Pretty Instinct (38 page)

“You think a few necklaces are gonna fix me?” I snap, glaring at him like the man he obviously is, the one who lost his mind.

“Elizabeth,” he sighs, tugs at his hair, and heads for the door, “shut up. Conner and I will be here when you get back, but only
I
will answer questions, away from him, and not at the dinner table Laura and Alma will have set.”

I must seem deranged, glancing from the door he shut to the bronze key burning a hole in my hand, to Cannon, then repeating the cycle all over again.

“No more excuses. You scared?” he asks.

“No!” I snap. I’m not. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity. For some closure. Right?

“Oh, I think you mean yes. You know, even when you hide and build walls upon walls, I still find you, see you. So you might as well come out and let
everyone
see your beauty.” His soft smile is more love than pity, so I spare him and fling myself in his arms, never going to admit I’m petrified. He kisses the top of my head. “I’m right here.”

Like I needed the name of the bank or the streets—the bronze horse is…noticeable.

I ask Cannon to keep the car running, in case I just say “fuck the secret box” and rob the joint instead, but what do you think he did?

Turned it off and linked his fingers with mine, opened the door, and let me walk in first with a whispered “I love you” behind me.

Of course.

The beautiful, dark-haired woman who greets us wears a nametag that says, “Riza, Branch Manager,” and has us welcomed two steps over the threshold.
She’d better
, since they need all the customers they can get to pay for that horse monstrosity out front.

Why Cannon curls up his adorable nose at me I know not; I didn’t say that part out loud.

“Nice to meet you, Riza.” He shakes her hand and her loins (again,
if
we women have those) with his high-voltage charm and toe-curling voice. “This is Elizabeth Carmichael, and her father sent her with a key to see about a lock box?”

Riza’s good, so professional and polished, in fact, that standing even an inch further back, my practiced, cynical eye would’ve missed the slight pupil dilation and lip twitch. But alas, I’m right here. And I caught it.

“You’re Anna’s daughter?” she asks.

“Was.” I cross my arms. “If you knew her, you’ll know she’s dead. Seven years. It was in the paper and everything,” I sneer crudely, “so that’d be a
was
.”

“Knock it off,” Cannon growls at me, smiling even wider at her. “You can imagine it’s a rough day for her.” He shrugs and apologizes on my behalf.

Riza nods, fucking pity in her eyes. “Right this way. You said you had the key?”

“Yes,” Cannon hastily pipes in for me, obviously fearful of giving me an opening to speak anymore.

I am admittedly, undoubtedly, being a bitch. I know it, yet I can’t stop it. Conner and Richard home and all chummy, secret boxes, buying houses…the jagged, rocky edge of overload is right in front of me.

“Please,” Riza ushers to two chairs in front of her desk, “have a seat. Can I offer either of you a drink?”

I huff audibly, crossing an ankle, acting as impatient as possible.

“No, thank you,” Cannon sing–songs, laying a demonstrative and quite directive hand on my leg.

“I just have to pull up the account.” She taps away, then papers spit out from a printer at her right. “Elizabeth, your middle name?”

“Hannah.”

“And do you have some identification please?”

I dig out my license and fork it over, hand still up and waiting while she makes a copy and returns it.

“Last thing. Do you know the password?”

“Dusty.” This one gets me, a strangled croak my answer. I loved that pony. He was sold when Mom became “unavailable” to get me to my lessons regularly
. I wonder where he is now…

“That’s it. April?” she calls across the room and a curvy, young redhead with, uh, endowments in all the right places appears. I watch Cannon like a hawk on a fluorescent rabbit with a broken, fragrantly bleeding leg, but he either plays it well or sincerely doesn’t care she’s right beside him. “April, please show Ms. Carmichael to lock box 71276.” She hands her a post-it with what I assume is the box number on it. “The gentleman may accompany her if she chooses, locked door, one hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” April answers and begins to walk away.

Cannon rises and looks back for my hand, taking it with a supportive wink. “Want me to stay or not?” he asks.

I nod and we proceed.

“One hour, and the room is under surveillance,” she instructs curtly. “If you’re done sooner than that, press the green button on the wall and I’ll be back.” She slams the large silver door, locking us in what creepily feels like a mausoleum, or King Tut’s tomb, you pick.

