by Dylan Allen
“Addie, I’m sorry… let me… let me call you a cab.” He still has not looked at me. Instead he is scrolling through his phone and then turns his back to me as he shoots off a text.
He then turns around, finally deigning to look me in the eye. “We have a few of Ashley’s clothes in a box, I am sure I can find you a sweater to throw on.” Without another word, he strides from the room, leaving me alone with his brother and my shame.
I am helpless to do anything but sink into one of the dining room chairs, holding my face in my hands. Kyle drops down in the seat across from me. If he senses my distress, he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He is almost giddy as he asks with a waggle of his eyebrows, “So, you and Simon…”
I scoff at him “No. He is my client. I was dropping off a document.” I hope my short, clipped response will preclude any further conversation. It doesn’t.
“Really. So what business are you in, then? Are you a professional dry humper?” he deadpans.
I don’t even have the opportunity to try to hold back the bark of laughter his quip elicits.
“No, Kyle, I am not. If you have questions, ask your brother.”
Simon walks back into the room with a light pink, cable knit sweater in his hands. He’s avoiding my eyes again as he hands it to me.
“There’s a bathroom right off the sitting room, you can change in there.” He hands me the sweater and turns away from me before I can respond. Any warmth I felt from our earlier embrace, or my interaction with his brother is completely gone. I thought he was embarrassed, but now I can tell he’s pissed and I am not sure why.
I snatch the sweater with a curt, “Thanks,” and head to the bathroom to change while praying the taxi gets here immediately.
When I come out of the bathroom, Simon is standing by the front door, with it open, holding my bags. My eyebrows shoot up in shock and hurt.
“Your cab was only few blocks away. By the time you get downstairs they will be waiting.” And if he had put his boot in my back and pushed me out of the door, it couldn’t have felt any more insulting.
Kyle’s not in the kitchen or dining room, and I am relieved he’s not there to witness this humiliating treatment. I grab my things from Simon and walk past him into the hallway.
Just as I think he’s letting me leave without a word, he grabs my bicep to stop me, and I turn to look at him. His eyes meet mine, and he searches my face as if he is trying to capture it in his memory.
My anger, embarrassment, and sadness combine forces and pull tears into my throat. When he doesn’t say anything, I start to pull my arm free.
Only then does he whisper, “Addie. I’m sorry.”
And then he lets go of my arm, steps back into his apartment, and closes the door behind him.
I walk down the stairs slowly. I feel drained and humiliated. Hurt and confused. Nothing with Simon is ever what I expect. I don’t know if Simon is crazy or if I am. I resolve to myself, as I walk to the cab that is waiting for me at the curb, that this is the last time I’m putting myself in his crosshairs.
September 18, 2014
Back at work, I am playing catch up. I was able to work at home, but there are some things that need to be done at the office. I spend most of my day in the drafting room, working on getting the plans for the new entry way arches sketched and drawn.
I am grateful for the amount of focus it requires. I spent a sleepless night thinking about Addie’s visit. I know I treated her horribly when she was leaving, but, I was coming out of my skin. I thought I was going to scream or throw something if she didn’t leave right away.
I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had been about to fuck Addie on my dining room table—with Henry sleeping in the next room and with Kyle about to walk in at any moment.
I thought back to the many chaotic nights of my childhood. When I fell asleep to the sounds of my mother with some man in her bedroom. Of how it made me feel to listen to that. I think about what happened to Kyle and Ashley, and I have to fight to hold my breakfast down.
I was about to act with the same reckless disregard as the people who I despised more than anyone else, and it made me feel like scum.
I think about my brother and sister and everyone I’ve let down, and I know I am doing the right thing. That Addie could make me forget myself enough to behave in such a way makes her dangerous. I have to stay away from her.
When I was getting her the sweater from Ashley’s pile of stuff, I could hear her laughing with Kyle, and it sounded like something I could get used to. And I knew she had to go. So when she was changing I sent Kyle to get something from the store for Henry so I could get Addie out while he was gone.
The flash of hurt in her eyes when she came out of the bathroom and saw me standing at my door holding her things made me want to beg her to forgive me.
This couldn’t be a bigger clusterfuck if I had tried to make it one. This woman has got me tied in knots. I want her so badly I am at war with myself to avoid her. But Henry deserves to grow up with someone who puts his needs first.
As I step out of the drafting room, I walk into the hallway and smack dab into the subject of my thoughts. Her soft body rams straight into mine, and it kills me to feel how she stiffens and pulls away when she realizes it’s me.
“Simon.” She gives a curt nod as she steps around me, not even looking at me while she continues down the hall. I start to stop her, but what for? It’s selfish and stupid.
I walk down the hallway to my office and start to prepare for a meeting with one of our PR people this afternoon. They want updates on the project, and I want to make sure all my ducks are in a row.
I’m just settling into work when my phone rings. I recognize the number and groan. It’s the number to Send Prison in Surrey where my mother and sister are both serving their sentences.
