Conundrum (30 page)

A car honked in the hospital parking lot
,
and I jumped involuntarily to my feet. My entire body shook as if someone had grabbed me with both hands and dangled me over a precipice
. I drew quick shallow breaths and sweat pour
ed
down my forehead. What in the world was happening to me?

I stumbled to my car, unlocked it, and nearly threw myself into the front seat. I locked the door and sat there, unmoving. My mother
had
wondered why I suddenly wanted to quit my guitar lessons. I gave her some lame excuse, but she didn’t press the issue.
I never saw Heidi’s brother again, although for months, I expected him to sneak into my bedroom at night, or waylay me on the way to or from school. I took to carrying Raff’s Swiss army knife, which I pilfered from his drawer.
At night,
I kept the knife under my pillow for nearly a year.

I suddenly realized what I had said to my mother in the kitchen that morning, what later led her to cry out her heart
—
that one and only time I ever saw her cry.

Whether out of confused fear, a jealous attempt to win back my mother’s attention, or a primal need to protect my mother from impending danger
I thought
she was ignorant of, I spilled out a
false
story of how Elliott Blass had confronted me in the bathroom, naked, aroused.

I sat in my car and shook my head so hard
that
it hurt. I wanted to shake out the images so they would
melt
in the air, never to haunt me. But the shaking did nothing to stop the memory of my
fabricated
confession of
encountering
Elliott in that confined space and his doing unmentionable sexual things to me.
Pictures formed: His hand turning the lock on the doorknob, arms grabbing at my shirt and ripping it open, hot breath traveling
across
my neck while a rough hand reached down my pants. Images I kept locked away,
categorized as authentic,
but when put under the microscope of distance and time,
proved false
upon scrutiny.

I didn’t remember how my mother reacted
to my outburst
because
,
as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I turned and ran
from
the room. Was I ashamed
—or terrified my mother would know I had lied
,
and punish me?
What on earth had I done?

I
tried to imagine
the resultant conversation my mother must have had with her
fiancé
, a man my mother
had
yearned
to marry
. Did she confront him with my accusation, or did she silently break up with him, making some weak excuse
?
I thought back to my mother’s tears and her blaming me for ruining her chances at love. My heart fluttered as I realized that her anger
toward me
didn’t have anything to do with her thinking I had lied to her. She
surely
believed me; my
emotions had been too genuine to dismiss.

Having heard my claim of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, my mother never once made any attempt to comfort me. No words of concern or empathy. Instead of a victim, I was the perpetrator. I
f I hadn’t told her, she wouldn’t have had to break up with him. It was all my fault
—
for speaking up and spoiling everything.
My confession had ruined her plans.

I hunched over the steering wheel and cried in great shudders. As horrible as my mother had been, wishing she could have married Elliott in blissful ignorance, my pain stemmed from something altogether different
—and, to me, much more reprehensible
.

I had lied and
consequently
ruined my mother’s life.
I had manipulated her for my own end
, to suit my own purposes, however perplexing
and naive
.
I was no different than she. I was my mother’s child.
A manipulative liar.

And that realization
ripped
my heart
to shreds
.

Chapter
20

At noon,
I got out of my car and walked around to open the passenger door for Jeremy. Upon seeing him, Buster and Angel descended, barking and wiggling, Angel with the tennis ball crammed in tight jaws, pushing her nose to help me open the door wider.

“Hey
,
guys, down, back off.” I pushed them with my weight, but they
w
edged between my legs and the car door to give Jeremy a big welcome home. He’d only been gone five days, but surely they smelled the hospital on him. Their eyes showed worry. No doubt those smells reminded them of the vet
,
and th
os
e associated odors trigger
ed
memories of pain and fear. Jeremy weaseled his way to standing alongside the car
and gave each dog a hearty pat on the head.

“Hey, I missed you too,” he reassur
ed
them with his voice.

I watched him try to bend down to their level, but pain halted his efforts. He straightened with a grimace and gave me his hand the way an elderly person might when needing assistance crossing the street. The doctor
had
preferred Jeremy stay another day
in the hospital
, but didn’t voice much objection when my husband told her he’d had enough poking and prodding and needles.
With some cautionary advice about limiting his movements and taking his painkillers, she released him into my care.

When I
had
stood with him at the elevator
, my hands on his wheelchair, he
had given
me a curious glance. Maybe he thought I could handle one short flight down before falling apart. Maybe he chalked
up
my stepping into the elevator
as
a demonstration of my loyalty
and willingness to sacrifice for him
.
I knew
he
studied my face as we exited the elevator
,
but he said nothing.
He had spent ten years accommodating my refusal to ride in any elevator, regardless how pressed
for time
we might have been on various occasions. He viewed it as a kind of handicap and never chided me for it. Surely my sudden willingness to ride in that elevator with him must have startled him. Someday, I told myself, I would tell him my memories
of that locked closet
.
I would tell him everything I had been doing—all the strange discoveries about my parents and their marriage and my father’s affair.

