Shadows and Lies (16 page)

Nancy didn’t seem to hear me though. “I never meant for any of this to happen,” she told me, her voice brittle.

Sean appeared just outside the front door, and I gestured to him with a slight movement of my hands to stay out of sight. I turned my attention back to Nancy.

“I know,” I said, and I did know. She was talking about more than just that day, but about all the days before it. She hadn’t meant for her life to turn out the way it had. “I do understand that. But you could always change things.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, right.”

I cocked my head and asked the question I’d been wondering about for several years. “Do you love Dad?”

She shook her head regretfully. “I don’t know. I know he doesn’t love me.”

“You know,” I said carefully, not knowing how my next words would be received. “I’m kind of surprised you’ve never left him, considering everything.”

Nancy sank down into a chair, and Pepper strained on his leash to reach her. I wouldn’t let him and he sat down at my feet, whining softly. “I didn’t have to marry your father,” Nancy said wistfully. “I could have married a nice man back in San Diego. His name was Henry Phillips. Why did I choose your father over him? I can’t even remember.”

Tears filled my eyes at the pathetic picture she made. Nancy may have made my and my sister’s lives hell, but deep down I did love her and I hated to see her hurt so much. “You shouldn’t let him treat you so badly. You don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t.” She paused and looked me over. “Or do I? I haven’t been any kind of mother to you or your sisters. Not a good mother at all.”

“You did your best,” I told her gently, even though I agreed with her on that point.

Still, she would not be convinced. “I think I finally understand Barbara now,” she whispered. “Why she did what she did. I think it was because she knew that if she stayed, she would go insane.”

I lowered my voice. “I think I can see that too.” I swallowed, and looked around. “What’s been going on around here?”

Nancy shrugged and looked around. Her eyes were blank. “This place has fallen apart without you. I never realized how much you did around here until you were gone Carrie. Business hasn’t been good, either. We keep losing money. It doesn’t matter how many hours we work; nothing gets better. And now this.” She shook her head. “Ninety thousand dollars. I should have paid more attention to the books. I should have spoken up. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think it was my place.”

“You’re his wife,” I insisted. “Of course it’s your place. It’s your money too, after all.”

“And my debt,” Nancy added bitterly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. We barely have enough money coming in to cover the bills, let alone this debt.”

“Will you tell me how things got so bad?” I didn’t know if she would. My parents’ finances had always been strictly their business and none of mine or my sisters.

Nancy sighed. “He kept buying new equipment for all those harebrained ideas of his and paying people who hadn’t done their work. Then there was that lawsuit, and it just kept adding up.”

Lawsuit? I didn’t know anything about that. Not even Vanessa, who usually would tell me things about home with enough prodding, had hinted at such an occurrence. Heck, she might not even know anything about it.

“Maybe you should go visit your family in Maine,” I suggested. “It sounds like you need a vacation. And maybe Dad needs to do without having a woman around who’ll automatically start picking up the pieces for him.”

Nancy didn’t say anything and I glanced over at Sean. He jerked his head in the direction of the truck. We should get out, he was telling me, and I agreed. Nancy was watching me though.

“Is someone out there?” she asked sharply.

I cringed mentally. I so didn’t want to do this now. “Yes. A friend of mine came out here to help me.”

Nancy turned a critical eye towards me. Aha, I thought, I can now become a target for her frustrations.

“Is this friend male?” she asked a little too casually.

“Yes,” I said shortly. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Yes,” Nancy said, equally short. “I have a problem with the fact that my daughter seems to be whoring herself out to every man she comes in contact with. Gay men included.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her. “Gay men don’t sleep with women. They’re gay.”

“Yet you managed to be on the news again because of them. How lucky for me that everyone we know knows that you regularly hang out with homosexuals. Do you realize that your life is now threatened because you choose to be with those kinds of people?”

“Oh, so it’s my fault I’m being targeted by homophobic terrorists? That’s just beautiful,” I said, throwing my hands up into the air.

“Excuse me,” Sean broke in severely. I looked at him in surprise. I hadn’t expected him to speak up for me, and I also hadn’t seen him come inside. “You have no reason to speak to your daughter in that way. She is not a whore, and the fact that you see her life being endangered as her fault is despicable.”