Nice of her to point out the actual box, since there are thousands. I try to get a tracking system when Cannon boasts, “Got it! Right here, 71276.”

I hand him the key, nervous enough to undoubtedly break something. He unlocks it and slides out a long, slender box, setting it on the table in the middle of the room. Then he flips the key over and unlocks the box itself, holding the lid just ajar.

“Look at me,” he demands softly. “In for me,” his eyes do that big ‘do it’ thing when I’m uncooperative, “now out for you. Good girl.” He leans in and kisses me once, then again, on the lips.
“I’m right here.”

He pulls the lid open to lay back against the table. The first thing that catches my eye is my mother’s cameo broach and its ivory profile of her mother. I always thought it hideous and outdated, but today, it’s beautiful and majestic.

“Set it to the side, please,” I whisper, not ready to actually touch anything.

Next is an array of precious gem necklaces, rings, and earrings. “I’m sure they’ll give us a bag,” he comments, setting them in a pile on the table.

“Hmm, that’s it? Weird.” I shrug, standing.

“Lizzie,” he grumps, “I know you see this envelope with ‘Bethy’ written on it. Will you read it here, or later?”

“Musta missed it.”
Caught,
I look away and sit back down. What if I blubber like a hot mess in front of him? Or worse yet, what if I don’t react at all, showing him heart of stone girl? “Here’s fine. You wanna read it to me?”

“I can, or I can sit here and hold your hand while you read it. Or, I can even leave the room and give you some privacy. What do you
really
want?” He pulls the envelope out with some difficulty; it’s kinda stuck at the bottom, the edges caught, a little too big for the box. “Dig deep, love. What do you want?”

“What would you do?” I beg him, lids rimmed with moisture, knee bobbing up and down, heart hurting and beating alarmingly fast.

“Oh, Lizzie, I can’t answer that and you know it. Close your eyes,” he gently whispers, leaning in so our lips just brush. “Closed?” I nod. “All right, in for me,” I suck in loudly, “now out, what’s your choice?” he says quickly, not giving me a chance to think.

“Read it to me,” I answer automatically.

He doesn’t second guess me and opens the envelope, eyes on mine. He sniffs, and I smell it from here, her scent. “Nice handwriting,” he says to settle me.

“Eh.” I shrug and motion with my hand for him to get on with it.

“Dear Bethy, my beautiful, strong girl.” He clears his throat and rises, walking over to press the green button.

“All done?” April chirps.

“No, we’d like a box of tissues if you have them, please.”

Damn traitorous leaking face.

Two minutes later, the door opens and she shoves a box inside then sequesters us in with another slam.

He takes his seat again and pulls out a Kleenex and hands it to me, then shockingly, takes one for himself! He must see my shocked face, as his mouth turns down. “Your pain is my pain, Siren.”

I find my focal point, box 41002 right in front of me, and begins to tap out “Girl,” with his foot. “Okay, I’m ready. Read it.”

“Dear Bethy, my beautiful, strong girl. I’m writing this completely unencumbered by a drug of any sort, so every word is true, unexaggerated or molded to make me feel less guilty, and straight from my heart. I am weak, I always have been. The thing is, when you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you don’t have to learn how to feed yourself. When balls are thrown in your honor and $10,000 dresses ensure you’re the prettiest in the room, you don’t have to dig deep to find you’re pretty. When everything is done, fixed, or manipulated in your favor, and everyone exalts you because they have to, you never develop
instinct
.”

We both
freeze
. Even in foresight, and now from the grave, she just spoke to both our hearts, in our language.

Inappropriate? No fucks to give. “Mouth, Cannon, now, kiss me.”

And he does, extensively and delicately, telling my soul he’s there for whatever I need.

“Continue,” I breathe heavily. “The letter, I mean.”

“Enough of my excuses,” he continued, “and please, daughter, as you grow into a fine young woman, try not to make them. If you know the bottom’s safe—jump. If you know it’s returned—love. If you really want it—
fairly
take it. If you run, do it till your lungs burn. Laugh until your cheeks ache. And forgive, as you’ll always want to be forgiven. I didn’t say forget, and certainly your spirit won’t
allow
for you to be a doormat, but forgive. Ask yourself, always, if they die tonight…was I really that mad? The answer will almost always be no, so act accordingly.

