Deep Surrendering: Episode Eight (7 page)

“She knows you and I want to know you too. That’s it.”

He sighed. “You have every right to be curious. If you want to talk to her, I have no objections. But be prepared for what she tells you. Sapphire and I have . . . a complicated past. I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship. The closest thing would be a friendship, I suppose. It’s unorthodox to say the least.” Yeah, well, I was used to unorthodox by now. I could take it.

“I won’t ask anything I don’t want the answer to, how’s that?”

“I think that’s wise.” There was a pause as both of us tried to think of something to say. We’d entered an awkward moment.

“I don’t resent her, or you. Just so you know. I can’t be upset about something that happened before you met me. I’d be a bitch if I did.”

That made him chuckle.

“No, I knew you wouldn’t. You’re something else, Marisol.”

“Something good, I hope.”

“Something much too good for the likes of me. Now, tell me about something else. Anything else.”

So I told him about my previous night and my yoga escapade, and he told me about his flight back to Germany and how a drunken passenger had nearly grounded the plane. Then I realized we’d been talking for a long time and I’d abandoned Chloe.

“Listen, I’m at a café with Chloe, and she probably thinks I’m never going to get off the phone with you.”

“Understood. I need your best friend to think highly of me. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“You’d better.” I hung up and did a little hop of happiness.

“What was that?” Chloe asked when I walked back inside.

“What was what?” I asked, sitting back down and not trying to hide the grin on my face.

“That little skip. Things go well?”

“Yes, actually. Really well.” Better than well.

I told Chloe about Sapphire. Well, not the part about her being a professional that Fin had “sessions” with. I told her she was an ex-girlfriend. That was close enough to explaining who she was to Fin. I said I’d run into her outside of Fin’s building, and I was going to meet with her.

“Are you sure you can handle that?” Chloe asked as we strolled down the street, glancing in windows, not having an exact destination.

“I won’t know until I actually do it, I guess.” We paused in front of a window displaying a pair of the most gorgeous shoes I’d ever seen, and I took a moment to visually appreciate them.

“Now those are fuck me shoes,” Chloe said. “I can just picture those on the feet of the yoga girl, and her all twisted up—”

I put my hand up to stop any further description.

“You’re very calm about this ex-girlfriend thing. I’d be flipping my shit if I were you.”

I
was
calm, and I didn’t know where it came from. I was notorious for freaking out about things, but this didn’t seem to be one of those times. Maybe I’d reached my freak-out quota.

“I think I’ll start flipping when I call her.” I was definitely going to have to work myself up to that part. I’d already had a practice call, but I hadn’t actually followed through with it.

“What does she look like?” Chloe asked. I described her, since her appearance didn’t suggest how she and Fin knew each other.

“Wow, she doesn’t sound like his type at all. Blue hair? Isn’t his dad all corporate and everything? Those people definitely frown on anything that’s unusual. How did they make that work?”

I hadn’t prepared myself to answer Chloe’s questions about Fin’s “ex-girlfriend.”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about their relationship much. And I didn’t ask, which is why I want to talk to her. I just . . . I need to talk to her.”

Chloe nodded as we moved on to a store selling used books and decided to go in.

She dropped the subject of Sapphire (I’d told Chloe her name was Stacy, since the name I knew her by would raise questions I couldn’t answer) and started talking about other things, for which I was grateful.

By the time I got back to my apartment, it was nearly dinnertime, the yoga high had worn off, and I was just achy and sore.

I had to see my parents tomorrow. But first, I had a phone call to make.

I dialed the number on the card carefully and started pacing the room. I was going to follow through this time. Another cool voice answered; this time it was male.

“How may I help you?”

“I need a delivery,” I said, my voice shaking as I said the words like Sapphire had instructed. If I were in a laughing mood, this might feel like a scene from a movie and not something in my real life.

“What will you require?”

“Um, Mistress Sapphire.” My voice struggled to say her name, but I got it out. There was a clicking noise, as if he was typing something into a computer.

“I see she has Tuesday at three o’clock available. Is that suitable for you?” I did a quick mental scan of my schedule. My Tuesday afternoon class had been cancelled because my professor was out of town for a conference. So actually, it worked perfectly.

“That would be good.”

“Tuesday at three.” And then he hung up. Um, what? That was it? I assumed I was supposed to meet her, but I had no idea where. I stared at the phone in my hand and thought about calling back for a clarification, but didn’t. Well. That didn’t work out the way I thought it would.

Ten minutes later my cell phone rang from a blocked number. I answered it, hoping it wasn’t a telemarketer or phone scam.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, is this Marisol?” the voice said, and I recognized it as Sapphire’s.

“Yes. So, that was weird,” I blurted out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

She cut me off. “No, it’s fine. I just have to be very careful. You understand. Anyway, I can meet you anywhere you want. We just have to be discreet about it. I’ll be in regular clothes as I can’t exactly walk around in my work clothes without causing a scene.”

