by L. M. Reed
~ * * ~
Someone kept calling my name, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see who it was.
“Maybe we should let her sleep,” Mom suggested doubtfully.
“She needs fluids in her body,” Nick stated firmly. “Now that the IV is gone, we have to make sure she stays on some sort of schedule.”
I finally got at least one eye open to see three pairs of eyes leaning over me, peering down anxiously.
Crossly, I snapped, “A little too close.”
And I was back to the croaking.
“I brought you some supper,” Mom said lightly, straightening up and away from the bed.
My stomach churned unpleasantly at the thought of food.
Nick, noticing my distaste, added teasingly, “Don’t worry…it’s not what anyone in their right mind would call supper.”
Mom stuck her tongue out at Nick. I barked out a laugh…or what passed for a laugh…but, apparently, it didn’t sound like one because I was quickly the recipient of the six-eyed stare again.
“Laughing,” I croaked at them in annoyance.
“The instructions say a liquid diet until you can stomach solid foods again,” Mom informed me, “so I’ve fixed you chicken broth, Jell-O, and apple juice. You can have as much as you want,” she continued as she placed the tray across my legs.
“Oh joy,” I eyed the ‘supper’ less than enthusiastically. “You’re such a good cook.”
I hoped that a little teasing would get me out from under the microscope.
“Better watch out,” Mark added playfully, “Nick and I are so hungry we might be fighting you for it soon. Although, on second thought, maybe not,” he wrinkled his nose at my tray of ‘food’. “We should probably eat out, if that’s what’s on the menu.”
“The next person who makes an unwarranted comment about my cooking skills will be eating dirt for the duration of their stay,” Mom threatened.
“That lets me out,” I piped up after I’d taken a swallow of apple juice. “I can only have liquids. Dirt definitely doesn’t qualify.”
There was definitely a direct correlation between fluids swallowed and the frog effect. I downed another mouthful of juice.
“Weasel,” Mark accused lightly.
We all laughed and I got to work on ‘drinking’ my ‘supper’. I was hungrier than I realized and, amidst much ribbing, actually asked Mom for more. They were all pleased, I could tell, and I was glad to have done something right for a change.
“Is it okay if we go out in the living room?” I asked hopefully after finishing off the second helping. “I can tell staying in my bedroom is going to get old fast.”
“As long as you allow one of us to help you,” Nick qualified, “Just in case you get a little light headed,”
“Mark?”
I made it into a question and a request at the same time. As much as I would have preferred Nick, I had to start letting go sometime.
Once Mark had me comfortably settled on the couch with Mom, he and Nick sat in the armchairs. I turned to Mom and, before I could lose the small amount of nerve I possessed, asked, “Do we really have an aunt and uncle?”
Mom and Mark exchanged a quick glance. “Maybe now isn’t the best time…” Mom began.
“I’m not made of porcelain,” I interrupted irritably. “I admit I messed up, which really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone here, but I’m not going to be stupid enough to let myself get into this kind of shape again, no matter what the provocation. ”
As exhausted as my little speech made me, it was a huge relief to get it all out in the open.
In a tired voice I asked, “Could I have some ice water and an explanation…in that order?”
“I’ll get the water,” Nick offered, getting up from his chair.
“Mom…?” I prompted.
“I guess now that Mark knows, it’s only fair that I explain it to you,” Mom conceded in resignation.
I accepted the water from Nick absently, my full concentration centered on Mom. She waited until Nick took his seat again before beginning her story.
“I was born in Austin, the youngest of three children, to Lowell and Violet Tate. My brother Phillip is almost fifteen years older than I am and Brittany is around twelve years older. My father was a lawyer and became a judge right after your dad and I married. He was a partner in the family law firm Tate, Williams, & Preston. My parents were…not very nice people. I wasn’t allowed to be friends with anyone they didn’t approve of and they had already planned out who I was to marry.”
I gasped.
“What…like an arranged marriage?” I asked incredulously.
Mom smiled wearily, “My brother and sister were already married off to the ‘right people’. Phillip married the oldest sister of my best friend Natalie Preston—their father was one of our father’s law partners—and Brittany married a plastic surgeon who was considerably older. There were no eligible males old enough the law firm partners’ families for Brittany to marry, so my parents married her off to someone wealthy who projected the right image. I was ‘lucky’ that one of the partners’ sisters had a son for me. Richard and I were the same age so it was always assumed that we would marry eventually.”
“And you agreed to this?” I asked having a hard time reconciling that with the woman I had known for eighteen years.
“Let’s just say I didn’t overtly disagree with any of it. There’s a difference,” she pointed out. “Arguing with my parents would have accomplished nothing, instead I made a deal with them; if they would pay for my college, I in turn would do everything I could to help my father become a judge. I went to every event escorted by Richard, behaved with decorum, and managed to present the image of the loving daughter.”
