Coming Undone (27 page)

He must have been too, because he nearly snarled as she contracted around him. He began to thrust up as he pulled her down against him. His upper body tightened as his muscles worked, and then with a long groan, he came.

“I’m starving.” His voice was muffled against her hair.

“I’ll make you a sandwich. Meatloaf okay?”

He tipped her chin and kissed her. “Thank you. And you can tell me about what happened at the attorney’s office. You think Rennie would like to go out to Chinese food tonight? I feel like taking out my two best girls.”

He rolled from her bed, and she couldn’t help but bury her face in the pillow he’d been on. She loved his smell. “I think she’d love it.

You know how she feels about you.” She got out of bed and he followed her into her bathroom. Rennie wasn’t the only Sorenson who loved Brody Brown.

22

Elise fell into the rhythm of making him a sandwich. He’d helped her wash and dry the tattoo and had shown her just how much of the gel to put on. Such a big man, but always totally gentle with her.

“They’re trying to drag me back to New York. To a different county than where we were before. This one is where a lot of vacation homes for the rich and famous are located, so Frank and my new attorney—yes the guy was really good—think the Sorensons want to get me where they have a better chance at taking Rennie.”

She put the sandwich on the table and followed with a glass of orange juice.

He took a big bite of the sandwich and looked across to where she sat, eating an apple because we can’t all be men who can inhale four thousand calories a day and still be slim. Not that she was bitter. Not at all.

“Who’d have thought meatloaf would be so awesome? This is so good. Thank you.” He took a drink. “I hate these people. Just on principle, but also because they’re trying to hurt you and Rennie.”

“Bill will handle most of the motions, with Frank helping out in New York. They’re filing a motion to dismiss. And also to keep the case here in Washington where I live and where Rennie lives.

Apparently they filed more papers today as I was talking with them both. Frank was going to fax it all to Bill and they’ll get back to me.”

He took her hand across the table. “It’s going to be fine. You’re a wonderful mom. Rennie is happy and healthy and thriving. And so are you, Elise. You grow brighter every day, more vibrant and full of life. You’re making your own way here, and it shows. What can I do to help?”

“Thank you for being here for me. That’s the most important part.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m also available for things like babysitting if you need to be somewhere and your parents need a break or can’t do it.”

“You really do care about Irene, don’t you?”

Confusion washed over his features for a moment. “Of course I do. Isn’t it obvious?”

“She’s my kid, I obviously think she’s fabulous, so it’s easy to assume everyone else does. But not everyone else does, of course. I’m just grateful she has people who care about her in her life. I can’t let this case get dragged back to New York, Brody. I can’t take her back there. I can’t go back there. I’m here where things are good and right. We’re good here. I don’t want to look back over my shoulder again. And they’re making me. I hate them.”

He finished his sandwich, pushing the plate and empty glass aside to take both her hands in his.

“If you have to go back to New York, I’ll be with you. At your side. I promise. There’s no looking over your shoulder now. Only the future and it’s all good. I have to ask you, are you going to reply to these allegations with how upset Rennie gets after the calls with them?”

“I’ve tried too hard to be fair. Even after this mess. I wanted her to have some contact and connection to her father. Ken wasn’t always the man I had to kill. I loved him once. He loved me, I truly believe he did. So I wanted to honor that and let Rennie have that, because there will come a time when I have to tell her the whole story and I don’t want her to hate him or me. I’ve made so many mistakes. Failed so many times.” She covered her face with her hands.

“There are many words that come to mind when I think of you.

Failure isn’t one of them.”

She tore her hands from her eyes and looked at him. “I have failed at everything in my life but dancing. I saved Rennie from Ken and I’d do it again. But I killed her father. I took her away from her paternal grandparents, but it was necessary. They are bad and wrong and they don’t even love her. How can they not love her?”

He shook his head and took one of her hands back, holding it between his. “I don’t know. It’s impossible for me to understand how anyone could resist Rennie. And you did what you had to do, Elise. It was self-defense. You’re not a failure because your ex-husband was a crazy, fucked up junkie. That’s his failure.”