But
not now.
N
ow, all I wanted was to create some new memories, ones that would knit us together
in a strong enough weave so we could survive the weeks ahead. We had big decisions to make in a short amount of time. I was anxious to talk to Jeremy
and start making plans. Start figuring out how to salvage this train wreck and find a place
—if there was one—
where we could both heal
,
physically and emotionally.
The first step, though, was getting Jeremy into the house and comfortable on the couch. Then, when he felt ready, move him up the stairs and into our bed.

I led him to the front door
, holding his arm as he worked his legs up the two steps to the stoop. I swung open the door and ushered him inside while pushing back the dogs. They got the hint and went off wandering the property. I saw Jeremy look over at the counter where the insurance papers were spread out.

“That the paperwork for the truck?” he asked.

I turned him toward the living room. “I’ve taken care of it. Just have to mail off some forms.”

I could see Jeremy’s mind turning. How it was his fault the truck was totaled. How we couldn’t afford right now to buy another, but he could use my old work truck.
Wondering when he’d feel well enough to return to work. Wondering if things were okay at the store, or if the world had disintegrated while he
had been
lying in the hospital bed with tubes attached to his body.

As I led him to the couch and arranged pillows and blankets for him, I watched him look around the room.
A lump grew in my throat, knowing
he was
mulling over
our
home and what it meant to us.

“Jer,” I said, easing him down onto blankets. “
Let’s just concentrate on getting you well. Do you want something to eat? I made some soup—”

He gripped my wrist and stopped me. I met his eyes
. “When do we have to be out?”

I fidgeted in his grip, then relaxed. I could feel an electric tension in his hand, feel something building. “I’m sure we can take whatever time we need. Even the law requires weeks once an eviction notice is served and—”

“I don’t want to drag this into some legal wrangling.
Look,
I spent days thinking this over in the hospital. We need to make a fast, clean break away from here. I don’t want to speak to your mother or her business manager—nothing.”

I sat beside him and nodded. “So, what are you thinking? Do you want to move away
—
I mean, far away, like out of state? I’ll go wherever you want, Jer. If I never see my mother again, that’s fine with me.”

Jeremy scrutinized my face.
I hoped he could read the honesty there.
“I thought about that—leaving town, getting as far away as possible. But then I realized that’s just what your mother would want us to do. Give up, run away, declare her the winner.” His eyes bore down on mine. “
Your mother wants a
continuous
war, but I’m not going to give her that satisfaction.
I remember someone once said, ‘the opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.’ I think the best way to deal with your mother and her
.
 
.
 
.
behavior is just to walk away from her and ignore her. We can’t let her feel she’s destroyed us. Because she hasn’t, Lis.” He let go of my wrist and stroked my face. “All this is about stuff. Things, property, houses, money. Nothing tangible, nothing that matters.
You see that, don’t you?”

My eyes grew misty. I wanted to say something
,
but the lump
in my throat
grew so
massive
I had trouble breathing.
I finally forced some words out as Jeremy strok
ed
my face, moving hair behind my ear. His gentle gestures felt huge to me.

“
So
.
 
.
 
.
what are you thinking? We look for a place to rent. You keep the store
,
and I do my landscaping jobs? Will that work?”

“I think so. I can ask around, ask some of my customers. They have ranches, farms. If we can’t find anything around here—”

“I don’t want to stay here—in Petaluma,” I blurted. “I mean, I don’t want to have to drive by our place and see someone else
.
 
.
 
.
” The lump returned with renewed hardness. I tried to swallow.

“
So, Sonoma, Santa Rosa. Maybe somewhere north?”

I thought back to when we
had
first looked for property. How we had fantasized buying acreage in the Wine Country, growing a small vineyard and making our own wine.
The cost for
such
land was prohibitive, but what
struck me
was the fresh sense of adventure and excitement we had then—newly married and our lives a blank slate before us. Now we had a full blackboard covered in writing, our hands poised with erasers, about to rub it all away. I
keenly
felt older than my years.

“Sure,” I said. “I guess we’ll need to start looking a
t
ads in the paper—get the
classifieds for those areas.” I sighed, wondering if I
w
as up to this monumental task.

“We’ll find something, Lis. I know you’re worried about your animals.”

“I can find homes for them, I’m sure. It might take some time, but it’s doable.”

“Let’s see what’s out there, what we can afford. Maybe we won’t have to go down that road.”

Jeremy was working hard at sounding
positive, but I could see much rippling under the surface of his features. He
,
too
,
was Humpty Dumpty, shattered in pieces, feeling around the ground to find bits of himself,
unable to see clearly but hoping his efforts would result in some semblance of wholeness.
But once you’re broken, you know
better
than to climb back up on that high wall searching for balance.
You will always be broken; the cracks can’t be hidden even when they’re expertly glued together.
I knew that
from that
moment
on
I would always see Jeremy like that
—patched together
.