by Claire Adams
“Because he didn’t mean it.”
“He didn’t mean it. And he told you this?”
“No, of course not. But it’s almost June twenty-fourth, and that’s the day anniversary of your mother’s death, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, still not following.
“And I’m sure Pete feels immense guilt because of it. The cause of the fire was a cigarette, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So you should forgive him. If you can find it in yourself to do so. It would give him some closure. Can you imagine having all this guilt within you, but not having an outlet for it? A way to express it? You could really help him come to terms with this.”
I nodded, feeling my shoulders relax a bit. Wendy had no clue about my childhood, that wasn’t what she was talking about at all. What she was talking about was the fact that after his first stroke, Pete was still able to smoke cigarettes, which he did, in his recliner, where he fell asleep with one still lit. The ashtray had tipped over or something, and the stack of newspapers, then the blinds, had caught on fire. The first stroke had been a minor one, so Pete had been able to get himself out, though just barely. My mother, who had fallen asleep upstairs, had not been so lucky. The living room had been right by the front door; had the layout of the house not been so, it was highly probable that Pete would not have made it out either.
Wendy must have taken my nod as a sign that I would do as she suggested; when we reached Pete’s door, she gave my arm a squeeze and said she hoped she’d see me on the way out.
“Sure thing,” I said.
Pete’s door was ajar. I knocked lightly, waited a moment, and then went in. He’d never given me the courtesy of a door knock when I’d been younger, but I wasn’t doing it out of courtesy now. Rather, I liked to think that he knew exactly who it was when I knocked—two medium, followed by two short, sort of like the start of “The Imperial March” (aka Darth Vader’s theme song)—and then pause for a few seconds, thereby allowing a beat or two of dread to form as a precursor of my entrance.
I stepped into the room. It was medium-sized, with a twin bed, hospital style, with side rails and the ability to adjust. It was made, the tan cotton blanket tucked in tight at the corners, the pillow fluffed. There was a side table, and then two chairs for visitors to sit in. There was also a dresser with a small flat-screen TV, a few paperback books that I don’t think anyone had ever read, and a couple folded newspapers. I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror that hung next to the dresser, and what I saw, of course, pleased me. It was a mild day out, and I was wearing a black T-shirt, fitted just enough that you could tell I was in really good fucking shape. The sleeves hugged my biceps. My jeans sat low on my hips, and were I to lift my arms high enough above my head, the bottom of my shirt would ride up just enough to give a glimpse of a very enviable V cut. My hair, which I’d kept buzzed short when I’d been in the service, had grown out maybe an inch and a half, and was slightly wavy, thus giving me a tousled bedroom look without any effort exerted on my part. I report all this not because I’m full of myself or because I even give a shit about how I look, but because my physical experienced screamed vitality and good health, and that was exactly what I wanted Pete to see.
His back was to me, because he was positioned facing the window.
“Hey there, Pete,” I said. I turned the wheelchair slightly. I could see the car out in the parking lot. “Hi, Pete,” I said again, looking straight into his face.
His mouth hung open on one side, drool periodically dribbling its way down his chin. He needed a shave. If I asked, I’m sure the nurses would have set me up with a razor and some shaving cream, but I wasn’t going to ask because I didn’t want to do Pete that kindness. I didn’t want to do him any kindness, actually, and me coming here only made him miserable. The nurses saw what they wanted; they were always exclaiming how Pete’s spirits seemed lifted for days after we had a visit, and that it was doing him a world of good that I hadn’t just forgotten about him there, the way so many other people would have.
The truth was, Pete fucking hated me, all the more now because I was healthy, able-bodied, and I was driving his car. He just had no way to express this, other than a wild shifting of his eyes that always happened whenever I first appeared in the doorway.
“I’ve had quite the day,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. If Wendy were to stick her head in the room right now, she’d smile because on the surface, this was the sort of picture you could put on the landing page of Eagle Hollow’s website. But really, I felt repulsed. I left my hand there for as long as I could stomach. Pete’s muscles had atrophied; he was little more than bones and soft flesh. Hard to believe that this was the same person that had kicked the shit out of me so many times. Hard to believe that it wouldn’t require much more effort than what I’d exert to wipe my ass to break Pete in half now. Just be done with it. But this was more fun, actually. Why end his suffering when I could prolong it, and make it even worse? I looked out the window, down at the car. “She’s lookin good, isn’t she? Still driving like a dream. There’s really nothing better than stepping on that accelerator and feeling the way the engine just comes to life.”
He made a gurgling sound.
“We hired a new girl at work,” I continued. I pulled over one of the chairs and sat so we were facing each other, our knees almost touching. “Annie left. Remember Annie? I told you all about her. I tried to be very specific with the details because I wanted you to know that everything you used to tell me was wrong. You remember all that shit you used to tell me? How I was a pussy, a fag, how no girl would ever look twice at me? You remember that?”
