Seclusion

by Leanne Davis

  The girl who had nearly attacked him last night, blushed, as she looked straight ahead. He chuckled to himself and almost said more to increase her discomfort out of sheer spite over what they’d done together and her strange reaction to it. He put the truck into gear and backed out of the driveway to the main road and started back toward Seaclusion. His mom lived on the far end of Seaclusion, a good half hour drive from Sarah’s.

  “We should probably discuss it,” Angie said, halfway into the ride.

  “I thought we did. You felt like fucking, so we did.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Then what should you have said about us? Really, I’d like to hear this because I have no idea what you’d say. You came onto me out of nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. What was that last night? You felt so sorry for how pathetic I felt?”

  “You’re not pathetic. You never have been. You’re the one that thinks that way of yourself, not me.”

  “You’ve always thought that I was the local loser. But besides that, why did you suddenly feel the need to sleep with me last night?”

  She looked out the passenger window. “I don’t know. I just did.”

  Sean was quiet for a few minutes as the scenery rushed by; trees, glimpses of ocean and surf breaking through the tree trunks.

  “When you were five months pregnant you shoplifted from my sister’s store, to get Scott’s attention, because you needed to tell him you were pregnant. You needed his help and were too ashamed to ask. Maybe this was like that, all about that married professor of yours.”

  Angie’s head came around to Sean. “What are you saying? I slept with you to get Scott’s attention?”

  “Yeah. Exactly that. You act out when you need help. When you’re ashamed. I’ve never met someone who can’t talk to others like you. You’re like a guy about your feelings. You never know what they are and you know even less how to express them. So you do reckless things when major things are wrong.”

  “Reckless things like have sex with you?”

  “Don’t try to insult me. I think I knew all along what you were doing. So yeah, it was a reckless thing to sleep with me because you didn’t really want to sleep with me. You wanted to talk to Scott.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “No? What? You wanted to sleep with me? How come it was such news to me? Last I checked you counted me as the loser portion of your life. The thing you try to forget you did a long time ago.”

  “I’m not that extreme about it, but the mistakes we made were pretty big, you know having a baby in our teens.”

  “Still, you can’t sit there and tell me you actually wanted to sleep with me. I think you did it because I just happened to be there. I was who you could act out with. Believe me, I don’t flatter myself I’m considered anything more to you. You can’t even look me in the eye.”

  She turned toward him. “I can. I can too look you in the eye. I didn’t plan to do what I did.”

  “I don’t even have to be a professor to know that. Look, I said some things, about you, about Amy, I shouldn’t have. I was mad. I wanted to hurt you, but using Amy isn’t fair. You have a right to feel however you feel, as much as I don’t feel about her.”

  “How did you know I was going to try and leave today?”

  “How? It’s you. Of course, you’d try to leave.”

  “So you came over to try and stop me?”

  He shrugged. “Not to stop you, to make you look in my face at least once about it.”

  “Why? Why do I have to face anything? It was all just another mistake.”

  “Why do you automatically assume I’m always a mistake for you?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Of course that was a mistake.”

  “I see. The married professor is better for you? He’s not the mistake? I am?”

  “Can’t you just drop it for the mistake it was? Lapse of judgment, whatever you want to call it.”

  Sean wanted to argue more, wanted her to admit he wasn’t some kind of adolescent mistake like when they were teenagers. He wanted her to admit that she so avoided him, because she was attracted to something about him. Even if it ticked her off that she was. But instead, he held his tongue as they drove the last few miles to his parents’ house.

  The house came into view. It always depressed him to look at it. The house sat just off the main road, the first house in a small neighborhood of eight houses, built in the early eighties. Over the last few years, Sean had painted the house, re-done the roof for his parents, but still it always had such a feeling of neglect. Of being out of date, past its prime.