I wanted to cheer. Sean made me so happy, but I kept my mouth shut and readied for Nancy’s explosion.

It didn’t come. Nancy ignored his words and instead looked him coolly up in down, her manner superior and mocking as she took in his tattooed arms and pierced ears. “And who are you?” she asked sharply.

“Sean Whalen. I’m dating Carrie.”

“Really,” she retorted. “How unsurprising, considering the fact that you look like you didn’t even finish high school. Do you by any chance have a prison record? Because that would just be icing on the cake.”

I faced Sean, turning my back on Nancy. “We can go now,” I said stiffly, embarrassed that Nancy would say such a thing to Sean’s face.

“Been tested for any STD’s lately, hmm?” Nancy continued.

At that, I swung back to face Nancy, my whole body filled, it seemed, with red hot anger. “Shut up or I will make you shut up!” I said to her, my voice sounding terrible and low. “Don’t you ever speak to him like that again!” I felt fiercely protective.

Nancy obeyed. Since I’d been a teenager, she’d known that I had the physical strength to beat her to a bloody pulp if she dared to lay a hand on me. At that moment I must have looked ready to kill her.

Knowing that I needed to keep control of myself, I took a calming breath and told Nancy in a more normal, but clipped voice, “I’ll be coming back tomorrow with Lindsay and Vanessa for the rest of their belongings. You won’t touch their things, right?”

Nancy glared at me but shook her head. “I won’t.”

“Good. I’m taking Pepper with me, too, considering what you did to Harvey.”

“Fine,” Nancy said, waving a hand in my direction carelessly. “I don’t care. None of this really matters anymore anyway.”

But it did. I thought so anyways as both Sean and I turned to leave that wretched house. It ought to matter when you see your family start to crumble before your very eyes.

Sean told me as he herded me into his truck and lifted Pepper in too, for he was old and couldn’t jump up high the way he used to, that Lindsay had already gone. He’d told her of the arrangement I had set up with Aunt Clarissa and said we would be following right behind her. I kept my face averted from him so that he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes that I fought to keep from falling. I petted Pepper for comfort and he curled up in my lap, a shaggy gray mop that licked my hands and pressed his nose into my ribs. He could tell I was distressed.

“What’s your aunt’s address?” Sean asked me when he was behind the wheel and backing out of the drive.

I really didn’t want him to know that I was so angry and hurt that I was on the verge of sobbing, and I certainly didn’t want to break down in front of him again. It would be too embarrassing. So I swallowed and spoke carefully, trying to keep my voice from wobbling. I thought my voice came out pretty normal sounding as I directed him, “It’s on Bodega Bay Ct. Off Charleston and Durango.”

Apparently I didn’t fool him for a moment because at the first stoplight we came to, Sean reached across me, unbuckled my seatbelt and said, “Come here, Carrie.”

“I’m okay,” I said in a small voice, wishing that he would just leave me alone because when he spoke so tenderly like that it did nothing for my self-control. And yet, a part of me ached to be held right at that moment. But still, I was stubborn. “I’m really alright.”

“Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t sound like he believed me. “But I’m not made of stone, and I can’t sit over here and pretend that you’re not trying to not cry. So just come here before I drag you over here.”

What could I say to that? I slid over and buckled the center belt around my waist and let him put an arm around me and hold me close. Pepper took my seat next to the window, a situation that he was found very pleasing. My situation was pleasing as well; Sean was warm and strong, and I couldn’t help but relax against him, and as I relaxed, I couldn’t help but let a few tears slide silently down my face. I wiped the tears away quickly and tried to get myself under control.

After a few moments, when I felt able to speak once more, I said quietly, “I’m sorry about what Nancy said to you. She’s got a horrible temper and a worse mouth.”

He nodded and his arm tightened around my shoulders. “She said some pretty nasty things to you too.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said, brushing off his sympathy. “I’ve developed a pretty thick skin over the years.” It was a lie, especially in light of my tears, but I wanted Sean to think I was strong.

