Nell and Lady: A Novel

by Ashley Farley

  “I’m glad you told me about the Xanax, sweetheart. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. Will you promise to come to me if your stress gets out of control again?”

  “I promise,” Booker said, sniffling.

  “What did you and your father decide about college?”

  “Ha! That’s a joke. There’s no deciding anything with Dad. It’s his way or no way. I’ve seen how self-centered he can be by the way he’s treated you all these years, but he’s never given me an ultimatum before. I’m going to take a gap year and save my own money for college.”

  “Your father isn’t the only breadwinner in this family, you know. I have some money saved, maybe not enough to afford Harvard—”

  “Harvard’s off the table. Even if I get off the wait list, I’m not going there. The idea that I was smart enough to even apply to Harvard got the best of me. And you know me—I never shy away from a challenge. So I’ve been thinking that South Carolina makes more sense. They offered me good scholarship money. They really want me there, and it feels good to be wanted. Plus, I’d be much closer to you.”

  “Don’t give up on Harvard just yet, son. I was going to tell you tomorrow.” Nell paused. “I guess it is tomorrow. I’ve decided to sell the house. Your father and I own the house outright, with no mortgage, and we’ve agreed to split the equity. I can afford to send you to whichever college you decide.”

  “But, Mom! I don’t want you to sell the house because of me.”

  “I’m not, sweetheart. I’m selling it because of me. I have plenty of happy memories from that house but plenty of sad ones as well. With you leaving in the fall . . . well, I don’t want to live in that big house all alone. I think it’s time for me to make a fresh start.”

  “But where will you live?”

  “I stumbled upon this adorable house on Rutledge Avenue. It’s tiny, barely big enough for you and me, but I prefer to think of it as cozy.”

  “I can totally see you living downtown, close to work. You should buy it if you really like it. I want you to be happy, Mama. You deserve it.”

  Lady experienced a newfound respect for her old friend. Nell obviously worked hard to maintain a close relationship with her son. The middle-aged Nell was not so different from the serious, wise-beyond-her-years girl she’d once known. Lady had more in common with Nell than she’d realized. Nell, too, had married a jerk. Lady knew all too well how difficult divorce can be, not just on the man and wife but on their children.

  Even when they were growing up, she’d never thought much about Nell’s life outside of how it affected her own. Nell had been her playmate, her companion, her best friend. But only on Lady’s terms. She’d always had the upper hand. She’d been the leading lady, and Nell had played the supporting role in every scene. How wrong she’d been about so many things.

  She suddenly remembered what she’d forgotten about the disturbing dream she’d had—the one where Daniel raped Nell and a baby girl named Regan with Booker’s face was born nine months later. She’d forgotten the haunted look on Nell’s face when she’d emerged from the closet. How utterly terrified she must have been after what Daniel had done to her. How alone she must have felt. Lady had condemned Nell for not confiding in her, for shutting her out, but who’s to say she wouldn’t have reacted the same way?

  Lady’s heart went out to Booker. Like Regan, he was a conscientious kid with dreams of conquering the world. He was just a boy, someone else’s child, who obviously cared about Regan a great deal. And Lady had been unforgivably rude to him in the emergency room.

  When she sensed movement in the room behind her, Lady opened her eyes and saw a nurse in blue scrubs standing in the doorway, her surgical cap damp with perspiration and her mask pulled down around her throat. Lady’s heart pounded against her rib cage as she jumped to her feet. “Is she okay? Is my daughter alive?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She’s alive.” The nurse approached her. “I’m here to give you an update. The surgery will take several more hours, but everything is going as well as the doctor had hoped. So far, he hasn’t encountered any unforeseen complications.”

  With her hand gripping a fistful of shirt, Lady asked, “That’s good, right?”

  The nurse smiled. “Yes, ma’am. That’s a good sign.”

  Nell waited for the nurse to leave before rushing to Lady’s side and embracing her. “See! Sweet Regan’s gonna be okay.”

