See Jane Snap
Page 25
Ohmygod!
The realization rattles me like a thunderbolt, snuffing out every desirous urge in my body.
I’m just like him.
I’m just like Dan.
Going after what I want—
Only looking to satisfy MY needs . . .
What kind of person am I—
What kind of mother am I?!
How can I just use someone—him—to satisfy myself?!
Panic and fear flood my chest, prompting me to scream out, “No!” just as Chavez makes a right turn, leading us toward the interstate. I pound the steering wheel with my fist as snapshots of the last twenty minutes start syphoning through my mind: all thoughts of me and my needs—MY WANTS—but nothing about Chavez. Not specifically. It’s just moans, and aches, and urges. He’s not a part of them at all.
Shit!
My heart wrenches as I take in his truck with clear, rational eyes for the first time.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do this!
Not to Avery.
Not to him.
His left turn signal starts to pulse, and his brake lights illuminate as he slows down to turn onto the southbound ramp, toward his house, while the northbound ramp, which leads back to Mount Ivy, is on the right.
Indecision nips at my bones as my finger settles on the blinker.
What do I do?
Where do I go?
At least I love myself enough not to suffer in a bad situation.
Julie’s parting words suddenly explode through my brain, their intention resonating as intended for the first time.
Rage throttles my bones.
I clamp my teeth down hard.
“No more,” I grit out. “It’s time to stop the suffering.”
I hang a hard right and head up the northbound ramp while Chavez makes the left turn heading south. In my sideview mirror I see his brake lights illuminate for a split second, but with another car behind him, he has no choice but to keep going.
“I’m so sorry,” I whimper, blanching as his taillights disappear from sight.
My phone starts to ring.
Shit.
Regret twists in my gut as I stare at his name on the display.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
I tighten my grip on the wheel and inhale a deep, nervous breath before I answer.
“Hi—”
“You went the wrong way. What happened? Where are you going?”
The concern in his voice cuts like a knife. I wince, agonized by what I’m about to do. By what I have to do.
“Jane, are you okay?”
“Yes . . . I just—god.” I heave an excruciating breath. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this.”
“You can’t—you mean tonight? You can’t come tonight?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s okay. We can do it another time—”
“No.” I cut off his warm response with a tone so sharp it brings a chill to my skin. Dammit. “I can’t do any of this,” I go on, my voice quaking. “I’m sorry. I just—I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
I disconnect from the call and quickly power down my phone. I can’t talk to him right now; I can’t possibly bear to hear the hurt in his voice, the disappointment that comes from being disregarded by someone you thought cared about you. I know that sound too well.
And I’ll be damned if I ever hear it in my own voice again.
CHAPTER 20
Dan is in the family room in front of the TV, though I can tell by the steely look in his eyes he’s not actually watching the game in front of him. He’s stewing . . . because he’s furious.
That would make two of us.
“What the hell were you thinking, Jane?” he growls, hammering me with a nasty glare as I walk into the room.
I slam my bag onto the kitchen table. “Where’s Avery?”
“Sleeping over at Jasmine’s. Answer my question.”
Now that I know we don’t have an audience, I have no trouble answering him honestly.
I’ve been waiting a long time to do this.
“I was thinking that you’re an asshole.”
“Excuse me?” He pushes himself off the couch and stalks across the room toward me, somehow looking about five feet taller than he is. I thrust my chin up higher. “How am I the asshole? You’re the one who walked out of the luncheon and left me to deal with all those fundraising people and your nosy friends asking where you went—”
“They’re not my friends!” I scream, which surprises me but somehow feels right. “And are you actually implying that I’m the asshole here?”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it! You put my entire career on the line when you walked out of there today,” he scolds while pointing an angry finger at me. “You knew how important it was for you to be there, and you still left—”
“Because my mom needed me!” I spit back, lurching toward him with fire in my eyes. He wisely drops his hand.
“Your sister could have handled it—”
“No, she couldn’t—”
“Yeah, she could have! You just refuse to let her do anything because you always have to be the one in control of everything—”
“What?” I raise my palms, the blood in my veins starting to boil. “Have you seen my life lately? I’m not in control of anything!”
He flinches, clearly aware of the big, gay elephant I’m alluding to, but dismisses it with a flippant wave. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You love taking care of her. You love coming to her rescue every time something comes up.”
“That’s bullshit. I don’t like rescuing her; I have to rescue her. That’s my job. She’s my sister. I have to help her when she needs me—”
“And what did helpless Julie need big sister to do for her today?” he questions snidely. “Did she run out of gas money? Need help folding Mom’s laundry—”
“No! She didn’t know how to respond to Mom telling her that you were gay!”
He blanches. “What?”
“Yeah,” I counter, puffing up my chest like a boxer ready for another round. “Mom told her that you’ve been cheating on me with other men, and when Julie said she didn’t believe her, she started freaking out, thinking that somehow she’d mixed up her memories again.”
