Unprotected (8 page)

“You bet I’m mad at you. I’m sick of you moping around like some victim, just letting shitty things happen to you so people like my mother can rescue you.”

Amanda almost fell off her chair in shock. She was furious, but she also needed to cower from his sudden angry attack. She wanted to curl in a corner and disappear like a wounded, orphaned puppy. She couldn’t find a word to say. So Jake continued.

“There you go again, sitting there with your chin quivering because I’m yelling at you. Why don’t you go scratch yourself up again, or dig some new welts in your hands? Yell at me. Yell at her, your bitch of a mother who did a shitty job being your mom and then goes off and dies on you, leaving you a freaking orphan. Yell at that doctor that cares so much he’ll be two floors down, but you can call him when she croaks. Yell at me for being such a bastard. Do something, Amanda! Stand up for yourself or this world is going to swallow you up whole!”

Amanda jumped up and wanted to walk out, but she let herself explode on him instead. “Go to hell, Jacob. I’ll be just fine after you and the rest of your family go back to your lives and drop my charity case from your roster. I have a life, and I can take care of myself.” She went to Trix’s chair by the window and sat down again in a huff. Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Amanda swore he looked like he felt better.

* * *

They spoke very little the rest of that day. Trix returned with bags of food, which Jake devoured and Amanda barely touched. Amanda and Trix alternately played rummy and did crosswords together. Jake slept or watched MTV, still with the volume down to nothing. He didn’t go home to change, but went into the hallway bathroom at one point to brush his teeth and add some gel to his hair. Amanda called into work and said she wouldn’t be coming in until further notice. Michael brought them dinner and stayed into the evening.

April died later that evening uneventfully. Her breathing got faster, then labored, then slower, and finally her chest didn’t rise again. Amanda stared blankly at the flat line, and then at her mother. She waited for her mother’s chest to rise, as though needing to confirm what the machine was obviously telling her. She was gone. There were five bodies, but four lives in the room. Amanda wondered if her soul was floating out of her, or if a ghostly apparition sat up and walked out, invisible to the mortals in the room. She looked up, as if to look at heaven and try to see if her mother was there yet, but of course all she saw were the water stained tiles of the ceiling.

Michael slipped out of the room, presumably to find a nurse. Jake and Trix were watching her. She was truly alone now that her mother was gone, but she felt no different than she did the moment before she died. She felt no more alone. Trix came over, knelt in front of Amanda and grabbed her hands. Amanda met her tearful eyes and shrugged, almost in apology. No emotion came.

The next hours drifted by in surreal images. The doctor checked her mom’s vital signs and confirmed that she had died. There was some discussion about the time it had occurred. A nurse came in and began turning off and unplugging machines. Someone asked Amanda if she would like some time alone with her mother. She shook her head. Amanda could think of nothing to say to her.

“She left instructions about which funeral home to use,” the nurse was saying to Trix. A small corner of Amanda’s brain registered how strange it was that April left instructions about the funeral home she wanted.

“What other instructions did she leave?” Amanda heard herself ask.

Everyone turned to Amanda, apparently surprised to hear her speak. The nurse looked down at the sheet of spiral notebook paper clipped to her chart. “She wants to wear a Harley Davidson t-shirt when she’s cremated. She wants you to keep her ashes and spread them in the ocean or river, or someplace that’s close to you wherever you make your home someday. She wants a little ceremony in the chapel outside the hospital. She wants it to be short.” The nurse, another stranger, looked up at Amanda. “Do you want a copy of her instructions?” she asked blandly.

Amanda nodded. The nurse went behind the nurses’ station and made a copy, considered both pages for a moment, and then gave Amanda the original.
Last Will
it said on the top in all capital letters in her mother’s printing. Amanda folded it again and put it in her jeans pocket.

Trix came out of the room carrying a medium-sized box, with her book bag over her shoulder. Michael took the box and carried it, and Amanda realized Jake’s arm was around her. They walked silently out of the hospital. She got in the backseat of Michael’s car, and Jake took her keys and drove Amanda’s car back. They drove home without a word. Michael pulled into the driveway and let everyone out before he pulled the car into the garage.

