The older woman’s eyes glistened a bit and she pulled me into a small hug, her manner identical to Tamryn’s. “Molly. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.” She seemed like she was about to say more, but her eyes flicked toward Joe and she withdrew. His father wore a small polished smile on his face as he shook my hand.
“Delighted to meet you, Molly.” His hand was soft and un-calloused, a sharp contrast to his son’s. He stepped back next to his wife. The two of them turned to Joe. I saw a complicated exchange between the three of them, and wished I could teleport away. “Joseph, I hear from your sister that you’ve been carving again.”
There was a pregnant pause and I turned to look at Joe just as he finally answered.
“Yes, I have.” His gravelly voice was firm as he lifted his chin. “Just a few things so far.”
“That’s good to hear.” His father’s jaw tightened and an identical complex look crossed both of their faces. Tamryn looked between the two of them and rolled her eyes. I was the only one who seemed to notice her annoyance at their bizarre posturing, and she gave me a wink.
“Hey Molly, I want to show you our tree. There are some old ornaments from years ago, including a few childhood pictures of JoJo.” I grinned at her and looked over at Joe.
“JoJo?” A wide smile spread across my face.
Joe gave Tamryn a mocking glare and me a sweet smile. He nodded.
“You go ahead. I’ll find you.”
Relieved to have a legitimate escape, I left him with his parents to follow Tamryn inside. Once we were out of sight, she took me to the family room and showed me some of the cutest ornaments with grade school pictures of Joe.
“Molly?” Tamryn took a seat on a giant leather couch that dominated the room. “Can we talk?”
My stomach went into worried knots. I nodded and went to sit beside her.
“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”
She looked uneasy, but took a deep breath. “Joe.” I felt my heart drop at her serious delivery of his name. Something must have showed on my face, because she put both hands up in front of her. “Nothing bad, nothing bad. I just want you to know how grateful I am that you two found each other. For a long time there I was worried about my little brother. You know about the accident?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“It was almost like we’d lost him, too. He was so distant and had shut his emotions down entirely. But since you two have been together I’ve seen that light coming back into his eyes.
I guess this might sound a little archaic and definitely gender bent. But I want to know what your intentions are towards my little brother.” I could not have been more shocked if she told me that she was from outer space.
“What?” I flushed in anger and embarrassment but kept my tone light. “Like, am I using him for his money?” The look on her face turned to horror and I realized she was embarrassed.
“No! Oh God no! Nothing like that. I just want to know if you are serious about him. I know it is me being nosy in your business and I’m sorry. But the way he looks at you…I’m not sure that he could take another heartbreak. So if you weren’t serious I just wanted to make sure you let him down gently.”
My stomach was roiling now. It had become an acid factory of epic proportions. This was insane. I was getting the ‘let him off easy if you aren’t interested’ speech. It took all of my willpower to keep my breathing steady and my voice even.
“I care a great deal about Joe. But we haven’t even reached the point where we’ve had that type of conversation. For all I know…” I was coming dangerously close to having a mascara wrecking moment. Taking a few deep breaths I managed to calm myself a bit.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I think you two make a cute couple and I am horrible at this girl talk crap. I just want to make sure that if you don’t want to be with him that you are gentle about it. I don’t want him to disappear again. You know?”
Looking up, I saw her fighting back tears and I just nodded, unable to offer her much comfort, as I still questioned if any of this between Joe and I could possibly be real.
“Joe was my first love, Tamryn. It was completely unrequited, but that wasn’t relevant. He set the bar pretty high for me when it came to men. Still does.” She seemed stunned by my response and hugged me. This was the hugging-est family I’d ever encountered, but I liked Tamryn and admired her moxie and her protectiveness of Joe. I accepted the hug from her gracefully. We were interrupted by her daughters who started asking me a thousand questions.
The little one looked at my inner arm. “Is that a tattoo?”
“Yes. It is.” I said without pausing.
