Bandages

by S. L. Kassidy

  The spite she held in her heart for Christine seemed right to Dane, like she should feel it. If the contempt vanished, how would she feel? She doubted she’d like it. She should feel vindictive toward her mother. She deserved at least that much.

  Dane flopped down on the couch and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Her hand went through her hair, as she heard Nicole open the door and greet her mother. A second later, Christine was in view with a large tote bag in hand. Christine offered an awkward smile. Dane pretended not to see.

  “Christine, please, sit.” Nicole motioned to the sofa before turning to Dane. “I’ll be outside in the backyard with Haydn if you need anything.”

  Dane nodded, and her heart screamed out 'Thank you!' because her mouth refused to work at the moment. Nicole nodded like she got the message, and took them in with soft emerald eyes. She called for Haydn, who yapped happily while following her outside. Dane watched them leave before looking at her mother.

  “So…Guess Nick called you out here, huh?”

  “Of course. She suggested I come with conversation pieces, which I thought was a very good idea.” Christine jostled the bag in her hand a little.

  Dane nodded. “She’s full of good ideas.” Like this, because I damn sure don’t have anywhere to go.

  “She’s a good woman.”

  “That she is.”

  “Well, I decided to bring some things to show you that I haven’t ignored you for your whole life as you seem to think.” Christine pulled out two shoeboxes and some loose objects. She placed them on the coffee table, before she sat down on the sofa.

  “Yeah, believe it or not, pretending I don’t exist counts as fucking ignoring me.” Dane glared down at Christine. “You don’t even have any fucking proof that I exist!” There wasn’t a single photo of her in the Wolfe home. Her childhood room was about as big as a prison cell, especially compared to everyone else’s rooms, and had been turned into an office when she was sixteen. God only knew where the hell her original birth certificate was. Sometimes, she was shocked they hadn’t locked her in the attic and fed her fish heads.

  “I thought you might say that, which is why I was very careful when I packed the things I would bring,” Christine explained as she opened the top box. She pulled out a small photo album and opened it. “This is you at a day old.” She pointed down to the baby picture.

  Dane blinked and turned her attention to the photo. She inhaled sharply. She had never seen pictures of herself as a baby. She assumed none existed. Reaching out, she ran a finger down the pristine picture. She had chubby cheeks and her complexion had much more of a red undertone to it than now. Big grey eyes had an almond shape to them and her hair seemed much blonder back then.

  “You might not want to hear this, but you looked a lot like Michael. He had blond hair when he was born, too, but yours was curlier. Just like his, yours became darker and straighter as you got older.”

  “Where…where did you get this?” Dane asked in a breath. Running a shaky hand through her hair, she tried to calm herself down. Unfortunately, her heart wouldn’t listen and beat so fast she feared it would explode.

  “I paid for it. The hospital…they offered and I paid. No one…no one visited after you were born and Russell went on a tear about…you know…” Christine sighed, causing her shoulders to slump and a shamed blush colored her cheeks.

  “About me being a bastard and everything. Yeah, I know. It’s one of the more important messages I got from my childhood,” Dane grumbled. She took the picture out of the sleeve in the album. “I’m keeping this.” There was no room for argument or negotiation.

  “Um…yes, of course,” Christine replied with a slightly scrunched up expression, like she couldn’t understand why.

  Dane didn’t expect Christine to understand. Hell, she barely understood. But, she’d never seen herself as a baby and now, there she was—tiny, pudgy, one eye partially closed wrapped in a hospital issue baby blanket. I was a baby. I really was a baby. There were days as a mixed up teen when she felt like she had just come into existence at that age, like she was never a baby, never born. She’d just materialized. She’d felt confused, unloved, unlovable, and completely alone in the world.

  “I have other things from when you were a baby…” Christine reached into the box and pulled out a pair of tiny shoes. “This is your first pair of baby shoes.”

  Dane inspected them with an arched eyebrow and felt a ping inside of her. “Hard to believe my feet were ever this small.” She was rather tall and with her height came pretty big feet.