  This house was the only memories he had of his mother. She cooked here, cleaned here, took care of him there, but she never left there. His mother had never taken him to his first day of school, attended a school conference or baseball game. Nothing. She had come to nothing in his life. And yet, she’d been a good mother, in her way, in this house. His mother had always loved him. She’d taken care of him, asked him all about his life. The only difference between Tina Langston and other mothers was she never actually witnessed or experienced any of it.

  He shouldn’t judge his mother so harshly. In ways, he was overly protective of her. In ways he understood his mother, where no one else, even Sarah, understood her. He was the one who’d been there all the years that Tina had stayed at home. He didn’t let anyone, any friend, any stranger, speak ill of her in his presence.

  He’d been in more than one cafeteria brawl at school over his mother. But understanding his mother didn’t help him deal with the reality of what living with her was like.

  Why couldn’t she be like other mothers? Leave the house? Go to the grocery store or the doctor’s office? His entire life he had wanted nothing more than for his parents to be like other parents; normal, average, leave the house kind of parents.

  He’d always known that his parents were not typical. He hadn’t known why, until his teenage years. He’d sensed that Denny Langston purposely kept him at arm’s length, and he’d always known Tina was fragile, confused, not like other boys’ moms, but he hadn’t known why. Until he finally figured out what happened nine months before his birth.

  And now, here he went again. The heavy burden of his mother settled on Sean’s neck muscles. There was no end to it. His mother was scared, now more than ever without Denny in the house, to take care of her. He’d been her rock, her protector, her enabler. And in many ways Sean hated Denny for that. And yet he was about to take Denny’s spot.

  “Sean?”

  He glanced at Angie. He must have been staring for longer than he realized at his family home.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. Who won’t be is my mom. She hasn’t left this house in two decades. Can you imagine such a thing? A life lived inside twelve hundred square feet?”

  “No, but neither can she imagine how to change it,” Angie said softly.

  “You never even met her.”

  “But I knew she loved you. She was nice to you. I used to wish, that Vanessa were like her, even if Vanessa never left the house. I would have taken a mother with agoraphobia, over my mother.”

  Sean eyed her. “We both have mother issues.”

  She finally smiled for the first time that day. “Mine are more valid. My mother’s a bitch, yours is just broken.”

  He got out and slammed the door, not sure why it felt right that Angie meet his mother.

  Angie followed behind Sean. She didn’t know what it was she felt about Sean this morning, but it was something weird. Mostly, because the red rimming his eyes told her he’d been crying. At some point since breakfast, Sean had cried, and it surprised her how much that touched her. How little she could picture it, but on the other hand, how well she could. He’d always had emotions, big emotions, more than most guys, he’d just never had a clue what to do with them.

  She used to like being with him, because he had the big emotions that she seemed to lack. She’d alw
ays been calm, quiet, low key, sensitive maybe, but never too loud, too upset, too happy, too sad, too angry or too anything. Her emotions were just quiet, and there. Never too far up, never too far down, even if they should be. Because mostly she completely denied them, ignored them, pretended they weren’t there.

  Sean entered the dark, gloomy living room of his parent’s house. All the shades were closed so it was dark and closed in feeling. The house was clean but shabby. It smelled like an old library book.

  “Mom?”

  It was seconds later when a door across the living room, tucked down a small hallway, opened. Out came Tina Langston. Angie kept her eyes from bugging, and held in her sigh of exclamation. After all, she’d known for years, what Tina would look like. But expecting and seeing in person were two different things. Scott had even warned her this morning before she’d met Sean, that Tina was emaciated thin, and not to react with obvious shock.

  Tina resembled a picture of a Holocaust Survivor. She was nothing; skin, bones, hair and clothes. Her eyes sunken into her sockets, her head, face and feet seemed huge to the strange length of her bones with barely an ounce of flesh on them. She had been this anorexic for twenty years. Now seeing her, how had she lived so long? As thin as Sarah was, she’d probably thought she was normal, growing up with this as her mother.

