Poser (16 page)

Zach

They were fighting again.

But it wasn’t the kind of fighting anyone could hear. Or even the kind you could see.

Still, I felt it. It permeated the house, the very air I breathed. With every tick of the clock, with every light sound the housekeeper made, I heard.

Sometimes silent battles were worse than the knock-down, drag-out explosive confrontations. It was like the quiet just before a storm, the angry gray of a rain-heavy sky. The anticipation that hung in the atmosphere was worse than any screaming match could ever be.

I wished they would just yell. I wished they would throw things. I wished I could hear her cry.

Something.

Anything.

The silence was stifling, like I imagined a sarcophagus would be. Buried alive, gasping for breath, waiting, waiting for death to claim you.

Is this what marriage was like?

On TV, it always looked so happy, so fun. The couples on the screen would smile at each other and hold hands. They would stare lovingly into one another’s eyes. They would have lively conversation around the dining room table every evening with their perfect children.

I tried to be perfect.

I always wore matching clothes, and even though I never wanted to, I showered every single day. I styled my hair exactly like the boys on TV, and I worked hard in school.

Perfection wasn’t enough.

I was beginning to think perfection was just a lie, an ugly promise no one could ever achieve.

Our dinners were filled with silence, except when I scraped my fork across the plate. My mother would tell me not to scratch the china, and Dad would pretend we hadn’t spoken at all.

My parents were cordial to each other. So cordial it was as if they were passing strangers at a train station. There was no familiarity between them, no warmth.

I tried to remember a time when it was different, when they were different.

I searched every corner of my mind for a shred of what it used to be like, but the way it was now was all I ever found.

So one night during the heavy yet polite silence at dinner, I asked a question.

That question turned out to be a catalyst.

The match that started the fire.

The words that changed everything.

“Am I adopted?”

The silence was shattered by the sharp clatter of a fork being dropped on a plate. My mother’s gasp didn’t cover the sound; it seemed to enhance it.

My father’s fork froze halfway to his mouth. The bite of steak on the end sat poised to be devoured.

They sat on each end of the table, the two farthest points possible. I sat in between them, like the filling of a sandwich.

Everyone knew the thing that held the sandwich together was its filling.

A white tablecloth draped over the wooden table and the corners just skimmed the floor. The high-backed wooden chairs we all sat in were formal and hard.

My mother, who was always poised, seemed to let her composure slip, like those three words shocked the hell out of her.

I watched as she lifted her dark eyes to my father and stared straight at him from behind the glasses she wore. In her expression was more animation than I’d seen between them probably ever.

It gave me hope.

My father set down his fork, abandoning the steak. “Zach, why would ask such a thing?”

I shrugged. “Because I want to know.”

“Of course you aren’t adopted, Zachary.” My mother spoke up.

“Then you must have liked each other once… if you made me.” I’d learned about baby making in health class. It was gross. My friends and I laughed about it the rest of the day.

But even as I made jokes, in the back of my mind, I realized for two people to do stuff that would make a baby, they must really have to like each other.

Mom’s hand went up to her neck. “Of course we like each other.” She glanced at my father and then back at me. “We’re in love.”

“Then how come you never smile?”

I glanced to the other side of the table at Dad. He seemed uncomfortable and caught off guard.

Mom paled. “We smile.”

I shook my head. “I thought maybe you were sorry you adopted me or that you thought you picked the wrong kid.”

A strangled sound cut through the silence, and Mom pushed out of her seat and dropped on her knees beside my chair.

I turned toward her, and she took my face in her hands. “Zachary, my darling boy. I could never be sorry you’re ours. There could never be a more perfect son.”

“I try to be perfect for you, Mom. Maybe someday it will make you smile.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and I realized the animation I saw in them moments ago wasn’t the kind of emotion I probably wanted to see. She was filled with sorrow. Sadness seeped from her very pores.

Her graceful arms wrapped around me and folded me close. I breathed in deep the scent of lilac that always seemed to cling to her skin. “I’m gonna work on that smile,” she whispered in my ear.

I pulled back and gave her one of mine.

More tears pushed into her eyes, and she cleared her throat and stood. “I just remembered a phone call I need to make. If you’ll excuse me.” She glanced at the dinner table. “Go ahead and finish without me. I wouldn’t want your meal to get cold.”

She left the room quickly and didn’t look back.

I ate the rest of the meal with just my father. Mom never returned to the table.

That night, the silence was interrupted.

For the first time ever, I heard her crying when I was supposed to be asleep.

She said it wasn’t me. She told me I was the perfect son.

This was his fault.

My father was the reason Mom never smiled. He was the reason she was crying right now.

I hated him.

One year later…

What a difference a year made. Three hundred and sixty-five days, each one a new chance to make him pay. I was good at it, better than I thought I’d be. It seems I had this well inside me that was filled with unfettered anger and resentment. It never dried up, no matter how much trouble I seemed to cause.

