Tangled up in Pain

by Charlotte Byrd

  After being cooped up in my house for so long, I yearn to see what the world has to offer. I never traveled much.

  Before I got money, I never had money and always worked to make it. Instead of backpacking through Europe or Asia like some of my friends from college, I worked.

  I was what they now call a serial entrepreneur.

  I tried this idea and that idea.

  I tried to sell secondhand goods on my website and I tried investing in a $10,000 house in a bad part of Philadelphia and flipping it.

  My investment was only a grand, but I did make out with four in the end, so that was…something.

  In addition to these ideas, there were also many more that never resulted in anything.

  But I kept trying.

  I think that was the key to my success.

  Just doing until…

  Trying until I was successful.

  Now, looking back, I wonder where I got that courage to keep going in the face of all that failure.

  But I did and I’m happy for that.

  What’s ironic is that the blog that I started that eventually became the Minetta Media Co. wasn’t started as some money-making scheme.

  It was just a place for me to write about my ideas and thoughts.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have a job at the time and I needed to monetize it and, well, the rest is history.

  High above the clouds, you only get glimpses of the earth below, but it is still noticeable how quickly farmland below becomes wide open plains for miles and miles.

  I’ve never been to Montana, but I’ve seen the movies and I’ve read a few books in which it plays a major role.

  I wonder if it is as beautiful as they say.

  As soon the plane starts to descend, I know that it is.

  Rolling hills of wilderness below fill my window.

  When we get closer, I see that the hills are filled up with trees, and if I can see them from here, they must be tall.

  A narrow river winds through the wilds and a few lakes dot the land. Harley doesn’t stir until the wheels collide with the ground.

  “Are we here?”

  I nod, pulling myself from one beautiful sight to look at another. This woman who welcomed me into her life and rescued me.

  She looks out of the window. “Yep, that’s Missoula,” she says.

  The sky is gray and flurries are twirling outside the window.

  We exit the plane, clutching our coats tight around our necks, and walk directly into the waiting town car.

  The driver loads our baggage into the trunk.

  The airport isn’t much to look at, but most airports aren’t.

  But then, when we drive away from it and into the hills around it, I am taken aback by the height of the trees and thickness of the woods.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I say.

  Harley nods, looking out of the window.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Is this how you remember it?”

  “Pretty much. Maybe with a bit more snow.”

  Harley wants to go to a hotel to drop our stuff off, but I suggest we go straight to the hospital.

  “We can always drop it off later,” I say. “He’ll wait.”

  “I don’t want him to wait,” she says sternly.

  “It’s no problem, ma’am,” the driver pipes in.

  I get the feeling that Harley is just trying to buy time.

  She’s not ready to see her mom or her dad but going to a hotel first isn’t going to solve anything.

  “We’ll do whatever you want,” I finally say.

  It’s her family and she does know them best.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think I can do this, Jackson. I mean, I haven’t seen them in…so long.”

  The car pulls up to the curb by the hospital’s entrance. I get out, but Harley doesn’t. I open her door.

  “You can do this. I’m here for you.”

  Chapter 6 - Harley

  When we get there…

  My whole body is trembling when I finally climb out of the town car.

  I take Jackson’s strong hand and let him lead me inside.

  The person at the front desk asks for our identification and then takes our pictures for our visitor pass stickers.

  “Please keep these on at all times,” he instructs.

  “Can you tell us where we can find Lounge Area B?” Jackson asks.

  The guard shows us on a map and points us in the right direction.

  “Why is he asking me to meet him there? Why can’t I go straight to her room?” I ask Jackson, referencing the text that I received from my dad while we were driving.

  He shrugs, not knowing much more than I do about what’s going on.

  When we get to the lounge area, we walk through the open double doors and enter a large space with tables and chairs that resembles a cafeteria.

  In the corners, there are soft pieces of furniture, the same maroon color that all hospital furniture seems to be.

  There are a few people making themselves comfortable by spreading out on a few chairs at once and watching the television screens which are all turned down low.

  I see the back of my father’s head in the cluster of couches on the other side of the room.

  There’s someone else with him.

  I don’t know who they are because they’re all facing away from me.

  Their heads bob as we approach, buried deep in conversation.

  “Dad?” I ask when we are within earshot.

  My father gets up immediately and throws his arms around me.

  He sobs into my shoulder and I burst out in tears as well.

  My father rarely cries.

  One of the only times that I can remember was at Aspen’s funeral.

  We hold each for awhile and just cry.

  Then when I try to pull away, he whispers into my ear.

  “I’m so sorry, Harley. This wasn’t my idea. Please believe me.”

  His words come all at once and he shakes me a bit as he talks.

  None of them really register until he finally lets me go.