Work clothes. I could imagine those would make people look twice in Boston.

“Sure. That makes sense. Um, I’d rather not do this in a public place if we can help it.” That would leave my apartment. I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with that.

“You can come to my place if you want,” she said. Wow, okay. She must have sensed my hesitance about going to her place.

“What about Fin’s place?” I asked. It would make the most sense to go there.

“Are you sure?” she said.

“Yeah, I have a key. And it was where I bumped into you.” That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

“I’ve never been inside,” she said, as if giving me an explanation. “I just . . . well, we can talk about it on Tuesday. So Fin is okay with you talking to me?”

“Actually, yes. I thought he was going to be upset and tell me no, control freak that he is, but he just gave me a warning that I might not like some of the answers you’d give me.”

She sighed. “True enough. Fin and I have been through a lot together. I wouldn’t call us friends, but we’ve known each other for years and that forges a sort of closeness.” He’d said the same thing.

“Wouldn’t you get into trouble with your . . . boss for talking to me about him?” I had no idea about the hierarchy of her profession.

“Fin is no longer a client, and if you don’t tell anyone, I won’t tell anyone.” I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anyone. Well, except Chloe, and I would omit a lot.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. Well, except for Fin.” I tried not to think about how insane this phone call was.

“Okay then. I’ll meet you out in front of Fin’s building at three on Tuesday.”

“See you then,” I said, and then she hung up.

What had I gotten myself into?

I was a half hour early to my parents’ house. I’d thought about calling Carl to take me, but I got a cab instead. The guy dropped me off, and I paid the fare. I had no idea how long I was going to be here and didn’t want to waste the money asking him to hang out. I could just call for another cab when I was done.

The cabbie pulled away, and I shivered with a chill, despite the high temperatures and the bright sunshine that beat down on me. I headed for the front door and knocked. I always felt strange knocking at a door I’d walked through thousands of times in my life.

Dad answered, looking so tired that I reached out to him.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

He just nodded. “Come in. You’re early.”

He took my coat and hung it up, ushering me into the little sitting room where I’d been with Fin not that long ago.

“You didn’t bring your young man?” Dad didn’t like Fin, that was for sure, and Mom had seemed to be captivated by him last time. I hadn’t begun to ponder that weirdness.

“No, he’s taking care of some business overseas. Where’s Mom?”

Dad motioned for me to sit down, and I did.

“She’s resting. Would you like some tea?” My stomach was churning too much, but having a cup in my hand would give me something to hold on to, so I said I did. He got up, and I was left alone in the room with only the company of the furniture and the ticking grandfather clock that sounded out every quarter hour. I used to hate that clock. It was so tall and ugly, but my mother loved it.

My childhood hadn’t been a bad one, at least not compared to Fin’s, but it was a struggle to remember times when I’d truly been happy. They were few and far between and hazy in my memories, almost as if I’d imagined them.

Dad came back and interrupted my reminiscing. He handed me a cup and I stirred it around, just for something to do.

“What’s wrong with Mom?” I finally asked, staring into the cup as the liquid spun around.

Dad sighed and stirred his own cup. Like father, like daughter.

“She has early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia.”

Both? But how? I opened my mouth to ask, but waited for Dad to continue.

“Sometimes it comes on like this and progresses fast. They have no idea why. They’ve done test after test after test, but there’s nothing we can do. There are medications that can help her cope and slow the symptoms a bit, but they can’t heal a broken brain.”

Broken brain.

I wanted to throw up. I wanted to cry. I wanted to chuck my cup at the stupid clock that wouldn’t stop ticking.

I wanted to do anything but sit there as my father told me my mother had a broken brain.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked, and put down the cup because my hands were shaking too much to hold on to it anymore.

He put his cup down and clasped his hands together.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel as if I’m living someone else’s life. This isn’t my life. My wife is fine. Or I think I’m in a dream and just need to wake up.”

A tear fell from my eye and then another. I got up from my seat and went to sit next to him, putting my arms around him.

“It’s been so hard, Marisol,” he said, his voice breaking. I couldn’t even imagine what he’d been through. I wanted to yell at him for not telling me sooner, for not letting me help. But maybe he thought I wouldn’t want to, given how rocky my relationship with my mother is. But this was different. We might not get along most of the time, but she was the only mother I had, and if she was sick, that mattered.

I started rocking back and forth as Dad’s shoulders shook with emotion. I’d never comforted my father before. It was a bit of an odd situation, but that was my life now. In the past three days I’d gotten drunk, gone to yoga, called Fin’s “ex-girlfriend” at the club where she worked as a sexual professional, and here I was, comforting my sobbing father because my mother had Alzheimer’s and dementia.