“I can handle it. I’m fine. I mean, I’m in a mental hospital, so obviously I’m not fine, but my moods have plateaued out, and I have nothing else to do except talk endlessly about me. Which is not my favorite subject.” Eyes lowered, she picked at something on her thigh. “And Darius?” Her voice turned soft at the edges. “Do you know how he is?”
“Only what Jade’s told me.” Which didn’t add up to much, now that he thought about it.
Not that he wanted to be sexist, but Gabriel had never seen a grown man cry quite so much as Darius the night after Marianne was admitted to the Beeches. Marriage counseling wasn’t his strong suit, and most of Gabriel’s close friends were bachelors. The only marriage he’d ever seen up close and personal was that of his parents. And that seemed to be built on resignation, not devotion. “If you say so, my dear” was the most-spoken phrase in his childhood home. But marriage, under any circumstances, was sacred, and it was his duty to help repair Marianne’s. Whatever his impressions of Darius, who was currently vying with Bill Collins for the title of least likeable person in the world.
Sorry, God. Sorry.
“Your husband is desperate to talk with you, to reassure you of his love. Will you reconsider, agree to take his phone calls?”
“I can’t right now, and I have my reasons. Please don’t push. But I need to know that someone apart from me has Jade’s best interests at heart—can do whatever it takes to keep her safe if I’m not up for the job. And what I’m about to tell you is confidential.”
“Absolutely.”
Marianne turned away to watch pigeons settle around another patient who was tossing out bread crumbs from a small plastic bag. She turned back slowly. “When you asked if I had kids that first day, you never asked the most important question.”
He leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs. “What should I have asked?”
“You should have asked whether I wanted kids.”
“But I knew the answer. Two girls and two boys, if memory serves.” He smiled. “You always did think big.”
“Enough was never enough for me.”
“I know.” He’d known months before the accident that he would never be enough for Marianne.
“I picked the number four so as not to scare you, but I wanted more. A houseful of babies.” She laced her fingers together and slid them back and forth. “My parents would never talk about my adoption. I knew only that my birth mother didn’t want me, and that one day I would raise kids who were wanted.”
“If I remember correctly, your birth mother was a child herself.”
“She never tried to find me. Never.”
“And did you ever try to find her? It works both ways, Marianne.”
“How is that relevant? I loved my parents. As far as I was concerned, my birth mother was nothing more than a womb. But I wanted her to acknowledge my existence. Reach out with a sorry-I-abandoned-you message. Send me an eighteenth birthday card. I was an embarrassment. A mistake. Something to be thrown away. You know she left me in the church, right?”
“Indeed. You were the baby a village took in, but you can’t guess at the thought process of a teen in crisis. Giving you up could have been an act of self-sacrifice. Why else would she have left a note explaining she was unable to raise a child given her age and circumstance? I imagine the desire to want what’s best for your baby is a strong one. But whatever her motivation, she made the right decision. Your parents raised you with unconditional love.”
“But she should have wanted me, Gabriel. Our last night, at the party before the crash, I’d made the decision to keep the baby. Up until then I hadn’t been sure . . .”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the white linen hanky he kept for these moments. It came from a pack of three, a gift from the rural dean’s wife, a woman who used few words but understood everything.
“Maybe the girl who gave birth to you knew she couldn’t be a mother.”
Marianne sniffed. “You mean like me?”
“Now you’re contradicting yourself. And what about Jade? You treat her as a daughter.”
She dabbed her eyes with the hanky. “I never meant to. She snuck under my defenses.”
Under mine too, he nearly said.
“When Girls In Motion expanded beyond a summer band camp, I had this grand idea to help girls with no other options. Unwanted girls. I figured if I wasn’t careening through the odd mood swing, I could help. I mean, it wasn’t like I could make their lives worse.” Marianne smiled. “Then Jade turned up with her fiddle case.”