  “You were actually pretty tiny. The smallest out of the bunch, now that I think about it. You were barely five pounds. Your brothers and sister were almost eight pounds each. You were also the shortest labor. You were out in six hours, like you couldn’t wait. Sometimes, I wish you had.”

  Dane rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to choose when you come into this world and you don’t get to choose who you come out of.”

  Christine sighed and flipped the page of the photo album to a very small Dane with her arms wrapped around a huge, black Great Dane. Blocking Dane’s little legs was a small beagle, clearly rubbing against the child.

  “I guess this is when you developed your love of dogs,” Christine said in a low voice. A small but sad smile ghosted across her features.

  “Oh, the Briarmoors. I bet they took this picture of me with their dogs. Jupiter used to act like I was his pup or his pet or something. He’d actually nudge me places he wanted me to go, like corralling me or something. He’d stare at me when I was supposed to eat and make sure I ate everything on my plate. Wouldn’t let me leave the table until the plate was clean. And Tumble, that’s the beagle, he used to hate it because we played together all the time and he was too little to take me away from Jupiter. How are Henry and Lynn?” Dane tried not to think of them, had forgotten a lot about them, but they were always in the back of her mind, again making her feel unlovable and abandoned.

  “They’re fine. They’re still collecting dogs.”

  Dane nodded. “I figured as much. They were nice people.”

  A blond eyebrow crawled up Christine’s head slightly. “They were? They refused to see you by the time you were seven and you think they were nice people?”

  “Wasn’t their daughter. They didn’t have any obligation to me. I used to call them my mom and dad. Got creepy, I guess.” Dane shrugged.

  Dane ignored the brief frown on Christine’s face at her admission. She had called Lynn and Henry mom and dad, because she’d been stupid enough to think that was who they were. It explained why she spent so much time with them. They made sure she didn’t think that for long, though, and didn’t call them that for long.

  Dane’s jaw tensed for a second. “Who wants a kid that isn’t yours claiming you, after all? You and your husband didn’t even want a kid that was yours claiming you.”

  “Dane, it wasn’t like that…” Christine tried to object, but her mouth just trembled and no words came out. She scanned the floor as if it could tell her what she should say. Anything Christine said to justify the amount of time Dane had spent with Henry and Lynn would only be excuses, lies, and other bullshit.

  “No? Well, let’s see, you dumped me on the Briarmoors from the time I can remember until the point they didn’t want to see me anymore. I remember you’d leave me at their house for days. If they didn’t return me, nobody in the Wolfe household came around to ask for me. Henry and Lynn were tired of raising a kid that wasn’t theirs, tired of listening to me claim them as parents, and tired of you guys trying to put one over on them. I was your responsibility, not theirs, and they knew that. Did you think you could just take advantage of the new, young couple on the block?” Dane snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  Dane glared her. “No? Did you ever wonder how I knew I was your daughter and how I knew I was Russell’s daughter, or how I knew about the stupid DNA tests? Henry and Lynn told me. Sometimes
on purpose and other times I’d overhear things. They used to argue how it wasn’t right that you guys were just tryin’ to pawn me off on them and trying to quietly disown me. They didn’t know what to do. Wasn’t my fault, they’d point out, but they didn’t know what to do. In the end, they washed their hands of your whole mess. So, yes, they were nice.”

  “I didn’t know they told you…” Christine muttered, shaking her head a little. Again, she glanced away, maybe taking in what she’d just learned or just at a loss.

  A snarl curled onto Dane’s lip. “There’s a lot you don’t know. You show up here with your little box of keepsakes and bullshit, and I’m supposed to fall all over you and cry or some bullshit? The fuck outta here with that bullshit. You want to know why they were nice? They fed me whenever I was at their house. They watched TV with me. They let me play with their dogs. They read me stories. They hugged me and every now and then, they actually reassured me life would be fine. So, yes, nice. Next bullshit move, Mom.” Never had the title mom sounded so much like fuck you.

