B0161IZ63U (A) (18 page)

“Lila, this can’t be about you right now.”  His green eyes widened.  “Do you understand?  This is about Alicia.”

Lila suddenly shook her head, once again thanking god he was there.  “You’re right.”

“We can talk about whatever it is that’s got you sweating bullets another time.  When we get back home.  But we need to handle this first.”

“Okay, you’re still right.  I said you were right, didn’t I?”

“So why are we still sitting here?” he demanded, before opening the passenger door.  “Keys out of the ignition, let’s go.”

“I--” Lila jolted when he slammed the door closed.  With a still sickly stomach, she ripped the keys from the ignition and stepped out of the car.  Chase was immediately next to her, placing a hand on the small of her back as they climbed the brownstone steps.

“How long have your parents been sitting on this house again?” he asked.

“Decades. While they were living in California, they rented it out for ten times what my grandparents paid for it.”

“I wonder what it’s worth now.”

“A lot.”  Lila was aware that Chase was trying to distract her with chatter.  It was sweet, but it wasn’t working.  She took a deep breath when they made it to the door. Holding up a fist, she almost knocked, and then hesitated.

Chase finished the job, banging on the door with enough vigor to wake the entire neighborhood.  When the silence persisted for longer than he cared for, he jiggled the handle.  Locked.  He banged again.

“Alicia,” he demanded.

“Mom?”  Lila called.  She placed the palm of her hand on the door just as it flew open, and she came eye to eye with her mother. Lila launched herself into the foyer and wrapped her mother in a hug, tears immediately springing to her eyes.

“Mom,” Lila cried.

“Lila, baby, you’re just in time.”  Alicia took Lila’s arms and pushed her away.  She stumbled as she struggled to find words. Her brown eyes danced back and forth, and she pushed a piece of gray hair that had escaped her bun back in frustration when they came too slowly. Alicia had once been a poet, but her old age had slowed her lyrical mind and stolen her words.  “I—I…” Alicia took a moment.  “I just finished baking Danni’s birthday cake!  I have to take it out in a minute.  Come in.”  Alicia’s eyes flew to Chase, and she did a double take.  The bright smile she gave him was full of childlike exuberance.  It nearly made the wrinkles on her face disappear.  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Chase smiled bashfully, letting his head fall.

“Is that Chase Almeida?”

Lila gave her mother a look.  “How do you know Chase?”  She’d spoken about Chase to her parents on many occasions, but he and her mother had never been properly introduced.  How did she recognize him on sight?

Chase and Alicia shared a look, and the old woman moved to him, taking him into a hug with a joyous laugh, patting his back enthusiastically.  “When was the last time I saw you?  How do you keep getting taller?  Lord, you’re just so very handsome.”

“Thank you.” His deep voice boomed, even as he blushed like a schoolboy.  “You’re still as beautiful as always.  It’s no wonder where Lila got her good looks.”

Alicia gasped, and then fell into a fit of giggles, shoving Chase, even though she was loving every minute of his attention.  “Oh stop! You are just such a doll.  Isn’t he such a doll, Lila?”

“He’s great, Mom.”  Lila agreed.  “How do you know him, again?”

Alicia ignored her daughter, taking Chase’s arm and pulling him into the house.  “Come on, Chase, Danni will be so glad to meet you.  We talk about you all the time!”

Just like that, it was as if the air had left the room.  Lila no longer cared how her mother and Chase knew each other because her heart was at her feet.

Her sister, Danielle James, had died more than a decade ago.

And Alicia had officially relapsed.

--

“Lila. Go easy.” Chase’s eyes followed Lila from where he sat at the James’ dining room table, watching as she chased her mother around the kitchen, tears falling from her eyes. 

Alicia was busy preparing a birthday cake for Danni, speaking about her late daughter as if she were still alive.  She appeared oblivious to how much distress it was causing Lila. 

After nearly an hour of attempting to talk Alicia out of her delusions, Chase realized it was probably best to just give her some space, allow her to go through what she was going through, and keep a close eye on her while she worked whatever was plaguing her out of her system.

He’d begged Lila to just sit down next to him at the table and let Alicia work through it, but Lila refused.

Her father, Paul James, was still missing.  He’d stormed out of the house at the break of dawn, surely having been overwhelmed with blind frustration.