She blew her nose and handed him back the hanky. He was used to this ritual, too. He shoved it in his pocket, making a mental note to put it in the laundry basket when he got back and replace it with a fresh one. Rituals, habits were good. They kept a person grounded in the turmoil of the human condition.
I know, God. Marianne’s current crisis is way more personal than the human condition.
“It’s important that you understand my need to protect Jade. From me, if you have to. Darius cares for her, but he doesn’t know the real reason I opened my life to my baby girl.” She took a deep breath. “Her stepdad raped her. Repeatedly.”
Gabriel shot up, his hand over his mouth. He was going to be sick.
TWENTY-FOUR
JADE
Perched cross-legged in her desk chair, hands wrapped around a double espresso, Jade tried to feel the sound of the guitar track. The lights were dimmed—exactly how they should be for mixing—but still there was too much sensory stimulation in the room.
She hit “Stop” and stared up at the acoustic ceiling cloud suspended over her console and computer. Mixing normally got her all tingly with the thrills of her job—she might hate tinkering with her own music, but someone else’s was a different beast—and yet sleep deprivation kept her on edge. Nights were lost to catnaps littered with nightmares about empty rooms and the crying angel picture on Gabriel’s bedroom wall. Hadn’t he ever watched Doctor Who? Didn’t he know Weeping Angels were evil predators?
Gabriel’s texts, her only link to Marianne, shared information but gave Jade nothing to hold on to. And she missed Darius so much they’d established a nightly Skype session. Although that had also become a necessity after Darius had called her apartment at six o’clock two mornings in a row. Family crises should never come with a five-hour time difference.
She twirled a finger through her hair, which was longer than it had been for years, with the dye job growing out. Maybe she’d go au naturel for her thirtieth birthday. Experimenting with outrageous colors suddenly seemed as pointless as performing to an empty auditorium.
Her cell phone vibrated and she grabbed it. Yes, she’d broken her own rule banning cell phones from the control room.
“Hey.” She swung her chair around so her back was to the board and the speakers. In the warm orange glow of lamplight, she could have been alone with him.
“Am I interrupting?” Gabriel said.
Did this guy even know how to be inconsiderate? People interrupted her work all the time: an intern with a question, an artist who wanted to micromanage his own sound, Zeke with his latest girlfriend fiasco. Darius used to be the worst of the bunch. She smiled, remembering the last note she’d taped to the control room door before their world had spun off its axis: “Do not enter. Do not think about entering. No exceptions and that includes you, boss.”
“Nope. Not busy.” Jade stretched. “Just locked in my girl cave doing some mixing. You know, the musical equivalent of putting together a sandwich.”
“Interesting visual,” he said. “I was hoping to chat with you about something.”
She glanced up at the studio clock. Ten minutes until a new client, the Arcadian Project, came in for a consult. “Sure. Chat away, Father.”
“Jade?”
“Yo.”
“Could you please stop calling me Father? It makes me feel old. Whereas I am merely maturing like a good Bordeaux.”
She snorted out
a laugh. “You’re a wine drinker?”
“No. You?”
Clearly he hadn’t paid attention to her drink order on their dinner date that wasn’t a date. “Nah. Bourbon or tequila shots.”
“Tequila? Oh, that’s plain nasty.”
“This from a guy who drinks pink gin.”
Her eyelids drooped as she watched the up-down movements of the lumps of wax inside her lava lamp.
“It was the traditional drink of the British navy. As such, it proves I’m full of testosterone.”
“Let me guess, honey. You’re alone in your study right now with a glass of pink gin. Your door is probably closed and you have U2 playing through your computer. And because you’re ridiculously thoughtful and don’t want to disturb your elderly neighbor, you have it turned down low.”
“Did you just call me honey?”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re going senile. I’ve heard that can happen once you hit the late forties.”
“Very funny.” He sipped his drink. “Thank you, for a much-needed reminder to not take myself so seriously.”
“Anytime you need a dose of humility, I’m your woman.”
