by Jamie Canosa
“Let’s go.” Kiernan dropped a warm hand on my lower back and directed me toward the car. “Mom wanted her out of here, we’re getting her out of here. She’ll be fine, Cal.”
His brother hesitated only a moment longer before joining us beside the Bentley and opening the passenger door for me. Despite how cramped his long legs must have been in the backseat, he let me ride shotgun beside Kiernan.
“Are you alright?” After steering us out of the complex and onto the main road, Kiernan’s hand settled on my knee.
“I’m fine.” Except for the part where I was completely freaking out.
“Jade.” Kiernan’s eyes flicked to me and back to the road ahead. “Please don’t lie to me.”
I shot him a look that said more than I meant it to and he grimaced. “I know. I know I’m the last person on the planet that should be asking for honesty from you but—”
“I won’t lie to you, Kiernan. I’m just a little nervous about what’s going on back there, and how my mom’s going to react when I get home.”
“If our mom stirs up trouble,” Caulder leaned between the two front seats, planting a hand on my headrest to stabilize himself, “I’m sure she won’t mind you crashing at our house for a few days until things settle down.”
“No.” Lord, no. All I wanted was for this to be over with. Suck it up, face the music, and move on. Until then, I was going to be one big raging ball of nerves. Letting it stretch out over days? No doubt I’d make myself sick. And extending this would only serve to piss her off more than she already was. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Jade—” Kiernan spoke up and I was feeling outnumbered again.
“I’m going home tonight, Kiernan. I have to.”
“But what if—?”
“I can handle my mom.”
My hand settled over his and he frowned back at me. “I hate it when you say that. I hate that this is your life.”
“I know.” And the fact that I did know that eased some of the strain in my chest.
***
Kiernan took my coat, and finding no logical excuse to keep them on any longer, I removed my gloves, as well. Handing them over to a distracted Kiernan, I counted down the seconds to impact. T-minus-5, 4, 3 . . . He hung my jacket on a hanger beside his own, tucking the gloves into the pocket and shutting the door before turning back to me. 2, 1 . . .
“What happened to your hands?” Blastoff!
“Nothing.” Having taken the entire morning to solidify it, I had my explanation lined up and ready to go. “The stupid clock on my living room wall fell last night and I cut my hands trying to clean it up.”
The lie churned my gut, but the truth would have done worse to Kiernan.
“Are you okay?” Pulling my hand closer, he peeled back part of the bandage to peek underneath. “Are you sure you don’t need stitches? Mom could—”
“No. I’m fine, Kiernan. Really. She already looked. They’re not even bleeding anymore. I just didn’t want them to get infected.”
I cast a glance over Kiernan’s shoulder and made an instantaneous decision. I never wanted to play poker with Caulder Parks. He stood there, his face a complete blank, as though he had no idea what I was talking about.
I avoided having a stroke for the rest of the afternoon by the grace of the Parks boys alone. They went above and beyond trying to distract me from my nauseating thoughts, even going as far as suffering through one of their mother’s ‘chick flicks’. It helped, but not as much as when Caulder pulled out an old photo album and they started sharing stories of the places they’d been and the things they’d seen, gracefully sweeping over any mention of their father by some unspoken agreement.
Kiernan could surf. I didn’t know that about him, but I wasn’t surprised. I doubted there was anything the boy couldn’t do. And Caulder loved Paris. I couldn’t even imagine Paris, but the pictures from their trip were amazing. They’d been to the Eiffel Tower and the Roman Coliseum. Ireland, Egypt, Australia, the Parks’ covered the globe. Been places and seen things I could only dream about. But they took me there, on an amazing adventure, through their pictures and their narrations.
They hadn’t visited solely as tourists. They’d immersed themselves in the culture, even volunteering— everything from beach cleanup crews to soup kitchens—everywhere they went. And they seemed to have loved every second of it. The two of them got so wrapped up in recounting every last detail to me, from the sights and sounds and scents to the local cuisine that I almost felt as though I’d been there with them.
We went around the world in four hours until Kiernan slid the book closer to himself and began examining a family shot more closely. His fingers trailed over the faces of each of his family members as though committing them to memory.
Brow scrunched, he lifted his gaze to me. “Where’s my mom?”
I wasn’t entirely sure I understood the question. “With . . . my mom?”
“Oh.” He made it sound like that was news to him. “And my dad? Where’s he? Still at work?”
A cold knot twisted in the pit of my stomach. What was happening? “Kiernan . . . Are you okay?”
“Would you excuse us for a minute, Jade?” Nothing ever seemed to faze Caulder. “I need to speak with my brother.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. Whatever was going on, Caulder seemed to have it under control. Then again, he always did. I moved into the kitchen to give them some privacy and anxiously paced the floor.
Ten minutes later, I was beginning to wear out the tiles when Caulder came to find me. “Is he okay? Is there something wrong with—?”
“He’s fine.” Caulder lifted his hands, urging me to relax. “It’s the tumor. Sometimes it puts a little extra pressure on his brain and makes him . . . confused.”
“How long does it last?”