I was good at trouble. I was perfect at it.

It was all in appearance, really. I kept up the outward appearance of impeccable breeding. I still styled my hair perfect. I still dressed like a real-life Ken doll. I got good grades in school, because no less could be expected from such an affluent, well-to-do family.

That was the key.

The key to putting my father through silent hell. I posed as the perfect son, all the while causing all kinds of havoc, which he quietly went behind me and cleaned up.

I’d give the guy points. He seemed to pose as well as I. The perfect little family. The picture of domestic bliss.

After that night at dinner, I started out small. I’d “forget” to give him messages when someone called. I’d move his car keys into random places and then watch him rush around the next morning, searching. It was especially amusing when it made him late for work. I’d come home late from school, chew loudly at dinner, and then backtalk when he told me to stop.

He tried to talk to me about it once. He came into my room and sat down. The second he brought up Mom, I told him to go to hell.

That night I snuck in his office when everyone was in bed. I wrote all over the deposition he was going over with black marker in random scribbles and words. The sections he’d highlighted I made sure to mark out so they weren’t legible.

A few nights later, I heard my parents arguing in their room. I listened outside with smug satisfaction.

My father wanted to send me to boarding school. He thought it would be a better environment than the one I was being raised in now. Of course, my mother wasn’t having it. For the first time ever, I heard her stand up to him.

“He’s the reason I stay here. You know that!” she yelled.

“Well, if he’s gone, then you won’t have to be here anymore,” my father muttered. Something inside me sort of paused. He sounded so weary, almost beaten down.

It wasn’t how I expected him to sound. He was too cold for that. Too calculating and self-centered.

“I’ve put up with a lot over the years, Jennifer. I’ve done everything I could to make sure you have everything you need.”

“Money can’t buy happiness,” she said.

He sighed. “No. It cannot.”

He never said anything about the papers I ruined, and he never brought up boarding school again. But he did start going on more business trips. He spent more and more time away.

My mother started smiling. The life started coming back into her eyes.

I knew it was because I’d made him pay for her unhappiness. I knew it was because I’d pushed Dad away and he wasn’t around so much.

We didn’t need him anyway. I could be the man of the house. I could make sure Mom smiled.

Sometimes she’d send the housekeeper home and we’d order pizza and sit in the kitchen to eat. Other times we’d hop into her Roadster and go shopping. She’d never been much of a shopper, and I knew now it was because Dad wouldn’t
let
her go.

But she was making up for it now. By the time we were done, the car would be so full of bags and packages she’d have to have some delivered home or we both wouldn’t fit in the seats.

We were happy.

I was making her happy.

Then I realized happiness was a lot like perfection. A lie.

Dad was once again on a business trip, and Mom forgot to pick me up at school. I had a driver responsible for taking me everywhere I needed to be, until Mom let him go just a few weeks before. She told me we didn’t need him, that she’d be the one to drive me.

It made me happy.

Well, until she forgot me.

I caught a ride home with a friend, having them drop me off down by the gate at the end of the driveway. I walked along the perfectly edged stone, my steps quick because I was worried maybe Mom was sick or something.

If she was, I was going to have to call Dad. I liked when he wasn’t home, but if something were wrong, he’d fix it.

My steps faltered when I saw an unfamiliar car parked near the house. Something flashy and sporty. I knew it wasn’t my dad. He’d never drive something so… loud.

It was bright yellow and had a spoiler on the back. The rims were back and silver. The engine was running and the windows were rolled down.

Fear skittered down my spine because this must have been why she never came. She must have been in trouble. But just as I thought the words, the wide front door opened and Mom came rushing out.

I blinked and looked again just to make sure it was her. She was wearing a pair of jeans with the knees ripped out. Her black T-shirt was a little slouchy, and she had sneakers on her feet.

I would have denied it could be my mother—a woman I’d never seen wear anything ill-fitting or with holes. But there was no denying her identity. Her long dark hair floated behind her as she ran, and the unmistakable black-framed glasses were perched on her nose.

God, she looked so young like that.

Mom jumped in the passenger seat of the waiting yellow car, and I heard a woman giggle.

My mother never giggled.

Seconds later, the sports car turned away from the house and in my direction. I thought about hiding behind some of the landscaping nearby, but I was rooted in place by shock.

They drove right by me. Mom didn’t even seem to notice I was there. She didn’t glance my way once. But the man driving did.

He smiled. He had perfect white teeth, blue eyes, and very blond, messy hair.

Zach

“So your mother was having an affair?” Dr. Becks’s voice broke into the memories that seemed to pour right out of me.

I snapped back to reality. I didn’t like how easy all that was to recall.

