“That’s personal.”
“So’s this,” he says before I can move past him.
Chapter Seventeen
Jake
I knew the minute I walked in that she was in a mood and, when she started asking questions, it became clear just what kind. Something happened to Cora today and she’s out for blood, out to prove that I’m just another person she can shrug off, out to hurt me and see if I’ll walk away. Well, fuck that.
She can scrape me raw and I’ll take it, but I’ll also get what I want while she’s doing it because no matter how much I’ve had to walk away from in the past year, the thought of walking away from her, from this, threatens to end me so I refuse to acknowledge it as a possibility. She took her gloves off and threw the first punch; I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that she did it or that she expected me to just take it without fighting back. Either way, I’m not backing down because whatever she thinks, I’m not like the other people in her life who have always let her run away — I’m sick of having my feelings thrown in my face, and now’s as good a time as any to show her exactly who she’s dealing with.
I cup her shoulders in my hands and she stiffens. We’re still in the kitchen, but I’ve blocked her path so she’s forced to look at me. When she does, her eyes are as devastated as they are angry. “I don’t want to be touched right now.”
I ignore her and feel a perverse sense of satisfaction when she tries to struggle away. I’ve never once in my life used physical force with a woman, but something about this moment makes me want to prove to her that I’m stronger, and I’m not leaving, no matter what she does.
“Blue, did someone hurt you?” The words stick in my throat and even the thought of what they mean brings bile to my throat. So help me God, if she says yes, I won’t stop until I find out who it was, and when I do there’s nowhere he can go where he’ll be safe.
Her sigh is resigned — a purposefully bored sound, calculated to make me back off at the same time that it cuts me down and makes me feel like a nuisance. I ignore her, staring until she rolls her eyes.
“Let me save you the time and ask the rest of the questions you have lined up in your head so you don’t have to: Why did I choose alcohol and then men? What is my relationship with father like? What is my relationship with my mother like? What are my friends like? My ex-husband? Are they the reason I chose alcohol?”
She’s trying to be tough, throwing questions at me and challenging me to keep going. As much as I want to stop, to just bring her close and hold her, I won’t, because I have a need to see this through, not for her or for me but for us. Somewhere deep down I think she knows that.
“Well?” I say and her eyes slit.
“Not all abuse is physical, Jake, and it’s not always from someone else. I abused me,” she says before I can ask what she means. “I didn’t care what I did with my life, or who I used or let use me along the way. I gave out my body like it was a piece of birthday cake and I drank until it was easy to believe everything I did felt good. Did I walk around drinking in the middle of the day, dependent on the substance to wake up and function? No, because my dependence wasn’t on alcohol, it was on men.”
Godfuckingdammit.
I want to rage, to yell and break something. I also want to bring her close and apologize for asking, for making her go through this, but I know we aren’t done. I hate the thought of Cora and other guys — not because I expected her to be sitting quietly on the sidelines of her life waiting for me to come along, but because I expected her to want better for herself. She’s telling me that she let other men have her because it was easier than living in the real world with her problems, and that’s not fucking okay.
“Did they hurt you? Did someone hurt you?” I ask again and she shakes her head.
“No more than I hurt them.” Her voice is no longer biting and strong, it’s dull, weak, sad. “If you’re asking was I forced, then no, never was I forced, never was I drugged, never was I young and innocent and naïve and taken advantage of. My choices were — are — all my own. I chose men because I realized at a young age they were the one thing I could easily have that my mother couldn’t, and it made me happy to know that I had something she envied rather than just despised.”
I don’t know who’s more shocked by the words, her or me, but it feels like even the air is still as the last sentiments from what she said echo around us.
I’m barely breathing as she stares at me, her eyes no longer challenging, though I don’t think she knows that. Somewhere in that last twenty seconds she went from bold to sad, heartbreakingly sad, and even though I’m holding onto her, I know she’s not with me. Her ghosts have her now and she’s succumbing to them, falling further and further away from me.
Suddenly, I realize just how far I’ve pushed her. In my quest to know her, to have her, to challenge her to be honest and to keep her until she’s healed me, I’ve pushed her here, to this place filled with demons and ghosts and memories that make her regret. Because I need to know her, all of her, because what I want from her is a hell of a lot more than what she’s ever had with or given to anyone else. Or at least I tell myself that’s the reason.
But really, right now as I stand here holding her and watching her, I know the real reason I’ve pushed her to open herself up and show me some piece of who she is without the mask is because I need her, and I want her to need me too. Whatever it is about her that saves me, makes me forget everything I left behind, everything I’ve lost until all I can think about is what I might still get to have, I can’t let it go.
Even now, as I hurt her to get it.
I struggle to rein it in, to bring myself under control and think of her for a minute, to put aside my mounting desire not just for her, but for everything she is, and think of what my need is doing to her.
“Cora, are you okay?”
