Chapter 6
I've never been a popular girl in high heels (I tried to wear them once and the experience ended with a sprained ankle. I learned my lesson.) I never tried to appeal to people I didn't have anything in common with. I didn't feel like playing the social game, which everyone seemed to have drifted into in high school. I found my corner in the library or under a tree in the park. I preferred my loneliness, which was not terrible at all. It was easier than standing in front of the mirror every morning for an hour wondering what to wear (I was satisfied with jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers).
From my place at the bottom of the social ladder, Colin Young looked like a Roman emperor who could sentence you to life or death with a flip of his thumb. Everyone wanted to be his friend. All the girls wanted to get a party invitation from him and agreed to settle on a few minutes in his bed, if that's all they could get. Colin had a kingdom to rule and I was the last of the maids. Or so I thought. Sometimes reality is simply not what we believe it to be.
When I discovered the truth, it was so ugly I vomited that night. Colin swore me to silence. Okay, he threatened me, and I believed his threat. The panic on his face was raw when I appeared at his door and found him holding an ice bag to his nose. An hour earlier he'd forgotten his history book in my room. The test was the next day, and I assumed he would like to study at night and I just didn't think. I didn't think of anything when I jumped on a bus and went to his house without notice.
"What on earth are you doing here?" He barked at me, and I cringed at once.
"You forgot the book," I mumbled in confusion. "And I thought . . ."
"Get out of here, Elizabeth." He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, out of what looked like pure pain.
"What happened to you?"
"That's not your business!" Blood ran down the corner of his mouth and made my stomach sick.
"You should see a doctor."
"And who's going to pay for it, huh?" He opened his eyes and gave me a murderous look.
"Do you want me to look at it?" I suggested, although there wasn't much I could do.
"Now you're a doctor?" He mocked me. The truth was that was exactly what I had hoped to become one day. A noise from inside the house made me look over Colin's shoulder and my eyes caught on the huge figure swinging in the living room, a bottle of beer in his hand. The terrifying man kicked the little coffee table and tossed it to the edge of the room effortlessly.
"You piece of shit, where did you hide the remote control?"
I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to add one and one and understand what had happened to the guy who stood in front of me terrified.
"Elizabeth, get lost, now!"
"He hit you?" I whispered in shock.
"What don't you understand? Go back to your perfect home and your perfect life and forget you saw anything."
As if I could forget even if I wanted to, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to go and leave him there with the bully who looked drunk and dangerous. "Colin," my voice quivered.
"If you don't come here now and find the fucking remote, you'll regret it." The drunken man roared.
"If you tell someone about this, you're finished, do you hear me, you'll regret the day we met." Colin's eyes burned into me.
"You need help."
"You and your fucking help!" He lost his patience. "A stupid little girl who doesn't listen to what she's being told. Get out of here, Elizabeth, get the fuck out, and never come back!" He slammed the door in my face, leaving me standing with his history book in my hand, my legs threatening to collapse. The perfect life of Colin Young was light years away from his fake pretence, and I was the only one to discover that the king was naked.
My parent's front yard is decorated. Their house isn't very fancy and not too big, but it has always been enough for all of us. It is located in one of the nicest areas of town, a quarter of an hour from my little home. My parents worked hard to buy it and taught me to work hard, especially after my plans went down the drain with my dreams.
Vivian leaps out of the car and runs toward her grandfather, who stands on the front lawn among the many guests who came early. A wide smile comes over his face as he sees her. I stay behind the wheel for another moment and watch them. My father reaches for her and picks her up without effort, though he seems to be careful not to hurt his nose, which still looks purple under the bandage. Her dress flaps in the wind, like the white tablecloths on the tables laden with refreshments. My mother is dressed solemnly in a red dress, displaying her thin legs and smiling at my father. I know she isn't pretending. The look on her face is real and full of love and appreciation.
My parents have had a good marriage for more than three decades, and I left the church alone, no ring on my finger.
I open the car door, thank the warm weather that greets me, remember to take the gift I bought them—a sophisticated coffee machine—lock the car, and examine the new dress I bought especially for the occasion.
It's black, with thin spaghetti shoulder straps, the material clinging to my chest with a bow tied beneath my boobs. There, it spills down to my ankles, hiding my black flats.
I stood in front of the long mirror in my bedroom for twenty minutes and wondered if I should give it up and throw something else on. Even my make-up didn't make me feel better. I applied some rouge, eye shadow, heroically survived painting on eyeliner, pulled my eyelashes with mascara and my lips with gloss. Finally, I scattered my red mane of hair and prayed it would get a decent shape, any shape, just so that my mother wouldn't raise an eyebrow and cluck her tongue.
