Seductive Shadows (15 page)

“Her expression hasn’t changed,” I whispered.

I didn’t expect it to. I had hoped it would, that her eyes would open, air would fill and release from her lungs.

“At least she isn’t in pain anymore,” he told me.

The doctor at the hospital had warned me that she wouldn’t be living much longer; so had the nurse who came to our apartment once a day. I had witnessed Lilly’s decline, watched her light fade a little more each hour. And there were undeniable signs more recently: the increase in her medication, the way her skin changed color, the way she had practically stopped eating. I knew it was going to happen…and yet, I still wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t able to process the face of death, unable to truly believe that a lifeless body was resting before me. I wanted to capture yesterday, to hold onto it and remember the details, because today had moved so fast.

“And she isn’t suffering.”

I wouldn’t ever hear her voice again, the nagging or yelling, or the soft moments when I tried to find the love in her tone. I wouldn’t have anyone to care for, no medication to prepare, mouth to wipe, or body to scrub. I had no one to parent. There was no one to parent me.

“She’s in a better place,” he said. “I hope you believe that.”

I was on my own. Orphaned. And even with everything that had happened between Lilly and me, it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted her here. I wanted a
mom
.

“I also hope you know that she loved you.”

Loved?

I couldn’t remember the last time that word had left my mouth or hers. And now, it never would again.

I turned around, looking into Dallas’s eyes. “How do you know she loved me?”

“She told me.”

“What?”

“After I gave her the meds, we would talk for a few minutes before she fell asleep. She told me I was lucky to have you.”

I had told her Dallas and I weren’t together. She must not have believed me. Maybe she wanted to believe that I was nothing like her, and that I would only sleep with men I cared about. Or maybe she wanted to believe that I would never be alone. I’d never know. I didn’t even know if I really cared. I was more like Lilly than I wanted to admit.

“I can’t believe she talked to you about me,” I said.

“She knew she wasn’t a good mother to you. It ate at her.”

I stepped forward, shaking his hands off my body, and curled my arms around my stomach. “She said that?”

“She had a lot of regrets. The way she treated you was one of them.”

“But why didn’t she tell me that?” I felt my voice start to rise. “Even when she was dying, why didn’t she tell me that she loved me? That she was sorry? That…”

“Would it have mattered?”

I glanced between Dallas and Lilly. “I don’t know. I think so. I think I needed to hear those words.” My eyes stopped on Lilly and stared at her face. “I still can’t believe any of this. That she’s in this room with us…not breathing.”

And I couldn’t believe that Dallas was here, in my life—my
personal
life. Or that Lilly had never confided in me, yet she had shared so much with him.

“Middlesex County Police,” a man said, from the kitchen.

“We’re back here,” Dallas shouted. “In the bedroom.” His arms wrapped around my waist again and he pulled me to his side. “We can talk about this later, I promise. Right now, you need to say good-bye to your mom.”

I shook my head. I wanted to know more, the intimate details that for years I had yearned for but had no one to ask. I wanted a piece of her, the piece that she had given to him, and to all the men who had so briefly entered her life.

The cop joined us, standing at the side of Lilly’s bed. More voices came from the kitchen.

“Can we have just a few more minutes?” Dallas asked him. “She really needs a chance to say good-bye.”

“Just a few,” the cop said as he moved into the hallway.

Dallas turned toward me; his hands went to my cheeks. “It’s time, Charlie. If there’s something you want to say, you have to do it now.”

I swallowed and nodded, then stepped out of his grasp and took a few paces forward. I teetered along the edge of the bed, placing my hands on hers. Her ice covered my sweat. I didn’t know what to say, not during a moment like this. Bringing up our past didn’t feel right…and I didn’t want to say something just because she was dead; I wanted to mean my words, to remember them, to be able to think back to this memory and not have any regrets. I couldn’t make any promises. But I could tell her that I would try to be more than she’d ever been. I believed that was what she had wanted.

Good-bye
,
Mom
were the words I’d planned on using when Emma and I went off to college. After the chance had disappeared, I never believed I would say them again—especially not at twenty-three, in our apartment, holding her cold hand in mine.

But I never thought I would lose my Emma, either.

I leaned my face close to her ear. I closed my eyes. My mouth opened and the words seem to fall out on their own.
Good-bye, Mom. I love you, and I hope to make you proud.

***

During one of our trips to the hospital, Lilly had told me she didn’t want to be buried. She said she was too claustrophobic to be in something so small, and then embedded in the ground. She wanted to be cremated, and to have her ashes spread somewhere beautiful. She wanted to finally be free. So when Dallas drove me to pick up her remains, I asked him to take me to the public gardens.

“In the city?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s really where you want to go?”

I looked down at the brown box that I held in my hands. It was hard to believe she fit in something the size of a coffee container, that I was holding Lilly—my mother.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s where I want to go.”

He turned on his signal, heading toward the Mass Turnpike. “Why is that place so special to you. To her?”

I stared out the window; trees and telephone poles passed outside the glass. I glanced at each for a second, admiring their details before my eyes moved on. “Lilly was ill one morning. She made me stay home from school to take care of her. About mid-day, she kicked her hangover and got the idea to take me on an adventure. So we went to the city.”