  Lady collapsed in her arms. “Thanks to you, Nell. If you hadn’t been here to take charge, to call in Dr. Summers . . .” Her breath hitched. “I can’t even bring myself to think of what might’ve happened to my baby.”

  “I’m just glad I was in a position to help.”

  Lady locked eyes with Booker over Nell’s shoulder. “I owe you both an apology. I treated you unfairly tonight.” She pushed Nell away and dropped to the sofa. “You see, I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been on the wagon for less than two weeks. I’m not handling withdrawal very well, I guess.”

  Nell sat down next to her. “There’s no playbook when it comes to quitting drinking, Lady. You’re under a lot of pressure here. Your daughter was in a terrible accident tonight. But you’re managing to hold it together.” She smiled as she placed an arm around Lady’s shoulders. “A little grumpy perhaps. But you didn’t reach for a bottle, and that’s the important thing.”

  Lady’s cheeks burned. “Oh, I reached for a bottle all right. Fortunately, there’s no booze around here.” She gestured at the refreshment station. “I’m sure of it because I’ve checked.”

  Nell snickered. “This is hardly the place to enjoy a cocktail.”

  Lady stared up at Booker, who was standing awkwardly nearby. “I was pretending to be asleep when I heard you talking with your mother. She’s right. Don’t turn to pills or alcohol to relieve your stress. Believe me, Booker, once you start, it’s nearly impossible to stop.”

  He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Yes, ma’am. And I’m sorry for your troubles.”

  Lady nodded. “And I’m sorry for yours.”

  Booker leaned down close to his mother’s ear. “Is it okay if I go outside? I need some fresh air.”

  “Of course, sweetheart. Just be sure to take your phone with you.”

  He held his iPhone up as evidence.

  Lady waited for him to leave. “That night, the night of my sixteenth birthday party, was the first time I ever got drunk. During the months that followed, when you shut me out and I didn’t know why and nothing I said seemed to get through to you, I turned to booze for comfort. And that was the beginning of my addiction. You’ve always been stronger than me, Nell. You were the victim, but you didn’t become an alcoholic because of it.”

  Nell sighed. “Instead, I blamed the ones I loved for things that were not their fault. I hurt you, Lady. I never understood how much until recently. I’m sorry for so many things. If I had trusted you enough to tell you the truth, you never would have married him. Was he awful to you?”

  She shook her head. “At least not until the end. Daniel was destined to be part of my journey in life. In a weird way, I knew that when he came to my party that night. If I’d known what he’d done to you, I would never have married him. But then I wouldn’t have Regan. And I would go through all the hardship again for her.”

  “This may be asking too much after everything I’ve done.” Nell reached out to touch Lady’s arm and then pulled her hand back. “More than anything in this whole wide world, I’d like to put the past behind us once and for all. Do you think it’s possible for us to be a family again?”

  “I’d like that.” Lady set her eyes on her sleeping mother. “There’s nothing that would make her happier. Having us together as a family again could give her the strength she needs to beat this cancer. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a few more good years.”

  Nell rested her head on Lady’s shoulder. “We have a lot of time to make up for.”

  When she kissed Nell’s hair, she found her scent familiar. The years fell away, and t
hey were children again, snuggled up in Lady’s bed reading Doctor Dolittle. “Yes, we do.”

  They remained that way, with Nell’s head on Lady’s shoulder, for a good while. When Lady realized that Nell had fallen asleep, she eased out from beneath the weight of her body and moved to the other end of the sofa to rest her head against the cushions. She eventually dozed off, and when she woke again, the first rays of dawn were streaming through the window. Booker had returned and was curled up like a cat on the sofa beside his grandmother. Tugging her phone out of her pocket, she saw that she had a string of text messages and five missed calls, one of them from Janie’s mother. She retreated to the hallway for privacy to return the call.

  Kate Jensen answered on the first ring. “Lady, thank goodness! We’ve all been so worried. How’s Regan?”