“I am a shitty daughter. I was a shitty sister. I was a shitty wife.

I never really had any friends outside of the other dancers, and sometimes not even them, because the competition for roles . . .”

She shrugged. “I am a total failure but for two things. First is my dancing. I’ve been good at it since I was four and I’ve achieved all I’d ever dreamed of and more as a dancer. Later, but far more important, is Rennie. I’ve made mistakes, yes, but I’ve been a good mother,the best I could under the circumstances even if I’m not perfect.

I’ve
tried
to be better at things, but . . .” She licked her lips, not finishing the sentence..

He moved quickly, sitting in the chair beside hers. “Do you honestly think you’re a failure? Because when I look at you, when I know you, Elise, I don’t see it. No, don’t interrupt for a moment.”

He put his finger against her lips. “I see how you are with your parents; you’re not a shitty daughter. I see the little things you do for them both, the special tea for your dad’s joints, the way you include your mother at your studio so she feels important, so you can share your love of dancing with her. What I see is not failure, but a family. They moved out here to be with you and Rennie because they genuinely want to be with you two. As for your brother . . . Tell me. You told me some, the highlights if you will. Tell me why you think you’re a shitty sister.”

“College was when it all seemed to get out of control for him.

He was always looking for more. He gorged himself on everything, which is part of why he was such an amazing performer. He went to keggers and got into minor trouble. But my parents always made excuses for him; he was the favorite, you see. I don’t blame them for it. He was, he was like a dragonfly, flitting through your life, irides-cent and magical. You couldn’t take your eyes from him. I knew he’d started using speed, but I didn’t tell on him. I should have right at the very start. I didn’t and he died.”

“He was how much older than you when he started using speed?”

He looked at his watch. “When is Rennie due back here?”

“Five. My parents are going to a lecture at the UW tonight and then out to dinner with the speaker. He’s one of my dad’s old col-leagues.”

Brody nodded. “Okay then, we’ve got a while.” He stood and drew her into the living room, where they snuggled on the couch.

“He was five years older than me. He was twenty-one or twenty-two when it first started. He’d moved to the city. I knew, but I didn’t say anything to my parents. And then I met Ken and it all went to hell.”

“Before you expand on your failures as a wife, why don’t you tell me what a typical day was like for you when you were seventeen.

What was your schedule?”

She glared at him. “Got up at five to get into the city for dance classes in the morning. I’d finished up high school by the time I was sixteen. I graduated early. I always planned on taking college courses, but never got around to it. There was rehearsal for whatever production I was in at the time. More classes in the late afternoon. I ended up moving into an apartment in Manhattan because the commute got to be too much.”

“You lived on your own at seventeen? In New York City?”

“You raised kids at that age! I shared an apartment in a relatively murder-free neighborhood with three other dancers. My grandmother had left a trust; it paid my share of the rent until I joined the company, and, well, I was still dirt poor for some time to come. Funny though, poor as I was, it was such a magical time. I was on my own and doing what I’d always wanted to do. And then I met Ken.”

“On to your failure as a wife then.”

“Ha ha, it’s all a joke to you.”

“Do you really think that, Elise? I’m making light, yes, but it’s not a joke that you’ve endured and survived and been so successful and you see yourself as a failure. I want to understand because I don’t see it.”

“Ken was”—she licked her lips—“the life of every party. He was color spatters on a canvas, mad creation at two a.m. and then back to bed, where we’d make love until I had to rush out to class. What 

I learned over the happy times into the not-so-happy times was that he had no off button. He never got enough. No matter what it was.

And then the drugs with Matty.

“So I left him finally. I left him and he continued to get in trouble. I took him back when he kept clean. And that’s when the condom broke and Rennie was conceived. You know the rest. He started using again. I kicked him out, changed the locks and eventually filed divorce papers. What a fucking idiot I was. I thought I could save him. I thought I could be the stability he needed to keep clean.”

