I Love You Too Much

by Alicia Drake

  “I decide!” she shouted.

  “You’re hurting me!” Scarlett cried out. “Stop.”

  “Stop, Maman,” I said.

  My hand flew up and grabbed Maman’s hand, wrenched it away from Scarlett’s throat. I held it in the air. I saw it tremble and flutter there. She struggled to free herself from my grip.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  Scarlett put both her hands to her burning neck. The skin was raw and red where Maman had held her.

  “You hurt me,” she said. “You hurt me too much.”

  Maman stood breathing hard through her nose, like a horse, her head down. I held on to her wrist. She looked up at me. “It was never you she wanted,” she said. “Don’t you see that? You were just a way in.”

  I don’t know what Scarlett did then. I don’t remember where she went. I guess she must have gone into my mother’s dressing room to get her clothes, because when I came back into the corridor, she was wearing a sky-blue sweater with a pink and white unicorn on it. Her face was pale. Her eyes were empty. She looked small and frail inside the fluffy sweater. She didn’t look at Gabriel. She didn’t speak to him.

  I stood in the corner by the front door. I was crying. She came toward me, holding tight to her phone. She stopped in front of me. She was fiddling with the little toys dangling from her phone. I could see the pale freckles on the side of her nose. She had painted thick black sweeps of eyeliner on her eyes. Her neck was still red.

  “Why did you do it?” I said.

  “I told you, I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did. You’re here with him. You wore my mother’s stuff. You let him take your photo. You told me he was an asshole.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. She was sullen, closed.

  “It’s no big deal,” she said.

  “It is to me,” I said.

  “Don’t look at me like that. You ought to be pleased. Now you can have your precious Maman back.”

  She smiled her secret smile and then she leaned forward and kissed me. She kissed me somewhere near my mouth, but not on my mouth. She kissed me so lightly that afterward, I wondered if she had kissed me at all. When she drew back her head, she was already far away and I knew then she was leaving me.

  “Why do you have to destroy everything?” I said. “Everything around you. You destroy.”

  She flinched as if I’d hit her. But still she didn’t cry, she didn’t blink, she just stared at me, her pupils like tiny bullet holes.

  “I can’t help the way I am, Paul,” she said.

  “Then go,” I said. “Get out of my life. I don’t want you the way you are.”

  She stayed a moment longer, not moving, hovering in the doorway while I wept. And then she said, “It’s not true, what she said. You are my friend.”

  “Is that what this is? Friendship.”

  She shrugged and held her palms up toward me.

  And then she opened the door.

  “So long, Paul,” she said softly. “I’ll miss you.”

  She walked away from me; she left the door wide open after she had gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I sat with my back against the wall and my head on my knees. My leg was bruised. My body ached. There was silence.

  Then Maman said: “Why do you do this to me now? Now that I’m old.” Her voice was just a whisper. I didn’t know who she was talking to, if she meant Gabriel or me or if it was really my father she was talking to.

  Then she clenched her fists and beat at her thighs. “What have you done to me? You’ve taken everything you wanted.”

  I had nothing to give, nothing I could say.

  Gabriel took a step toward her.

  “Stay away from me,” she said. “I want you out. Do you understand?”

  “Babe, you don’t mean that.”

  “You think I don’t know?” she said. “You think I don’t know the signs? What, do you think I’m a fool, Gabriel? You think I don’t know about men? I know all there fucking is to know about men. I don’t want you in Lou’s life. You’ll never see her again.”

  “Come on, babe, you don’t mean that, she’s my child.”

  “Says who?” Maman shouted.

  He looked confused.

  “Well, everyone. Everyone says she is,” he said.

  He looked around for help. “She’s got my nose, my eyes.” He laughed; he opened up his hands so they were facing the ceiling. I’d never seen him wrong-footed before. He looked at me, waiting for me to back him up, waiting for me to say, You’re right, Gabriel, she looks just like you.