“Depends. Usually not long. He’s fine now. Just embarrassed. He hates it when he forgets stuff like that. It’s why I asked you to leave the room. It wasn’t personal. He just . . . didn’t need an audience.”
“No. Of course not.” I was bordering on speechless trying to imagine what it must be like to have to live that way. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah. It’s not particularly fun having to hear that your dad bailed on you when you needed him most over and over again, and feeling like it’s the first time, every time.”
My heart clenched. Not just for Kiernan, but for Caulder, as well. “It can’t be much fun having to be the one to break the news over and over again, either.”
“No. Not much.” Caulder glanced away, stretched his neck and cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go check on Kiernan and I’ll get something started in here for dinner?”
My eyes shot to the clock and I nearly choked. It was after five and Mrs. Parks still wasn’t home. She couldn’t possibly still be with my mother . . . Could she? Maybe leaving her there alone had been a mistake.
I wandered toward the living room in a daze, too lost in my own thoughts to really notice where I was going. Autopilot led me right back to Kiernan, where I sank down onto the sofa.
“Jade?” I twisted to find him watching me. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I just . . .” I looked at him for a long moment, letting my thoughts settle. What had just happened with him felt too big to simply ignore, but I knew what it felt like to be humiliated, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Certainly not Kiernan. Besides, what was there really to say? So, instead, I focused on the other issue I was equally unlikely to solve. “I should probably get home. It’s getting late.”
“You know what my mom said. She wanted to talk with your mom privately.”
“That was hours ago, Kiernan.” I shot a glance at the kitchen to make sure Caulder was out of earshot. “Maybe we shouldn’t have left her there alone.”
A grin tipped one side of Kiernan’s mouth, brining only one dimple out to play. “You think your mom has her tied up in the bathtub?”
Okay, when he said it like that, but .
. . “What could possibly be taking so long?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure my mom will tell us everything when she gets back.”
I took a deep breath and folded my arms around the middle to hide the way my hands had begun trembling. “I have to go home eventually, Kiernan. And my mom . . . She’s . . .”
“Hey.” Prying my arms open, Kiernan slid me onto his lap and folded me in his. “It’s gonna be alright. Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. I promise.” He planted a soft kiss on my forehead and buried his face in my hair. “I promise.”
I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to go anywhere. If it were up to me, I would have stayed right there in Kiernan’s arms for the rest of my life and died happy. But that’s not how the world works. No sooner had Kiernan made his declaration than the glow of headlights coming up the drive illuminated the living room wall.
Caulder rejoined us just as his mother came through the front door. “Mom?”
She looked tired and stressed, but otherwise unlike someone who had been taken hostage in a bathtub. “Boys, would you mind excusing us? Jade and I need to speak.” Mrs. Parks didn’t wait for an answer, striding past Caulder into the living room to take a seat on the beige sofa facing the one where Kiernan and I sat.
When it came right down to it, I really didn’t want to know what it was we needed to speak about. After seeing where I came from, who I was on a genetic level, I wasn’t all that keen on hearing what Mrs. Parks thought about it. About me. Desperate for escape—to prolong the inevitable—my eyes went to Kiernan, but he was no help at all.
“You’ll be fine.” With a squeeze of my hand, he got up and disappeared down the hall toward the kitchen before I had the chance to argue that highly debatable fact.
Caulder slipped away hot on his heels and the urge to growl at the retreating backs of the two traitors was overwhelming. The only thing that kept me from actually going through with it was Mrs. Parks sitting three feet away.
Without backup, I fell prey to my usual tactics. Avoid, avoid, avoid. “I really should get home. My mother—”
“Isn’t there.”
“What?”
“Your mother isn’t home.”
Of course she wasn’t. After the day she’d had, no doubt she had to find somewhere to drink it away. “Oh.”
“She’s at an AA meeting downtown.”
“What?” Clearly, I was hearing things. Or dreaming. Maybe this whole day had been some kind of warped nightmare.
She sighed and slumped back on the cushions, looking exhausted. “We have a lot to talk about.”
I fidgeted in my seat, antsy to make a run for it. To get home and get whatever I had coming over with, but if what Mrs. Parks said was true, Mom wasn’t there anyway. And I was frustratingly aware of how much I wanted to know more about that particular bit of information.
“Your mother is . . . Well, she’s a bit of a mess.”
Tell me about it. I shifted in my seat and opted to keep my mouth shut.
“We talked for a long time. Once she got past the screaming and the yelling, she really started to open up. I think she just needed someone to listen.”
That definitely wasn’t me. Every time she opened her mouth, I ducked and ran for cover. I’d never once showed her the kind of patience that Mrs. Parks had.
“The woman you know . . . The woman that says those hurtful things . . . That’s not your mother. Not really. It’s her addiction controlling her body and her mouth, but not her heart. Deep down, your mother loves you as much as I do. She just doesn’t know how to show it. She’s angry. At her life, at herself, at your situation, at her addiction, and she doesn’t know how to handle it. So she releases all that pent up anger on the only safe thing in her life. You. It’s not fair. She knows that, but that only serves to make her angrier. It a vicious, relentless cycle, but she does want to break it. That’s why she’s at a meeting as we speak. She wants help, she just didn’t know how to ask for it.”