I kept my tone light as I spoke. Pete’s eyes swiveled in their sockets. “Anyway,” I said. “Wendy mentioned that you seemed kind of agitated lately. You’re probably agitated because you knew it was Wednesday and that I’d be paying you a visit, right? You probably get this feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach on Tuesday night. Maybe even earlier. Maybe it starts when you wake up Tuesday morning, and you know that the next day is Wednesday and there isn’t shit you can do about the fact that I’m going to be dropping in on you. You probably just assumed that after Mom died, you’d never have to see me again. Well, guess what, Pete? You were wrong. If you had left me the fuck alone when I was a kid, then maybe we could’ve parted ways after Mom died, or, maybe I’d come visit you like I am now, except it’d actually be because I wanted to see you, not because I hated your fucking guts. And nothing makes me happier than getting to drive up in that car of yours and knowing that you’re right here at the window, having to see the whole damn thing.”
He made a coughing sound, like something was stuck in his throat. I sat back and let the words sink in, let my very presence be an irritant that he couldn’t get rid of. What Pete had failed to realize, all those years ago when I was just a kid, was that the balance of power could shift. He had just assumed he’d always have the upper hand; he’d always be bigger, stronger. But the balance of power had indeed shifted, and I had no intention of ever letting it tilt back the other way.
6.
Daisy
Every couple of months, my mother and I would get together for coffee. We used to try to go out to a restaurant and get a meal, but we were seldom able to spend that much time together without getting into some sort of argument. Getting coffee could take as long—or as short—as you wanted, and that seemed to work out far better for the two of us.
It was a little sad, though. We both lived here in the same city—shouldn’t we be able to get together more than every few months? There were girls I’d gone to college with who were best friends with their moms. They hung out all the time, they confided in their mothers, they went shopping together or out to the movies. I wanted something similar but wasn’t sure how to go about getting it. Also, I wasn’t sure if my mother would be on board with that.
She was a formidable woman, my mother. She had a way
of walking into a room that people would notice, though she wasn’t doing it for attention. She was tall, which might have had something to do with it, but it was mostly because she was incredibly self-assured. And people like that exude that sort of confidence, and it’s something that those who lack it will notice. Ian was the same way.
When I showed up to the café, my mother waved me over to the corner table she was sitting at. I ordered a mocha and then made my way over and sat down.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Sorry I’m late. I got held up at work.”
“Busy day at the salon?”
I was about to answer when the barista called my name. “I’ll be right back,” I said. I went over to the counter and got my drink. I could feel my mother’s eyes on me the whole time. I knew she thought I was wasting my time at the salon. Maybe she’d be glad to hear that I had a new job. I took a tiny sip of my drink and then walked back over to the table and sat down again.
“I actually started working at a new place,” I said. My mother raised her eyebrows.
“Oh?” she said. “I didn’t realize that you’d left the hair salon.”
“Yeah, I did. I was ready for a change.” I hadn’t mentioned any of that to her; I wanted to wait until I had a new job before I told her I’d left.
“I thought you were pretty happy there.”
“I was.”
“So where is this new job?”
“It’s at Hard Tail Security.”
“Hard Tail Security? What is that, exactly?”
“It’s a security firm. I’m handling the administrative work there mostly. This guy I know from the gym, Jonathan, he’s the manager there and he got me the interview.”
Mom nodded. “Does it have potential for growth?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure. “Probably,” I said. “I haven’t really talked to them about that though, since I just started. I wanted to get used to everything before I began asking about moving up.”
“What about going back to school?”
“I don’t think now’s the right time for that.”
Mom pursed her lips. A few tables over from us, a girl who was probably just a few years younger than me sat with her laptop, textbooks open on the table in front of her. She had that focused expression of someone who was deeply involved in whatever she was studying. Mom cast a sidelong glance her way and then looked at me pointedly. “You’re not getting any younger, Daisy. The longer you stay away from school, the harder it’s going to be to get back into it when you finally decide that you want to go back.”
“But what if I don’t want to go back?”
“What are you talking about? You’re going to work in offices for the rest of your life?”
“It’s a job, Mom. And there’s nothing wrong with working in offices. It’s the sort of low-stress work environment that will let me focus on my writing when I’m not there. I don’t want a job that comes home with me every night; I don’t want to work at some high-stress company.”
“How is your writing going, anyway?”
I bit my lip, not wanting to lie to her, but not wanting to admit that I hadn’t worked on anything in at least a month. Maybe more. This whole thing with Noah was just completely taking my focus away from pretty much everything else. What made things worse was the fact that she was working on a book of her own, though a nonfiction one, something about the effects of women’s empowerment on economic growth. In other words, something that I’d never write about, but there was now a rather unpleasant competitive underpinning whenever she asked me about writing.
“I’ve had a lot going on lately,” I said, purposefully not asking her about her own book, which I was sure was going swimmingly. “I’m . . . I’m thinking about moving to a new place.”