  “Harley—“

  I can’t see her face through the tears, which are still flowing as if the dam has recently been broken, but I recognize her voice immediately.

  No, it can’t be.

  What is going on?

  I wipe my eyes and look at the woman standing before me.

  My mother.

  Unscathed and perfectly fine.

  “Are you feeling better?” I ask, at a loss as to how and why she can be so normal looking given what my father told me happened. “You shouldn’t be standing.”

  “Harley,” she says in her stern police officer voice.

  My body reacts just like it did when I was little and heard that policewoman tone. I stand up straight, with my chin up and my chest up.

  “Mom…what’s going on?”

  Before my mom says a word, a stranger walks up to me and puts her arms around my shoulders.

  She introduces herself as Dr. Esther Low.

  “Dad, what is going on here?” I demand to know, and I pull myself away from this woman who is trying to calm me down.

  Both of my parents look at Dr. Low who asks me to sit down in the chair.

  I ignore her. “So, you’re…better then?”

  My words are thin and grasping.

  It feels like deep down inside I know the truth, but I can’t admit it to myself.

  She was in a car accident and now she’s fine.

  It’s a miracle, I say to myself.

  That’s all it is.

  “Please sit down, Harley,” Dr. Low says, leading me to one of the chairs with the worn light wooden handles, which too many people have held onto when they heard bad news.

  I sit down and Jackson sits next to me.

  My parents sit to the right and left of us, completing an imaginary circle.

  Being a little bit more aware of my senses, I look at them.

  My fat
her is cowering in his seat, looking…guilty?

  But guilty of what?

  My mother, on the other hand, is sitting straight up, assuming her best cop posture.

  There isn’t a scrape on her face and her hair has recently been cut and colored.

  Even her makeup, which she always wears, is perfect.

  “Harley, your mother has tried to reach out to you a number of times and you have always refused to answer, is that correct?” Dr. Low says.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here. Mom?”

  “Please answer her question, Harley.”

  I look at Jackson and then my dad and then back to Dr. Low.

  “Yes, we had a fight. She called a few times; I was mad so I didn’t answer.”

  “And according to your mother, you have cut off communications a long time ago and haven’t spoken since.”

  “She knows why.”

  “Her mother has come to terms with her mistakes.”

  This makes me so angry, my blood starts boiling.

  I jump out of my seat and then turn around and address her and only her.

  “Were you or were you not in a car accident?”

  She doesn’t reply.

  “Because it doesn’t look like it, Mom. It doesn’t look like it one bit. But the thing is that sitting here with this woman, I’m starting to think that you just made this whole thing up to get me to come here.”

  My whole body is shaking again.

  Cold sweat is running down my back.

  My hands are frozen, and I can’t feel a single finger.

  Now, all of my tears have dried.

  It’s as if they were incinerated by the anger that’s building in the pit of my stomach.

  “Please tell me that’s not what you did, Mom. Please! I beg you.”

  Finally, my mom’s stern demeanor develops a crack in it.

  She slouches a bit in her chair and looks away from me, unable to meet my gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally whispers.

  Chapter 7 - Harley

  When it fades to black…

  Everything else that comes after that is a blur.

  Dr. Low tries to talk to me.

  She doesn’t dare put her arm around me again or even touch me, but she approaches me and tries to explain.

  I don’t know exactly what her job is here, but she reminds me of one of those people who run interventions on cable television.

  The only problem is that I don’t have a problem.

  I’m not an addict and I don’t need saving.

  My mom does.

  “I just wanted to bring you here and talk to you. I wanted you to give me a chance,” my mom pleads.

  “So, you lied about being in critical condition. You made me worry? You made me interrupt my life and hop on a plane and come here to what, talk to you about the past? Didn’t you think that I would have a few things to say about the present?”

  “That’s why we brought Dr. Low.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I turn to the doctor. “Is this what you do? Do you specialize in making up car accidents or is this just one of your many areas of expertise? How about death? You ever make up a murder?”

  “Please, Harley, you are blowing this out of proportion,” my mom insists.

  I take a step toward her, my face is so close to hers that I can hear the shallowness of her breaths.

  “You lied to me, Mom. You made me worry. You made me come here under false pretenses. I’m never going to forgive you for this.”

  I don’t wait for her answer. I just turn around and walk toward the door. Jackson follows quickly behind me.

  When we get outside, a gust of fresh air hits me by surprise.

  My coat was draped on my forearm, but I quickly put it on and zip it all the way up.

  When Jackson walks up to me, I turn to face the wind and enjoy the way it hits against my face.

  It’s probably close to ten degrees with the wind chill, but the tingles against my cheeks feel good.