Familiar feelings of betrayal and anger resurfaced. “Well, she wasn’t having tea and cookies with the guy.”

“It must have been a hard thing to see. Her with him.”

“He was taking advantage of her,” I replied.

“In what way?”

Her nosy question irritated me. “Using her innocence to get what he wanted. She was lonely and sad. He used it against her.”

“Did you ever consider the fact that maybe he made her happy?”

“If she was happy, she wouldn’t be dead.”

Becks didn’t react to my harsh statement. She remained calm. She had to be taking some of the drugs they passed out in here like candy. “You blame him, the other guy, for her death.”

“Guys like him think they have a right to anything they want. They’re arrogant and conceited. They’re users.”

“That’s a blanket statement, don’t you think? You’re punishing
all
men you perceive to be like the man your mother ran off with because you assume they’ll be just like him.” She was trying to bring this conversation around to Romeo, trying to make the connection to why I hated him so much.

I didn’t want to talk about Romeo.

“She didn’t run off,” I gritted out.

“Not in the literal sense. But she did leave your father, move out and in with the new guy, correct?”

She knew it was correct. It was all in my file.

But I played along. I’d told her this much. I might as well give her the rest. Let her think I was really opening up and spilling my deepest torment.

This conversation was just a means to an end.

Besides, it was about time I told someone how I got here. Hell, she’d probably recommend an early release by the time I was done. Everything I did was justifiable.

“He started hanging around more… Brett.” I snarled. “The guy with the sports car. I hated my dad, but Mom bringing some other dude into his house wasn’t cool. Some lines just shouldn’t be crossed, you know?”

She made a noncommittal noise, and I ignored her and got up and paced to the window overlooking the parking lot.

“I thought I was the one making Mom happy. I thought I was the reason she was smiling. But it was him. She’d been seeing him for a while. No one knew. But the more time Dad spent away, the less secretive she became. It was like she just stopped caring who knew, like she no longer valued the perception of others. Of what her own son thought.”

“This wasn’t about you, Zach.” Dr. Becks cut in. I took the fact she didn’t use my full name as a good sign all my gut-spilling was working. “This was about your mother’s demons. What she was feeling. Manic behavior oftentimes blurs the line of appropriate behavior.”

I ignored her.

“I got tired of it. Of
Brett.
” Just saying his name left a sour taste in my mouth. “Her whole world revolved around him. All the years of silent dinners, tense conversations, and being the perfect son… it was all for nothing. The only thing that seemed to make her happy was him.”

I swung around and looked at Dr. Becks. “I got sick of it, so when my father came home, I told him. I told him about everything that was happening right there in his own home.”

Dr. Becks nodded. “It wasn’t your responsibility to keep that secret.”

Mom never asked me to keep her relationship a secret, even though I said nothing for a while. I thought she’d see I was still the perfect son by not saying anything.

But when
he
came along, she didn’t see me at all.

“Dad didn’t even seem surprised. He acted like he already knew. The hate I had for him went away that day. I’d realized how misplaced it had been. He and I were a lot alike. I just never realized it. We both wanted her love. All the ways he’d tried to make her happy failed, just as I had failed.”

“You must have been very confused,” Dr. Becks interjected.

I nodded, lost in thought. I was. Everything I thought I knew about my parents was wrong. I’d punished my dad for years for mistakes I thought he made. But he’d remained loyal to my mother. He’d cleaned up my messes and kept the trouble I got in at school off the record so I’d have a fresh start at the new school I went to. He took the anger I directed at him without complaint.

And that time I heard him talking of sending me away?

I realized much later he wanted to do that because he thought I’d be better off away from
her
. Away from my own mother.

“So what happened once you told your father?” Dr. Becks prodded.

I felt my upper lip curl. I was tired of talking about this. I didn’t like to think about my mother.

“He confronted my mother, they fought, and she left him,” I summed up.

“Your mother filed for divorce?”

I shook my head. She never did. And my father never did either. He said it was better she keep his name. I learned later, if he’d divorced her, she would have lost all insurance. She wouldn’t have been able to afford the medication she was on. Not that she was taking it.

He took care of her. Even after she moved in with another man, he tried to take care of her. I think he thought it was only a phase, that she’d wake up one morning and go back to who she really was. She’d go back on her meds.

“It’s why she never smiled,” I said to myself.

“What was that?” Becks asked.

“The medication she was on, it made her numb. She never smiled. She was vacant inside.”

“So you understand it had nothing to do with you?”

I glanced at the doctor. “Of course.” Then for effect, I added, “Of course, knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Of course not. But acknowledging the way you feel will go a long way.”

I sat back in my assigned chair. There. It was done. I handed Becks my inner thoughts and my deepest pain. My bipolar mother, my lonely childhood, and my rocky relationship with my father.

