Days Like This (18 page)

THERE WAS NOTHING else I
could say to my mom. I wasn’t sure what others things were valid. For the last
forty minutes, Dr. Lambert made me tell her story after story, to rehash all
the things my mom and I had been through and how I’d felt about them all. Mom
sat on the other side of the couch, a whole cushion between us. She wasn’t
permitted to respond until my story had ended, but she cried the whole time I
spoke.

Dr. Lambert was
in front of us, and in the distance between Mom and me, it felt a lot closer
than normal. I wondered if this was how she was when it was just Mom. Her voice
was softer today when she spoke. “Joyce, what’s running through your head at
this moment?”

Mom shifted on
the couch; I didn’t want to be near her, but I couldn’t look away. I had this
need to see that what I’d said had really been heard. I didn’t know what good
it would do, but it did feel better to have it all out there.

“I understand
what you said before about how my denial of this problem has caused pain to
those I love the most. To Cassie.” She looked at me when she said my name.

“It’s not a
problem, Joyce.”

Mom nodded her
head. “Right. This disorder. A problem I can fix but the only way to ‘fix’ bipolar
is to accept it and take actions to keep it under control.”

Mom recited
that as if she’d heard it all her life. A song that she loved and could hum
without hearing. I watched her with Dr. Lambert, and it was familiar, open in a
way that I never had with anyone. Not even with Graham.

“I want to
take my life back,” Mom said. I stared at her. Mom had this freedom now, all
because I said what I said. How was it possible that I had that much power over
her emotions?

Dr. Lambert
turned her attention to me. “Cassie, what are you thinking at this moment?”

“I don’t
know.”

“Yes, you do,”
she said. I closed my eyes. “This is a time to be honest.”

“I’m jealous.”
I hadn’t meant to say that, and as soon as the words were out, I regretted
them. The looks on their faces, the shock at my answer, pierced me. I hadn’t
known I was jealous.

“You should
probably clarify,” Dr. Lambert said.

I waved them
off. This was stupid. “Never mind. Forget it.”

“Cassie—”

“Mom gets to
come here and I get to unload all my shit on her, so she can decide to change
her life. It’s awesome, really. It seems so easy after everything. I love her.”
I looked at Mom. “I love you. I do.”

“I sense a ‘but’,”
Mom said.

I crossed my
arms. “But life isn’t that easy. We make a mistake and we have to work our
asses off to fix it.”

“It’s still
going to be hard. I promise you this is only the beginning for Joyce, Cassie,”
Dr. Lambert said. I didn’t want that promise. Beginnings were hard. Endings
were hard. Everything was fucking hard.

“I know. I
know it’s going to be hard, and I will be here, just like I’ve always been,” I
said.

Dr. Lambert
placed her hands in her lap. “Then, why are you jealous?”

I looked at Mom
instead. “What do you want, Mom? More than anything—what do you want?”

She bit her
lip. She seemed hesitant, but then she said, “Forgiveness. Understanding. A
chance to move past this and to live again.”

“Exactly.” I stood
and paced around the room. I wasn’t supposed to stand, but I didn’t care what I
was supposed to do that day. “You know what you want and you get it. I don’t.”

“You don’t get
what you want?” Dr. Lambert asked. Mom watched us go back and forth like a Ping-Pong
ball.

“I don’t,” I
said. “I don’t even know what I want beyond the thing I can’t have anymore.” I
picked up a slinky off the table and moved it through my hands. “That’s the
part about all this that sucks, because I can tell you all the shit that went
down my whole life. The things you missed, the messes you made because you were
sick—but the one thing that your bipolar condition caused that I can’t fix is
the one thing I can’t blame on you. Because I did it all on my own.”

Mom paused and
inhaled. “Graham.”

I stopped a
few inches from my side of the couch. “I was going to marry him, Mom. I never
told you that.”

“I know,” she
said.

I never told
her that. I didn’t get to. “You know?”

She nodded,
scratching her neck quickly and twisting to see me. “He came by the night you
left asking for you. That’s when he found out about school, and I found out
about your proposal.”

“You never
mentioned it,” I said, lowering myself to sit on the back of the couch.

“Neither did
you.”

I stared at
Mom. Of course Graham told her—they’d been here together without me. I just
assumed, I guess, that since he never told his parents he’d never told mine. I
bet he was pissed when she didn’t know. That was the one thing I was supposed
to do on my own. It was the whole reason I went over there.