I took a moment to let that sink in before latching on to the only part I dared to believe may actually be true. “You . . . you . . . love me?”
“Sweetie.” In one swift movement, she switched from her couch to mine and pulled me into her arms. “Yes, I love you. You are as much a part of this family as anyone under this roof. And don’t you forget it.”
I hadn’t even felt the tears coming before they were streaming down my face. Besides Kiernan, she was the only person who’d ever said those words to me. She’d made me a part of a family. A real family. Her family.
I was emotionally drained. Worn out from the constant stress I’d been under all afternoon, and it made pulling myself together all the more difficult. Mrs. Parks handed me a tissue from the end table and retreated to her own sofa, giving me the space I needed to get a grip. Everything she’d said bounced around my brain.
My mother wanted help? This whole time? And I hadn’t even noticed? All I’d done my entire life was enable her addiction. Let it control her. Let it control me. Not anymore. “What can I do?”
“This won’t be easy,” Mrs. Parks warned. “A condition like hers won’t go away overnight. It’s going to be a lifelong battle. She’ll need your help.”
Battling was something I was used to, but now I had something worth fighting for. “How do I help?”
“Everyone’s different. Take your cues from her and try to give her what she needs, whether it’s a listening ear, or a distraction, or just some space.”
“Okay.” I could do that. Over the years, I’d become fluent at reading my mother. My emotional well-being depended on it.
Twenty Two
The next week and a half were pure awkward on a level I’d never experienced before. I tried to stick close to home, be there for Mom. For her part, she pretty much avoided me. Maybe she felt guilty about the past seventeen years. Maybe some cruel part of me wanted her to feel guilty. Maybe she simply felt weird about the whole situation. I know I did. It was like living with a stranger I’d known my entire life.
The most notable change could be found in the kitchen. The fridge full of things like fresh fruits and vegetables, and meat that had to actually be cooked in an oven, was about as foreign as the well-stocked shelves in the pantry. Cereal, bread, rice . . . We had cookies. I couldn’t remember ever having cookies in the house.
Mom went to AA meetings three times a week. Besides that, she barely left her room. I think she was depressed, and that was part of the reason for the drinking in the first place. Mrs. Parks offered to get her into counseling, but Mom hadn’t been willing to commit that far, yet. The good news was I hadn’t seen a single drink, or one sign that she’d been drinking, since her talk with Kiernan’s mom. AA was helping, and I had her sponsor’s number, just in case.
“Close your eyes.”
Mom was busy with her Saturday afternoon meeting and Kiernan had come over to rescue me from the cabin fever starting to take hold.
“What?”
“Close your eyes. I want to surprise you.”
“With what?” I glanced around, expecting to find something out of place, but all I saw was Kiernan’s house, the gravel driveway we were standing in, his car, Caulder’s car, and the brownish sludge last week’s snowfall had already melted into.
“It’s a surprise.”
I sighed, feigning annoyance when really I was getting that tingly excited feeling inside. Kiernan’s arms folded around me, bringing with them a warmth body heat alone couldn’t account for.
“Step.” His hot breath coated the back of my neck, making all the tiny hairs there stand up and take notice as he led me up to the front door, where he paused to wrestle it open.
The scents of warm sugar and pine mingled in my nostrils the moment we stepped inside, and I had to fight the urge to open my eyes and seek out the source. We moved through the door, somewhat clumsily, and I stood there feeling more than a little foolish with my eyes shut.
“Can I open them now?”
“Not yet.” Kiernan led me a little farther toward what I knew was the staircase and I fervently hoped he wasn’t going to make me climb all the way to the second floor, blind. “Okay. Open them.”
I did. And I gasped. We’d stepped into a holiday edition of Better Homes and Gardens. Fresh garland framed every doorway and wound its way up the stairs, decorated with bright red poinsettias. Shiny glass ornaments hung from the ceiling casting green, red, and gold light across the walls and floor. Candles added to the ambiance, glowing on nearly every available surface. In the living room, a beautiful angel, dressed in white, graced the mantle, surrounded by more than a dozen miniature Santas. And in the corner stood the most extravagant Christmas tree I’d ever seen. It must have been eight feet tall and covered top to bottom in winking colored lights. Tinsel littered every branch, and the most beautiful white star shone brightly on top.
I’d never seen anything like it. “It’s incredible. Did you do all of this?”
“Me?” Kiernan smirked and shook his head. “No. I woke up this morning living in a winter wonderland. Mom must have done it.”
“It’s amazing.”
“She can get a little carried away sometimes, but I knew you’d love it the moment I saw it.”
“I really do.” I couldn’t stop staring at the tiny white lights twinkling along the railing of the staircase.
“And best of all . . .” He pointed upward, and my gaze tracked the gesture to a piece of mistletoe affixed to the door frame directly above us.
My laughter was cut short when Kiernan’s lips closed over mine, drinking it in like water in the desert.
“I love the sound of your laugh. I don’t hear it nearly enough.”
Heat rushed my cheeks and it was Kiernan’s turn to chuckle.
“You—” I fumbled for something—anything to say—and was quite literally saved by the bell. Or the phone, but close enough.