It was after midnight. Trix tried to offer everyone a snack, but no one was hungry. Everyone just went his or her direction to get ready for bed. Amanda was in her bathroom brushing her teeth with the door open a crack. Trix knocked softly.

“I know you’re not ready to talk, sweetheart, but is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?” Amanda shook her head, but allowed Trix to hug her tightly for several minutes. Even Michael stopped in the hallway, put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

Amanda crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling. She looked at the bozo next to her bed that still held the sign welcoming her to the Mann’s home. She had a few more personal things in the room, but otherwise it was bare. She waited for sleep to come, exhausted.

She hadn’t lain in bed long when she heard another knock. Jake came in and knelt on the floor by her bed. She turned on her side to look at him.

“I’m sorry, Amanda,” he whispered. His eyes were wet. Hearing his apology and seeing his sadness broke something inside of her, and she was unable to keep her grief away any longer. Nearly a decade of tears forced their way out, and she curled into a ball and sobbed. Jake crawled into bed with her and held her while her body quaked. His chest became warm and wet with her tears. He rubbed his cheek against her face, and gradually the sobs dwindled to quiet, endless streams of tears. He held her face with his hands and kissed her eyelids gently, trying to make the tears stop.

Without thinking it through and before he could stop himself, he kissed her again. Her face still wet with tears, he kissed her mouth and cheeks and nose and forehead. She drew her breath in sharply, shocked by his kiss and the intense flood of emotion that came with it. She felt a stabbing in her chest that pulsed down to her toes. She wrapped her arms around him and dug her fingernails into his back. He arched and groaned. He reached down and pulled her t-shirt off with one motion before she could react. Their skin was pressed together, their hearts thudding, their breathing shallow and fast.

Neither knew it for sure about the other, but it was the first time for both of them. He held her hand, his thumb brushing over where she had cut into her skin with her nails.

“Are you okay?” Jake whispered, his breath hot in her ear.

She nodded, willing him not to stop.

They moved together, the intensity so overwhelming for Amanda that she could barely breathe. They were together like this for several minutes, while he kept wiping and kissing her tears away. Finally, his whole body shuddered, and then he was still. Amanda’s heart was still racing, but she laid still. He pulled away and rolled onto his back, still breathing hard and fast.

Jake looked over and saw a tear slide down her cheek by her temple. She couldn’t look at him. Neither knew what to say. She wondered if he was going to get up and go back to his room.

He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, staring at the ceiling.

“God, Amanda,” Jake whispered. “Was that okay? Are you okay?” He sounded worried, and possibly regretful.

She nodded.

“I love you, Amanda.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. He reached down and held her hand until he fell asleep.

* * *

Amanda lay still, unaware of the time passing. Jake had rolled over and was facing away from her, his breathing slow and regular. She could hardly absorb what had just happened, what he had just said, what they had just done.

She edged her way out of bed, pulling on a t-shirt and shorts. Some part of her mind wondered if Trix or Michael had heard them. She felt uncomfortable and sore. Her hands were shaking, and her breathing was still ragged. The dull roar in the back of her head had returned, stronger than it had ever been. The urge to hurt herself was almost uncontrollable. Nothing had ever been as terrifying as the feeling she had at this moment. She backed away from the bed and found her two laundry baskets. One was full of folded clothes waiting to be put away. She opened her drawers as quietly as she could and piled the rest of her clothes in the baskets.

The room had never been very dark because of the bright streetlight that shined through the bedroom window. Amanda scanned the floor and decided to grab the most important things to pack in her bags, her eyes barely focusing as the tears fell.

Amanda had sloppily packed two laundry baskets and stuffed some things into her pillow case. She dragged them carefully into the hallway and down the stairs to the entryway. She found her purse with her keys hanging by the door. Carefully she opened the door and set her belongings on the front step.