She had been about to take a sip of her coffee, but after I spoke, she put her cup down before it had the chance to reach her lips. “You’re what?” she said.
“Thinking of moving.”
“Daisy—you live in a rent controlled apartment. Do you have any idea what people are paying these days for a one-bedroom? It’s insane. It’s simply unaffordable. There’s no way your salary as a secretary is going to be able to cover it.”
“Admin,” I said.
My mother looked at me irritably. “What?”
“I’m not a secretary.”
“Whatever you want to call it. You’re working in an office, and not as the CEO. I would strongly suggest that you not give your apartment up, unless you’re planning to move to Saugus or something. Why do you want to move? I thought you loved your apartment. What brought all of this on? Are you having some sort of quarter-life crisis? I heard a segment on the radio the other day about that. One of my colleagues is actually writing a book about it as we speak. Carl Weiland. Remember him?”
“Not really.” Though I did have a vague recollection of a scruffy, bearded, glasses-wearing guy who I didn’t think was much older than myself.
“Well. He is, and perhaps it would behoove you to speak to him. He’s including case studies, so if you’re going through one of these things right now, then it very well could be in your best interest to speak to him about this.”
I sighed. My mother always had some colleague or associate who was writing this or working on that, and perhaps it would be a good idea for me to get involved. I never did, if I could; I tried to stay as far away from that sort of thing as I could. My whole life my mother had been analyzing me, critiquing me, not just from the standpoint of a mother, but also as a psychologist. Some people might have found such a thing helpful, but it just made me feel like I was some sort of insect that was trapped under a microscope all the time.
“I’m not going through a quarter-life crisis,” I said. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“It essentially amounts to not knowing what direction you want your life to take, and sometimes making radical changes in order to help you discover what your purpose is. According to Carl, anyway. I think the problem these days is that people your age think they’re owed something when they’re not. And that discomfort is something to run away from. Which is why I’m curious about your sudden decision to move, to start a new job, to make all these changes.”
She didn’t know about Noah. I hadn’t been planning on telling her, either, but I suddenly found myself relaying the whole story to her. Maybe she’d be able to help. My mother wasn’t the sort of person who would ever have a stalker—she simply wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps she’d have some helpful advice for me.
But when I finished my story, she was just shaking her head. “Daisy,” she said. “You’ve really got to have a better head on your shoulders when it comes to deciding who you let into your life.”
“All I did was get a smoothie with him!”
The girl a few tables over glanced our way. I hadn’t meant to shout like that.
“And then you gave him your number, after the fact? If you knew that you didn’t want to continue any sort of relationship with him, why would you give him your number like that? Why not just be upfront and honest and tell him that you weren’t interested?”
“I . . . I don’t know. He caught me off guard. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“Well, perhaps that would have been better than leading him on like this and allowing this fantasy that he’s obviously created to perpetuate. Have you called the police?”
“No.”
“That might be the next step.”
“I didn’t think they’d be able to do anything. Because he hasn’t really done anything yet. Aside from thinking that I’m the one. Like, his soulmate or something.”
My mother didn’t respond right away; instead, she finally took that sip of her coffee and then took her time putting her cup back down. I had talked my way into some sort of trap, I knew it—I just didn’t know what yet. She had a way of doing this. She was a pro, really, when it came to this sort of thing, and though we’d never talked about it, I knew this was one of the main reas
ons why she and my father had gotten divorced.
“Exactly,” she finally said. “He hasn’t done anything yet. You just said so yourself. So there’s no reason for you to move. If he hasn’t done anything that you can report to the police, then it makes absolutely no sense for you to uproot your whole life like this. How long has it been going on for?”
“Five weeks? Maybe a little more than that.”
She shook her head. “Come on, Daisy. It sounds to me like you’re making a big deal out of nothing. And wanting to uproot your entire life because of it is just foolish. Now, if it were because you were thinking about going back to school or something along those lines, I would be far more receptive. But this whole thing just sounds like a bunch of nonsense.”
I took another sip of my drink, the sweetness hurting my teeth. Before she’d become a professor, my mother had had her own private practice. Many times, I had wondered if she’d ever even think of saying to those clients of hers the same things she’d said to me. Like, someone had just laid bare their soul to her, and she’d just shake her head and say it was nothing more than a bunch of nonsense. I knew for a fact she’d never dream of saying anything like that to them—it still perplexed me why she seemed to think it was okay when it was me.
“I don’t know why I even bother to tell you these things,” I said. “You’re probably the least supportive person in the world.”
“Daisy.” She had that tone that suggested I was being no better than a petulant toddler. “This is not a matter of supporting you or not; this is a matter of indulging these fantasies of yours—”
I choked back a laugh. “Fantasies? I don’t know who you think I am, Mom, but I’m not fantasizing about having a stalker! I’m not making this up!”
The girl a few tables over had put down her pen and was making no attempt now to hide the fact that she was eavesdropping, as was every other table within earshot. But I didn’t care. My mother had a way of bringing out this side in me.