Mom shuddered.
“My parents weren’t even going to allow me to go to college until I convinced them that a Home Economics degree would be just what I needed to be the perfect wife to Richard. My plan was to graduate in three years by taking as many courses as I could as quickly as I could. They had no idea that I was getting my teaching certificate. I was going to give everything back to them as soon as I graduated, my car, my apartment, even most of my clothes and get a job to support myself.”
“So how did Dad figure into all of this?” I asked fascinated by the peek I was receiving into my mother’s early life.
“I met your dad’s mother at a craft shop. I was helping the owner out whenever she was shorthanded. She was a friend of a friend starting out in her own business, and since my parents absolutely refused to allow me to get a job, I volunteered to help her in my spare time. Your grandmother came in one day and she reminded me so strongly of my old nanny whom I’d loved dearly that I couldn’t let her go without finding out who she was and where she lived. I drove her home the first day we met. Stupid of me I know, but she wasn’t a stranger, I felt like I’d known her forever. We just clicked. I met your dad at a Christmas concert on campus about a month later. Elsee loved classical music so James bought tickets for her as a Christmas present. I was with Richard, Natalie, and a few others. When our eyes met…” Mom’s voice broke. We all waited in silence for her to continue. “Your father didn’t want to fall in love with a ‘poor little rich girl’ as he put it, so he rejected me.”
“No way!”
I couldn’t believe that my father would ever have rejected his Allison.
“Yes way,” Mom smiled reminiscently. “I was devastated. He had to do a lot of groveling before I gave in.” Mom laughed softly, “Not really, I didn’t stand a chance against his green eyes.”
She was lost in the past for a moment remembering things we didn’t want to intrude upon.
“But I digress,” she continued after a bit. “James wanted to be upfront with my parents about his desire to marry me, but I wouldn’t let him. I knew my father would find some way to hurt him or his mother if I refused to cooperate. They foun
d out from one of my ‘friends’ anyway, so it didn’t matter in the end.”
“Surely your father wouldn’t have tried to do anything to hurt any of you,” I objected, “I mean, he was your father!”
“Thankfully, ‘father’ means something different to you than it did to him. He did try, but Elsee’s boss, a very nice woman who disliked my father intensely, and with good reason, had something on him that held him in check. My father wanted to be a judge very badly, and the evidence she had would have destroyed that chance once and for all. I graduated after my third year and got my first teaching job there in Austin, James and I married, and then he graduated the next year. My father ended up allowing me to keep my car as a wedding present. He would have given us money, but I refused to take anything from him. He was only doing any of it in order to look good to the public, and I hated being a party to that any longer. The car was already in my name, so I finally agreed to keep it. It was a rather nice red BMW convertible.”
She smiled reminiscently.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, beyond impressed.
My mom with a convertible…go figure.
“What happened to it? I don’t remember a red convertible.”
“We sold it and bought a mini-van when you were born. You probably remember that one…we kept it for a lot of years.”
I laughed…I had to.
“You traded in a BMW convertible for a mini-van.”
I shook my head in disbelief…only my mother.
“If you are quite through,” Mom looked at me pointedly.
“Sorry,” I grinned, “it’s just so…” I couldn’t even think of an appropriate word so I gave up, shaking my head again. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“After your father graduated, he took the coaching job in west Texas making sure there was a job for me, too. James wanted me to stay home and take care of Mark, he was born right before we moved, but I was hooked on teaching. I loved it. We convinced Elsee to come live with us to take care of him while we were both at work. She helped us buy our house with what she had been able to save since James had a football/track scholarship and she’d been a live-in housekeeper with no rent to pay. She was one of the two sweetest women I have ever known.”
Mom closed her eyes, smiling.
We were silent for a moment, allowing Mom to relive parts of her past without interruption. She had such a happy expression on her face all of us wanted it to last. Tears pooled in my eyes. Life had been so unfair to her. She didn’t deserve all of the unhappiness she’d suffered.
Making up my mind right then and there, I decided that if Nick was what she needed in order to regain some of the happiness she’d lost, I wouldn’t stand in the way. I was no longer angry with either of them for something they couldn’t help, only at me. No matter how many times I told myself to stop causing Mom pain, it didn’t seem to help. I needed to start putting other people first and quit being so selfishly self-absorbed.
There was one more connection I needed to make. I hesitated to ask, unwilling to cause Mark any more pain than he had already suffered, but I felt it was important for me to know. Apparently, causing us pain didn’t bother our ‘relatives’ so I wanted to be armed and ready if something like that happened again.
At the risk of being accused of spying on a private conversation between Mark and Nick at the hospital, I had to know. The aunt and uncle discussion had been towards the very end, so it was only natural that I would have heard that part, but the rest…
“So what’s the connection between your story and Laticia?” I asked Mom while watching Mark cautiously out of the corner of my eye.