My body has changed. If Colin grew muscle, I just grew fat. First during my pregnancy, and then over the years. I'm no longer the thin-ish girl he knew. Now I'm curvy and I'm sure he noticed. Mr. 'Health-N'-Fit' came back to find I was no longer the geek from the library, just an average, neglected single mom.
With hesitant steps I join the crowd on the grass. Everyone I've ever known is here or about to arrive, and the country music playing in the background is sometimes swallowed up by a laugh from one of the guests.
No one misses my parents’ parties. The drink flows like water, the food is fine and the only celebration that competes with this event is the Fourth of July party they are planning.
If I know my mother, she is already thinking about how she will top last year's production.
"Elizabeth!" My mom reaches out to hug me, but stops when she sees the big package I'm carrying. "You shouldn't have bought us anything."
"Happy anniversary," I ignore what she said. I wouldn't have come empty-handed. Besides, whether I liked it or not, the fact that someone has put money in my bank account sure helps me a lot. More than I would like to admit.
"Your daughter grew up," Mrs. Errlis, my parents' neighbor for decades who is currently standing beside my mother nods. "Does your granddaughter bring you much pleasure, Darlene?"
"Of course she does," my mother replies with a smile, "so smart, and so beautiful."
"We all know who she looks like," Mrs. Errlis mentions.
"She's takes after my daughter." My mother isn't flustered. I don't know how she manages to keep her cool. "She is as intelligent and she listens to what she is told."
"I heard he came back." Mrs. Errlis' words send a wave of chill down my back.
"Kirsten," my mother loses some of her color, "you don't have to believe whatever nonsense you hear."
"He was seen at the gym," Mrs. Errlis doesn't know when to keep quiet, "and shopping at Walmart, and I think Mrs. Haines saw him running in the park." She looks up at me as if waiting for an answer. Gossipy and prying!
"Perhaps you should mind you own business and not mine?" I explode before my brain can stop me. Mrs. Errlis turns white in the face of my inappropriate reaction, but she deserves to hear the truth. Someone has to shut her mouth.
"Elizabeth," my mother scolds me, trying to silence me before I insult her guest any further.
"You know I'm right." I strengthen my grip on the huge package in my hands so as not to fall from the shudder that overcomes me. "You know it's no one's business." I aim the last words at Mrs. Errlis, who has not yet recovered from my first reaction.
"I didn't mean," she says innocently.
"You meant it, Kirsten." Her name rolls off my lips contemptuously. "You sure meant it."
"Darlene," she sighs to my mother, "your daughter has forgotten the most basic etiquette."
"Her daughter is twenty-six," I snort, before my mother can answer. "What do you think she'll do, send me to my room?" I don't think my mother has ever sent me to my room. I never gave her a reason, but now I give her a good enough reason to stare at me with a look imtimating I had better not add more fuel to the fire.
"No wonder he left. With that mouth of yours?"
Mrs. Errlis' venomous words permeate my veins. She's about to get some,
no matter the consequences.
"You must be right," I sneer. "He left 'cause of my mouth."
"He left 'cause of something," she sips her wine, not lowering her evil stare. "Who can blame him?"
So that's what they think? That he left because of me?
"At least I don't pretend to have a good marriage while my husband comes back in the morning, three times a week," I let Kirsten Errlis know I'm not a sucker. "Remind me who it is this time, the young bartender or the saleswoman in the deli? Or do you still believe him when he says he fell asleep in the car?"
Her face, which was white, starts turning more and more red by the second.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm seeing things, too."
"The nerve you have," she says, staring at my mom with a look that could kill.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Kirsten, I'm not the little girl who hid in the house with her baby so ya'll don’t talk."
"No one talked," she tries to defend herself, but I interrupt her sharply.
"You all talked, bunch of gossips!" That's what they are. Bored bunch with nothing to do but mess with other people’s lives.
"Elizabeth!" My mother is blazing.
"I knew it was a mistake to come." I hand the package over to my mother aggressively with the clear aim of running back home.
"Put it in the kitchen." She doesn't cooperate, nodding toward the house.
"Mom," I grumble loudly.
