by Jessie Lane
Lucas Young was a warrior in every sense of the word. He would go play his real life war games, kick some enemy ass, and be the solider he had always wanted to be when he was a little boy. Then, when he came home, he would probably stop at the first bar he could find to brag to some woman about all the scars he had earned while playing GI Joe.
Well, that was what I was going to keep using to remind myself why I couldn’t call him. Though, it might take a while longer before my heart finally got the message. Until it did, I planned to stay far, far away from the man who had broken it so irreparably I wasn’t sure it would ever function again.
“Gin?” My best friend’s voice brought me out of my own head.
“Yeah, Olivia, message received.” I hesitated for a second before deciding it couldn’t hurt to ask my best friend one little thing. “Do you know where he’s headed to this time?”
“Afghanistan again. At least nine months this time, if not an entire year. We won’t know exactly where he’ll be until he gets there and sends us his contact info. Do you want me to give you that information when I get it from him?”
My head was shaking vehemently, though Olivia couldn’t see me over the phone. “No, no, no. Don’t need it, don’t want it.”
“You sure about that?” Olivia asked quietly.
“Absolutely,” I told her in a voice that sounded a hell of a lot more confident than I felt.
Olivia’s own voice sounded full of trepidation when she asked, “You ready to talk about it?”
Never was the first word that came to mind. Knowing my best friend, though, that wasn’t possible. So, what could I say to her that would get her off my back about this?
I couldn’t tell her that I had lost my virginity to her brother and that he had been so drunk he couldn’t remember the next day. I couldn’t tell her it had been the best night of my life, followed up by the morning that killed all of my hopes and dreams. And I couldn’t tell her that I might never be ready or willing to forgive Lucas for crushing me. If I did, then she would pester me until the end of time to know why.
That left exactly one thing I could tell her.
“Remember when we were younger and you used to tell me that I would grow out of my crush on Lucas?”
She answered slowly. “Yeah.”
“Let’s just say I finally grew out of my crush and leave it at that, okay?”
Displeased with the answer, Olivia asked in an unsatisfied tone, “That’s the story you’re sticking with?”
“Until the day I die,” I replied.
Olivia snorted. “All right, girl. If you ever change your mind, you know you can talk to me.”
“I can also have all of my teeth pulled by the dentist. No offense, but I’d rather have that done than ever have the Lucas conversation with you.”
“Ouch. Point taken. I’ll drop the subject.” She laughed. “So, what are you doing this weekend? I thought we could see a movie.”
“Actually, I’m taking my mom into the city to do some clothes shopping. Rain check?”
“Sure, chickadee. Talk to you later?”
“Absolutely,” I answered honestly. I might not want to talk about what had happened, but Olivia was my best friend. We would stick by each other until the end of time.
I had just put my phone down on my kitchen table when I felt a delicate hand on my shoulder. I didn’t need to look back to know who it was. She was vital enough to me that I would know the touch or smell of her anywhere. My mom.
As soon as I did look back at her, she took her hand off my shoulder and ran it over my hair in a comforting touch. “It’s been six months since your birthday, darling. Whatever it is, I’m here if you need an ear to listen.”
Her eyes were kind and seemed understanding. I was pretty sure she had pieced together a bit of what had happened, but she had given me the space to work through it on my own while letting me know she was there.
Although I didn’t want to tell her everything, it was time to tell her something at least.
I motioned for her to sit down at the table then grabbed her hands in my own. “Can I ask you something, Mom?”
“Anything, darling,” she replied warmly.
Hesitantly, I asked the question that had plagued my mind on and off for years, but more so since my birthday. “Do you miss Dad?”
Her entire body flinched at my question, and I immediately felt like crap for asking.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to answer that.”
She shook her head and squeezed my hand. “No. No, I’ll answer. I always knew you wondered about your father and would probably ask about him someday, but the question still caught me by surprise.” My mother took a deep breath, as if trying to fortify herself somehow. “Would you be terribly surprised if I told you yes?”
Actually, yes. I was shocked down to my toes, really. I was ready for her to say she was glad he was out of our lives and hoped to never see him again. What I wasn’t ready for was that answer.
A sad smile spread across my mom’s face as she watched my reaction. “Yes, I guess you are surprised. You have to understand, Ginny, that your father wasn’t always the man you remember him to be. Well, what little you can remember. You were so young when we left.” Mom paused, took a deep breath, and then said something that shocked me. “You know, you and Lucas have something in common with your father and me.”
My eyebrows shot up my forehead, and all I could get out was a bewildered, “Oh?”
She patted my hand affectionately before gripping her hands tightly on the table in front of her. Nodding, she continued, “We grew up across the street from each other. I’ve known him my whole life.”
Astonished, I slumped back into my chair. My mom and I hadn’t talked about my dad much since we had left him all those years ago, so there was a lot I didn’t know about him, and I probably shouldn’t be as surprised as I was. Still, I was speechless.