“I know.” I agreed with her because that’s what she wanted. “And something good did come out of it all.”

“What’s that?”

“I bonded with my father. We have a very close relationship now. Through everything, he’s always been there.”

She smiled. “You are very lucky to have him as part of your support system. And your stepmother as well.”

I forced down the urge to curl my upper lip in distaste. My stepmother Anna wanted nothing to do with me. I think my father thought he could replace my mother with a better version, a woman who would act like a real mother should: loving and kind.

She might be that way toward my father, but to Anna, I was just someone to tolerate, a visible reminder that she wasn’t my father’s first choice.

I didn’t care much, because the feeling was mutual. I didn’t like her either. But my father did, and I figured after everything he put up with for so many years, if Anna made him happy, then I’d tolerate her presence.

At least she wasn’t blond. It was her saving grace.

“I just wish…” I started, then trailed off.

“You wish what?” Becks encouraged, just like I knew she would.

“This will be my first holiday without him.” I looked down at my lap and focused on sounding forlorn. “Ever since Mom…” I paused for effect again. “We always made sure we were together for the holidays.”

“But this year you’ll be here,” she supplied.

I nodded.

“Why don’t you tell me about how you got here?”

“I just did.” God, didn’t this woman ever stop? I might as well take out my damn brain and hand it to her on a platter so she could dissect it.

“Not necessarily. You told me about how you grew up, what shaped you into the man you are today. While, yes, what you have told me has shed some light on recent events, you have to tell me about the catalyst.”

“The catalyst for what?”

“For the way you treated your victims, Romeo Anderson and Rimmel Hudson.”

I sighed dramatically. “Don’t you see? Romeo is just like Brett. Thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Preys on the ones who are too innocent to protect themselves. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself and being the best.”

“And Rimmel reminds you of your mother?”

“I think my mother was probably a lot like her before she met my father. Innocent, small, kind of fragile. My father saw those things in her. He wanted to protect her. He loved her and was loyal to her. Then Brett came along and took her away.

“I tried to warn her. I don’t know how many times. Outside her class one day. In the haunted house. She wouldn’t listen. She was so blind to him.” I felt myself growing agitated. Just picturing the way those two walked around campus like they owned the place. It made me want to—

“So you punished them, because you can’t punish your mother and Brett.” Dr. Becks cut off my thoughts.

Fishing. She was always fishing for what she wanted.

“Yes. I punished them. It was wrong. I see that now. I let my past and my anger cloud my knowledge of right and wrong.”

“Do you think your medication has helped you keep those impulses in check?”

“Of course.” I lied. I never took that shit. I’d become an expert at hiding it in my mouth and waiting until no one was looking to get rid of it. Like I’d ever let myself become vacant and empty like my mother used to be.

There wasn’t anything wrong with me. I just wasn’t who everyone wanted me to be.

“And the fog you talked about your mother experiencing, the way her medication made her not smile.” She glanced at me, assessing. “Do you feel that way?”

“No.” That was the truth at least. Couldn’t get foggy from something you never swallowed.

“Well, you are on a different brand and dosage,” the doctor said, almost to herself, as she looked at my chart.

I glanced at the clock. Was this shit almost done? I might crawl out of my skin if I had to sit here with her any longer.

“Dr. Becks,” I said impulsively.
Stupid!
I yelled at myself. Now was not the time to bring this up. But I’d already spoken. I’d just tread lightly.

She glanced up.

“The thought of my father being alone for the holidays is very painful for me.”

“How so?”

“I feel immense guilt that my selfish actions are going to cause a man that has been there for me my entire life—a man who has lost so much—to have no one to share the season with.”

“Are you forgetting about Anna? He won’t be alone.”

God! She was insufferable!

“But
I’m
what makes them a family. My father…” I paused because I was losing focus. I just wanted to be finished. I sighed. “Maybe it’s me who doesn’t want to be alone.”

Her reply?

“I’m sure he’ll come here for visitor’s day.”

I looked at the cup of pencils on her desk. One of them was freshly sharpened and pointy. I thought about stabbing her right through the hand with it. I didn’t just dredge up all these personal memories and thoughts to not get what I wanted.

Let me out of here!

I forced a smile. “It will be good to see him.”

“How do you think your victims would feel if they saw you?” She turned the tables.

“I’m sure they’re glad I’m locked up here.”

“How would you feel if you saw them?”

I couldn’t lie about this. She’d see right through it. “I’ll never like Romeo or Rimmel. They will always represent something painful that I’ll never forget.”

“It’s more than just your mother leaving, though, isn’t it? It’s more than her having an affair. There’s more to the story, isn’t there, Zachary? There’s the way it all ended.”

I stared at her without blinking for a long time. She didn’t seem to mind the way I studied her. I could read between the lines. I knew exactly what she wanted.

She wanted it all. The entire story.