Brody listened to her, listened to how torn up she was at other people’s failings. Knowing she considered herself a failure made him ache for her. He thought he’d be uncomfortable hearing about her ex, but he wasn’t. Angry, yes; jealous, no.

“You can’t do that for people. They have to do it themselves.

Our dad was an alcoholic. He was found to be responsible, in part, for the accident that ended up killing both him and my mom.”

“I know that now. I wasn’t enough for him. A child on the way wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.”

He turned to face her better. “You’re not a failure for preventing other people from fucking up. You’re not God and he didn’t step in with your brother or Ken either. So if God didn’t, why are you suddenly more powerful and responsible?”

“Do you feel responsible at all? For your parents?”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sometimes. I was fuckin’ glad to get out of that house. I loved my brother and sister and still checked in on them, but I was gone from the day-to-day hassle of my father.

Not having to deal with the dread when he wasn’t home in time for dinner, or the embarrassment when he got too drunk to walk . . . it freed me. And then I felt like a traitor when they died. My last words with him were angry. He was a good guy once, when I was young. Why couldn’t I hold on to those memories instead of the bad ones?” He shrugged. “But it’s not my fault. He drank too much, period. And nothing I could have said would have been enough to make him stop. It wasn’t about me. Just like your brother’s overdose wasn’t your fault. Just like Ken wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe it’s me though. That I drive people to it.”

He laughed and kissed her. “Shorty, I’m here, aren’t I? Successful business, just like you. Nary a need for crack or hookers. I do like to have lots of sex with you, because, duh, look at you. But some people are driven to excess. It’s not about anyone but themselves. Let go of all this guilt. You’re not responsible for anyone but Rennie and yourself. Did you love your brother?”

“Yes. But I hated what he was like when he was tweaking. I resented him for not having the strength to stop. People kept saying he was sick, that he had a disease. I wanted to be understanding, but he left a bloody needle in my house! At some point I just sat up in bed and realized he’d never have a wife or kids or anything to sustain him and he was going to die. I think it was impossible to sustain him.” She broke off, shaking her head. “I spend too much time thinking about what used to be.”

Ah, there was something there. “And what about that? Do you want to be what you were?”

“No.” She swallowed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “After, when I was in the hospital and they’d, god, they used a rape kit, I was doped up, covered in blood, freaked that Ken had given me something. Worried about Rennie and my parents. My father had to be sedated, he was so upset. It was a mess. But my mother kept saying to hang on so I could be just like new, just like I’d been before. Even when it was plain I’d never be able to dance professionally again, people kept saying they wanted to see the old me. I danced. It’s what I did, who I was from three to thirty. I achieved more than I’d ever imagined. And then I had Rennie. But the rest was filled with chaos. I don’t want to look back. I don’t want to go back. When I look into my mirror every day, I don’t wish I was that woman. I like my life here. It’s
normal.
Normal, and that’s wonderful. Normal is a luxury.”

He took her face in his hands. “You don’t have to be anything but who you are right now. Let go of what was. I don’t want you to be who you were before. I want you to be who you
are
.”

She simply crawled into his lap and curled into him. He kissed her shoulder and they sat, enjoying the moment.

Deep inside, Brody processed all the things she’d just told him.

Loved her for her strength, loved her for her guilt, even as he made up his mind to make it stop. He liked normal too, when it included this woman.

23

“You’re going to have to repeat that.” Elise wondered if she’d heard Bill correctly when he recounted the allegations being made about her by the Sorensons.

“You heard me.” Bill shook his head. “These people remind me why there are days I hate doing family law.”

“Just be glad there’s a whole country separating them from the rest of us. I
am
dating someone. Brody Brown. He lives across the street from me, and yes, Rennie is exposed to him. But he and I have been together for a year, this thing between us is stable. He’s a good guy. He plays catch with her, he goes to the zoo and the aquarium with us. Everyone in our circle is a good person. They might have tattoos or they’re musicians. They’re all good people.