  “You think you are the only one? The big daddy?” Maman said. She made her mouth go ugly around the word daddy. “Don’t kid yourself, Gabriel.”

  He looked at her as if he didn’t understand. She stared at him.

  “Get out,” she said.

  She walked down the corridor and into her bedroom and then she started throwing his clothes out into the hall. He didn’t have that many clothes, a couple of pairs of jeans, some sweatshirts, his leather jacket, his underpants. He didn’t need a moving van. She threw his sneakers out one by one and they bounded along the corridor and landed near my feet.

  It was as if the physical action stoked her anger, because next she ran back along the corridor and into the living room and she grabbed hold of his guitar, the acoustic one, the one he’d played when Scarlett came around. She held it high above her head.

  “No, Séverine,” Gabriel said when he saw what she was going to do.

  She threw it across the living room and into the corridor. It landed on the parquet and skidded up against the skirting board and fell back. It made a twanging sound as it landed. I heard it crack and splinter. Next she went over to the electric guitar. Gabriel cried out.

  “Not the Gibson,” he said. “Babe, not the Gibson.”

  “Yes, the fucking Gibson!” she shouted.

  She tried to wrench it off its guitar stand, but it was fixed in, so she kicked at it instead. She kicked it onto the floor and then she kicked at it again, savagely, six times, until the polished auburn wood was ruptured and broken.

  “Please, Séverine,” he begged; he stood between the acoustic and the Gibson. “You’ve got to stop.”

  “Get out!” she shouted.

  “I’ll go,” he said, “I’ll go. I just need a taxi. Babe, listen to me, just call me a taxi and I’ll go.”

  Maman stared at Gabriel, and then she laughed out loud, a strange, high-pitched laugh that made me wonder if she was high.

  “I’d rather die than call you a taxi.”

  That was all she said; no more insults, no more shouting, not another word. She turned away and walked into her bedroom, then into her bathroom. She slammed the door and I heard the lock turn.

  Gabriel unplugged the Gibson from the amp. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands; he touched it like it was his child. I sat and watched him. After a while, he looked up and saw me there, staring at him.

  “Hey, Paul, don’t suppose you have a number for a taxi, do you?”

  I unlocked my phone and pulled up the number for G7. He came across to me and I passed him the phone.

  “Thanks,” he said. He dialed the number and waited for them to pick up. “You know what, Paul? She’ll be fine once she’s calmed down a bit. I’ll come back and explain. Don’t you worry about this. Yeah, hi there, I need a taxi, please.”

  After he’d ordered his taxi he went over and started picking up the clothes that were lying in the corridor and stuffing them into a big, black leather bag.

  The intercom buzzed above my head. I couldn’t get up. Gabriel came over to answer it. He stretched across me. The taste of his aftershave hit the back of my mouth. His leg pressed against my leg.

  “Excuse me,” he said to me, and then he spoke into the intercom. “Yeah, I’ll be right down.”

  He picked up his guitars and the leather bag. He came and stood before me. He looked a little shamefaced then, but only for abou
t a minute, not like he was gonna lose any sleep over it.

  “Paul, look, I’m sorry about Scarlett. We were just having a bit of fun, you know, nothing serious. I mean, you guys were never together and we were just taking some pictures for our new album, I’m trying to get some visuals for the band and I think she wanted to send some hot photos to some guy she’s after. Maybe when your mom cools down, you could say that to her, that it was nothing, you know, nothing major. Hey, I’ve got to go, the taxi is downstairs, but tell Lou I’ll be back to see her and maybe me and you and Lou, we could hang out, go to Euro Disney one day.” He looked hopeful when he said that; he looked like he honestly believed it could happen.

  I shuffled out of his way so that he could get by with his guitars and his bag. He closed the door quietly behind him. I stayed there a while, I don’t know how long, and then I got to my feet. My leg had seized up and I couldn’t walk properly. I went into Maman’s bedroom. The bed was made, but the rest of the room was wrecked. There were clothes and high heels and a hairdryer lying on the floor and I wondered if it was Maman that had done that or if it was Scarlett. There was no noise from the bathroom. I knocked on the door.

