Damage Done

by Virginia Duke

"She did the best she could," Rachel always told herself.

  After lengthy therapy sessions, she'd decided Savannah's maternal failures were a result of never having been given the proper tools to care for her, something she'd had no control over. And Rachel committed over and over to breaking the cycle with her own children. She hadn't always succeeded.

  But it was better late than never. It had to be.

  She pulled up to the daycare and waited in line patiently for other parents to make their way out of the parking lot before slipping into a free space. She was alert and unafraid to feel, she didn't feel like the same mind-numbingly overwrought basketcase she'd always hated.

  Her confidence slowly rose, even as she prepared for the pain she knew would eventually come in breaking apart the little family she'd created. She thought of her two precious loves, Hunter and Lauren, and her arms ached to hold them when she thought about Dylan never being able to hold Michael again, never being able to feel his warm breath on his face or see him smile with wonder at some new important discovery. Michael would never laugh or feel joy, never fall in love. She prayed she and Kenneth would never understand or experience the pain of losing one of their own children.

  Kenneth loved Hunter and Lauren as much as she ever had, and she knew she'd have to bend over backwards to soften the blow he would feel in splitting their time with the kids. But divorce was inescapable.

  There were too many wounds left untreated, and now that she was ready to accept it, she'd never loved Kenneth the way he'd loved her. Or the way he'd wanted to love her. Where she'd been restless beside him, always waiting for a crescendo that never came, he'd always been complacent, never missing anything or wishing for something more.

  They'd recently celebrated his parent's fortieth wedding anniversary, and unlike Rachel, a lot of Kenneth's identity was wrapped up in not having been a child of divorce. He'd wanted to emulate his parents in every way. Kenneth was the type of man who'd spend his life with a woman he loathed if it meant maintaining the honor of his commitment, no matter how miserable it made him, he'd suffer through it.

  There was a small part of her that understood, and respected him for it. But she'd decided she would no longer be the kind of woman who spent her life with a man who was just good enough. Not when she knew there was something more waiting for her, something exceptional.

  ***

  The crackling her heavy tires made as they pulled onto the crushed stone circle-drive in front of her old house took Rachel somewhere else, she'd heard the crunch of the gravel and went running to ask her father if he'd bought the new horse he'd promised her. Sugar Babe. She was another thoroughbred, only a few years old, and Rachel wanted to train her herself. She'd been expensive, and Rachel already had Icarus, but her father had promised to buy her anyway, a consolation prize for refusing to let Rachel get her driver's license.

  But it hadn't been her father that day when she'd heard the crunching of the gravel, it was a truck she didn't recognize. A blue Ford pickup truck. She'd peered through the freshly cleaned glass in the bay window, squinting to see who was inside when an eighteen year old Dylan stepped out.

  Raw teenage adrenaline filled her as she'd watched his six foot two inch frame make his way around from the driver's side. He'd been growing his hair out and it almost reached his shoulders. He saw her in the window and smiled, his bicep flexing as he'd reached up to wave her outside, his body ripped from hours spent swimming every morning before school.

  He was sexy as hell and she'd lived and breathed him for what felt like her whole life.

  Rachel ran outside to see him, bouncing in the way only a giddy teenage girl in love will do and asked, "What is this? Whose truck is that?"

  Dylan's father made enough money to care for his family of five, but she hadn't thought it was enough to buy his teenage son a brand new truck, and Dylan only worked part-time at Ginny's nursery. And it wasn't a big money-maker either.

  "My dad brought it home today, can you believe it? He said as long as I keep my grades up and stay out of trouble that it's mine when we go to college next year, I just have to help my mom run errands and drive my sisters to school," he told her excitedly, his gorgeous smile on overdrive.

  His dad had taken out a loan, so proud of his son, the academic and the athlete. She jumped in to go for a ride, and they drove for hours, flipping through the radio and laughing.