  Sean walked forward to envelope his mother in a hug that nearly took her off her feet, all without an ounce of hesitation, or repulsion. He didn’t care what she looked like, nor did he fear in touching her and it ashamed Angie that she was impressed by this, because she wasn’t so sure she could touch Tina. There was something repulsive about the skeletal look of Tina that almost made it easy to not see her as a human being.

  “How are you, Mom?”

  “I’m okay, honey. I’m glad you came over. Who’s this?” Tina was looking over Sean’s shoulder at Angie.

  Sean stepped back from his mother. “Mom, this is Angie Peters, Scott’s niece.”

  Tina’s gaze sharpened on Angie. Angie figured she had connected up the name, as far more than Scott’s niece, but also, the girl Sean had knocked up.

  Angie stepped closer, held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Langston. I’m sorry about Mr. Langston.”

  Tina held onto Sean’s arm, but she took Angie’s hand in a polite shake. She nodded in thanks before turning back to Sean.

  “Where is your sister?”

  “Upset. She’ll be out in a few days. Like I told you on the phone, yesterday was hard.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “No, you can’t imagine, Mom, but that isn’t new for me, is it?”

  Tina took a step back as if Sean had tried to slap her. Sean’s face immediately fell. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know this is all even harder on you.”

  “I miss him. How can I stand it here alone?”

  Angie wanted to point out the obvious; then walk out the front door. But she knew whatever mental blocks agoraphobics put up, they were far more complicated than simply walking out the front door. Still, it was hard to understand. Especially to Angie whose solution was to walk out on everything.

  Sean hugged her again, and rubbed her back. “I’m not sure yet, Mom. I’ll get out here as much as I can. So will Sarah and the girls.”

  Tina shook her head against his chest. “I’m such a burden on all of you. When Denny was alive, it wasn’t so bad; he could take the brunt of me. But now—”

  “Now we’ll deal. Same as always.”

  “I wish—”

  “I know. Let’s just deal with today.”

  Angie watched Sean. He was gentle with Tina, he almost treated her like a breakable figurine, both physically and emotionally. He led her to the kitchen table, where she had a bunch of papers. “So, let’s see what you got here.”

  The next hour, Sean looked through the entire banking, bills, and financials of his parents. Tina knew nothing. It had all been handled by Denny, and she didn’t want to learn. Sean prodded her to try, but soon gave up, seeming to accept it was on him to do it all now. The house was hers, free and clear. There was enough left in stocks to keep up the insurance and taxes on the place. There wasn’t, however, much left over for anything else.

  Finally, Sean stood up, taking the pile of papers with him. “Sarah and I will figure this all out, Mom, don’t worry. Just take care of yourself, okay? Do you need anything?”

  “No. Not right now. Not like the old days before the internet and delivery.”

  He again hugged her. “I’ll be over tomorrow.”

  Tina let them out the front door. Angie followed Sean to his truck and got in without a word. She was silent as he started down the road. She was silent until she finally couldn’t stand it, even as she told herself it was none of her business.

  “How is she ever going to learn to take care of herself if you don’t make her?”

  Sean sighed, as if expecting her reaction. “She won’t. My mother is incapable of it.”

  “She can’t be incapable of paying a bill. Show her how.”

  Sean shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve taken care of yourself since you were young. My mother has had Denny, Sarah, and me to take care of her. Because she doesn’t. She won’t do it. She won’t pay bills, she won’t walk to the mail box, for God’s sakes, don’t you see that? Didn’t you see her? It’s a miracle I haven’t already attended her funeral.”

  Angie’s mouth opened in surprise. Sean seemed to realize what he said. He let out a curse. Miles drifted by in awkward silence until Sean suddenly swung off the road, onto a narrow road dissecting the thick vegetation and trees. He followed it through two sweeping turns, before he suddenly stopped the truck, and turned it off, leaving them in strained, surprising silence.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have judged her. It can’t be easy for her, or you.”