While Chase was angry that Paul had abandoned his wife in this condition, he would be lying if he said he didn’t understand.  Alicia was mourning, so much so that it had driven her out of her mind. Chase couldn’t imagine the challenge of dealing with this every day.  Less than an hour in that house and Lila had already come completely undone trying to fix her mother.

Chase could see that there was nothing to fix.  Alicia wasn’t broken.  She was grieving.

He watched as Alicia carefully iced the birthday cake she’d baked for her late daughter, smiling gently as she did, even as Lila was down her neck, insisting that Danni was gone, that pretending she was still there would never bring her back, and that Alicia needed to find a different way to cope.

It was painful for him to watch.  He wanted to intervene, but he had no idea how.

It was clear Lila had no idea, either.

“Lila, if you’re not going to help, then get out of the way.  Danni will be home any minute, and this cake needs to be perfect for her.”  Finished icing, Alicia pulled the cake from the counter and began moving towards the dining room.

Chase stood from his chair, eyes shrinking when, halfway to the table, Lila tried to take the cake out of Alicia’s hands.

“Lila,” he implored.

“Mom, Danielle is not here, okay?  Do you hear me?  She’s gone.”  Lila took her mother’s arm, gasping when the action caused the cake that was already teetering in Alicia’s hands to fall to the floor, sending icing flying.

Her mother released a heart-pounding cry, collapsing to the floor next to the cake.

Chase leapt away as the cake exploded to pieces, holding his arms out at his sides.  “Lila!”

On the floor, Alicia had come undone.  “Lila, do you see what you’ve done?  This is Danni’s favorite.”  She began to scoop the cake up with her bare hands, sobbing quietly.  “Now she’s not going to have a cake for her birthday.  You’re going to have to explain it to her.  Oh, she’s going to be so upset...”

Finally spent, Lila began to back away from her mother, horror clouding her eyes, unable to respond.

When she was close enough to touch, Chase placed a hand on the side of Lila’s arm, and she was broken from her trance. She looked up at him, seeing the same horrified expression in his own, just before plopping dejectedly into the dining chair behind her.

Chase squeezed her arm before he crossed the room to Alicia, kneeling on the floor next to her and the destroyed cake.

He rested his elbows on his knees and bent his head to the side, trying to catch Alicia’s eyes.  “Hey, Mrs. James.  You know what I just remembered?  You know that cafe Frankie’s, just up the road?”  He pointed to the cake, still trying to catch her eyes.  “They make this exact cake flavor up there.  You can order by the slice, or you can get a full loaf.  The whole nine yards.”  He breathed deep, raising his eyebrows.  “Which one do you think Danni would like?”

Alicia continued to scoop the cake anxiously around her trembling hands, but her eyes had relaxed, and when she looked up at him, she even managed to smile at Chase, who’d placed an arm gingerly on her shoulder.  “Danni wouldn’t want a whole cake.  She has a perfect figure, but she’s always on some crazy diet.  She probably wouldn’t get through an entire slice by herself.  In fact, she and I could probably share one between the two of us.”

Chase nodded, searching her eyes.  “That sounds perfect then.  That’s what we’ll do.  We’ll go to Frankie’s and… one slice of strawberry cake, it is.”

Alicia looked down at her hands and clothing, both covered in icing.  “I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”

“That’s all right.  Go ahead upstairs, get washed up, and then we’ll all head out.  Frankie’s isn’t going anywhere.”

Beaming, Alicia leaned over and kissed his cheek, getting a tiny bit of frosting on the edge of his jaw before standing tall and hurrying towards the staircase of the house.

“Mom,” Lila said, half-heartedly, standing from her chair and reaching for her mother as she passed. 

Alicia, however, was moving too quickly, mumbling to herself, once more, and was out of Lila’s reach in seconds.  Shoving both hands in the back pockets of her jeans, Lila watched her go, chest beginning to heave as she slowly lost control.

Chase went to her.  “Hey, hey…”

He pulled her body to his, enveloping her in his arms just as she burst into sobs.  Her body shook so violently; he had to brace his feet on the floor, holding her as tightly as he could.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she cried, gripping the back of his t-shirt in big chunks.  “I just don’t know what to do when she gets like this.”