It has been years since this number has shown up on my caller ID, but it is imprinted on my brain. But now, I don’t know who they are calling for. My mother or my sister. As I answer the phone, a sense of being pulled back to a place I don’t want to be, that I’ve worked so hard to escape from, overwhelms me.
“Yes. This is Simon Phillips.”
“Mr. Phillips, we are calling about your mother, Mrs. Susana Turner.” Says the custodial manager, who always calls, as if I don’t know my mother’s name. As if I could ever forget it.
“Yes, what about her? What’s she done now?”
My mother had always been a violent woman who was addicted to several substances. It was her addiction that led me to have to grow up so fast, it was her violence which led to me step into the role of protector of my siblings—one I failed at miserably. And ultimately, it was the dangerous combination of the two that put her in prison for the rest of her life.
“She hasn’t done anything, Mr. Phillips. She died. This morning. We wanted to know if you’d like to collect her remains or if you’d like us to make arrangements.”
He says this like he is telling me she ate cornflakes for breakfast. My stomach drops to my knees. I drop my head on my desk. “Come again?”
“Mr. Phillips, she had been ill for the last two years and passed away this morning.” He continues as though he didn’t just give me life changing news.
“Neither you nor your brother have been here in over five years, but we are required to inform next of kin. You have eighty-four hours to decide how you’d like to proceed.”
I don’t say anything. Kyle and I stopped visiting our mother a long time ago. She has been a distant memory, a painful one we don’t dare look at too long.
“Mr. Phillips? Are you there?”
“Oh. Okay…” I am confused and scared. I am also aware I am not feeling anything close to grief or even sadness. My mind shifts immediately to Ashley.
“I know she is not on your case load, but do you have any word on our sister?”
“Ah… your sister. She is not a model prisoner. She is currently in our maximum security wing due to an altercation with another inm
ate. She also refused to see your mother. I understand you haven’t been to see her either.”
There is no recrimination in his voice. I am sure he is used to people being forgotten by their families once they are incarcerated. We have tried to see Ashley, but she has refused to allow Kyle and me onto the approved visitor’s list.
“No, we haven’t.” I respond. I feel weary. “Thank you for the call. I’ll need to speak with my brother.”
I hang up and stare at the wall. The rest of my day is shot. I won’t be able to get any work done with everything I’ve got to think about. And I need to talk to Kyle.
I sit there and think of my mother. She was never good to us. But she is the only parent we ever had. And as I think of Kyle and Ashley and Henry and how much we have all lost, my heart feels unbearably heavy.
September 18, 2014
I am a master at hiding my emotions. By the time I was fourteen, my sisters were already away at school, and I was living with my mother whose one emotional state seemed to be “okay”. The one time I’d attempted to express my anger and despair, she had told me I shouldn’t speak of my father that way. So, I stopped talking and instead, wrote everything in my diary.
It turns out it was all very good practice. Seeing Simon, the day after he basically threw me out his apartment was salt in my already gaping wound. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it though, and I did my best to sound totally indifferent when I stepped around him and continued down the hall to my office.
When I got to there and sat down, I’d never been more grateful for my chair. My legs were actually shaking. What was it about him? Why was it that for the first time in my life I was feeling something I had only ever read about for a complete asshole? Why couldn’t it be someone who felt the same way? Why couldn’t anything be easy?
Shaking myself out of my pity party, I text Cara to see if she could meet for lunch. She texts back almost immediately that she can and needs to talk. I am glad—I need something to get my mind off of the disaster that is`1` my Simon situation.
The bustling lunch crowd at the trendy Italian restaurant we chose is loud and boisterous. But Cara and I find a quiet booth in the back of the restaurant. She orders a glass of wine before our server has even finished seating us. Cara never drinks during the week day because of rehearsals.
“Spill, Care. What’s got you drinking at this time of day?” I ask, leaning in with a smile on my face because I already know it’s nothing terrible. My friend is an artist and has the temperament of one. If something is truly wrong, she would have greeted me with a story and tears right away
“I’ve been offered the role of Etoile with the Paris Ballet.” She says with a look more baleful than happy.
“Cara! That’s amazing! Why the hell do you look like you’ve just told me you have been diagnosed with cancer?” I ask, happy as hell for my friend. I also mask the panic that overtakes me because it means Cara will be leaving London. I push the thought down; this moment is not about me.
“Because. It would mean leaving here. I know you moved here partly because I live here. And you’re in this weird thing with Simon, and this shit with your Dad being sighted. I don’t want to leave you here to go through this alone.” She says in a rush of words which are infused with true anguish.
At this declaration, I just stare at her. Besides my sisters and my friend, Nadia, from undergrad, Cara has been the one constant in my life. But for her to consider not taking this amazing opportunity because of me is crazy.
“Cara,” I begin, not quite sure what to say. “You have to take it. I’ll be fine. I have my work, and Paris is a two-hour train ride away. You can’t stay here for me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Addie, I know that, you idiot.” she says with an exasperated scoff. “Of course I am taking it. It’s my dream. But I am worried about you, my love.”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Addie, I know you’ll say you don’t care about stuff like this, but I have watched you over the last couple of months. I am worried you have spent your entire life avoiding your dreams for fear of having your heart broken by not having them come true.”