  They'd gone out to Lake Carrington where he let her drive on a back road, then they'd parked in an old camping ground, away from the rest of the park and listened to the radio until Dylan worked up the nerve to pull her close and kiss her.

  "Rachel, you know when I tell you that you have my heart, it means forever, right?"

  She looked up and kissed him softly, "I know, I love you, too."

  "No, I mean I can see my life with you, and I fantasize about how it unfolds and all of the things we'll do together. I never want to be without you."

  "I always want to be with you, too, Dylan."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise," she'd grinned up at him.

  "Tell me something sweet."

  He pulled her into his lap to face him, her back to the steering wheel. His thickening erection grew underneath her, and he grinned when she blushed. Dylan was never ashamed of how she'd made him feel, he'd always been comfortable with his attraction to and love for her.

  His eyes, those rare amethysts twinkling in the light. She would never meet anyone more undeniably charismatic. Or lovely to look upon.

  "You intoxicate me," Rachel whispered.

  Pleased, he flashed her a wicked smile and pulled her in for a kiss.

  "That's pretty sweet," he laughed. "Hasi nilahasi," he said in his mother's language.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means you are my sun and moon."

  Then he'd kissed her again, and her hands went to his thick hair, the smell of jasmine strong on his skin from hours in the nursery. His lips moved across her neck, she felt the goosebumps surface across her in waves of excitement and her nipples flew to attention, almost painful to bear.

  "Dylan- don't."

  "Rachel, stop fighting how your body feels," he whispered, "It's okay if you like it."

  It was Dylan, she'd had to learn to trust him, and stop feeling guilty for the pleasure he brought her.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry, puss," he told her, "But stop telling me you don't want it when your body screams you do, how do I know you better than you know yourself?"

  She kissed him then and let him go back to kissing her neck while she focused on letting go.

  "Consider hues of iris," his voice vibrated into her ear, "petals multiply, nothing more rare than our love."

  His hands found their way down her back and over her skirt, lifting her until he could push the skirt up. She rested against him while his warm hands explored her skin, up and down her legs, under her shirt and up her back, down again to feel the satin panties tight across her ass.

  "Is that a backwards haiku?" she'd laughed.

  "Did I do it backwards?" he hummed into her neck.

  "You inverted the syllables, goofy ass."

  "Alright, so I wrote you an inverted haiku," he'd said proudly, brazen in his romanticism, "I thought of it this morning at the nursery while I was counting the reasons why I love you. Wanna hear another one? An inverted perverted haiku?"

  "Of course," she blushed, "I love your poetry."

  His lips found her neck again and she'd moaned unexpectedly.

  "Rachel, God, I love when you do that," he growled, driving his hips up to meet hers.

  He bit her neck gently and moved his fingers down her back, sliding his hands gently underneath her panties until his hands cupped her bare ass. He looked into her eyes, mischief in his smile.

  "Come on," she said, "let's hear the inverted perverted haiku."

  "Creamy skin awakens it, blooming in your sight, need your pussy in my mouth."

  "Dylan!"

&
nbsp; "What? You don't like that one?" he laughed.

  She had liked it, she'd just been too naive to understand it was normal to like it. She'd been too shy, and Savannah always insisted that if she'd allowed him, Dylan would have ruined her.

  She'd been raised in small town Texas, where sex education consisted of lectures on abstinence and bawdy stories told in locker rooms. Her dad was ancient, her mother a prude, and Rachel had always been ashamed of her body. It had taken Dylan four years to help make her feel comfortable in her own skin. But he'd never made her feel bad for being so inexperienced, or bashful. While other kids at school pressured their girlfriends to have sex, Dylan had waited patiently until Rachel knew she was ready.

  He'd been everything her mother told her never existed in a man. It had taken him years, but he'd proved it to her over and over again.

  He drove her home reluctantly that night and it was well after dark when his tires hit the gravel. Savannah had come straight out to the porch, a tight smile on her lips, her eyes cold and angry, but she'd waved pleasantly enough as Rachel stepped out of the truck.