“At this bank, in your name, is more money than you will ever spend, beyond what you’ll have already been given. Your father forfeited it all freely. I only ask that you take care of my beautiful boy. Take care of my Conner. I suspect you will have long since been doing that before you ever read this. Hire help if need be, but
promise me
that he will never spend one night in a special home. The day we brought
you
home, he made a fort under your crib and slept there for months. ‘My baby,’ he always called you. Love him, protect him, and keep him with you.

“If you’ve ever wondered, I gave him a song because I doted on you so, the baby, a girl, that I wanted him to feel special. Never more, never better or more loved, he just needed it. He resented you not one day; please return that unconditional love. Perhaps if I’d had a big brother…I digress, Bethy.

“Your father is a good man. He only knows what he was taught—work, provide, your way is law, then work some more. He got angry hands rather than hugs, whippings instead of kisses. He didn’t have a clue how to reach, console or ‘fix’ a person of fragile makeup. I quit him long before he quit me, and at the end of the day, it was up to me to force
myself
to fix myself.

“If you’re over 21, you can read this part. If not, skip to the next page.”

We both pause and laugh. Part of me wishes I had found this letter and read it sooner, but part of me knows this time in my life, this moment, is exactly right.

“Bethy, men have primal, inbred, chemical needs. If not met, they will find it elsewhere, just as a male dog will leave the yard, despite the shock collar, if the poodle next door is in heat. It’s nature, procreation, God’s different design of Adam and Eve. Sex with me would—I can’t believe I’ll say this, but I need you to understand—sex with me would have bordered necrophilia. Forgive him. I did.”

Cannon stops and blows out a long breath, eyes bulged. “Did not expect that,” he comments, but his light laugh is false. “Want me to go on?”

“Yes,” I say. “Surely it doesn’t get worse than rutting poodles and necrophilia.” I laugh softly even as I wipe my eyes, a mountain of wadded, soggy tissues in front of me, no longer able to breathe through my nose.

“Need a nibble first, baby.” He leans into my neck, and I know he’s actually checking my pulse, gauging my ability to continue, but I play along with the façade. “Okay,” he exhales and continues.

I squeeze his hand. I’m ready this time.

“Yes, daughter, we’re nearing the end, and
this
is the hard part. When I sign this letter and place it where only your father will find it, I will take measures to go to sleep and never wake. I will never see you or your brother’s beautiful faces again, but to the villain goes the punishment. I am leaving not because your father cheated or because I’m weak anyway, or even because I live every single day in a fog of depression that none of the twenty-three medication/therapy combos I’ve tried have worked. I’m leaving because I’d rather die than replay that scene in my head even one more time.

“Your father came home late and wreaked of perfume, with sparkly lilac lipstick below his right ear. For once (I was drunk, no doubt), I still had my faculties about me enough to meet him on the landing. We fought and said some awful things. I actually spit in his face, which is beneath even a lush, and slapped him. He tried to leave, didn’t touch me back, begged me to calm down. Your brother, a Mama’s Boy to a fault, bless his angel heart, tried to break it up. Even then, your father kept his hands in his pockets and turned his pleadings to Conner, to leave and he’d take care of it. They both started down the stairs. I flew at your father, I SWEAR I was aiming for your father. The only time his hands left his pockets was to try and catch Conner.

“Accident, misaim, or not, I am the sole reason Conner, my precious, perfect, athletic, artistic son will never be the same.
THAT
I not only can’t, but
refuse to
live with every day, asleep or awake, over and over. I love you, Bethy. I love your brother, and I love your father.

“But I am also your biggest burden, and ultimately, the literal instrument of your near demise, for I hurt you perhaps most of all. Forgive me, I beg you. No matter age, race, culture, anything…one of the only things in the whole world that is almost always universally alike is a mother’s heart. It will always put its children and what is best for them first. This is what I feel is best.

“You and Conner will slowly rebuild, and recover, him never fully, but some. The gnawing cut of my selfishness will scar over; some days you may not even think of it at all and you most certainly will go on to find happiness. I will not. Ever. And would only lessen all of that for you. Goodbye, my beautiful princess. Love, Your Mama.”