"In the kitchen," she doesn't retreat from her position. With unmistakable frustration, I walk away from them, through the open door of the house, through the spacious living room and the impressive dining area. My father built the massive wooden table and the eight chairs years ago. He has good hands, which he obviously didn't leave me. I joked about it, but it never made my father laugh, only reminded him of the son he lost, who might have inherited the work shed in the back yard. He never said that, but I'm sure the thought crossed his mind, more than once. I'm sure he wondered what could have happened if Morgan had grown up to be a man and had not stayed fourteen forever.
I put the package down and lean against the counter, my head dropping between my shoulders.
Maybe I'm not so different from my parents. Their house doesn't have pictures of Morgan that will keep reminding them who they lost, just like Colin's albums that I hide in the cabinet in my living room.
As if I could hide his existence.
It worked for five years, and now everything is crumbling.
He was seen at the gym, shopping, running in the park. He's having a good time, while I have to deal with the rumors, the criticism, the endless gossip.
He didn't leave because of me, I know that. Nothing will convince me that I'm to blame. If he wanted to break up, he just had to say something, not leave a note and disappear.
"Elizabeth." My mother's voice makes me startle and I turn to her with a miserable look.
"Why did he have to come back?"
"Stop worrying about why he has come back." She shakes her head. "You don't want Viv to hear from anyone else, it's only a matter of time before . . ."
Before someone says the wrong thing next to my girl or even asks her if she met her Daddy. Her friends' parents might talk, and we all know that Daryl's mother can't be trusted to shut her mouth around him.
"What am I supposed to tell her?"
"You have to meet him, hear what he has to say and set out rules for him," she replies firmly. "And you have to do it quickly. If Kirsten Errlis knows, soon everyone will know."
"It's too soon." My thoughts are running.
"Lizzie!" she loses her patience. "I know you're frightened, but you have to take over the situation, and you can't explain to Vivian where her father was if you don't know yourself!"
"I don't care where he was!" I burst out, "He should have been here, he should have . . ." stayed.
"You can't change what happened, but you have to understand, if he takes you to court, you'll lose. You don't want anyone else telling you when he can see his daughter."
"She's my daughter!" I turn a warning finger at her. "Don't forget that!"
"She is his daughter too in the eyes of the law," she insists. "And he will have no problem proving it if you don’t refuse to let go of the past and move on."
"Don't talk nonsense," I wave dismissively. "Go back to your party, I'm sure your guests are waiting to see the constant love display you put on every year."
I pause in embarrassment. Where did those words come from? Where does this anger come from, and why do I turn it against my mother? She isn't to blame for anything.
"Elizabeth." She lowers her voice in sympathy.
"I'm sorry, it's just . . ." Too much. Year after year, these festivities are like a knife in my heart. I didn't have the privilege of celebrating even one anniversary. My mother asked that the food from our reception be transferred to the nearest shelter and the gifts she gave back, making it a little easier for me.
If I’d had to deal with it, I would have gone mad. Months of planning went down the drain. It was supposed to be the wedding of my dreams and what I got was a nightmare that refuses to end.
"You can have it all too," my mother sighs quietly. "If only you tried, if you didn't insist on being alone."
"You know very well why I don't have," I cut midsentence, leaving my words hanging in the air. I won't get into that today, I can't deal with anything else, with more pain.
"Colin isn't the only man in the world."
"I know that," I snort.
"So stop acting like he is," she says emphatically. "Now let's go outside and save your father from his granddaughter, and keep your mouth shut."
She stares at me for the last time, straightens her dress, examines herself once more and walks out of the kitchen without a word. Colin isn't the only man in the world, he's just the one who took my heart and smashed it with one sharp blow.
I fail to convince myself to join the celebrants outside and climb up the stairs to the second floor, into my old room. My parents left it as it was, for Vivian's use.
When she’s here she sleeps, in the bed that was mine, in the room where I fell in love with her father. I open the door, turn on the light, and sit down on the edge of the bed. In the corner is the desk I was using and the same chair stands next to it. Even the smell has not changed. Everything froze when I left at eighteen, as my father protested. He claimed I was too young, throwing my future into the trash, that I would discover my mistake when it was too late. He was right about everything.
The certificates on the wall are a reminder of my failure. I shift my gaze from one to the other. The outstanding student finished her career as a saleswoman in the furniture store. Not impressive at all. I shake my head in frustration. How did I let it happen? I lay back and take a deep breath and look up at the ceiling. My life was planned, my future paved for years, until the captain of the football team crept into my heart just to break it. Who does that? Maybe he hasn't changed. Maybe he was always the indifferent guy he is now and I only saw the mask he was wearing. Maybe it was all a show, and the lead actor decided to quit. Decided not to get stuck at twenty-one with a woman and a child, while all his friends graduated from college and built careers. That's what he did, after all, built himself a successful business and an over sized bank account.