  Christine looked away and sniffled, like she’d cry. Dane scowled tightly. If this woman dared to shed a tear in front of her, Dane would literally throw her out of the house, weak leg be damned.

  Christine regained her composure with a deep breath and turned her attention back to her daughter. “I didn’t know you held them in such high regard.”

  “Yeah, tends to happen when a person says a fucking word or two in your general direction, you know. What you don’t seem to grasp is that they didn’t have to do anything. They were just our neighbors. They didn’t have to watch me at all. You fucking gave birth to me and ignored the shit out of me. You never even tried.” Dane pointed down at Christine, condemning her with a simple finger.

  “Of course I tried! Like you said, I gave birth to you. I had a connection to you. I tried, I tried…” Christine covered her face with her hands and sniffled again. “I just…I didn’t want to lose my husband.”

  “Yeah, and you had three perfectly good kids. No need to love the defective one.” Dane folded her arms across her chest.

  Watery brown eyes stared at her and Dane just wanted to slap the woman. How dare Christine play the victim here? Like she was supposed to feel sorry for Christine. What the hell is wrong with this woman?

  “I never saw you as defective,” Christine whispered.

  Anger flared in Dane’s chest, unable to take the lies. “You never saw me at all! Where were you when he was beating the shit out of me? Huh? Where were you then? He was more important. I get that. Don’t sit here and fucking lie to me like it wasn’t that way. I was easy to give up. I wish you would just admit it.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Christine growled, standing up from the sofa. “It wasn’t easy, and I was never completely able to let go. I used to stand outside your room for hours, while you slept, and just stare into the room, stare at you. I would hide nearby when you played the piano—”

  “And do absolutely nothing when he showed up and beat the shit out of me for touching the goddamn thing.” Dane threw her hands out, resisting the urge to reach out and strangle Christine.

  Dane had it with Christine. She couldn’t bear to listen to the whining and the denial. There was no justification for what happened to her.

  “Dane, I care about you,” Christine declared and something inside of Dane shattered. “I care about you and I never completely let go.”

  Tilting her head, a smirk curled onto Dane’s face enough to make Christine actually step away. “You care about me? You care about me?” Dane chuckled. It sounded dark to her own ears and the way Christine’s eyes widened, she imagined it sounded worse to Christine. “You wanna know how much you care about me?”

  Christine gulped. “What do you mean?” her voice quivered.

  “Remember when I was fifteen and I ‘moved out?' You remember that?” Dane asked, smiling now.

  For a second, Christine’s voice failed her and she nodded. “Of course I remember.” The response was low, nervous.

  Dane’s smile was a grin now and it hurt her face. “Yeah, well, what you don’t know is that I hadn’t really moved out. I wanted to see how long it would take before someone at least filed a missing person’s report or called my school or asked around about me. But, no one ever did. I was fifteen and gone for a fucking year and no one looked for me. Better still, it happened only a year after I damn near died from that cocaine overdose and not one person in our household gave a shit. So, what the fuck am I supposed to think?”

  “Dane, I kept track of you. I knew you were all right.”

  “Kept track? All right? Ha!” Dane glared at the woman in front of her and pointed at her. “You have no fucking clue. I was homeless for over a year. I lived in a van with the goddamn drummer from the band I was playing in. The only reason I stayed in school was because I had a music teacher there that took an interest in me. He pushed me through, helped my stupid ass graduate. While you were ‘keeping track’ of me, did you know I was pretty much a functioning alcoholic? Or how about my coke habit? Did you know if I had a choice between eating and snorting, I’d snort the livelong day? Did you?” Dane slapped her hands together.

  Christine jumped back and blinked in shock. “I…I…”

  Dane shook her head and her finger. “No, you didn’t know that. Let me enlighten you about what happened while you were ‘keeping track’ of me. I was playing in a band and had been playing with them for two years. They were some random college dropouts, but just as fucked up as I was. The drummer, we called him Animal, lived in a fucked up van. We were pretty tight, so when I told him I needed some place to stay, he offered his van. It was either that or the fucking park, so I picked the van. Just in case you’re wondering, he didn’t touch me or anything. Wasn’t that kind of guy. Always said I was too young for him. Not that it mattered since I had already been fucking girls for years,” she said, just to get a reaction.

