after all.”
Ava relived a long-ago conversation with Frank:
“You hear it?” he’d asked her.
“No,” she’d answered. “I don’t…”
“Not as far as I can remember,” Cole said.
Chapter 28: The Bottom of the Cliff
The session was over. Frank and Nina were still in Dr. Langden's office, talking about their own lives and issues now, leaving Ava and Cole on the outside. Ava felt like she’d just run a marathon; her whole body was weak. She couldn’t imagine how Cole must be feeling right now... and he wasn’t offering that information up willingly.
Instead, the two of them drove through the streets in heavy silence, the dismal day matching their emotional turmoil. Cole stared out the window; the clouds were a solid slate overhead, the greenish hue at the horizon promising rain. Ava glanced over at him once, and then again, waiting for the moment he’d break, anger replacing his pain. Part of her was too worried to consider that he might actually be able to cope with this information... to manage under the burden of it.
She was scared to hope.
The landscape opened up, the coast and the white-capped crashing waves appearing in the distance. Ava could see the large house; Nina’s changes to the landscaping were underway. There was so much more to her knowledge of the place now. Dark secrets surrounded it. She could imagine Angela standing on the porch in the rain.
It made her sad.
Up ahead, a green sign marking a turnoff to the main highway appeared. The turnoff to the Thomas property was near. Ava lifted her foot off the gas, ready to turn onto the long road that led to the Thomas home.
“Can we just go back to the city instead?” Cole asked. “Go home?” His voice was rough from disuse. This was the first time he’d spoken since they’d left the office. He reached out for her hand on the wheel, squeezing her fingers so tightly it hurt.
“They’ll be expecting us to stay,” she answered. “If we leave, Cole – if we run – then we’ll just have to deal with it all later. That won’t make it any easier.”
Cole nodded, eyes going back to the window. Ava frowned as she pulled the truck onto the driveway. She wanted to say yes to him, but she knew she couldn’t. It was all out there now. This was where it became tricky. She was tired of the secrets. She wanted resolution for Frank and Nina, a little bit for herself, but most importantly, she wanted it for Cole.
Ava drove toward the house, hoping she’d made the right choice. There were logical reasons for staying, but a part of her wanted to get away from here, too. For a moment her father’s voice came to mind: “The hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing...”
She pulled to a stop, turning off the truck and stepping out into the wind. The passenger door banged shut. Cole had his eyes on the ground as he buttoned his coat up against the cold. She hadn’t gone more than three steps when she realized Cole wasn’t heading for the house at all; he was walking in the direction of the beach. His rapid footsteps put an increasing distance between them as he strode past the front porch.
“Cole...?” she called out.
She wasn’t actually sure he heard her over the blowing wind, but he stopped immediately. He just stood where he was, shoulders hunched, the dark ruffle of his hair the only movement.
And then he turned.
“Come with me,” he shouted. His voice was a cry of pain.
Ava jogged to his side. His face was grieving and full of heartache, but he smiled when she reached him. ‘That means something…’ He took her hand, kissing her knuckles, and then they headed down to the water together.
: : : : : : : : : :
They walked for a long time without speaking. He knew he should probably try to talk it through – he could see Ava anxiously glancing at him – but he had too much going on in his head right now. Too many things to consider and balance. It felt like his entire world had been twisted around, turned upside down, leaving him struggling to find a foothold. Things he had assumed for almost a decade had changed, and he wasn’t sure how he fit into it all.
They kept walking.
Cole headed up the beach, going the same direction they’d driven out the last time they were here. The route by foot was more direct, and soon they made it to the small, secluded cove where a wall of rock rose up on all sides. They took the rocky trail down to the beach, standing in the lee of the cliff. It was the place where he and Hanna had gone cliff diving. Cole’s footsteps slowed as they neared; he and Ava stood together on the shore, listening to the roar of the waves. The power of the sea had been unleashed by the coming storm.
Ava glanced upward, her eyes on the rocks high above them.
“This was where you’d wait for her to jump,” she said, eyes wide.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a hell of a long way up,” she said. Her voice grew quiet. “And a hell of a long way down too...” She turned to stare at the bottom of the cliff. There was open water, but rocks breaking through it at intervals. Dangerous. “Shit, Cole,” she muttered. “That scares me.”
Cole turned, smirking.
“You don’t like my badass past?”
She scowled.
“I don’t like the idea...” she started to explain, but her throat closed off almost immediately. She closed her eyes, taking a slow breath. “I don’t like the idea that a stupid choice as a kid could have changed... this.”
She pressed against him, her arms wrapping around his waist, holding him close. Cole’s expression shimmered, growing tired and sad.
“Hanna never cared, you know?” He glanced up at the cliff face. “Just figured she could do anything she wanted to. She never worried. Didn’t occur to her.”
The waves crashed against the beach, the rising wind whipping Ava’s hair into her eyes. The blonde strands swirled and danced, blinding her. Cole reached out, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Is this where you come when you go walking?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, his eyes darting to the cliff. “I like this place... find it easy to think here.”
Ava pulled herself tighter against him and Cole’s arms wrapped around her shoulders, his chin coming to rest on the top of her head. Her voice was muffled against his coat.
“Why?”
His eyes moved back up again, and Ava lifted her chin. When his gaze came back to her, the silver depths were full of pain.
“She used to make me wait. I’d be out in the water there,” he pointed to the churning surf, “just watching for her and hoping.” Cole stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I guess I’m still waiting for her.”
Ava nodded, remembering her father’s words.
“Yeah. But the two of us are out there in the water together now.” She tipped her head. “You’re not alone anymore, Cole.”
He smiled down at her, hands tightened against her back. Even though his face was still weary, Ava knew somehow that it would be okay, because now there was peace in his expression, too.
: : : : : : : : : :
They reached the stretch of beach leading up to the Thomas house just as heavy drops of rain began to fall. Cole pulled off his coat and he held it over both of their heads as they quickened their pace. I
t was a futile attempt. Within minutes, the sky had opened, soaking them through to the skin. The downpour scoured the beach, turning the sand to a slurry mud that grabbed at their shoes, leaving Cole and Ava laughing like children as they ran through the rain toward the house.
They came in the front door still giggling. The house was laced with the heady smell of supper, and it struck Ava that they were probably late. Nina popped her head around the corner from the kitchen. She looked tired and her eyes were red, but her face broke into a wide grin as she saw them.
“You’re here,” she said in amazement. She stepped up to the balustrade, leaning over and shouting upstairs. “Frank! Cole and Ava are back! C’mon down and eat!”
Nina came forward, hugging Ava first and then Cole. Ava watched, noticing the slight hesitation before Cole’s hands settled down onto her back, and then the moment he pulled her close. Accepting.
Nina stepped back, smiling and making small talk about the weather. Then she sighed, turning back toward the empty staircase, a flicker of annoyance sharpening her face.
“Supper’s on!” Nina called out again, voice louder. She turned back to Ava and Cole, shaking her head in exasperation. “I swear that man needs a hearing aid, but he’s more stubborn than anyone else I know.” Her eyes jumped to Cole, a smile curling up one side of her mouth. “Well, except maybe for his son,” she teased.
He grinned before his attention drifted to the stairs.
“I can go get him if you want,” he offered. “He in your room?”
Nina’s face changed, growing wary. She reached out and touched Cole’s arm.
“He’s gone up to Hanna’s room...” she paused. and Ava saw the surprise in Cole’s face. “He’s starting to put a few things away. Clothes for now, nothing else.” Nina smiled. “But it’s a start.”
Cole swallowed hard, his eyes on the empty space at the top of the stairs.
“I’ll go help.”
Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down Page 20