  They spoke for a minute about the accident, the surgery, and the kids in the senior class who were beside themselves with concern for her daughter.

  “You’ll let me know as soon as she’s out of surgery?”

  “I promise.” Lady inhaled a deep breath as she summoned her nerve. “I have another matter I’d like to discuss with you. I was wondering if you’d consider being my sponsor for Alcoholics Anonymous.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  REGAN

  Regan opened her eyes wide and then shut them tight against the glaring light. “Hurt,” she muttered through parched lips. Seconds later, she slipped back into the abyss. Fuzzy faces surrounded her when she came to again. Blinking her vision into focus, her gaze traveled from one person to the next—Booker, Nell, Lady—before landing on her grandmother. “Where am I, Willa?”

  Willa stepped forward. “You’re in the hospital, sweetheart. You were in an accident and hurt your head.”

  She remembered something bad happening to her but couldn’t recall what. She noticed Booker’s wrinkled tuxedo shirt, and it all rushed back to her—the prom, the girls in the bathroom, the rain. When her heart began to race, blaring alarms pierced the air from somewhere over her head. A nurse rushed to her side. “Clear the room,” she ordered as she injected a clear liquid into Regan’s IV.

  “Am I gonna die?” Regan asked the nurse.

  “Not on my watch you’re not. But you’re recovering from major surgery. You need to remain as calm as possible and get lots of rest.”

  Regan felt like she was floating on a cloud, and seconds later everything went dark. The next time when she woke, her mother was the only one in the room with her.

  Lady righted the lounge chair and came to stand beside the bed. “Welcome back, beautiful. You gave us quite a scare. I called your father. He’s trying to book a flight.”

  “Call him back and tell him not to come. I don’t want to see him. Ever again. I need to talk to Nell. Is she still here?”

  A look of surprise crossed her mother’s face, but she didn’t argue. “She’s out in the waiting room. I’ll get her.”

  When she started out of the room, Regan called after her, “Wait! Mom, before you go, did the doctor say . . . Did they shave my whole head? Am I bald now, like Willa?”

  Lady laughed. “You’ll be happy to know they only shaved a patch about the size of a tennis ball at the back of your head. Once the incision has healed and the bandage is off, the rest of your hair will cover the bald spot.”

  Her mother disappeared, and Nell entered the room a minute later. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

  “Like the Warriors have been playing basketball with my head.”

  Nell smiled. “That’s expected. You’re gonna feel that way for a while. At least you have good taste in basketball teams.”

  “I need to know, Mrs. . . . ,” Regan stammered, unsure how to refer to Booker’s mother in light of her pending divorce.

  “Please call me Nell. After all, we’re related, at least by law.”

  “The law is good enough for me,” Regan said, wincing when she tried to smile. “It’s important for me to know the truth. Did my father rape you?”

  Nell exhaled a gush of air. “No, Regan. Daniel got rough with me, and he said some hurtful things, but he did not rape me. I made a mistake in talking to Booker about what happened that night. I thought that by telling him, he would better understand the choices I’ve made in my life. More importantly, I saw an opportunity for him to learn how a man should never treat a woman. The last thing I wanted was for you to get hurt. Did your accident have anything to do with any of this?”

  “Sorta, although I don’t blame you. I overheard some girls talking about me in the restroom. Somehow a rumor got started that my father is a rapist.”

  The news that her father wasn’t a rapist failed to bring the relief Regan had hoped for. Even if he hadn’t raped Nell, he’d assaulted her nonetheless. And that abuse had cost her dearly. Cost all of them dearly. Nell had made choices based on his actions that had affected her whole family, from Willa on down to Booker. Regan never wanted to see her father again. And she would never forgive him for what he’d done.

  Regan opted not to tell Nell the other part of the rumor, that Nell was the victim and Booker the result of the rape. It was too ridiculous to even consider.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. For you and for Booker. I imagine this rumor will make its way back to him. Neither of you should have to deal with this.”

