Chapter Fourteen
Each time I visit Mom, the house Rachel and I grew up in looks less like a home and more like an empty shell. I plant Lily in the living room with Mom and two dolls.
“Rach?” I call. I don’t hear any response but when we left for ice cream she was headed to Dad’s study, one of the final places with loads of remnants of our childhood. Fading sunlight makes the hallway lonely. I turn into Dad’s office. Paneled wood, floor to ceiling book cases, huge dark-pained windows, and a giant mahogany desk create a very heavy, masculine look. Being called to enter this room used to scare the hell out of me. Still does.
I shiver.
Sitting at Dad’s desk, Rachel looks like a little girl playing grown up. She’s holding what looks like a photo in her hand. A shoebox is open on the desk.
“You okay?” She glances up.
Our gazes meet. Her eyes are red-rimmed and giant tears fill her eyes. What is in that photo? I walk around the desk and stand beside her. I press my hand to her shoulder and look down at the picture she holds.
My heart catches and skips a beat. There we are. All of us. Before. The happy before. I do the math in my head and this is…five, six, seven years ago? Rachel is pregnant, just barely showing, her hand beneath her belly and Dalton stands beside her smiling, with his arm around Rachel’s shoulder. Mom and Dad stand in the center. Mom’s eyes are so bright, so clear, so wickedly sharp, I’d forgotten how they looked when her mind worked. Dad, alive, and laughing and beside Mom is … My heart tightens and I have to remind myself to breathe.
Susie. My beautiful Susie. She is laughing and her whole face is absolutely lit up. I’m beside her with this giant stupid grin on my face, like someone – whoever is taking the picture – just told us a hilarious joke and they might’ve. This picture is alive, and there is joy and happiness and love and just so fucking much.
Rachel sniffles and drags the back of her hand beneath her nose. “What the fuck happened?” A tear drops from her eye. “And how did we not realize how good it was that day? I didn’t, did you? Did you have any idea how this…What was it? A Sunday maybe? A cookout in the backyard? I’m pregnant and Susie’s over and Dad’s grilling and it’s just a normal Sunday. How did we not know how lucky we were? How brilliant that day was?”
I put my hand on Rachel’s shoulder and I bend down and press my lips to her head. She’s right. She’s so fucking right. The people we desperately loved were all alive, and healthy, and happy, and filled with joy. It’s just a normal day and we didn’t even think about what we had, and who we were, and how good we had it. Or how lucky and blessed we were to experience that exact moment and how fucking quickly – with one foot over the edge into space – with the blink of an eye, so many of us would be gone.
Abso-fucking-lutely gone.
I don’t say it but I think it. Just Rachel and me. We’re still here, and we’ve got Lily. On a good day we have Mom too. But in the photo that Rachel holds we were the luckiest people in the world and we didn’t even know it at that time.
“We still have each other,” I say, and Rachel smiles. She places the photo on the top of the desk and looks back at the box. “This was in the bottom drawer of his desk.”
“The drawer that’s always locked?”
Rachel nods. She pulls out more pictures from the box. One of Mom and Dad, which looks to be when they were on their honeymoon. “Wow, you do look just like Dad, no wonder Mom gets confused.”
I take the picture from Rachel’s hand. Yep, we do look really similar.
“Except for the smile,” I say. “I definitely have Mom’s smile.”
Rachel glances at me. “Yep you do. Lucky bastard.”
I put the photo back onto the desk. “Anything interesting?”
Rachel shakes her head, no. And then she stops. “Unless you count this.” She lifts a picture from the bottom of the box.
Dad and another woman stand in front of the Eiffel tower. They’re kissing
“That isn’t Mom.”
Rachel shakes her head. “Nope, not Mom.”
“Looks like he has on a wedding ring. What color is her hair?”
Red.
“And there we understand Mom’s fixation with Kendall. That’s the woman that he left her for. Didn’t ever know they went to Paris together,” Rachel says.
“Not much is known about that time,” I say. “Other than Dad was out of town a lot.”
“Right,” Rachel says. She tosses the photo back in the box and pops on the lid “I think I’m finished for today.” She stands and walks over to the bookshelf where she plucks a tissue from a box. “Mom and Lily?”
“Had ice cream and are playing dolls.”
Rachel looks out the window. Daylight fades to night. “Think we’ll go home and relax.”
“No hot date?”
She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling, “Never.”
“Do you want me to come over and watch Lily? I mean, do you need some time to yourself?”
“You’re kidding? You’re offering to watch your niece?”
“I’m always here to watch Lily.”
“Right, I know that I can always ask you and you’ll usually say yes, but I still have to ask.”
“That’s what most people do when they want things.”
“No, that’s what men do when they want things. Women like it when other people offer. It’s a kink in our DNA, and in the nearly six years that Lily has been alive I don’t remember you ever offering to watch her before today.”
