by P. Dangelico
Naked, I push him down and ride him until we’re both sweaty and exhausted. Filled with pent up emotion, it takes everything I have left not to spill my guts.
I want to tell him how much he means to me. How much I love him. Because I do. I love him with all my heart and would never do anything to hurt him. But it won’t come.
“Jake…”
He buries his face in my neck. And when we’re done and he’s holding me and kissing me, I take his face in my hands. “I promise I will never do anything to hurt you. I promise you.”
Chapter 17
It is a steadfast rule that when everything is going exceedingly well in your life something has to come along and carpet bomb it. Sometimes I wonder if the universe is allergic to happy people.
Things between Jake and me are so good it scares me. I am madly in love. I’ve never been this happy before. On the flip side, I’m petrified I’ll be forced to choose between the man I love, or living the life I’ve always dreamed about. Seems unnecessarily cruel that God would make me choose.
We’re getting a summer storm later tonight and a bank of clouds has started to crawl over the green mountain peaks on the other side of the lake. I’m working on the porch, busy piecing together the research on my new column for the week––this one on Songs at Mirror Lake, a free concert series coming up in July––when a burning need to tell Jake that I love him comes over me. Because really, what am I waiting for?
With the column only half done, I jump in the Nan’s Mercedes and take off for the farmhouse. They say the absence makes the heart grow fonder. I say anytime I’m not with him it’s like a hole opens up in me so big I can hear the hollow sound of wind passing through, a constant hunger demanding to be fed. I say fonder is putting it lightly.
There’s an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway next to the Expedition when I get there. A black Escalade, tinted windows, black hubcaps. My investigative mind starts working overtime. Jake didn’t mention anyone coming to visit.
I’m about to reach for the handle of the front door when something tells me not to. My intuition rarely fails me, so I listen. Creeping around the side of the house, I hide behind a tree. And bingo.
Through the large picture window of his studio, I can see Jake half-seated on the stool. He’s wearing the same faded Bears t-shirt I put on him this morning after we had sex in his shower. He smiles broadly, and my heart swells. Nothing makes me happier than seeing Jake smile because he does it so seldomly it feels like a gift.
Problem is, he’s smiling at someone other than me. And not just someone, a woman.
The sense of betrayal I feel is devastating. My heart is pounding so viciously it feels like it might explode inside my chest. And as I search why this pain feels so familiar when I’ve never been in love before, I realize it’s the same feeling, the same pain I felt when my father told us my mother was never coming back.
Never in my life have I ever wanted to be more wrong. And yet my intuition never fails me.
Even though she has her back to the window, I can make out the shape of her. Long legs in skinny jeans, a perfect butt. She has muscle where I have none. She flips her curtain of straight red hair over her shoulder and turns sideways, revealing a face just as attractive as the rest of her. This is my basic nightmare.
When she places her hand on his shoulder, it takes everything I have not to charge in there and break those fingers off. Even worse, judging by their postures, it’s clear as day that they know each other. Maybe an ex-girlfriend? Either way, I can’t watch anymore.
Close to hyperventilating, I bend over to catch my breath. I almost can’t believe it. If I wasn’t seeing it for myself, I wouldn’t believe it. And the thing is, it makes sense.
All the old feelings come storming back. I’m still that Pizza Face kid. And he’ll always be a Stanley Cup winning hockey super star.
Two minutes later I hit the gas and the Mercedes’ diesel engine clangs. The car rips down the driveway, kicking up gravel. The tears don’t start until I hit 73 and head into town.
“Can I come in?”
Zelda looks back at me from behind the screen door of her rental. She’s wearing white shorts, a gingham blouse, and a curious frown on her face.
I drove straight here from the farmhouse, then sat in the car for the past half hour hitting the reject button on my phone and crying my eyes out.
Zelda doesn’t answer fast enough to satisfy my bad mood so I let her have it. “Are you serious right now?”
Her eyebrows quirk up. They haven’t been done in a while and are growing bushy. I also note the beginnings of grey at her temple. This is a woman that used to sleep with fake eyelashes on, mind you. And not the cheap do-it-yourself kind. No, I’m talking the luxury salon variety that cost a fortunate.
“I see you’re going full country. That’s commendable.” The minute I say the words, I want to call them back. I’m not here to take shots at her. I’m here for answers.
“I’m sorry. I’m not here to insult you.”
She pushes the door open and I march inside without sparing her a hello. I just can’t right now.
“Would you like anything to drink?” she asks while I plant myself in a red Adirondack chair on her veranda overlooking the lake.
It’s pretty out here. More populated since it’s a stone’s throw from town. A bunch of people are out on the lake canoeing even though the storm on the horizon is rolling in quickly, the sky grey and gloomy. It suits me. My mood is overcast with a chance of more tears.
“I’ll take a Coke One if you have it…or anything diet.”
“I have ginger ale,” my mother replies. And isn’t that just like her. She asks you what you want and then offers you something not even remotely similar.
“I’ll pass. Thank you.”