“But you’re wrong about U2. Hang on, let me—” Music replaced his voice, and she shivered. “Inspired by you, I have widened my musical choices.”
“‘I Need My Girl’ by The National.” She rubbed at the goose bumps on her arm. “Good choice. And what’s the verdict?”
“Undecided. It takes me a while to accept anything new.” He paused. “Did I update you on the latest village gossip? Apparently I had a torrid affair with a married woman that caused her to have a nervous breakdown. I’m anticipating an upswing in my dating life.”
“You date?” Jade said, her voice disappearing.
“That was a joke. Relationships are complicated, and I like my life clean.”
“And casual sex isn’t in the cards for someone in your line of work?”
He cleared his throat. “Any contact yet from Marianne?”
“Nope. I’m keeping up with nightly ‘Love you lots’ texts. Sometimes I vary it with, ‘How’s the food in the luxury loony bin?’ I’m forever hopeful she’ll reply.”
“So you don’t know about EmJ?”
“Never heard of him. Who is he, an obscure English rapper?”
Gabriel laughed. He had the best laugh: rich and warm. How would it feel to mix that laugh, to add depth for a richer sound? She visualized his voice hitting the cloud and bouncing back down, wrapping around her; and then she pictured those pale eyes that could hold you in place like the stare of a king cobra. She grabbed her hoodie off the back of her chair and shrugged it on.
“EmJ is an eighteen-year-old fellow patient Marianne seems quite taken with. A girl.”
“Ah, Marianne has a new project, that’s good.” Yes, yes it was, and that little spark of jealousy was irrational. But still, it burned. Was Marianne collecting reasons to not come home?
“She’s at her best when she’s focused on someone else. I’m assuming this is a girl who has no family, some musical talent—probably as a singer—and is down on her luck.”
“Are you psychic?”
“If only. What a great sideline that would be for the studio: each recording comes with Jade’s personal prophecy of success. But no, I wasn’t Marianne’s first project or her last, but I was the only one who stayed around. Other than Sasha.”
“Do I detect some self-pity in that tone, Ms. Jones?”
“A touch, I guess. Before I found Marianne, my life was quite the tale of woe. I’m struggling a bit with will she won’t she come back.”
“Growing up, your home life was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty bad. Never thought of it as home, though. My only real home has been with Marianne.”
“I’m always here, if you ever need to talk about it.” He paused, clearly expecting her to say something she couldn’t.
“Thanks. Gotta love the sympathy cards you amass as a teen runaway.”
“I’m serious, Jade.”
“I know, and I don’t mean to be flippant, but my adolescence is dead to me. So tell me about your childhood. All perfectly civilized and happy in darkest England?”
“Not really. I spent most of my time at Marianne’s house avoiding my own family. My parents were strict disciplinarians, not exactly demonstrative, and Simon and I were close in age but nothing else. He was the gregarious one, the shining star. I was lost in his shadow. Everyone was drawn to him.”
“Including Marianne.”
Gabriel hesitated before answering. “Including Marianne. When we entered double digits, he made my life miserable, but I retaliated in unconventional ways. Stinging nettles in his bed come to mind.”
“Nice.” She paused. “Were you ever close?”
“I suppose when we were little. Come to think of it, we built some great sand castles together.” His voice had risen. “You forget, don’t you?”
“My brother and I were super close. I was more like his mother than bio mom.” Red holiday lights glowed around her and a fantasy played: drinking eggnog—heavy on the rum—and exchanging Christmas gifts with Jesse. He’d be twenty-one now. Had he found a decent career, succeeded in love? Did he ever think of her?
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“This from the person who told me never to shit a bullshitter.”
“My, my, His Holiness said shit.” As she shook her head, thoughts of her brother floated away.
“Your corrupting influence, I can assure you.” He sighed. “Do you every wonder how different your life would have been, without Marianne?”