  “Maman?” I said.

  “Leave me alone,” she said.

  “It’s not my fault. It was Gabriel that chased her; he wouldn’t leave her alone.”

  “Go away, ” I said. “I don’t want to know.”

  I stood there with my face up against the door listening to her cry. I was crying too. It wasn’t fair; they made this happen.

  The door to her dressing room was open. I went in. The light was on. It was dark outside. The white walls looked gray. There were four full-length mirrors in there. They hung from the front of the cupboards and they were all around me so I could see myself, over and over, forever.

  It was like a shrine to Maman; the cashmere, the mousseline blouse, the black leather skirt, all the handbags and belts—everything was waiting for her. She’d said the good thing about my father leaving was that she had more room for her clothes. I ran my hand across her dresses; they swayed a little on their hangers. I stroked the soft suede of her boot; I put my hand inside the opening, reached with my fingers to the tip of the inner sole. I opened her drawers. I looked for the bra. I wondered if Scarlett had taken it with her. But it was there, folded up, put back neatly among the others, harmless now. I pushed my fingers into the cups of satin. I touched the raw edge of the lace. I felt the shape of her.

  I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself, Maman’s bra hanging by my side, dead and lifeless. Then I grabbed hold of it and I twisted it, the hard metal underwires, one half-moon and then the other. I twisted it until it was broken and deformed. I bent it so that she would never wear it again.

  I closed my eyes. I wanted to go to her then, to find her lying on her pink duvet with the curtains open and lamplight on her face. I wanted to take her hand and lead her onto the floor, to lie with her on the white sheepskin rug. I wouldn’t try to take her clothes off. I wouldn’t call her a slut or push my dick against her. I would lie by her side and stroke her hair. I would take away the pain.

  I stood by the window in my mother’s dressing room with my eyes closed and I felt something fall; my heart, my hope. I don’t know what it was. Something dropped suddenly; it fell away inside of me, blunt and final. Down, down it fell, like an elevator plunging inside a dark shaft. I reached out and put my hand against the wall to steady myself. I opened my eyes. But I was still falling.

  I walked out of the dressing room; I went into my bedroom. I went to the window. Snow was falling in the dark; huge snowflakes, so large and flat, they spun around and around, turning to powder as they hit the ground.

  I opened the window. Now there was a gaping hole and the night air was cold against my teeth. Every detail of the courtyard stood out against the snow: two drainpipes ran down beside each other and disappeared into the bottom corner of the wall in a darkened patch. An empty white plastic planter hung from the top balustrade. The snowflakes fell on my face, wet and feathery.

  Once I found a dead bird that had fallen from its nest; it had no feathers, only down. It was a fledgling and it didn’t look sad to have died; it looked at peace. It looked happy not to have to go through the pain of living.

  I thought about Scarlett and me on the swing. I thought about flying high through the cold air and the thrill of it. It had felt like the beginning of something.

  I looked down out of the window. I could see the cobbles in the dark; they shone up at me. The folded shutters of Teresa’s apartment glowed white. The girl opposite was sitting at her desk working. The snow wasn’t sticking. What else could I do? Stay away from the window, Paul. Cindy will be home soon.

  Shut the fuck up. I’m not listening to you anymore; I’ve had it with listening to you.

  The windows opposite were black, opaque; no amount of sun would ever light them up. There were metal grates in the stone of the wall. I thought of mouths behind the grates, mouths breathing in and breathing out, calling out to me.

  The door opened behind me.

  “Paul,” a voice cried out. It was Cindy’s voice. “Paul,” she said again.

  I turned around. She was standing against the light of the corridor. She had Lou in her arms. I saw the panic in her face. I tried to remember what the guy on TV said about free-falling; orgasmic, that was what he said. She shifted Lou from her arms up onto her shoulder and she took two small steps toward me.

  “There is too much pain now, Cindy,” I said.