“Did it hurt?” The older one asked.
I didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
“Do you kiss my Uncle Joe?” The older one shot back.
“Nope.” I replied, winking at the little one. “But he tries to kiss me sometimes.
By the time I broke free and returned to Joe, he was alone at the edge of the patio. He fixedly looked off into the darkness. I came up to his side and put a hand on his arm.
“Tamryn showed me pictures from when you were little. You were a cute kid.” He turned and gave me an absent minded nod.
“You ready to go?” His tone was strained and when I nodded he put my arm through his and led me back to the stairs. A valet summoned our driver and we were soon on our way back to town.
Our ride back to Austin had none of the excitement of the outbound trip. Joe seemed like he was locked in his head wrestling with something. I turned my phone back on to check for messages. There was one missed call from Draven and three texts.
Dan sent me your picture. You’re perfection, Doll.
I made a mental note to choke Dan out.
I was just remembering today the way we used to drive around together looking at all Christmas lights.
Thirty minutes later he had sent a second message.
Why won’t you talk to me?
I shook my head in disbelief. Even now, Draven had the capacity to surprise me with his level of audacious insanity. I was tempted to tell Joe, but he was fixated on the passing landscape, so I quickly responded to the text instead.
Move on, Draven. I already have.
Then I turned my phone off again.
By the time we got to his apartment, I figured it was a safe assumption that I would just be heading home. I had an overnight bag that I’d left at his house and it still held a spare outfit. When I changed out of my dress, I came back out into the living room. Joe was in the kitchen, his bowtie undone and his tuxedo jacket discarded. He was popping the top off of a Corona when I grabbed my cell phone to text Dan to come pick me up. Joe stepped forward and put his hand over mine.
“Please stay.” I turned and eyed him reluctantly. He’d barely spoken to me since we left the party and now he wanted me to spend the night. I tried to tell myself to grow a backbone, but he cupped my face in his hands and delicately touched his lips to mine. “I’m sorry. Things went down between my parents and me. It has me a bit…I want you to stay, but only if you want to.”
That dirty ‘morning after’ feeling crept back into my heart. My post-Draven defense alarms sounded, and I wavered.
Say no and head home.
But it was Joe. One look up into those mossy eyes of his and I knew the fight was over before it began. I dropped my phone and let him lead me to the bedroom.
The next morning I got up and made coffee. It was way too early to think about food, so I decided to go back down and have another look at the dollhouses Joe had made for his nieces. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed until I heard noises from upstairs. Joe was up and I headed back up to make breakfast.
As I neared the stairs my eye was caught by a huge tarp in the back corner. Curiosity got the better of me and my feet took me over to it. Thick dust caked the cover and I grabbed a cloth and cleaned it off before I pulled it loose. As the tarp slid to the floor I felt my heart catch in my chest. Two beautiful stacks of w
ood sat beneath, dovetailed by purple totes. I ran my finger along the wood as my mind assembled the pieces together.
One of the piles came together in my head like a jigsaw puzzle. It was a bed, a brilliant red racecar bed. The other took my mind a little longer to put together. I had to shift one of the totes to get the full picture of it. When I did a wave of horror washed over me. It was one of the most breathtaking cribs that I had ever seen. My hand went to my mouth as the stairs creaked loudly behind me.
Whirling I saw Joe standing there with a distant expression on his face. He walked slowly across the room and stopped next to me. The silence drug out between us and a small fear began growing in my heart. I’d stepped into a minefield.
“I didn’t realize that these were still here.” There was a shaky quality to his voice that made my chest ache. “I thought Tamz got rid of all of this stuff.” He slid his hand along the rail of the crib and the plastic tote I had shifted fell forward and spilled onto the floor. Papers and pictures scattered everywhere. A wedding album hit the floor and slid over to my feet. Joe sank slowly to his knees. Picking up the album he looked at the pictures for a moment before slowly closing it.