With the fatigue that has been with me for days, I get up from bed, leave my memories behind, turn off the light and go down the stairs. It's time to return to the present, as painful and frustrating as it is.
For the next hour, I make a supreme effort to avoid any conversation that might spill over into subjects I don't want to talk about, ignoring the glances and whispers directed at me. Mrs. Errlis must have told all her friends how Darlene's daughter spoke to her, and now they have something more to gossip about. Vivian plays with the neighbors' dog, who didn't bother to tie him up at home, instead letting him run around everyone's legs.
My daughter looks happy, unaware of the fact that her life is going to change beyond recognition. She pulls the leash around the dog's neck, ignores her white dress and rolls with him on the grass. I don't say anything even when it fills up with green stains that can't be removed.
The dress is lost, almost as I am.
"So you're taking him to court?" My father's voice surprises me from behind and destroys my plans not to talk about my ex.
"I'm not sure yet," I mumble without looking at him, not taking my eyes off Vivian.
"What are you waiting for?" He comes to stand beside me.
"I'm not waiting, he gave me something for the time being."
"Something?" My father tenses.
"Twenty-five thousand dollars." One hell of a 'something', not that I think my father is impressed. My parents may not be the richest in the country, but I am pretty sure that here and there they have a savings plan or two. After all, they help me, and quite a lot.
"Where did he get the money from?" I'm faced with another question I have no answer to. I don't seem to have a good answer to anything.
"I don't know, he's got a business, I didn't get into it," I reply coldly.
"Are you thinking about finding out?"
"I'd rather not think about it now." Or talk about it or deal with it, until I have no choice.
"Did you talk to the lawyer?"
"Yes, and I'm telling you again, I don't want to talk about it now." The last thing I need is for my father to make a fuss just because I can't answer him.
"Twenty-five thousand dollars," he says nervously.
I turn my head slowly, the look on my face dead serious. "You're not listening to what I'm saying. I don't want you to interfere, you're not part of the equation. Not you and not Mom, so stop pressuring me and let me solve the problem!"
"Frank," my mother comes out of nowhere, her sharp senses telling her that the conversation is escalating. "We ran out of beer, do you mind bringing another box from the fridge in the garage?"
"Yes, Frank," I imitate her, "do you mind bringing the beer and minding your own business?"
"'Watch your mouth," my father says angrily. "You knew well enough where to find me any time you got a call from your bank manager. If your ex-boyfriend thinks he'll show up here and take my granddaughter . . ."
"Frank," my mother doesn't let him finish, "no one is taking Vivian anywhere!"
"Who's taking me?" A small, squeaky voice makes us all look down at the girl in the stained dress, who stands before us with large curious eyes and waits for an answer.
"Grandpa thought of taking you for ice cream tomorrow." My mother saves the day.
"Yes!" Viv jumps up and claps, "I love you, Gramps."
She crashes in to him with a hug, her arms around his thighs. He leans and lifts her to him, presses her against his chest and kisses her head.
"He's just worried," my mother mouths without a sound.
"I know," I whisper back. I worry too.
My father puts Vivian back on the grass. She doesn't linger and runs back to the dog just as I spot a black jeep parked across the street. My pulse accelerates to a frightening speed when I recognize the man sitting behind the wheel looking at me and my daughter.
Our daughter.
What is he doing here? He's insane. He promised he would keep his distance. If my father sees him, all hell will break loose. I steal a quick glance at my father, who makes his way to the garage with his back to us. When my gaze returns to the jeep, our eyes lock.
Please, go.
Colin's hands are on the steering wheel. My chest goes up and down and I feel suffocated in the damned dress. I look like a clown with this make-up, my hair is a disaster, and I don't want to care about what he thinks. So why do these thoughts creep up and bring tears to my eyes? My lip begins to tremble and in a second everyone will see. He has to get out of here, now. He has to stay away from the girl who doesn't know who he is. I wonder whether to go over when the monstrous car begins to move, sliding down the street, then accelerating. The pressure in my chest refuses to release.
If he decides to make a move, I won't have any control over it. If he decides to surprise Vivian and me, I can't do anything. I really need a plan, and a good one. A plan that will restore the control of the situation to my own hands and won't let him manage me as he did in the past.