“You see, your father and I both come from well-to-do families, what many would call ‘old money.’ Our parents ran in the same social circles. Our mothers took tea regularly, and our fathers golfed together once a week. Your father and I saw each other quite often. I was rather taken with him from an early age, and he was much the same with me. Our parents realized what was blossoming between us and encouraged it. They felt it was a good match and would produce a profitable union.
“I didn’t care about what being with your father might do for me money-wise. Why should I? My family had plenty of it. The only thing that mattered to me was the way the boy across the street held the door open for me and led me through the waltz as if we danced on air.”
As she paused to watch me, I thought I probably looked like a fish the way my mouth kept opening and closing, but nothing came out for quite a while.
Eventually, I squeaked, “That’s not exactly the dad I remember.”
Her shoulders lifted and fell in a helpless shrug. “People change, darling. The young man I fell in love with opened my doors, pulled out my chairs, had impeccable manners, and escorted me to my debutante ball. He was the perfect gentleman in every way. More importantly, he was good to me.”
My mind raced with jumbled thoughts. I didn’t remember much about my father, but everything I did remember didn’t add up to the man she was describing. The man I had nightmares about was a monster. The man she described was Prince Charming. It was like she was trying to tell me two plus two equaled five, and she also had oceanfront property in Arizona to sell me.
To this day, what I could remember of my father woke me up in a cold sweat. He had never laid a hand on me, but I remembered horrible bruises on my mother’s face once. And I would never forget the way he would shove me into my pitch-black room from time to time with a fierce command to be completely silent as he locked the door so I couldn’t get out. How in the world could that man be the same one who had waltzed with my mother and made her fall in love with him?
My mother’s soft voice cut through my
confusion. “I can see the disbelief written across your face, and I understand why you would have trouble accepting what I am telling you. The thing is, darling, you have to understand that sometimes life gives people lemons, and they don’t simply add sugar and make it lemonade. When given more lemons than they can handle, they add vodka, drowning out the sweetness of what life could be. Instead, they prefer to get lost in the intoxicating power of the alternative, losing themselves and becoming someone else they feel they need to be. That’s what happened to your father.”
Now this conversation had turned ridiculous. She was comparing the angry man who had put bruises on his wife and locked his daughter in the dark to a freakin’ drink? And speaking of lemons, a few bites of the lemon sorbet I had in my freezer was totally needed right now if we were going to talk about my psychopathic father.
Getting up from my chair, I went into the kitchen, heading straight for the freezer. As I put the lemon sorbet on the counter, two bowls appeared next to it, courtesy of my mom. I looked over at her, and she smiled at me indulgently.
“I must really be stressing you out if you’re diving into the ice cream, darling.”
Biting my bottom lip, I shrugged back. “I wouldn’t say you’re stressing me out, Mom. I would say you’re confusing the holy hell out of me.” I started dishing up the creamy, yellow goodness into our bowls.
I held up a spoon filled with lemon sorbet, pointed in her direction. “How about a toast?”
Mom laughed and held up her own full spoon. “What are we toasting?”
“To the men who used to live across the street, may we never see them again.” My sorbet was starting to melt a little, so I ate it before any of it could drip off my spoon. One should never waste something as life affirming as ice cream. In my opinion, it was more important than regular food and water.
“That’s it? I thought surely you would have something more creative thought up for a toast, Ginny.” Mom stuck her sorbet in her mouth before it fell off her own spoon.
Shrugging one shoulder, I said, “I could say something like ‘may the fleas of a thousand camels invade their crotches,’ but I was trying to keep it classy.”
My mother sputtered, choking on the sorbet she had been in the process of swallowing.
Feeling bad, I patted her back while she coughed up any sorbet that might have gone down the wrong way.
When she was done coughing, Mom wheezed, “You just gave me the most horrid mental image of Lucas scratching his crotch due to fleas.”
My mom’s words only put the mental image in my own head, which caused me to laugh. And as I laughed with my mom, the depressing, heavy thoughts from the past six months disappeared … a bit.
My mom was right about one thing. Life would give you lemons, and you either made lemonade or poured a gallon of alcohol in your lemonade and got piss drunk to forget it all. Right now, Lucas had given me a shitload of lemons, and it was my job to turn the sour of those lemons into something sweet. Lemon sorbet seemed mighty fine to me.
Plus, the woman laughing beside me wasn’t about to let me go through my heartache alone. My mom was my rock who loved and protected me through everything in my life. Besides, if she could get over my dad, I could get over Lucas. Therefore, I was going to lean on my mom while the tough got going and be grateful to have such a strong, wonderful parent in my life. If I didn’t have my mom, I would be lost.
At the end of it all, we would be the two women who had survived the boys across the street breaking our hearts. As long as we had each other, I was okay with that.
Chapter
12
Ginny
That Weekend …
“Hey, we’re on Fifth Avenue; do you want to stop sightseeing and go in one of the department stores, Mom?”