Setting the tote upright he gently put the book back inside. As he picked them up he stopped to look at each item before putting them back inside the container. I saw pictures of Joe smiling and laughing. Jess holding him. A candid shot of the two of them at a party of some kind. Each picture tore at my heart making it ache for him. When he reached the last item his breath caught in a near sob but he kept his face down to the floor. I looked down and saw a sonogram picture. Things suddenly coalesced in my mind and horror made my blood run cold.
The baby.
Joe placed the sonogram picture into the tote, put the lid back on and slid it gently back in place. Reaching down he grabbed the tarp and flipped it back into position with an angry jerk. I jumped even though I was nowhere near him. The ferocity of that action made my mind wander to things from the past. Things best not thought about.
“Molly.” His voice sounded artificial, like he was working hard to keep emotion out of it. “This is too much…I need some time to process.” My heart wrenched in my chest and it felt like iron hard fingers were crushing it.
You went too far Molly. You kept pushing and finally went too far. He’s trying not to lose it, trying to figure out a way to tell you to get out without yelling at you. But he doesn’t want you here.
I fought against that voice, that inner voice that often sounded so much like Draven; so often critical and gleefully inflicting pain.
He never wanted you here.
I kept my voice steady as I nodded.
“Okay, I understand. I need to get home.”
I walked up the stairs with far more calm than I felt. Looking down them I saw Joe standing in exactly the same place facing away from me. His labored breathing drifted up the stairs and it set me in motion.
I threw my things in my bag and went out the door. As I walked away from Joe’s the voice kept digging at me.
You silly girl, you should have known better. What were you thinking? It was too good to be true.
I was blocks up Sixth Street when the crushing reality finally became too much to bear and I had to stop and sit on a retaining wall as sobs racked my body. I replayed the scene over and over in my head. Using some left over napkins in my purse, I blew my nose. By the time I turned on my phone to call Dan I thought I had it together. An old text from Draven came in immediately.
No one’s gonna love you like I did. You know that, right?
When Dan pulled up to the curb, he took one look at me and leapt out of his rental car.
His friendly eyes showed blatant alarm. “Molly, what happened?”
THERE IS A certain level of pain that brings numbness with it. Sometimes you can walk off pain or just ignore it. Other times it hits you so hard and fast that it steals your breath away and drops you to your knees.
That fucking bed… that goddamn crib, I had almost forgotten about them. In the midst of my growing happiness with Molly, my guard was down. I was unprepared for the emotional nut shot of seeing that furniture. I thought Tamz had sold them off years ago. Seeing all those pictures, my wedding album…Jack’s only baby picture. Yeah, it was a fucking grainy sonogram but it was the only picture we ever got to take of him. It ripped my guts out.
It took everything I had to not start bawling right in front of Molly. She seemed to understand and went home but she’d barely left before I started sobbing. Why the fuck did Tamryn keep this stuff? What purpose was there in having a crib I would never use? A bed my son would never sleep in?
Like acid poured into a wound the lump under the canvas mocked me. How many times had I walked by it without even noticing it was there? If Molly hadn’t uncovered it, I might have ignored it forever. Pulling out my phone I called Dr. Greene.
“Hello?” His voice was a bit groggy. Glancing over at the clock I winced when I saw how late it was.
“Sorry doc. I didn’t realize what time it was. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”
“Joe? Wait. Give me a second here.” The line went quiet but when I glanced at the phone face I was still connected. I figured he muted me to tell his wife what an asshole I was. I would have. A minute or so later he came back on the line. “Okay Joe. I just had to get to my home office. What is going on?” I took a breath and tried to steady myself.
“I came across some things at home. In my workshop that is. Things I wasn’t prepared to deal with. I thought I was, but when I saw them. Things are just piling up on me and I’m having some trouble dealing.” Dr. Greene gave a heavy sigh.
“All right Joe. Start at the beginning.”