“Cara—” I start to protest.
“No, just hear me out, please.” She cuts me off. “You’ve spent your whole life not believing you could trust anyone. You chased this career because you didn’t want to need anyone financially and you wanted a profession that would put you above reproach. I get it. Your dad is a criminal and your mother was basically dependent on him.” I flinch at this.
“But, you are neither of those things. You have decided to ignore every example of unconditional love you’ve ever seen and focus on the acts of your parents to form your opinion of what families look like.”
I shake my head at her, but I can’t say a word. I am too overcome by emotion. She has never said these words to me before, and I don’t know how to take them.
My father’s absence has shaped the way I navigate through life. I don’t see how it couldn’t have. I was his favorite. He spoiled me. I was his baby, even when I wasn’t. I loved him more than anything. When I was a little girl, he was my Hercules. He hung the stars in the sky. And then he just left me. Like I was nothing.
“Addie, I just want you to give yourself a chance to live your dreams…to do what you love, simply because it makes you happy”
Her comment makes me feel, suddenly, so alone.
It wasn’t her whose father walked away without looking back. It wasn’t her who sisters graduated early and left her behind to face the loneliness and fear of living with a parent who you weren’t sure cared about you. She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t have the right to sit here and judge me. I feel thirteen years of stifled resentment come rushing to the surface.
I snap my head up to look at her. For once, I am not trying to hide what I am feeling. I let her see, reflected in my eyes, the full force of my anger and hurt.
“Not all of us had the luxury to dream, Cara. Not all of us had parents who didn’t let us down. We didn’t all get to lay in our beds and sleep and dream. Some of us lay in our beds and prayed we wouldn’t wake up and find our mother gone, too. Some of us had to worry about forgetting and using the wrong last name and having everyone discover who they really are, Cara.” I say her name with a contempt I know she feels like a slap. Good.
“I am sorry you think my life is a waste. But it is all I’ve ever wanted.” I grab my purse and open my wallet.
I reach in for a twenty-pound note. My hands tremble as I place the money on the table. Unable to meet Cara’s eyes, I stand up to leave.
“No, Addie, no. That is not what I meant. I just want you to be happy.” She reaches for me, her voice panicked and high-pitched.
Putting on my jacket, I laugh mirthlessly. “Me too, Cara. Unfortunately, that’s not in the cards for me. At least not today. But you enjoy living your dreams. I’ve got to get back to my life.”
I turn my back and walk away from my best friend. And as I step out into the cool, dreary September afternoon, the tears I want to shed are stuck in my throat.
September 19, 2014
The sounds of vendors setting up stalls serves as my music as I race through the streets of Islington on my morning run. I am running for my life. For my sanity. Since my fight with Cara yesterday, I haven’t been able to breathe. I can’t believe the way I lashed out at her.
I can’t believe how much it hurt to have the truth spoken so plainly. I have lived my life with a very single-minded purpose.
I don’t want to be my mother. I don’t want to ever depend on a man and have him leave me high and dry. I chose law as a profession because I wanted to proclaim to the world I was the furthest thing there was from a criminal.
I know these things. Why did it hurt so much to hear Cara say them? To know she knew them, too? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know I owe my best friend an apology.
My run has given me at least that much clarity, and as I approach my b
lock of flats, I start preparing what I’ll say in my head.
Stepping into the building, I stop short. Cara’s there. Sitting in one of the comfortable chairs dark green and white arm chairs in the reception area with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of what looks like pastries in the other.
Our eyes meet for a moment, neither of us says anything. I feel ashamed of what I said to her. Of how I flung her concern back in her face.
“Cara, I…,” I begin
“Ad, I’m so…,” she starts.
We both stop as our sentences overlap.
She smiles at me—her warm, familiar, loving smile—and my heart relaxes.
“You go ahead, Addie,” she says, softly.
I walk the ten steps that separate us. Standing almost toe to toe with the woman who I have called my best friend since I knew what the words meant, I say, “Cara, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did. You were only being honest and I reacted badly. Please, forgive me,” I implore. Her forgiveness not something I take for granted. My contrition is on a level I know words can’t fully express.
She looks at me thoughtfully. Searching my face, as if, she will find the answer to one of life great mysteries in it. She leans down to put her cup of coffee on the side table next to her chair and grabs my right hand with hers.
“Addie, I am the one who is sorry. I was so cavalier in the way I spoke to you about something I know is difficult for you to talk about. Something we’ve never really discussed. I know I hurt you. I hate that I did. Can you forgive me?”
By the time she is done, tears are rolling down my face. This woman is so gracious and kind. I am relieved beyond measure, and wordlessly, I pull her into my arms and hug her in response.
We stand there hugging and crying for a couple of minutes before Cara breaks the embrace.
“Um, no offense, Ad, but you fucking stink.” I burst of laughter escapes me. “You need a shower,” she adds.