“Shhh…” He brought a hand to the back of her head, frowning when her cries didn’t seem to be calming down, but intensifying.  “We’re going to figure it out, all right?  I promise.  I got you.”

She sniffled and tried to pull away.  “I’m fine, Chase.  I’m sorry, I’m fine--”

He pulled her back.  “Stop.”

Lila allowed him to wrap her in his arms.  “I have to cancel the class tomorrow.”

“So it’s canceled.”

--

When Lila, Chase, and Alicia arrived home from Frankie’s later that afternoon, Alicia was doing better.  Chase had spent the entire afternoon speaking to her about any random subject he could think up.   Soon, an hour had passed without Danni’s name leaving Alicia’s mouth.  Towards the end of their meal, Alicia was almost completely lucid.  She’d even looked across the table and apologized to Lila and Chase, knowing the places her mind could sometimes go.

Of course, no apology was necessary, at least not from Alicia.

When the three of them walked into the front door of the brownstone and immediately came face to face with Lila’s father, Paul James, leaning forward on the living room couch, bobbing his legs anxiously, Lila saw red.

“How could you?” she spat, stomping into the living room as her father came to his feet.  “How could you leave her?”

“Lila, don’t be angry with him.”  Alicia reached for Lila, and Chase placed a hand on her arm.  “He’s been through it, too.  He’s been through it, baby, just like we have.”

Lila didn’t even look back, nearly spitting fire as she searched her father’s eyes.  “Chase, will you help my mother upstairs, please?”

“ ‘Course.”  Chase was already there, placing one hand on the small of Alicia’s back while cradling her hand in the other.

Lila waited for them to disappear up the stairs before looking back to her father.

Paul James was tall, but thin, with a patch of gray hair he’d been born with running a line down the middle of his jet black afro. He’d stopped dying it back in high school, and it was easily his most defining feature, outshining even his beautiful hazel eyes, which were now pained as he looked down at Lila.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, Lila. I thought she was doing better, and then she went away, again.  I couldn’t take it.”

For the first time in her life, Lila saw tears in her father’s eyes, and before she could stop herself, she launched her body across the space between them, wrapping her arms around his neck.

She spoke into his shoulder.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that.  I know how hard it is.  How hard it must be to do it by yourself.”

Her father embraced her in return.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”  Lila rubbed his back before pulling away, shoving her hands in her back pockets.  “We took her out for some cake, let her work through it, and she’s doing much better now.  She’s lucid.  Chase talked a lot of sense into her at Frankie’s.  Seemed to do the trick.”

“Yeah, it did the trick.  Until Danni’s birthday rolls around again next year and the year after that…” Paul didn’t finish.

Lila didn’t need him to.  “Chase also convinced her that she should start speaking to someone.”  She and her father had been trying to get her mother into therapy since Danielle’s passing, to no avail.  One slice of cake over lunch with Chase and her mother was on board. 

Paul’s face was awash with relief.  “That’s great news, baby.”

“It is.  I don’t know how the hell Chase does it, but he’s always had a gift of persuasion.” Lila’s eyes widened as she said the words, realizing it was the understatement of the year.

Paul took a deep breath, pressing his hands to his hips.  “Hell of a day...?”

“Truer words have never been spoken.”

He squinted at her.  “Didn’t you tell us you were teaching a summer class this term? Five days a week, Monday through Friday?”

“I’m canceling tomorrow’s class. Staying over the weekend.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Dad…”

“Absolutely not.  I know you’re up for assistant professor.  You can’t be calling into work at a time like this.”

“I can’t leave Mom.”

“I’m here.”

“For how long?” Lila bit her tongue and looked away.  “Sorry.”  She was being unfair to her father.  Just a few hours dealing with her mother had left Lila completely drained, emotionally.  If Chase hadn’t been there, she would’ve crumbled.  She couldn’t begin to fathom what her father was dealing with.

Paul took both of her arms.  “I know I ran off, but it was the first and only time.  I lost my head, and it will never happen again, baby.  I swear it.  Don’t you dare cancel that class tomorrow. I’ll dig into the savings and pay for the plane ticket back if I have to. I know what this promotion means to you. Your mother always goes through it this time of year.  You know that.  Putting your career on the line is not going to make this go away.  It’s not going to change the situation one bit.  That change has to come from within her.  Only she can do that.”