The house creaked, and Amanda paused. A tiny voice in her head tried to tell her to run back upstairs and crawl into bed with Jake. She imagined the warmth lying next to him under the sheets. Then her stomach lurched, and Amanda choked. It was just too much, and she just couldn’t stand to feel everything she was feeling. Tears sprang up again, and she knew she was being a fraud. This was not her life. This was not her world. She would never be allowed to stay.

Amanda pulled the door open quietly, set the lock so the door would still be locked when she left, and pulled the door closed behind her. She dragged her baskets to her car parked in the driveway, loaded them quickly in the hatchback, and closed it carefully. She got in the car and backed out of the driveway before she turned the ignition. She drove away.

When she reached the park a few blocks away where she used to play soccer, Amanda pulled her car over. She held her head in her hands and sobbed.

Part Two

Chapter Five

October 2010

In those ridiculous heels, every footstep made an echoing clop that announced her departure to the lower floors of the courthouse. She hoped she had escaped before Jake realized she had run away once again.

Finally she found a back door and went outside, blasted by the brisk October air. She decided to walk and attempt to clear her head. She had only been there a month, but she loved her job. Social work was a career she backed into because the sociology classes in college interested her the most. During a seminar, there was a speaker on child protection, about which she was amazingly ignorant. The idea of helping families heal and get back together spoke to her. Families were fascinating to Amanda because she had never really had one of her own. Perhaps seeing other people’s families up close would help her figure out how they work, and maybe someday would lead her on a path to having a family of her own.

At least that was the plan in college, before she was actually hired to be a social worker and found herself stupidly staring at Jake outside a courtroom, and her only thought was to run. Run away from memories and emotions so strong they rocketed through her and felt like they could blow her toes off.

Amanda had not allowed herself to think about Jacob much in the past five years since she ran out of his home. During her freshman year in college, Amanda was too drunk or stoned to give him a second thought. With the partiers she had met on her co-ed floor, Amanda had allowed herself to become one of them. They drank in their rooms watching Monday night football, and they went to house parties every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night without fail. Her friends were wild, fun, and superficial, never asking one another about their families, friends, or childhoods. It was absolutely perfect for Amanda, and it allowed Jake to become a distant memory.

By her junior year, Amanda’s stomach was raw from the alcohol, her tolerance to booze was scaring her, and she hadn’t accumulated enough prerequisites in any program to declare a major. She settled down and found that psychology and social work classes appealed to her the most. She did enough reading that she gave herself a few diagnoses from her psychology texts. The social work classes taught her what should have happened and who should have intervened to help her and her mom. She had found a purpose, but without the partying to distract her, she was left with an aching, lonely hole in her gut. She had gradually learned to tolerate that hole, but hoped someday to fill.

It took Amanda five years to graduate with all the lost time from her first two years. During Amanda’s fourth school year, she met Lucy Ramirez, and they connected and complimented each other. Where Lucy was timid with speeches and speaking her mind, Amanda was fearless, already having conquered many demons scarier than stage fright. Where Lucy was full of love and heart and family, Amanda felt empty and cold except when she was with Lucy, whose heart seemed to beat strong enough for both of them. Lucy was the oldest of five sisters, and a second generation Mexican American. Lucy’s entire family embraced Amanda and welcomed her to their home for holidays. It was impossible not to think of Trix when she went to their home and Lucy’s mother, Rosie, doted on Amanda, feeding her until she was stuffed. But even then, the thoughts of Jake had been pushed far back, because the pain and regret were too much to bear.

* * *

Until now, when Jake re-emerged in her life as a work colleague, Amanda was hyperventilating so severely she thought she might faint. At least an hour passed with Amanda walking as far away from her office building as she could. She concentrated on her breathing, got into a rhythm with her footsteps and her breaths. Hearing the first fallen leaves swishing under her feet, feeling the crisp air warming a bit in the thin autumn sun, smelling cut grass and fresh asphalt, Amanda’s mind finally quieted. She stopped and stretched, and then forced herself to think.