“You were eavesdropping on our private conversation,” Nick frowned.
I should have known he would be the one to make the connection.
Why did that sound so familiar? Remembering back to a similar conversation where I had accused him of the same thing, I decided to throw his own answer back in his face.
“The next time you decide to have a private conversation, you might want to consider doing it in a more private room” I smiled smugly…let him deal with that.
He glared at me. I couldn’t believe it. I had finally managed to get under his thick skin. I tried to wipe the gloat off my face, but I failed miserably. Turning my attention back to Mom, I attempted to focus on what she was saying.
“Richard, the man I was supposed to marry, apparently married my old friend Nat…Natalie Preston. I still can’t believe Richard became a lawyer,” Mom shook her head in amazement. “His dad was all set for him to go into the banking industry; even had a job lined up for him as soon as he got his degree. I never thought he’d be able to convince him,” she murmured more to herself than to me.
“The law firm is now named Tate, Williams, Preston, & Stover,” Mark supplied.
“He’s a partner?” Mom became thoughtful. “You know, it’s funny, I always told him he should be a lawyer. He could talk people into just about anything. I remember how much he hated the idea of going into banking, but his father was a very stubborn man.”
“Mom…Laticia?” I reminded her.
“Oh yes, sorry,” she came back to the present with a start. “Laticia’s last name is Stover. From what Mark told me, Richard and Nat…Natalie are her parents. You know, I can truly believe that Natalie knew about this all along, she could be vicious, and Phillip and Brittany never cared about me anyway, but I have a hard time picturing Richard sanctioning any of this. I realize that he was disappointed when I chose James over him, but he…I…”
I wished I hadn’t asked about Laticia. I hadn’t meant to upset Mom.
“I’m sorry,” I began, “we don’t have to…”
“No, it’s alright,” Mom assured me, pulling her self together. “I should have told you this before, but I had no idea that either of you needed to know about my…family… in order to protect yourselves.”
“Mom, this wasn’t your fault,” Mark growled. “None of this was your fault; I’m the one that fell for a shallow, vain, self-centered, manipulating…”
“You and CeeCee keep saying that none of this is my fault, but it’s entirely my fault,” Mom said with tears in her eyes. “It’s my job to watch over you and protect you and I have failed you both miserably.”
I reached over and took one of Mom’s hands while Mark squeezed himself next to her on the couch and put his arms around her.
“We are both adults,” I reminded her, “Even though we haven’t been acting like it. I for one am going to be more responsible from now on.”
“We both will,” Mark agreed. “I love you both too much to ever want to lose you,” he added reaching around Mom to put a hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t deserve either of you,” Mom sniffed.
“You’re right,” I agreed, “You deserve better—much much better—and that’s what we’re going to try to do…be better.”
“I’ve decided to go pay the Stover family a little visit,” Mom said firmly. “I think it’s time I looked up my ‘old friends’ and had a little chat.”
“Mom,” I said in alarm, “I think we should stay as far away from them as possible.”
“You and Mark should stay as far away from them as possible,” Mom agreed, adding, “But I’m going to go to Austin over spring break and confront them.”
“You and CeeCee can stay at the apartment with Mark,” Nick offered. “I’ll crash at my parents’ house while you’re there.”
“That’s very generous of you Nick,” Mom said thankfully. “We’ll take you up on your offer.”
“But Mom…”
I was afraid for her. Those people sounded scary. I never thought anyone like that could possibly exist outside of books and movies.
“She needs to do this CeeCee,” Mark interrupted me. Turning to Mom he said, “I want to go with you.”
I could tell Mom’s first instinct was to say no, but she thought better of it a
nd nodded her head.
“Yes I think that would be best.”
“Mom,” tears filled my eyes…I wasn’t as dehydrated as I had been.
Mom pulled me toward her and hugged me close.
“I’ll be fine, CeeCee. I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone at the apartment, though.”
She glanced over at Nick.
“Don’t worry, Allison,” Nick grinned wickedly at me, “I’m sure CeeCee and I will be able to find something to do.”
“Nick!”
Mom sounded shocked, and I glanced at her in surprise.
“We’ll play cards or monopoly or something equally innocuous,” he assured her.
“I’m not sure…” Mom began.
“We’ll be fine,” Nick interrupted impatiently. “I think it’s time for sick little girls to go to bed. CeeCee’s eyelids are beginning to droop.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I was feeling worn out. I nodded at Mom and Mark helped me off the couch. I gave him a weak hug—it was all I could manage—before heading into the bathroom. He waited for me to come out and then tucked me into bed like I was five years old again.
“I’m glad you’re back,” I whispered.
“I’m glad to be back,” he responded softly.
He kissed me on the forehead, turned out the light, and shut the door firmly behind him. They were going to talk, most likely about me, and didn’t want to be overheard. I was too tired to care.
Sleep came easily.