  “I know that, Paul.” She looked like she would cry.

  “How can you know?” I said. “You don’t know about Scarlett and Gabriel. Maman says it was me that brought her here. I didn’t do it, Cindy. I didn’t make these things happen. She says it’s my fault. It wasn’t me, Cindy. You don’t know about my father.”

  “I know it is not you,” Cindy said, “that is not who you are.”

  “Scarlett has gone,” I said.

  She held out her hand to me. Lou’s cheek was pushed against her shoulder; white watery lumps trailed from Lou’s mouth across Cindy’s sweatshirt. The cold air pressed at my back. Cindy stood just in front of me. She swayed her body from side to side, rocking Lou in her arms.

  “You are not your father,” she said.

  She said it to me in her strange English, she said it standing there, small and crying, looking at me, holding out her hand. I could smell the fabric softener coming off her clothes.

  “I’ll make you rice, Paul. I’ll make you rice like you like.”

  I looked at her standing there—she was so small—and I thought about her two kids and how she hadn’t seen them for six years and how she’d looked after me all that time and I thought, If I die now, somehow my death will be her death. And I thought how it would be Cindy who would have to clean me up off the cobblestones, the way Essie had to clean my father’s sweat off the parquet.

  And I thought of Lou left on her own in her cot while Cindy was downstairs hosing me off the courtyard. I thought of Lou and leaving her in all this loneliness. I wasn’t my father. Is that what she said?

  “I’m going to close the window,” Cindy said, “so I need you to hold Lou.”

  She passed me Lou. Her body was warm and heavy with sleep. I held her in my arms. I had never held her before. Her hands were folded over each other, clasped together as she slept. I touched her hands; they were warm and a little clammy. Her face was shiny. She smelled of milk. The weight of her steadied me, held me in place.

  Cindy reached up and shut the windows, then she turned the handle so that the white painted metal rod rose up and fitted back into its slot and the two windows met in the middle and closed.

  The girl opposite was standing at her window, looking at me. Her face was grave, pale, lit up by the light above her. She didn’t acknowledge me, she didn’t nod, she made no sign, but she was staring straight at me. She saw me there in front of her. I know that.

  “Come, Paul
,” Cindy said. “I will make you rice.”

  I turned away from the window.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I ate without thinking. I used a spoon like I was a baby, shoveling the rice into my mouth, letting myself sink in the warm white grains. Cindy stayed with me; she padded around the kitchen, back and forth between the fridge and the microwave, fixing Lou a bottle. Lou was in her high chair trying to stuff some toy keys into her mouth.

  I wondered how Cindy knew what to say to me, how she had the right words. I wondered if it was from reading the Bible that she knew these things, that she had this certainty.

  I checked my phone. There was a message waiting from Scarlett.

  You could have trusted me, but you never did. Don’t you remember the wounded hearts, Paul? There are some wounds that never heal. Sometimes you die wounded.

  I stared at the message. I read it again.

  Lou was banging the keys on the high-chair table, making noises from the back of her throat, trying to get my attention. She had saliva dribbling down her chin.

  I stood up.

  “I have to go out now, Cindy,” I said.

  “Now?” she said, looking at my half-eaten bowl of rice. “It is so cold outside.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But I need to go now.”

  I texted Scarlett.

  I’m coming, I wrote.

  I went to the front door. I opened it and walked down the steps, dialing her number as I went, but I couldn’t get a signal in the staircase. I started to run down the stairs. I checked my phone to see if she had replied. The woman who lives on the second floor was coming up the stairs carrying her shopping. I waited for her to go past me. Teresa was in her room. She had the television on loud; I could see the news flickering behind her lace curtains.

  I opened the door to our apartment building and I tripped as I stepped over the bottom of the door frame. The melting snow made it wet underfoot and I slipped on the pavement. I knocked my ankle against the bins that Teresa had set out. I swore and put out my hand to stop myself falling. I righted myself and I started to run as best I could with my bad leg. I called her on my phone as I ran to her apartment.