  “Is Booker here?” Regan asked. “I’d like to be the one to tell him.”

  “He’s in the waiting room, hoping for a chance to see you. He won’t leave the hospital until he knows for certain you’re out of the woods.”

  Nell exited the room, and Booker appeared in the doorway almost immediately.

  “You can come in, Booker. I won’t bite. Are you okay?”

  A slow smile crept on his lips. “Typical Regan, worried about me when you’re the one lying in the hospital bed with your head bandaged up like a mummy.”

  She lifted her fingers to her head dressing. “Now that you mention it, my head does kinda hurt.”

  He approached the bed with caution. “What were you doing in the street? Were you just going to leave the prom without telling me?”

  “Some girls in the grade below us said some things that hurt my feelings,” she said, and then told him what she’d overheard.

  “That’s ridiculous. That would make me”—he stared up at the ceiling while he counted the years—“like thirty-seven years old.”

  “How did they hear about it, Booker? That’s what I want to know. I certainly never said anything to anyone.”

  He thought about it, his brow furrowed, and then anger crossed his face. “Owen and Stuart. They were eavesdropping on us in the library when I asked you to the prom. I waved them away, but they must have overheard us when you asked if Daniel raped my mother. I’m sorry, Regan. If I had known . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing we can do to stop the rumor now.”

  Booker’s face brightened. “But there’s good news in all this. Our mothers have forgiven each other. There’s talk of us being a family.”

  “Yay! That is good news. I guess that makes us cousins.” She patted the mattress. “Sit down for a minute, coz. I want to know about you. What did your father do that upset you so much?”

  He sat down gently on the edge of the bed. “He refuses to pay for college unless I go to Duke.”

  “He can’t do that!”

  “Actually, he can. It’s his money. He can do whatever he wants with it.”

  “But what’s going to happen? You’ve worked so hard. You have to go to college.”

  “Oh, I’m going to college. I won’t give Dad the satisfaction of knowing he has control over me. Mom and I have talked about it. We’ll find a way to make it happen. I just have to figure out which college. Harvard’s out of the question. Even if I get off the wait list, which I doubt will happen, we can’t afford it. My dad’s decision not to pay reinforced what I was starting to figure out on my own.”

  Regan cocked her bandaged head to the side. “And what�
�s that?”

  “That it doesn’t really matter which school I pick. I’ll make the most of my academics no matter where I go. I’m not really the fraternity type, and I’m not into sports, although it’d be fun to have a winning football team to pull for. Main thing is, I’d like to be close to my mom, especially while she’s going through the divorce.”

  Regan toyed with the IV attached to her arm. “I’ve been thinking the same about college lately.”

  “How so? I thought you were dead set on going to Chapel Hill.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I applied to UNC for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to make my father proud by going to his alma mater and becoming a successful attorney like him. Now I’d rather chart my own path to the end of a cliff than follow in his footsteps.” She turned the IV loose and looked up at him. “How did we both end up with such jerks for fathers?”

  “Luck of the draw, coz. Same way we ended up with amazing women as mothers.”

  Regan caught a glimpse of her mother standing sentry beside the door out in the hallway. She’d been hard on Lady. She’d condemned her for being an alcoholic when she should’ve encouraged her to quit drinking. Despite her mother’s flaws, Regan could always count on her love, which was more than she could say for her father.

  EPILOGUE

  The late-morning sun beat down on the families and friends gathered on the lawn in front of All Saints School. The long sultry days of summer were upon them. Willa sat between her daughters in the front row, a proud grandmother watching her beloved grandchildren graduate from high school.

  Regan’s grades had slipped in the weeks following her accident, allowing Booker to take the lead in the race for valedictorian. Since making his decision to go to USC, he’d stopped worrying so much about his grades, but with Regan missing nearly two weeks of school, he’d inched ahead of her anyway. The head of All Saints had called Booker into his office ten days prior to graduation. “I’m officially awarding you the honor of being valedictorian of the class of 2018,” Mr. Long had said.