“Never, because without Marianne I wouldn’t have a life. Why do you ask?”
“Her return has pretty much upset my apple cart. I never know what’s she going to ask of me next. Each day brings a new challenge.”
“Yeah, she does that. Our Marianne’s a force of nature. Put her and Darius together and the drama never ends. It’s like being on a roller coaster twenty-four-seven.” That was a cheap shot, to bring in Darius, but right now she didn’t want to hear about Gabriel’s connection to Marianne.
“She’s stripped my life of routine, and I’m not someone who’s comfortable with spontaneity. I had it all figured out, Jade, and then—”
“Poof?”
“Poof.”
Please let him stop there. Please let him not confess to still being in love with Marianne.
She needed more than sleep. A social life, that was the answer. A female drunkfest with Sasha and the executive director of Girls In Motion. Problem solved!
“And something about EmJ bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it.” Gabriel breathed heavily. “I can’t help wondering how healthy the relationship is for Marianne. Hugh doesn’t approve. He warned her against making friends from the hospital. In his words, ‘The people aren’t necessarily what they seem.’”
“And how did Marianne take that?”
“She laughed and told him she met her first husband on a locked psych ward.”
“All true. But she’s a big girl, Gabriel. And since she refuses to talk to me, my hands are tied.”
“I know, but Marianne is in such a fragile state.”
A text came through from Darius: ANY NEWS. He’d reverted to all caps and no punctuation or emoticons. Jade ignored him, her five minutes with Gabriel too precious.
“What’s really rattling your cage?” she said.
“I’m that transparent?”
“No, you sound as if you’re thinking aloud. Stream of consciousness.”
“You’re getting to know me too well.”
I wish. From on top of one of the speakers behind the console, her plastic two-inch-high Kiss guitarist stared at her, frozen in midscream.
“I’m not comfortable with the idea of EmJ living in my spare room,” Gabriel continued. “And that reaction is heinous to me. She’s a lost soul, and taking her in is the right course of act
ion.”
Jade uncrossed her legs and sat up straight. “She’s coming to live at the rectory?”
This unknown girl was going to sleep in the same house as Gabriel. See him first thing in the morning when he padded downstairs with bed hair and bare feet.
“It would appear so, since she has nowhere else to go. Apparently her mother has disowned her, her father’s dead, and her ex-boyfriend is the drug lord of Luton.”
“O brave new world for you.”
“Are you teasing me?”
She could hear his smile. “Possibly.”
“I’m not enjoying these decidedly unchristian feelings I have about this girl.”
“Wait a minute. Aren’t you always telling me priests are human beings? Then this is a perfectly normal reaction. Taking in Marianne was one thing—you guys share a past. But this is a young person who likely has a truckload of issues. My guess is that she doesn’t trust you any more than you trust her. Am I right?”
“Spot on. I knew talking to you would help me find perspective. Thank you.”
Sasha poked her head around the door. “Meeting in five.”
Jade held up a finger and mouthed, One minute. “I’m sorry, but I have to hang up on you. If Marianne decides she’s ready to talk to me, I’ll check out this EmJ chick. Let you know what I discover. My advice? Let this play out. And as you said to me, I’m here if you need to talk.”
This time Sasha stood in front of the plate-glass window to the smaller tracking room, mouthing, They’re here.
“Before I go, tell me one good thing about Marianne. Did she put some weight back on?”
“She looks better, less gaunt. And I overheard her tell EmJ that she loves you deeply.”
Jade sighed. “Thank you. I don’t mean to be insecure and needy, but I—”
“Need to feel loved. I understand. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Darius sent another text: STOP IGNORING ME.
“Yeah. Chin up, Vicar.”
And Gabriel hung up.
It took all her self-control to not fill her soundproof room with a battle cry of “You’re loved too.” Because there was no more escaping the obvious: in one weekend, Gabriel Bonham had stolen her heart, and she didn’t know how to get it back.
Echoes of Family Page 17