Is that right? Quite possibly. I can be that self-involved. I know I can.
“I’m offering now.”
Rachel lifts an eyebrow and slips her phone from her pocket. “Okay. I can find some friends to do something with.” She glances up from her phone. “I’d love that.”
“Done. I’ll hang out here with Mom for a little bit. Be at your place in about an hour?”
“Perfect.” A smile slips onto her face. “Thank you. I could use the break.” She presses a kiss to my cheek.
“No problem.” Thankfully, I feel less like a self-involved asshole and more like a human being.
***
I close the book and place it on the nightstand beside Lily’s bed.
“Uncle Jake, I know what kind of puppy I want.”
“What kind?” I sit on the bed beside her. Her expression is serious, as though she’s pondered this important question for a long while.
“You know the dog that your friend Tara has?”
“Jango?”
“I want a puppy like Jango.”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure what that is, because I think Jango is a rescue dog. Tara adopted her from a shelter so we wouldn’t know for sure what kind of dog her mommy or daddy was.”
“That’s what I want to do,” Lily says, her gaze serious. “Mommy says that Jango looks like she’s part lab and part shepherd.”
“That sounds good.”
“So I want one of those.”
I lift the blanket and pull it up higher over her body.
“Has Mommy said yes yet?” she asks, a hopeful lilt in her voice. “You know my birthday is very soon.”
“Leave it to me,” I say. Knowing full well that convincing Rachel to let Lily have a dog will be harder than convincing a vegan to eat a cow.
“I love you Uncle Jake,” Lily mumbles, her eyes already closed and the sound of her voice indicting she’s drifting to dreamland.
“I love you too.” I lean forward and kiss her cheek. She’s an angel. An absolute and total angel. And if my angel wants a dog then I’ve got to find a way to get her one, even if that includes hiring a dog walker to come to Rachel’s two times a day. Scratch that. Big Sis seems irritable about me hiring people to take care of family. OK. Even if I have to come over here myself? Hmm..that changes the dynamic. Nope. Not doing that, but then I can’t expect Rachel to take on the responsibility either.
Damn. Like a light bulb moment, I see what’s up with Rachel and why she doesn’t want a dog. Yessirree, another creature in the house to take care of. Damn. Rachel does need more help.
I stand and walk out of Lily’s room. My phone buzzes and I pull it from my pocket.
‘How’s Lily?’
‘Asleep’, I text back.
‘Thank you!’
‘Have fun’, I text, and I hope she does. I hope that maybe for a couple of hours tonight she forgets all the responsibility that she has, the shit-ton of work she does, and how she takes care of Mom, Lily, and even me. I walk down the stairs to the family room and grab the remote. I turn on the TV and the doorbell rings.
Standing in the doorway is Kendall with her red hair and her ‘crazy-eyes’ as Tara calls them, but they don’t look so crazy. She carries a glass dish.
“Came by to drop this off to Rachel. Had no idea she wasn’t here.”
“She’s out to dinner.”
“I know where it goes. I’ll put it away.”
Before I can say no, she slides past me into the house and down the hall to the kitchen. She opens up the cabinet beside the stove and puts the glass Pyrex dish onto another one that is nearly identical. “So she left you here with Lily tonight?” she asks, all smiles. “It’s nice of you to babysit.”
She stands and puts both her hand into the back pockets of her jeans, which causes her very nicely-shaped breasts to pop out in front. She surveys the kitchen and the family room. “Want some company?” She steps forward. She’s near me now and her intent, her desire, what she wants from me, is pretty clear. Her breasts so close to my chest, her upper teeth tugging on her bottom lip, and her eyes half-lidded with that you-can-have-me-if-you-want-me look. I’m clear on what she’s after.
And nothing. My cock doesn’t even respond. I might as well be standing in my shower with ice-cold water dumping on my head.
“I uh….I can’t.” I take a step back.
That irritable look, like the one she gave first in the bathroom at the birthday party and then in my bedroom when she fellated me, crosses her face.
“Still seeing the reporter?”
“That’s not it. Ever since the article came out I can’t…well things don’t work the way they once did.”
She glances down at my crotch. “Are you kidding?
I shake my head, no. “I wish I were.”
“You can’t…you’re not….”
I nod. No need to fill her in on the detail of Tara. “I’ve tried, and well, there’s nothing going on.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“Not yet. But I am seeing a therapist.”
“My god.” Her fingertips press her lips. “That’s…that’s horrible.”
Are those fucking tears I see in her eyes?
“I mean you have such a gift, what you do to help women, how you helped me. My god.” She backs away from me like I’ve told her I have leprosy and it’s contagious.
“I uh…I hope it works out for you.”
“Me too,” I say, and follow her to the front door where she slips out and shuts the door behind her.
Until now, I’ve never been grateful that I couldn’t get hard.