Dr. Lambert
cleared her throat. “Cassie, perhaps you should back up. Tell your mom what
happened.”

I moved to the
window. I knew I should’ve sat down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Why
did you always tell me that dad died?” I blurted.

“Richard?”

I nodded and
turned, leaning against the window. “You spent my life telling me he died. I
went over that night to tell you Graham proposed to me, and you were in a
state. Your room was a mess, and you were lost in your own memories. You
thought I was someone else, and you told me dad left you because he couldn’t
handle you. Couldn’t handle it.”

Mom shook her
head and looked away from me toward the floor. “I don’t really want to talk
about Richard, Cassie.”

Dr. Lambert
touched Mom’s shoulder. “But Cassie does, Joyce. You should tell your daughter
the truth. It seems like she needs it.”

“I don’t think
I can,” Mom whispered.

The room was
quiet, save the ticking of the clock counting down the time left in our
session. I count them as they pass. What was so bad that Mom couldn’t tell me? Did
I really want to know the truth? Yes. Yes, I did. I needed to understand how
she lied. How she kept something so important from me all my life. I kept moving
around the room, unable to calm myself enough to sit.

 Fifteen
minutes later, Mom spoke up.

“It was 1977,”
she said. Her voice was low, but it seemed like a scream in the silent room. “I
was twenty, brand new to the music industry, and I had a this little
nothing-now band who were the openers for Fleetwood Mac. Richard was their
roadie.”

I knew that
part. That they’d met at a Fleetwood Mac concert. Mom spoke louder as the story
continued. “He was such an ass, called me ‘little girl’ and had this cocky
smile. The whole time before the show we fought; that’s all we’d done for days,
but we were arguing about something when Stevie came on and started singing “
Angel
.
”
I don’t even remember the fight
anymore—something silly I guess—but then he said, ‘You are the most infuriating
woman in the world,’ then he kissed me.”

I’ve never heard
that whole story. I lowered myself into my spot on the couch, and Mom was
smiling. It was barely there, but it was a smile.

“It was a whirlwind
for us, Cassie,” she said. “I changed my whole life for him. It’s how I got so
involved with the band. It’s why your name is what it is. They united us—their
music. It was hard, but we made it work. He toured with them and I went along
my own path. Eight years we did that, until we were married in 1985. We bought
the house here, a neutral place away from everything, and we carried on.”

I could tell
that she was remembering from her slight smile, a furrowed brow. I’d seen it
enough times to know.

“Things were
never great with us after we married,” she said. Her voice changed, her
shoulders dropped and she averted her gaze. “Travel’s hard on a marriage. We
would go months without seeing each other—me with my bands, him with whatever
gig he could find. I ended up pregnant, and we weren’t trying. We’d never even
talked about kids, not with our lives, but there you were,” she smiled at me,
but I could see a little sadness in her eyes. “I decided to take a break until
you were a few months old, so I passed on my bands to some co-workers and moved
into our house. You have his eyes, you know.”

I knew. I’d
seen pictures. Mom’s chestnut hair and Dad’s cobalt eyes. I got the best of
both of them.

Mom looked
from Dr. Lambert to me and back again at Dr. Lambert. “He was never there. And
when he was there, we fought. A lot. I had post-partum—that’s when it all
started and we didn’t know—but he didn’t understand. I couldn’t take care of
you like I needed and one day, when you were two, he said he was leaving. That
was the last time I ever heard from him, except for the divorce papers.”

I let out a
breath. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

She reached
for my hand. I gave it to her. “I didn’t want you to think it was you. Richard
was a good man, Cassie, but we lived a hard life. He had a passion. I had a
passion. You know how you feel about Graham? I don’t think he ever felt that
for me, nor I for him. That was music for us.”

“And you gave
it up for me,” I said.

Mom squeezed
my hand. “It was the best decision for you. I love you. You needed a mother.
I’m sorry I failed at it.”

“You didn’t
fail.”

“I did,” she
said with a smile. “But I tried.”

“It’s not your
fault.”

“It isn’t
yours either,” she said.

I scooted
closer to her. “You told me that night he left because he couldn’t handle your
episodes.”

She sighed. “I
have no doubt that influenced his decision. It’s hard to watch the person you
love be lost. You’ve experienced that; not everyone is as strong as you. But
Richard had a void that only music could fill. I knew that from the beginning,
but I thought I would be enough like he was for me. Or like I told myself he
was for me.”