“You told your mom?”
The fury in his eyes should probably scare me, but it just spurs my own rage.
No more suffering!
I take a step toward him and, over a determined jaw, say, “Yeah. And I told Julie too—”
“Dammit, Jane—”
“—and Iris and Burty.”
“Who?”
“Some girls from my ‘meeting.’” I air quote the word with my fingers, wishing my nails were daggers I could cut him with.
“What the hell were you thinking? You know you weren’t supposed to tell anyone—”
“And I told Detective Chavez too.”
“Who the hell is Detective Chavez?”
“The cop who arrested me!”
He shakes his head. “No, his name was Gunnerson.”
Dan’s got a thing for names—he never forgets anyone’s (especially a patient’s)—but because Chavez was only helping out the night I was arrested, and apparently left shortly after I was processed, he never crossed paths with Dan. In fact, Chavez’s name wasn’t even listed on any of my processing paperwork. All Dan ever knew about him was based on information the discharging officers gave him: he was just a nameless former classmate who offered me a get-out-of-jail-free opportunity that was too good to pass up.
“No, Gunnerson was the guy who was listed on the paperwork,” I correct him. “Detective Chris Chavez is the one who actually took me into custody. He’s the guy I almost had sex with tonight!”
A strange look flashes across his face before he blanches and says, “The guy you—what? You’re seeing someone?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Like hell
it isn’t! Do you know what would happen if someone saw you with this guy?”
The fact that he’s even asking me that makes my stomach turn and reinforces all the things I determined on my drive home tonight.
“How dare you!” I growl, my hands instinctively fisting at my sides. “You’re the one who’s been sneaking around, screwing other people for the last eighteen years—”
“Yeah, but I never got caught!”
“Oh my god! What?” I shake my hands violently through the air. “I caught you myself out at the Bone Yard—”
“You didn’t catch me, you saw me. And the only reason you did was because I told you the truth. Otherwise you never would have been suspicious of what I was doing. Nobody has ever come close to catching me but you,” he snarls, shaking his head with disgust as he wanders deeper into the kitchen. He grabs an orange out of the fruit bowl sitting on the counter and, over a snide look, says, “Well, I think we both know you’re not very good at keeping a low profile.”
Oh, no you didn’t.
Rage electrifies through my body, rattling my bones and prompting a familiar snap to echo inside me.
“You son of a bitch!” I grab the first thing I see—the Winnie the Pooh coffee mug I left on the counter this morning, tea bag still dangling over the edge—and throw it against the wall next to him. It shatters on impact, showering the kitchen table and floor with shards of jagged porcelain and cold chamomile.
“What the hell, Jane?” He recoils, horrified gaze shifting between me and the mess. “First oranges and now coffee mugs? What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re what’s wrong with me!” I scream. “You’ve ruined my entire life! You’ve changed who I am! I used to be a good, happy person, but now I’m not. I’m so fucking mad, and I lie all the time! And I use people. I used Chavez! Just to make myself feel good. That’s all because of you!”
“Oh, like you weren’t using people to make yourself feel good before?” he counters, looking offended.
“What are you talking about?”
“This.” He motions around him with big, sweeping gestures. “Me. Your sister. Your mom. All of this. You’ve been using all of us to get what you want for years! You wanted the big house with a gardener. Private schools. Exotic vacations. You wanted to be on the PTA and drive Ave to practice every day. You wanted to be able to bail your sister out when she got in trouble, and make sure your mom got the good suite that faced the garden. That’s what you said you wanted, and that’s what I’ve always given you. We’ve all been giving you that because we know how important it is for you to be in control of your little world all the time! You’re just as guilty of using people to get what you want as I am.”
I slam my molars together, unnerved by the way he’s twisting the truth to fit his needs. Of course I wanted all those things. Who doesn’t want their ailing mother to have the best care possible? Who doesn’t want a more stable, comfortable life than the one they grew up with? Who doesn’t want to help their sister when she’s in trouble? But to suggest that I was using everyone to get it? Using the people I love . . .
“I want a divorce.”
He scowls. “No.”
“Yes! I’m not going to keep living like this. I deserve more than this—”
“We all deserve more than this,” he growls back. “But life’s not perfect, Jane. We have to make sacrifices.”
“No, we don’t! Not when it comes to loving people. I want to know that when I get into a relationship with someone, it’s because of who they are”—my memory flashes back to Chavez—“not because of who they’re not. I deserve that! I deserve to be happy too.”
“Do you think I’m happy?” He raises his palms. “I don’t like living like this either, Jane.”
I snort. “Oh, please. You’re as happy as a pig in shit.”
“No, I’m not! I hate it. I hate lying! I’ve had to do it my whole life!”
On some level I can appreciate what he’s saying—I have no doubt that living life in the closet isn’t easy—but I’m not talking about his sexual orientation; I’m talking about us. Our marriage. The life we’ve built together.