  "Call me later, I love you," she'd said softly where Savannah wouldn't hear, her face hot, blushing heavily.

  "I love you, Rachel," Dylan yelled deliberately for Savannah's sake.

  Then he'd put his truck into gear and slowly pulled out of the driveway, and her mother called, "Bye, Dylan," her voice dripping with honey as she waved.

  He smiled and waved back, oblivious to her sarcasm. Rachel never told him the things Savannah said once he'd been out of earshot.

  "Rachel, really," she'd begun annoyed, "You cannot just disappear with that boy, what will people think if you're driving around town in that pickup truck with a dirty oil-rigger's son? And staying out this late?"

  "Mother!" she'd hissed, whipping around to face her, "You can live your life thinking you're better than everyone else, but I don't care if his dad is just an oil-rigger. God! I'm eighteen years old, Daddy doesn't care that I'm going out with Dylan."

  "Well, your daddy only cares about himself, that's why."

  "You're just miserable because Daddy is cheating on you! Stay out of it, it's none of your business!"

  "Dumplin', I only want what's best for you," Savannah said, "Of course it's your life, just know that everything you do reflects on your father and me. Your father works very hard to give you everything he never had. And I've lived long enough, I don't think that boy will turn out to be the man you want him to be. They never do, dumplin'. I just don't want to see you settle when you deserve so much more."

  Rachel only wanted to get to her room where she could think about Dylan and his hands against her skin, to feel the happiness she'd felt only moments before, "I understand you want what's best for me, Mother. Dylan is a good person, he does well in school and he doesn't do drugs or whatever else you're worried about. I just wish you would see him the way I see him. I'm going to read in my room."

  "Of course, Rachel," she'd said, "We can talk about it another time when you're not so upset. Would you like to run over to Bartlett's tomorrow and see their new handbags?"

  Savannah had always found ways to deflect and make Rachel feel as if she'd overreacted, and instead of going to her room and reliving her afternoon with the boy she'd loved, she'd gone to her room and felt guilty for being so nasty to her mother.

  ***

  Kenneth's jeep was already in the driveway when they pulled in, he was normally the last home. Hunter and Lauren raced inside yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" and Rachel took her time gathering their bags and lunch boxes, a large sheet of drawing paper covered with paint from Lauren's little hands, Hunter's homemade puppet crafted from a paper grocery bag and dry beans. She wasn't in a hurry to go inside and face him.

  "Rachel, what the hell, where have you been?" Kenneth yelled as soon as she shuffled through the kitchen door with all of the kid's stuff, "Why haven't you answered your goddamn cell phone all day?"

  She forgot she'd turned it off at Dylan's. This wasn't exactly how she'd hoped this conversation would go. She needed more time to prepare, more time to plan, to find the least hurtful way to tell him she'd never really loved him and she was leaving him for another man. In the flash of annoyance over his yelling, she forgot she'd promised herself not to be drawn into any petty arguments between now and then, that she'd walk away from conflict where he was concerned until she ready to drop the bomb. She used her elbow to slide some toys out of the way and place the kid's backpacks on the crowded counter. She didn't realize until after she started that she was yelling back at him.

  "Kenneth, why are you cursing at me? Didn't I just listen to you tell me a few days ago that if you don't answer your phone it's because you're busy?"

  "Don't give me that shit, Rachel, you know it's different because you can call me at the station. You weren't at your office, your cell was turned off and I was worried, Jake didn't know where you were, I had no way of getting in touch with you."

  "Oh, don't be so dramatic, Kenneth, you haven't called me in six months. And if you called me six months ago it was probably to tell me I needed to meet the plumber because you were too busy, so I'm sorry my phone was turned off, what did you need?"

  She needed to make dinner and the kids were probably listening from the other room, and she already regretted allowing herself to get pulled into an argument.

  "Your mother has been blowing up my phone all day, she called the chief demanding that he get me on the phone," he went on, his words still raging despite his softened tone, a half-assed attempt at civility, "She said you had a meeting for the gala and you never showed. I came home to look for you, and called the daycare. They said you just left with Lauren."