“That’s why I
left Graham.”

Mom touched my
face. “Why?”

I felt myself
breaking around her. “Because I didn’t want him to be stuck with me in case I
was like you. I didn’t think he could handle it.”

“Graham? Oh,
honey. That boy can handle anything,” Mom said.

“I didn’t want
him to have to handle me. That’s not a relationship.”

Neither of us
said anything, but I felt connected to my mom for the first time as we sat
there and she stroked my hand. More than I ever had.

“Cassie, I
think there’s another reason that you don’t even want to admit to yourself. Something
holding you back, and it’s not that you’re not sick, Cassie.” Dr. Lambert said.
I shook my head. There was no other reason. “You said you were jealous that
your mom knew what she wanted and that she could get it now. What do you want?”

“I don’t
know.”

“Yes, you do,”
Dr. Lambert said, nodding toward me.

Right. I’d
said that before, too.

“To not be
like you,” I said to Mom. I expected her to be upset, but she wasn’t. Instead,
she patted my hand with hers.

“What,
specifically?” Dr. Lambert asked.

“Alone.”

“Why do you
think you’re alone?”

I paused. It
was harder to say it than I could admit. The words were stuck in my throat. “Because
you were right and June was right—I kept everyone out. I pushed them all away
to protect them, but really I was protecting myself.”

“From what?”
Dr. Lambert asked.

“From
everything,” I admitted.

Mom hugged me,
and for the first time in all my life, I felt like she was my mom. Mom, instead
of the person I was taking care of. Like it was for me, and not for her or for
show, and tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to contain it, but I wanted to
sob and never stop.

“Oh, Cassie,”
she whispered in my ear. “Your father had a mantra that he said every morning,
‘You can’t live your life in fear of what could be—if you do you’ll never live
it.’”

“Dad used to
say that?”

She nodded.
“Every day.”

Graham told me
that, too. Maybe it was a famous quote or something.

MOLLY SIGHED NEXT to me and
ran her fingers down my back as I rolled off her. She pressed her lips against
my neck, and laughed lightly. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”

I smiled.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“That’s not
entirely my fault,” she said.

I didn’t miss the
tone in her voice. I’d been avoiding her for the last few days. There was a lot
going on, and I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do with my Cassie
feelings, especially after June confronted me. I hadn’t stopped thinking about
it. Not that I could tell Molly any of that. No sense in stirring up trouble. I
kissed Molly’s shoulder, and she squealed and pulled me into her, pressing her
mouth against mine.

Her hands ran
through my hair as I kissed her. When we needed to stop for breath, she
muttered something about going to sleep. Sleep would be good. Her hand fell
away from me, and I turned onto my side. A contented hum filled the room, and
she grew still next to me. I was drifting off to sleep, but June’s voice played
in my head.

“A guy
who’s trying really hard to ignore the fact that he’s obviously in love with
his old fiancée. A guy who’s really scared right now, almost as much as that
girl he’s trying not to love. Have you ever asked her why she left?”

Why hadn’t I
asked Cass about leaving? I should do that. If June was right, I should find
out. Maybe tomorrow. I couldn’t wait any longer. She was right there, and I’d
been waiting almost a year. Maybe there was a reason. I needed to find it. To
not be a pussy. I’d ask her and then I could put it all behind me. Cass and me
could be a memory, finally.

“Night,” she
muttered.

“Night, Cass,”
I said.

This is
nice. Silent and calm and warm
.
My eyes started to drift and she shifted on the bed and inhaled sharply. I
turned around see what was wrong, and she was sitting up, frowning.

“What did you
say?” she asked.

“What?”

“You called me
‘Cass’?” Her voice was high and she tightened the sheets up around her chest.

I scrambled
up. “No, no I didn’t do that.”

She scoffed,
jumping off the bed. “Yes, you did.”

I didn’t say
her name. Why would I say her name? I tried to think to three seconds ago. In
my silence, Molly rushed around the room, grabbing her clothes. I jumped out of
the bed, too.

“Molly, I
wasn’t even thinking about her. I’m tired, that’s all,” I said. Which was
obviously a lie.
Shit.
She slid on her jeans, and glared at me. “I
didn’t mean anything. I didn’t even realize I said that.”

 She put her
shirt over her head. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You haven’t been the same
since she returned. I should’ve known.”

“Molly,” I
begged.

 She shook her
head. “I’m going home.”

The door
slammed behind her.