  Christine gasped, first at the mention that Animal might’ve touched Dane and then at the revelation of how long Dane had already been intimate with women. Brown eyes dropped to the floor as Christine obviously tried to process the information. Dane didn’t want to give her a chance to catch up, just yet. Christine needed to understand, she hadn’t done shit for Dane and no amount of excuses would ever change that.

  “Yeah, living in the van wasn’t too bad. We really only slept in it and that was during the day. At night, we had clubs to play and parties to hit. Most of the time, Animal’d sleep while I was at school and then I’d sleep when I came from school. It wasn’t so bad, but it was still living in a van. It was fucking cold in the winter, though. Hard to sleep. Sometimes, we just got high to stay awake through it all or just deal with it. One night, we got high, way high. So fucking high I didn’t realize until the next day that this motherfucker Animal had actually OD’ed. I had spent the night with his dead body and was too fucking high to realize it. Probably coulda saved him if I wasn’t so fucked up, but in the end, all I could do was call 911 and call his family. Did you hear about that?” Dane barked, glaring hatefully at her mother.

  It took all of Dane’s willpower not to cry, not to go back to that day, and not see Animal’s pale face staring at her. No, Christine didn’t have a goddamn clue and she needed to stop acting like she knew what had happened.

  Christine’s chin trembled, and she reached out for Dane before wisely dropping her hand. “Dane, I didn’t…”

  Scoffing, Dane rolled her eyes. “You didn’t know? No shit! And no one bothered to ask, on that freezing cold day in the middle of February, why the fuck the cops brought me home. They wanted all this fucking information and then insisted on driving me home. But, I know how it was. Everyone just assumed I did something stupid while I was gone for the year. You know, it was in that moment, I decided not to live at the house anymore. Sure, I stopped by every now and then to give you guys grief, but I was done. It was back to the streets.”

  “Back to the streets? You continued
living on the streets, even after all that?”

  Dane shrugged and then shook her head. “It wasn’t much of a big deal. By that time, people were starting to recognize my talent. Called up Bryan, got him to get into the scene, and before you know it, we had a band. Destined for Nowhere was hot by the time I was seventeen, and I had saved what money I could, so I had a little, crappy studio apartment. Before that, well, was always good with women. Whatever I needed, they were always happy to provide, as long as I kept ‘em happy.”

  “So, you basically began prostituting yourself?” Christine asked in a whimper.

  “Not so much, no. It was more like a symbiotic relationship. I enjoyed being with them and probably would’ve done it even if I didn’t need stuff, but I did need stuff and they needed stuff, too. It was a wild time and it didn’t really change when people started loving the band. But, you know all of this since you were ‘keeping track,’ right?” Dane scoffed as a mocking smile overtook her face. “But, I’ve monopolized the conversation. You were gonna tell me how much you loved me or whatever the hell it is you came here to do. Tell me how much you care or some bullshit like that, right?”

  Christine sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. “All right, I will admit that I’ve done a piss-poor job in keeping track of you. I thought I was doing all right, but you’ve proven me wrong. Nothing I can do will make up for it. Nothing.”

  “Glad you know,” Dane huffed. Okay, now what? She wracked her brain for something else to say, but came up short. She’d vented and made Christine very aware she didn’t know half as much as she thought she did. Maybe there’s nothing left to say.

  “Then, can we start from scratch?” Christine asked with big eyes and a trembling bottom lip. She looked down for a moment and kicked at imaginary dust.

  “Don’t know. What’s the point?” Dane turned her mouth up.

  “Dane…I realize that nothing I can say will undo the damage done, the years of neglect, ignoring you, and then pretending I could somehow make up for it with music lessons, an expensive violin, and...a guitar.”