  Crap. The meeting with Neil Neil the Achille's Heel.

  "Well, here I am, safe and sound. No need to turn this into a bigger deal than it has to be."

  She'd heard that before, something her father always said to her mother when they'd argued.

  "I don't need Savannah calling my boss and trying to throw her weight around, Rachel. I told her you picked up the kids and were on your way home, you need to call her. And don't dismiss the fact that I was worried."

  "Kenneth, I'm sorry my mother harassed your boss, I knew you couldn't have been so angry just because you weren't able to get ahold of me," she sneered.

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means you couldn't care less about what's going on with me, you act like you're the only person who has important stuff going on in their life, you don't care, that's what it means."

  "Of course I care, Rachel, you're my wife!" he yelled, walking from the kitchen towards the den where the kids played video games, his lingering animosity still shouting at her as his boots stomped heavily on the floor.

  ***

  She made her way to the large porch with her glass of wine, grateful the house was finally quiet and she could be alone. Looking out over the driveway that ran through the front yard, she remembered watching as the laborers first poured the mixture of crushed white seashells on the yard. Savannah stood inside yelling at her dad, angry that he'd ordered cheap crushed seashells instead of the fancier crushed stone.

  "Do you ever consider what I want before you do things like this? Don't I have any say in decisions about my own house?" she'd screamed.

  "Of course, Savannah, don't be so angry. Rachel will hear you. We can order the crushed stone next time, I thought you'd like the white seashells, you complimented the Morgan's on theirs when we went over for dinner," he'd said.

  Frank never did stop trying to rationalize with his wife, even after she'd divorced him years later and taken everything.

  "I made a mistake," he said, "It can be fixed. Let's not turn this into a bigger deal than it has to be."

  "You're a selfish, stupid man!" her mother had screamed, "Of course I complimented them on it, I was trying to make them feel better about not being able to afford the better materials! We can afford it and you’re always finding reasons to
be cheap, don't try to manipulate me into thinking you did it to be nice!"

  That wasn't true. Frank never wanted much for himself, but he'd never denied Savannah anything she'd asked for, though he’d sometimes tried to reason with her over some of the more frivolous big money items.

  "But honey," he'd said one Christmas, "What does a beautiful woman in South Texas need with another twenty thousand dollar fur coat?"

  "You never want me to have nice things, Frank! Maybe I should just find a husband who loves me and wants me to look beautiful!"

  After blow ups like that, Savannah would make her way into Rachel's room where she lay on her bed, trying not to overhear. She'd sit closely and wrap her arms around her daughter, something she'd never been able to pull herself to do during times when Rachel had genuinely needed it.

  "Oh Rachel," Savannah would croon, "I'm so sorry your father doesn't want us to spend money on nice clothes or things you need to feel pretty. He's just selfish sometimes, dumplin'. Maybe tomorrow we'll sneak off and buy you some new boots, something nice to wear in the tournament this weekend? Hmmm? I've got some money tucked away that I've been saving for just that occasion, so you can be dressed as prettily as all your little friends."

  Looking back, Rachel understood now that Savannah cared more about what people would think of her if her daughter hadn't shown up to an event and commanded the attention and admiration of the crowd with her expensive black silk riding gear and little gold accessories.

  As she recalled all the moments when Savannah came to her for that sick kind of camaraderie, the revulsion that began with Dylan's revelation that morning continued to grow in Rachel's gut. She was repulsed. How would she ever find the words or the nerve to confront her? Had her mother ever been genuine, ever loved anyone other than herself? What else had she lied about?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jake was waiting inside the office and jumped down her throat the second she walked through the door.

  "Holy shit, Rachel! Where were you yesterday? Do you know Kenneth called me looking for you? You were supposed to meet your mom and the dopehead, Savannah called me, I had to race off and meet them because she didn't know what we wanted. What in the hell were you doing?"