  It’s a good kind of pain, unlike the one that I left behind in that hospital lounge.

  Instead of saying anything to me, Jackson just puts his arms around me and squeezes tightly.

  We stand here silently for a few moments until my thoughts can’t be contained anymore.

  “How could she do this to me?” I ask. “How could she just lie like that? And why did he go along with it?”

  Jackson doesn’t have the answers to these questions anymore than I do. But he stands there holding me until I get too cold and that’s enough.

  “Can we get back to the car?” I ask, with my teeth chattering.

  He laughs.

  “I thought that you would never ask.”

  The driver is waiting for us in the parking lot. The car is toasty and warm, and Jackson tells him that we’re just going to sit here for a few minutes.

  “No, I want to go,” I insist.

  “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “You want to fly all the way there, now?”

  I nod.

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Of course, I’m tired. But that doesn’t mean that I want to spend anymore time here than absolutely necessary.”

  “I rented us a cabin not far from here. About a ten-minute drive.”

  “A cabin?”

  He shrugs. “I’ve never been here before so I thought I’d rent something mountain-themed.”

  I look out of the window.

  I’m too tired and emotionally exhausted to be in the position to make any decisions.

  All I want to do is to lie down somewhere, close my eyes, and make the world go away for awhile.

  Jackson takes that as a yes and ten minutes later I am walking up the stairs of a large A-frame mountain chalet.

  We walk through the enormous double doors and are welcomed by a grand fireplace, the kind they have in medieval castles.

  The great room is spacious with towering ceilings and windows that go all the way to the top from the floor.

  The view from the great room is onto a large meadow which disappears into the darkness.

  The part that I do see is covered in virgin snow and a few animal tracks.

  “This is a cabin?”

  Jackson shrugs. “It’s all that was available.”

  “In Missoula? I find that hard to believe,” I joke.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s my treat.”

  “It better be, because I can’t afford this place.”

  Jackson carries my suitcase to the enormous master bedroom upstairs with its own fireplace. I climb up on the king-size four-poster bed and curl up on one side.

  “I’m so sorry that they did that to you,” Jackson says. “That was…really shitty.”

  I don’t really know what to say.

  I don’t want to summon the anger that is simmering just under the surface.

  I want to keep it at bay.

  Keep it away from this beautiful place.

  But I can’t.

  Every thought I have is about her and what she did.

  “What kind of person does something like that to someone they love? I mean, to lie to me like that? I mean, what was she thinking?”

  “Maybe she was just desperate.”

  I practically growl at him.

  “I’m not taking her side. I’m just trying to come up with possibilities.”

  “She’s a sociopath. How about that for a possibility? An egomaniacal psychopath.”

  Jackson nods. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  I shrug. “I can’t remember.”

  “When was the last time she reached out to you?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  “And before that?”

  “About six months ago. Why?”

  “Just trying to understand where she was coming from.”

  “Nowhere good. If she wanted to see me so badly, why didn’t she just hop on a plane herself? She could’ve just showed up a
t my door. I wouldn’t have turned her away.”

  He doesn’t say anything in reply. I’ve had enough for one day. I lie back down on the pillow and close my eyes.

  “I’m just going to…relax…for a bit,” I whisper and slowly drift away.

  Chapter 8 - Harley

  When snow falls…

  It takes me a moment to realize where I am when I wake up.

  The sun is high in the sky and shining brightly through the windows.

  The light that’s streaming in is cheerful and for a moment I enjoy it, but then all the memories of what just happened come flooding in.

  My mother lied about being in a car accident.

  She orchestrated this whole ruse just to bring me out to talk to her about our problems.

  Did she really think that bringing me here under false pretenses would improve our relationship?

  I climb out of bed and stretch my arms high above my body.

  I had forgotten how absolutely clean and aromatic the air is here.

  Even though it’s winter, and nothing is blooming, the air is still different somehow than it is in New York.

  Away from pollution and people, it’s easier to breathe.

  It’s like there’s more oxygen here.

  I inhale three times for good measure, trying to hold onto this feeling.

  Walking downstairs, I expect to see Jackson sprawled out on the couch or perhaps working on his laptop on the kitchen island, but he’s nowhere to be found.

  There are more rooms upstairs and I regret not calling his name until I got here.

  Instead of walking all the way back up, I yell his name at the top of my lungs, hoping that my calls will reach every corner of this gigantic manor.

  No one responds.

  I call again.

  Again no one responds.

  When I walk up to the fridge, I see a note attached to it with a magnet.

  * * *

  I’ll be back in a bit.

  Love,

  Jackson

  * * *

  Love.

  Why did he write love here?

  Is he just being polite?

  Or does this actually mean what it says?

  My mind starts to wander in circles.