  “Easy? No. My family has never been easy. She’s looked like that since I can remember. A distortion of what every other mother looks like. She slit her wrists once, when I was about five. Almost succeeded. I won’t push her. Not now. Especially not now, but probably not ever.”

  Angie’s breath caught. Sean jerked open his truck door and got out. She waited a moment, but finally did the same as she followed him down the road, having no idea where they were or what they were doing there. Sean was in a mood. That she got. And she was stuck with him.

  Chapter 10

  At the end of the once graveled lane was an old abandoned house, set on an incline off the beach. Stairs led straight to the beach below. Angie sighed, yet another fucking beach.

  She followed Sean as he took the stairs two at a time until he stepped onto the sand. The beach was littered in driftwood and dune grasses, where thirty feet away surf pounded into the shoreline. Breaking waves of foam licked up the beach, then back out. Sunlight broke through the clouds in a strange orange glow over the foamy, frothy mess of surf.

  Sean stopped and stood on a log left bleached and smooth by the ocean. “It’s pretty here, isn’t it?”

  Angie looked up at him. He was staring out toward the surf, the farther off horizon of ocean meeting sky in a perfect horizontal line. Not what she’d expected out of Sean’s mouth. A banal line of how pretty the seashore was?

  “I guess it would be if you hadn’t seen the beach before.”

  “That’s right, you think you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it forever, right? Do you still hate the beach? Why was that again? It was too big, too deep, and too empty?”

  “Too repetitive. Never changes. Never a new season or new look.”

  “That’s crazy. It’s one of nature’s most beautiful achievements, and yet you don’t like it?”

  “I don’t like it,” she said still looking up at him. Her breath caught as she stared at his profile, outlined in the orange light of the late, receding sun. His hair shifted softly from the stubby pony tail at the nape of his neck to trail over his forehead.
He was gorgeous in that moment; deep, soulful eyes, against a strong forehead, wide mouth and sharp nose.

  “I’m sorry. Again, I shouldn’t have judged your mother.”

  He finally glanced down at her. “Ah, but you’re so good at it, aren’t you? Judging? And fuck if you’re not usually right with your judgments, harsh or not. You’re right. But my mom, I can’t stand to press her because I think one of these times I’ll go into that house and she won’t answer.”

  Angie’s heart stopped. She hadn’t known Sean lived with that. He didn’t look at her. She was quiet, ready to let him say whatever he seemed to need to say. He was silent again for a long while. Finally, he whispered, “I did it to her.”

  Angie shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You were born. You couldn’t change that. She could have. It was her decision. She should have handled it better.”

  “She was never all right. I used to wish I could meet her before I was conceived. There’s a picture of her on her wedding day to Denny. God, she was beautiful. Looked just like Sarah, long, brown hair, her body normal and rounded and alive. All I ever wanted was for her to look and act normal.”

  “But she can’t. Won’t. No matter what you did, huh? It’s still not your fault.”

  He finally jumped off the log. Glanced at her. “Yeah, I guess not. Still doesn’t change it though, does it?”

  “No. Reality sucks. You and I both know that. More than most, we always did.”

  “Is that why we always come together? Life sucks and we’re the only ones who will admit it?”

  She smiled, and looked away. “Maybe. Good as any explanation.”

  “That’s a lame explanation.”

  “You’re always calling me clueless or reckless. Now I’m lame? Not exactly how a girl wants to be talked to.”

  “That’s because you do act reckless sometimes. But screw that, that’s no explanation for last night.” Sean turned toward the house behind them.

  She glanced up too. At one time it had probably been a gorgeous old Victorian house. A rounded three story turret took up the right side of the house, facing the beach looking like a boat about to head off toward the horizon. There was a porch along the front, raised off the foundation. From there three stories rose up in faded wood, torn roof tiles, graffiti, and broken details of gingerbread-like quality, shredded off the house.