Zelda sashays outside with a glass of white white in her hand and a smile in her hazel eyes. She takes a seat in the chair next to mine and sips her Chardonnay.
Meanwhile, I can’t help my roaming attention. I’d forgotten how much we look alike. The same kneecaps, the same slim legs and narrow feet. Her toes are perfectly pedicured in coral polish. Mine in red. If I put my feet next to hers I probably couldn’t tell much of a difference aside from the color of the toes.
Jackie looks exactly like my dad and I resemble Zelda. There’s no denying it. It’s my cross to bear.
My phone vibrates, and Jake’s picture appears on screen. It’s the fourth time he’s called so I finally turn it off.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?”
“No. I’m sure you’ll get around to it.”
If she thinks she’s going to play doctor with me, she is sorely mistaken. “Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m not, Carrie. I’ve asked to see you so we could talk at least a hundred times…” She sips her wine. “I’m done trying. You’re not a hurt little kid anymore. You’re an adult. You should start acting like one.”
The top of my head practically explodes. “I should start acting like one? Are you kidding?” I scoff. “You’ve been running around town trying to hide your illicit affair with my father––”
“I wasn’t hiding anything. I was keeping my word to your father. He wanted to break the news to you girls. I owe him that much.”
“Oh, you owe all of us a lot more than that.”
My mother tips her head back, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
Thing is, I don’t want to fight either.
“Why? Why the sudden change? Why are you here?”
“I made a mistake, Carrie, and I’m trying to repair what I can.”
“You can start by leaving dad alone.”
“I won’t. My relationship with your father is none of your business. Leaving him for Joan wasn’t a mistake. And that’s between your father and me.
“I don’t owe you or your sister an explanation as to why I had to get out of my marriage. Nor do I regret living the life I
wanted to live. I got a degree. I built a successful career. I’m proud of those achievements...The mistake I made was leaving you girls behind.”
Between the farmhouse and this, I can’t push any more emotions back down. They rise up and pour out of me. I wipe my damp cheeks with the back of my hand.
“I was ashamed,” my mother says, her gaze faraway and directed at the ominous cloud cover. “I was ashamed so I ran away. I should’ve been strong enough to take you with me, but I wasn’t. I felt like a caged animal given a taste of freedom and I had to protect that at all cost…unfortunately the cost was my children.”
The silence lasts a good long time. It takes me that long to gather my thoughts and not lash out indiscriminately.
“I was mad at dad for a long time. I said terrible things to him because I thought you couldn’t be the person everyone said you were. I defended you for years.”
Everyday at school, I would wait at the curb, convinced that would be the day Zelda would return. My mother was famous for forgetting. Absentminded, my father called it. She would forget all the time to pick me up from ballet, from piano lessons, from day camp during the summer. I just accepted it.
So I thought it was only a matter of time before Zelda would drive up in her red Subaru Forrester, smiling her bright smile, take me in her arms and apologize. Then everyone would see that she didn’t run away from us. That it was all a mistake. I would be vindicated and I would have my mom back.
Until one day my father got tired of getting calls from the school that I had once again missed the bus. That I was the last kid standing outside, waiting to be claimed like lost luggage.
He drove up that day and parked the car, waited for me to get in and buckle my seatbelt. Then he told me what I was probably way too young to understand at the time. That every time my mom had forgotten to pick me up. It wasn’t because I had slipped her mind. It was because she was with one of her lovers and I was the furthest thing from her thoughts. I never missed the bus again.
My mother wipes her own cheeks, no makeup to outline the tracks of tears falling down her face. “I can’t change the past. I can’t erase what I did. I can only apologize and do better now.”
Something keeps needling me though. “Why now? We didn’t hear from you for years. What’s with the clothes and why are you suddenly changing everything about the life you say you loved.”
“Life isn’t a straight line, Carrie. People are entitled to change their minds. I needed a change...It was time for a change.”
“Why now?”
The woman that gave birth to me turns to look me squarely in the eyes. “I have cancer.”
Multiple Myeloma is a cancer of the bones. Life expectancy––four years. Though some live up to twenty.
I leave my mother’s place under the pretext that I have plans with Jake. I tell her I’ll be back and we can talk then. I’ve processed all that I can for today.
I don’t know how to feel about her being ill and being back in town for good––according to her. But I know there’s still a lot to resolve, a ton of hurt and mistrust on my end, and her being sick doesn’t absolve her of any of that.
As I’m walking home, the heaven’s decide to unleash hell. A carpet of anthracite grey clouds breaks open over me. And as if the pelting rain isn’t bad enough, the lighting starts soon after that. In seconds my Helmut Lang overall shorts and tank top are soaked, my red Pumas are squishy, and my buns are falling apart.
I’m halfway home when a set of headlights racing downhill pass me and stop. The barely distinguishable SUV pulls over to the side of the road and Jake gets out. “Carrie!” he yells from the other side as cars zip back and forth between us.
I keep walking because fuck him.
“Carrie! The hell are you doing!”