It’s a fucking stupid question because even if she was a stranger I could see that she’s not okay. My hands tighten on her shoulders for an instant and she doesn’t move. Her eyes are devastated and I know she’s battling not to lose it, not to let go in front of me. Another pain stabs me as I realize that she trusts me enough to kiss me, to possibly go to bed with me, but she doesn’t trust me enough to hold onto me, and I don’t blame her.
“I’m sorry I asked, sorry I pushed.” I release her shoulders to take her hands and bring them to my mouth, pressing my lips to them not because I want to persuade her, but because I need to soothe her, make a connection, let her feel me and know I’m here. To let her know that I can be gentle and thoughtful, not just selfish and demanding.
Whether it’s because of my contact or because of her strength, she comes back, her hands flexing once in my grip before her shoulders straighten and her eyes find mine. They’re blazing, like a swirling, tumultuous ocean right before the storm swallows its sailors whole. She might have saved me from drowning a few months ago, but I think right now my siren would like nothing more than to watch me be dragged off land and thrown into the cold abyss.
I try one last time. “Blue — Cora.”
She shakes her head and takes her hands back, pushing away from me as she steps slowly over and away. I see the effort it takes, the sheer willpower she uses to bring herself fully upright, with her shoulders straight and her head high. She stripped herself bare and I let her. Worse, I didn’t really give her a choice because I wanted to prove that I was in control.
“You might not know it Jake, but sometimes giving up who you always thought you wanted to be is safer than staying on that path of destruction, the one that you know deep down is going to be one heartache after another. Even if it feels like failing to let everyone know they were right about you, that you weren’t enough. Sometimes, you just have to fucking start over.”
She walks away and I let her because at the moment I’m the weakest kind of man there is. I’m the one who needs more from someone than I even have to give them. I have nothing for her, and yet, all I want to do is ask her
to be with me, to help me, to make me feel like a person again, not a shell, not a hollowed out, useless shell who has nothing for anyone.
The feelings of inadequacy and helplessness are overpowering, and I want to pound my fists into something, to someone, almost as much as I want to go find Cora and grab onto her and hold her, to tell her that whatever she thinks of herself, she’s wrong. To tell her that I’m an asshole and I’m sorry.
I know what she was doing with that story — she was warning me, telling me that she’s someone I don’t want, someone damaged and worthless. But she’s wrong. Just as she was wrong to think I’d walk away when she admitted that there’ve been others. I don’t fucking care whose been here before, though I’d like to find her fucking ex-husband and the rest of the bastards she let into her bed and beat them faceless because the idea of them ignites a blazing fire in my blood, one that wants to wreak havoc on anyone and everyone whose ever hurt her.
Including myself.
That thought deflates me and my anger dissipates as quickly as it came. I stare at the closed door to the room she just walked into and wonder if I’m just another person on her list who’s never been there for her.
Am I someone who’s using her, or can I find something inside of me to show her just how much I want to give her, even if it’s a long shot?
Chapter Eighteen
Cora
Every now and then I think back to my childhood and realize that things which appeared so black and white at the time aren’t quite as simple. I always hated my mother’s friends — the ladies with the perfectly tailored suits, or the ones with the outrageously expensive clothes that were cut too high or too low for someone their age. Then I realized that my mother didn’t really have friends, just small groups that she associated with depending on her mood and theirs.
When my mother wanted to feel like a part of the elite, she associated with women from old money — the women whose husbands or families had founded a piece of the city, whose names were on buildings and streets. Those women who dressed in blazers and pumps and drove their Mercedes sedans to luncheons and committees and city council meetings.
And then there were the times she wanted to feel young, to feel wild and free and beautiful. It was then that she sought out her younger friends — the ones who had snagged a big fish or come into money recently. The ones who spent their days tooling around in Audi convertibles or Mercedes SUVs, hopping from a session with their personal trainer to a massage, followed by salon appointments and manicure sessions. Each day was rounded off with a trip to the local hotspot to pick at a salad and start happy hour.
These two groups ran my mother’s life until she got sick and dropped off the proverbial social map. Now, my mother has no visitors, which is why I’m currently walking up to knock on her front door and see her on a day that is not Monday. I’m here to try and be her friend, whatever that means.
After my argument with Jake the other night, Mia texted me. I still think he somehow made that happen, but since I’ve stopped talking to him, I can’t quite be sure. I didn’t answer her call because I wasn’t ready to hear her voice, knowing if I did I would break. Instead, she accepted that unwritten boundary and we texted, and when I told her enough of what had happened, from my day with my mother to my hurtful comments to Jake later on, to Jake’s reaction and subsequent questions, she told me the one thing I know is true: we push people away because we fear that they’re eventually going to leave, and we want to be the ones to take a stand and step away first.
I know Mia understands this, has even lived it to a point, just as I know part of the reason she told me was because of my relationship with Jake, and the other part was to remind me of my relationship with my mother. She’s pushed me away her whole life, just like I’ve done the same to her. Mia’s comment made me realize that it’s the same fear inside both of us that’s causing us to push.
Taking that new knowledge, I’m at my mother’s taking the first step.