“Well, I’m not doing it anymore,” I say over a resolved shrug. “We can keep up with appearances until the gala’s over and we get the money from the Hoffstras, but then I’m filing for divorce. And until then, you’re going to move out.”
He shakes his head, folding his arms over his chest. “Like hell I am.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not,” he counters in that maddening paternal tone of his. “There’s no way I could move out without people knowing. You know how fast word travels in this town. It wouldn’t work. Besides that, I need to be close to Avery.”
It’s ever so subtle, but I catch a little quiver in his chin when he says Avery’s name that forces my chest to swell up with emotion. At least he still needs to be close to her.
I swallow hard. “You can stay in the bonus room above the garage.”
“What? No.” He shakes his head. “It’s hardly bigger than the living room. And it doesn’t have a kitchen or a bathroom.”
“Not yet, but it’s got all the hookups. Remember, that was part of the reason you wanted this house.”
When we were house hunting twelve years ago, Dan was over the moon about turning the partially renovated attic space above the detached, three-stall garage into his office. He was just a resident then and liked the idea of having a place to stay up late, catching up on paperwork, without disrupting me and our then infant. But life soon got away from us, and the nine hundred square feet of “office space” quickly became a burial ground for Christmas decorations and old clothes that never made it to Goodwill.
“We can get it cleared out in a day or two—”
“I have a job, Jane. I have patients scheduled for surgery.”
“Fine. I’ll clear it out. And I’ll get a contractor lined up. It shouldn’t take them too long to put in a small bathroom and a kitchenette.”
“Well, you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? Have you even considered what we’re going to tell Avery?”
“She already knows.”
All the color drains from his face.
“What?”
“She knows you’ve been cheating on me.”
“You told her?”
I shake my head, throat growing thick as memories of that painful day in the car come screaming back to me. “No. You did.”
“What? No, I didn’t.”
“She overheard you on the phone, talking to Julian—”
“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “No way. I never talk to him at home. And definitely never when she’s around.”
“Well, you must have the night we got back from Denver. She said she heard you in the garage talking to someone, telling them you loved them.”
He considers this for a moment before he lets out a pained “Fuck” while raking his hands through his hair. “The only reason I called him that night was because he was wondering how things went in Denver—with us. I had no idea she was there,” he goes on, sounding as deservedly tortured as he looks. “She had just been in the house with you looking at all those souvenirs we brought back for her.”
“Yeah, well, she came out to the garage, and she heard you, so . . .”
He paces aimlessly through the room, shaking his head and groaning, as if searching for a time machine he knows doesn’t exist. “When did she tell you that she knew?”
“A few days ago.”
“Did she tell anybody?”
I shake my head, disgusted with him—with myself—that we’ve even put her in a situation where we’d have to ask that question.
“And she knows that I’m . . .” He turns to me wearing a helpless look that suggests he’s not only not prepared to move out, but he’s not ready to come out either.
I sigh. “No. She just assumed you were talking to a woman.”
“You didn’t tell her the truth?”
He stares at me for a long beat, then says, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
You’re welcome.
The last time I heard those words, they made my heart race with excitement, but now they slice through me like a barb, bringing my intimate time with Chavez back to the forefront of my mind, and with it my disgust for the man in front of me, and the woman I’ve become.
Eighteen hours later . . .
I drag a tote marked “Baby Clothes” across the dank carpet to the far side of the bonus room, the area I’ve designated the “keep” section. If I weren’t so tired, I’d pop the lid and take a stroll down memory lane, admiring all the delicate, lacy outfits I used to dress Avery in, but with the way I’m feeling, that wouldn’t be wise. One look at a onesie and I’d be fetaled up in the corner, sobbing for the life I used to know.
Besides being physically drained from my time at the salvage lot—the pain is starting to settle in on my muscles now—I’m emotionally spent. I managed only about three hours of sleep before the events of the day got ahold of my thoughts, replaying on the backs of my eyelids like an old filmstrip stuck on the same loop: the infuriating fight with Julie, the regretful parting with Chavez, the explosion with Dan . . . all encounters that needed to happen but still leave me suffocating beneath feelings I don’t know how to process.
By two o’clock this morning, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I came out here to the room above the garage—a.k.a. Dan’s future home—and started cleaning things out. The thoughts are still finding me, but they’re easier to push aside now that I’ve got a task in front of me. Though I suspect that will change in a few minutes when Avery gets home.
Despite my desire for the three of us to meet together, Dan said he’d like to speak to her privately. As much as I hate the thought of her having to hear his news without me, I conceded without argument. The last thing I want is for her to feel pitted between us, like she has to respond a certain way because I’m there. She deserves to have an honest reaction and to share that with Dan, without any outside influences, because at the end of the day, asshole or not, he’s still her dad.