“I’m sorry you got dragged into our family crisis,” I continued. “But thank you for helping me. And thank you for standing up for me. I’m not used that. It was…nice.”

“Anytime,” he said in a low voice. He hugged me to him more tightly and I reached up and stroked the hand rested on my upper arm. I loved to touch him.

“So, you’re Dad just lets Nancy do and say the kinds of things she does, and he never says a word?”

“Never,” I replied.

“I’m sorry,” Sean whispered.

“Me too.” I whispered back.

Sean didn’t reply – I didn’t really expect him to. I wondered what he would say if I told him I thought I was falling in love with him. I wanted to tell him then, but my mouth refused to work. I kissed his hand instead, and he turned his head and kissed me on temple.

My Aunt Clarissa welcomed us inside her home where we found Lindsay on the phone with Vanessa, who was calling with an update on Harvey’s condition. It turned out that he had to stay overnight at the vet’s; he had two broken bones and a concussion. Vanessa, who under normal circumstances can cry at the drop of a hat, was unusually calm over the phone, and she told Lindsay that she would be on her way to Clarissa’s as soon as she finished signing some paperwork.

Clarissa had to have the story of what had happened at home from me since Lindsay’s version was rather stilted and incoherent, and Vanessa was not around. I filled her in on the debt and Nancy’s current emotional state. Clarissa asked me if Nancy seemed suicidal, and I replied, “Jesus, I don’t think so.” Then I thought about it, becoming alarmed. “I really don’t know. She said at the end that nothing mattered anymore, but I don’t think that she meant that she wanted to kill herself.”

The very thought of Nancy trying to hurt herself made me nauseous and light headed, and I sat down immediately. Thankfully Sean was outside hauling stuff inside with Lindsay’s help, so he didn’t see me. Clarissa told me that she’d call Nancy as soon as we were done here, then drive over and check things out. I could tell that what she really wanted to do was give her baby brother a piece of her mind.

My dad had gone completely AWOL, too. If he was at the office, he wasn’t picking up, and he’d turned off his cell phone. That made Clarissa more furious than she already was, but she hid it well from Lindsay, and Vanessa too, once she arrived. Both of my sisters were exhausted by the days’ events, and Clarissa shooed me out the door, but not before insisting that she keep Pepper, because she had a yard. Before she closed the door on us, she grabbed me up in a hug and whispered, “I like your young man, Carrie. He seems like a keeper.”

I smiled all the way back to the car.

“You made a good impression on Clarissa,” I said to Sean as we began driving home. “She thinks you’re a keeper.”

Sean glanced at me. “I’m glad,” he said quietly. “Do you think so?”

I swallowed and nodded. Did that mean that he loved me? My hands got clammy at the thought that he might really love me. I mean, who was I that he could realistically love me? I was no one. I wasn’t model, or successful, or creative or a genius. I was just…me.

Sean leaned across the truck to kiss me gently on the lips. He didn’t say anything more.

We were home in no time it seemed, and I stuck close to Sean as we made our way upstairs. It was dark and there were shadows everywhere. It was entirely possible for a psychotic homophobic stalker to be hiding in one of them.

“I got to get some stuff from my place. Do you want to come in?” I asked as I slid my key into my deadbolt.

“Sure,” Sean said.

He was quiet as we went inside and looked around my place. He’d not yet had a chance to get a good look at it. “It’s not much,” I said nervously. “I do what I can on a tight budget.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s nice.”

I went to get some clean clothes for tomorrow out of my dresser, and he followed me.

“You’re not very close to your family, are you?” he asked.

I didn’t have to think about it. “No,” I said, shaking my head.

“What if you had to give them all up? Could you walk away from your family?”

I looked at him like he was nuts. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just a hypothetical question,” Sean said cryptically, shoving his hands in his pockets. “If you had to give them up, if you weren’t allowed to see them ever again, would you be alright with that?”

I was sure that was the oddest question I’d ever been asked, but I did stop and think about it. “Sometimes I wish for it,” I joked. “Honestly, though, I don’t know. Where is this coming from anyways?”

Sean didn’t answer me. “What about Genny? Could you give her up? And Judy – all your friends. Could you walk away from them if you had to?”