No one checks on my mother if there isn’t a purpose — not Sassy, not my father, not me. Sassy loves her, I can tell in the easy way she deals with her, the absolute care she takes making sure my mother gets proper nutrition and exercise, both mental and physical, but it’s also her job. My father sits and talks with her every night, sometimes reading to her, sometimes brushing her hair or just holding her, as if she’s become his child and not his lover. And me… I do her hair, her nails, give her back the beauty that’s always been so important. Three days ago I tried to give her back some memories, but like usual I ruined it because I was more concerned about my feelings than hers.
Not today, though. Today, I’ve decided to drop by just to be social, to talk to her and let her know that I want to be with her, not because she needs something or because I do, just because. I failed last time because I made it about the past. Now, I realize I need to make our relationship about what it can be, not what it once was or wasn’t. I have zero idea what step this translates into in therapeutic terms, but it’s one I know I need to conquer if I’m going to continue moving forward.
The housekeeper who answers the door is new, because when my mother got sick she asked my father to get all new staff, people who wouldn’t know who she had been and be sad every time she forgot something they didn’t. I smile when the woman remembers me from earlier in the week, thanking her when she points me in the direction of my mother’s rooms.
“Miss Sassy is out doing some shopping since it’s her afternoon off. Mr. Whitley will be home shortly. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
I shake my head no, thanking her as I head up the stairs and into my mother’s rooms. When I step inside, I don’t see her, but I can hear someone in the closet, so I walk across the large space to the French doors and peek through them. She’s in there, wearing a bustier that’s become too large for her bony frame, and a garter belt already hooked to a pair of sheer stockings. Her hair is falling out of rollers she must have tried to put in herself, her face is pale and unmade, and she’s racing around tearing clothing from hangers before holding it up, muttering something and throwing it to the ground before moving on. Her movements are hurried, panicked, and her mutters are growing increasingly louder as she rejects silk pant suits, dresses, blouses, skirts.
When her eyes fix on me, I’m paralyzed, immobile as I struggle to comprehend the woman in front of me. Before I can stutter out an excuse and leave, she snatches her tattered and over-worn blue robe up and marches across the plush carpet toward me.
“Finally. I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.” She sweeps by me, out of the closet and I stay where I am, watching her head toward her vanity, shocked at the vision in front of me that looks and sounds so much like I remember. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror and she snaps again. “Well? Where are your tools? Don’t tell me you forgot. Never mind, you can use mine. I don’t have time to wait while you go and get yours.”
My legs feel numb as I walk over and stand behind her, taking the brush and curling iron that she’s motioned to. She doesn’t recognize me. I’ve never seen my mother have an episode, though I’ve read extensively on them, scoured the Internet and the Alzheimer’s and dementia website for any information they could offer. The reality is that no one understands what triggers specific memory lapses, aggressive behaviors or black moments. The time of day, environment and physical discomfort are all things that can be a factor, but not always. Right now, I have no idea where my mother is or what she needs, so rather than ask her, I grab the curling iron and wind it through a strand of loose hair, uncurling the haphazard rollers with my free hand. For a few minutes, I unroll and twist, gaining a rhythm that’s familiar while my mother sits with a straight back and talks non-stop about what she needs me to do to get her ready for her benefit tonight.
A benefit to aide children in public schools in the greater Portland area, who were victims of budget cuts, raising money to keep music programs alive. A benefit that she headed almost seven years ago, when I was fif
teen and still subject to her whims. I attended, but ended up getting drunk and making out with a member of the wait staff in the coat closet. He got fired and I got slapped by my mother before she dissolved into a fit of tears and had to be carried away by my father.
I got myself home later, but the details of how are a little fuzzy.
I listen to her ramble for almost ten minutes without saying anything, and when her hair is done, I move to her vanity to hand her the mirror as I would any client and let her admire it from every angle. She nods her approval, and I shift to her vanity to search through her cosmetics and begin on her face. I’ve rubbed on foundation and eye highlighter, curled her lashes and I’m lining her eyes with a charcoal pencil that will surely look too heavy with her thin face when my father walks in.
I see him stop, his eyes wide, and then his face is happy, as if what he’s seeing is normal. Before I can think of how to warn him, he says my name and I feel the world tilt under us all.
“Cora?” my mother repeats. Only this time, her voice isn’t the authoritative, fundraising queen that it was a moment ago, it’s smaller, unsure, and I know that we’ve somehow failed. That I’ve somehow failed. “James, where’s your tux? We have to go soon.”
My mother stands, but I can see her hands clenching at the neck of her robe — the dingy, threadbare robe that’s been her security blanket these past months and looks almost as worn as she does under the make-up. She looks to me and then my father, whose eyes are sad as he walks toward her.
“Suze,” he says and I hear it in his voice, the pain, the sadness. The fucking heartache.
She steps out of his reach when he gets close enough, her hands still clenched at the throat of her robe, only now they’re clenching and unclenching. Her face that had been flushed with irritation only moments earlier is now pale with fear and grief. Jesus, the grief coming off all of us is so heavy I feel like I can reach out and touch it.
The Light of Day Page 11