I did. When I got to the part about my parents he stopped me.
“Wait. You spoke to your parents?”
“Yeah. So?”
“What did you and your parent’s talk about?”
“Mom said Molly seemed nice. That it was good to see me smiling again.”
“And your father?”
“He told me that he hoped to see more of me in the future.”
“So, other than the fact that you haven’t had contact with them for some time, what was so upsetting?”
“My father doesn’t ever give it to you straight. I don’t think it is in his makeup. Maybe it is being a lawyer that makes him so fucking convoluted in the way he talks. Or maybe being convoluted is what makes him a great lawyer. He wasn’t just saying that it was good to see me. I think that tonight is the closest I have ever heard my father come to saying that he was sorry.”
“Wait. Back the truck up to the loading dock for me. I’m a bit groggy so maybe I missed something here. Your father apologized, in his own way, for what exactly?”
“For being an asshat, basically. For telling me I was going to be a loser and waste my life working with my hands when his son should be leading people instead.”
“And that is bad in what way?”
“It wasn’t bad. It was just a lot to take in. It threw me. I went to that party expecting my sister was trying to hook me up. I just didn’t realize that she was going to be trying to set me up with my parents.”
“So you feel like you were ambushed?” He sounded exasperated. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I had woken him out of a dead sleep.
“A little. I can’t blame Tamryn though. She has been running interference between the three of us since long before the accident. She knew if she told me I wouldn’t come.”
“Tamryn asked you to make peace and you did it. So what is the problem?”
“It was unexpected.”
“Fine. You were surprised. Let’s move on. You arrive home and then you and Molly had a fight?”
“What? No! Molly and I had a great night after that. Then this morning she went down to the workshop.”
“So you got upset for her invading your space? Joe I would really like to help but I would also like to get some sleep!”
“Yeah. Sorr
y. She was just looking around. Harmless stuff, you know? She pulled off a dust cloth and that is when she found them. The crib…the race car bed…the pictures.” My voice caught and I fought against the sobs that wanted to rip their way out of my ribcage.
“Oh Joe. I thought you’d gotten rid of all of that.”
“So did I but, either Tamryn forgot to or she thought I might want them some day. So there they are, tucked in the corner of this workshop, nightmares under a tarp.” Dr. Greene was silent for long enough that I looked at the phone again to make sure I was still connected.
“I want you to take the time you need to look at those things. Then I want you to find a way to deal with them. If that means getting rid of them, giving them away, selling them, I don’t care. Hell, set fire to them if you want. But deal with them. If you want to heal, you have to deal. Letting things fester is not the way to heal.”
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Figure it out, Joe. The only way you are going to make progress is if you start working this out for yourself. When you figure it out, we can talk during our next session. Tomorrow at nine if my memory serves me right.”
“All right doc. Hey, I’m sorry for waking you up.”
“Good morning, Joe.” Without another word he hung up.
I went over every inch of the crib and the bed. It was hell to touch them, remembering the love that went into every single cut I’d made in the wood, but I allowed myself to feel the pain wholly. They were beautiful pieces. They deserved to be used and cherished. Some family should have them. It was a crime to have them rotting back here like some dirty little secret.
Putting them aside I spent the rest of the night going through the totes. I hadn’t looked at her face in so long. Seeing her again was like pulling molten bits of glass out of my chest. Little parts of her that I had forgotten came roaring back from looking at them. Memories of trips we took, parties we attended, even a shot of her hiding behind a shower curtain.
I ran the gambit of emotion from smiling and laughing to feeling like someone was ripping my heart out of my chest. I sorted the pictures into three different stacks: things to give to my parents, things to have shipped to Jessica’s family and my own pile. By the time I was done, my pile was barely enough to cover the bottom of one tote. Among them were my wedding album, the sonogram of Jack and a picture of me with Jessica, Mac and Mason.
Good Wood (Carved Hearts) Page 23