My mother gave me that look any grown person had probably seen from their parents a thousand times in their life, the look that said: I love you, and I’m trying to indulge you here, but you’re pushing your luck. And I was—pushing my luck, that was—because we couldn’t afford the bigger department stores. Plus, they weren’t my thing. Regardless, I had been saving up money for six months from my tips at the coffee shop to buy my mom a designer purse she had seen on television and practically drooled over. I knew she was going to protest by saying it cost too much, but she deserved it.
My mother made sure I had everything I needed and gave me what I wanted when she could. She never did anything for herself. There were times she had worked two jobs in order to pay all our bills. The memories of her coming home dog-tired left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially now, after her revelations to me this past week about coming from a wealthy family.
All this time, the two of us had been scraping by in life when, if circumstances had been a little different, my poor mother could have been living in luxury.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t about us having the material things or not. I didn’t need designer handbags or swanky clothes. What I did want more than anything was for my gentle-spirited mother to not have to work herself to death due to her trying to make sure the mortgage was paid on time.
It just pissed me off to no end that she had worked herself to the bone to take care of me, all because my father was a monumental dickhead, which was why I was more determined than ever to buy her that purse she had ‘oohed’ and ‘awed’ over months ago. It was the least I could do for the woman who had loved me unconditionally enough to leave her comfortable, affluent lifestyle behind in order to give me a new life in a safe environment, away from my own flesh and blood who had turned himself into some sort of moral-lacking monster in the name of pride and greed.
Mom grabbed my arm above my elbow and steered me from the sidewalk and into the opening of an alley between a coffee shop and an upscale diner so we were out of the busy pedestrian foot traffic normally found in New York City.
The hustle and bustle of the people pushing past us and the loud, honking horns of traffic all disappeared as my mother studied my face intently.
Curiosity overcame her features, and she softly asked, “What’s this about, Ginny?”
I nonchalantly shrugged. “We never go into the high-end stores. I thought it might be nice for us to go window shopping for once.”
Her curiosity morphed into doubt. “Does this sudden fascination with expensive stores have anything to do with what I told you about our family?”
At least I could answer that honestly since I had saved up for that purse long before ever knowing my mother used to be rich.
Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. Promise. Since you’re not going to believe me, though, I’ll tell you the truth. Remember that purple purse you liked so much? I saved my tips for it. I want to go buy it for you.”
Her eyes got a little misty as a trembling smile formed on her lips. She brought her hand up and cupped one side of my face. “You didn’t have to do that, darling.”
I started to protest, but she wouldn’t let me get a word in.
“Was that handbag gorgeous? Absolutely. I’m sure half the women in America want that purse, but I don’t need it. You know why?”
Frustrated, I shrugged my shoulders.
Her lips stopped trembling, and her smile got bigger, warmer. “Because all I need is you, sweet girl.”
How could I be mad at my mother after that comment? Was she ruining my surprise for her? Yes. Just like she ruined the time I saved up my meager allowance and tried to take her to an upscale restaurant when I was fifteen. Or the time I saved up again and tried to buy her some real leather, knee-high dress boots that she promptly took back and traded for two pairs of reasonable tennis shoes for both of us. So, in a way, I wasn’t surprised she was doing this. I was, however, frustrated that she wouldn’t let me do for her what she had always managed to do for me somehow—give me what I wanted. I was sure, if someone added up all the art supplies she had ever bought me, I could buy at least five of those purses.
Letting my frustration get the best of me, I argued back, �
��Just let me do something nice for you, Mom. One time, I’m asking for this one time; let me splurge a little and buy you something you don’t need.”
Mom dropped her hand from my cheek down to the top of my shoulder where she gave it a gentle squeeze. She bit her lip in indecision before asking, “Why do you want to buy me the purse so much, sweetheart? You have to realize that it’s very expensive. You could buy those special markers you were telling me about for your comic panels, instead. Certainly, you need those before you submit your work for that internship you were hoping to get?”
Desperate to get her to understand my need to take care of her for once the way she had always taken care of me, I blurted out, “Because it’s always about me, Mom! Always! For once, you deserve for it to be about you! I know the purse is ridiculously expensive and that you could find at least ten better ways we could use the money. Except, I’m asking you not to.
“I’m asking you to let me do this one small thing to show you that I appreciate everything you’ve ever done to take care of me. This is my way of saying thank you for every double shift you’ve ever worked to pay the bills, every man you turned down for a date because you said I was your number one priority, every luxury you gave up to give me a better life. Please, just for once, let me take care of you.”
The mistiness came back to her eyes, and now her whole chin was trembling as she tried to hold in the tears I could see threatening to escape. There was such a wealth of love and appreciation shining from her eyes that I almost started to cry, too. It was in this moment I realized my mother and I had come full circle.
We were two women who had loved two very different men, yet we both had ended up broken-hearted beyond repair, left to cling to each other with the love between a mother and daughter to sustain us. Only, I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I didn’t have to depend on her to take care of me. Now it was my turn to take care of her a little bit, and I would do that any way I had to, even if it boiled down to simply buying her a damn purse.