Picking up the pace, I glance over my shoulder to find him crossing the street and jogging after me. Naturally, I start to run. It takes all of a two seconds for him to catch up and throw me over his shoulder.
The screaming and pounding on his back do nothing to slow him down. He hauls me to the car and places me in the passenger seat. “Don’t even think about getting out of this car,” he barks, anger in his demeanor that no sane person would ever want to face down.
I wait until he gets in the driver’s seat and pulls a U-turn to drive us back to the cottage.
“Have you lost your mind!” I’m so mad I can’t even reply. Then the anger turns cold and the fight leaves me. “Why didn’t you answer when I called?” he continues to hammer me.
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” I calmly reply, staring out ahead.
Jake parks in the spot in front of the Austen and turns the engine off. The rain falling harder than ever, it’s a sheet of solid water on the windshield.
“What is going on? Everything was fine this morning, and now you won’t speak to me?” A pause. “Are you on the rag?”
That gets a reaction. I turn to look at him with what is definitely murder in my eyes. His hair is soaked and slicked back, his eyes wild with confusion and anger.
“You’re an asshole.”
He jerks back, surprise written on his face. “I’m the asshole? I am? How am I the asshole? Explain that to me. I find you walking home in the middle of a thunderstorm and you won’t speak to me, but I’m the asshole––”
“I came to see you! I was at the farmhouse today. I saw her, Jake––the redhead. I saw her. So yeah, you are the asshole.”
He blinks. Blinks again. The beads of water on his lashes are making them stick together and appear thicker and darker. No man should be that lucky.
His mouth quivers. “You were at the farmhouse?”
“Isn’t that what I said?” I snap.
He bites his bottom lip, his white teeth looking brighter in contrast to his beard.
“Around four?”
“Yes, Sherlock. Around four.”
He makes a sound between a snort and a sigh. “But you didn’t come inside. Instead, you decided to play investigative reporter…” The mocking tone is not doing him any favors. He’s not even denying it. I’m wrecked. “Instead, you spied on me.”
“I’m getting out.”
“The hell you are,” he fires back rather angrily. “Sit your ass down and listen.”
“You have some nerve––”
“––That was the daughter of the owner of the Chicago Blackhawks that you saw me with.”
Huh? Is that supposed to make me feel better?
When he sees the blank look on my face, he exhales tiredly. “They want me to play for them.”
Oh. A sinking sensation comes over me.
“Why was she at your house?”
“Because I’ve turned down their offer twice and they thought making a pitch in person would make a difference. Autumn is the GM…the general manager of the team.”
“I know what a GM is thank you very much.”
Jake tried to school a grin. We stare at each other, neither one of us wanting to be the first to look away.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
Soaking wet and looking like hell, I crawl out of my seat and straddle his lap, place my forehead against his equally soaked neck.
Jake wraps his arms, warm and secure, around me, pets my back, gently untangles my hair. All the while my insides wrestle between hysterical laughter and shame.
And love. So much love I can barely contain it all. “I’m sorry.”
He hums. “Don’t ever quit talking to me, okay? If you have a problem, tell me.”
I nod. And just when I think I can’t possibly love this man anymore than I already do, he makes a liar out of me.
Chapter 18
“What’s on the agenda today?” I ask, sipping one of the lattes I made for us.
Jake gives me a knowing smile that means I’m not getting any information out of him. Then he spoons Cheerios in a mouth made pink by all the kissing we’re doing lately.
Love is one powerful drug.
I would never say this out loud, but every time I look at him I can’t believe he’s mine. I mean––not mine per se. I know this is temporary. I’m not living in a fictional world. Eventually, we’ll part ways. The problem starts when I think of us actually partying ways. Then I get sick to my stomach.
The Blackhawks want him badly. They haven’t given up trying to get him either. Since the GM showed up in town a few weeks ago, he gets a just checking in call with more dollars attached every week.
I have a sneaking suspicion Jake wants to take the offer too.
“All you need to know is that we’re going on a hike. I took care of everything else. Equipment, boots everything…”
“Equipment? Hmm, sounds serious.”
He puts the bowl down in the sink, wipes his hands and mouth on a paper napkin, and walks up to where I’m standing at the other end of the small kitchenette.
Taking the cup out of my hand, he places it down on the table. Then he picks me up and places me on the counter. His face snuggles against the side of my neck as he steps between my legs. It didn’t take long for us to figure out each other’s likes and needs. There is also something to be said about practice.
My hands instinctively rise to cup his head and my short nails rake through his hair. He sighs contentedly, and I do it again.
I knew Jake would be a great lover, I just never expected him to be so affectionate. So willing to give affection and comfort, and so desperate to receive it. It makes my heart ache for what he missed out on as a kid.
“You need a haircut,” I tell him, kissing his temple and making lazy figure eights against the dense pile of dark brown hair. “I can’t believe how fast your hair grows.”
“I need you,” he mutters against my skin, the feeling heightened by the rasp of his voice and the kisses that follow.