I remembered how she had leaned against the door of the train; her shoelaces were untied, and she was missing an earring. Once we got onto the platform, I bent down to tie her laces, but she told me to ignore them. If they were too tight, they’d pinch her toes. She grabbed my hand and skipped up the steps; we were in such a rush.

“She brought me to the Public Gardens and had me sit on a bench. She told me she’d be back by the time I counted to a thousand. Then she left me there, and I counted—all the way to three thousand, I think. When she got back, she reeked of booze, but she was ready to have some fun, and she took me over to the pond. A man nearby was selling bread to feed the swans, but she didn’t have any money, so we just watched. And she told me to pretend that I was feeding them.” I took a deep breath. The knot was back; it was churning in my throat, making it difficult for the air to pass through. My bottom lip quivered. “She left me again and ran over to one of the flower beds. She twirled in circles and sang, ‘
Isn’t this beautiful, Charlie? So much beauty
.’ I complained that she was acting weird and that people were staring. ‘
Fuck them
,’ she said. ‘
It’s me and you, baby girl, and the city
.’”

“See?” Dallas said. “She did care.”

“In her own way, yes…she did. I was young, but I knew enough to know that the way she was acting was wrong, that she smelled and looked like a mess. But it was one of the few times she tried to have fun with her baby girl, so I went along with it. And it was the only place she ever called
beautiful
.”

“How old were you?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “I was nine.”

“Did you know at that age that she was an alcoholic?”

“It was around that time when I realized it, maybe a year before.”

“So that’s where you’re going to spread her ashes, then…at the pond?”

I looked down at the box again. “It’s the only place that feels right.”

When Sandy dressed me in a cotton pajama set and only covered my lashes with mascara, I knew the Doctor had reserved me for the evening. He usually didn’t stay more than a few hours, and because we never double booked, I would be sent home early tonight. After several long nights with almost no sleep, I was looking forward to the lighter shift.

I waited for him on the bed, a blanket wrapped over my feet and my back pressing against two pillows. A chair had been placed by the nightstand, where two bottles of water stood. No music played. He entered a few minutes after Sal’s signal, dressed in jeans, a polo, and loafers. He never wore his white lab coat when he was in my wing. He was my most casually dressed client. I wasn’t sure if I could even call him that; he still hadn’t touched me. He never sat on the bed if I was on it, never gazed at my body, never asked me to engage in anything more than conversation. By the way he strolled over to the chair, his eyes meeting mine with a harmonious light, I had a feeling this session wouldn’t be any different.

He got comfortable in the chair. “Good evening, Cee.”

I didn’t know how old he was; I guessed mid-forties. His hair was silver, but I had a feeling that it had grayed prematurely because his skin was tight, hardly wrinkled, and he didn’t have age spots like some of my older clients. I pictured him to be the type of man who wore glasses, but because of the mask he was forced to cover his hazel eyes with contacts. He had a quiet elegance to him. His speech was refined, sophisticated, and the way he moved with grace, spoke of a long pedigree of excellence.

“Hello,” I said.

“Where’s your smile?”

I forced my lips to part, to let my teeth show. Sometimes I felt like a kid; I played that role without even thinking when I was around him.

“Something feels off tonight. You seem…different. Is everything all right?”

Only a few days had passed since Lilly’s death. I hadn’t told Victoria or the Doctor, and I hadn’t requested any time off. I wasn’t ready to open up yet. And I worried that if I paused my life long enough to think about her being gone, the regrets, the things Dallas had told me, I wouldn’t be able to stop. So I shoved it all behind my mask and kept moving. I thought I had hid it well, so I was surprised that the Doctor felt something was off. Maybe he already knew.

That was most likely the case.

“I lost someone,” I said. “Someone close to me.”

And just like that, the words suddenly seemed to flow out on their own. It was eerily similar to the last time I had spoken about Lilly. When she was the topic of discussion, my mouth needed very little direction.

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Was it sudden?”

I shook my head. “I knew it was going to happen, but not when. I was the one who found her, and the one who scattered her ashes.”

Why was I telling him this? There wasn’t a rule that stated I had to share anything about my personal life with him or Victoria. But I felt a sense of security here, in this bed, with him sitting close by. During our brief respites, I felt like Charlie, not Cee. Maybe that was because our time together was normal, like when I was in Professor Freeman’s office. Professor Freeman, the Doctor, and Cameron were the only men I knew who didn’t touch me.

He crossed his legs, resting his foot on his thigh. Then the foot on the floor began to bounce. “Was scattering her ashes the closure you needed?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to close those wounds.”

“You mean, the hole she left?”

“Well that, yes…but the holes she created before she left, too. It was a complicated relationship that lasted twenty-three years.”

“I see.” His legs uncrossed, both feet went flat on the mirrored floor. He leaned forward slightly. It seemed as if those all-seeing hazel eyes were digging for something. Was he waiting for me to unravel?

“So where does this leave you? Are you finding fulfillment?” he asked.

Sex and art briefly waylaid my emptiness, but I didn’t believe I had ever found fulfillment. Lilly dying didn’t change that. But as of lately, I seemed to be craving intimacy even more. I wished I could sleep in my wing; our apartment just didn’t feel right. I needed to move, to find a place that didn’t have so many memories. I would be able to do that after a few more paychecks. I needed money in order to start fresh, and the mansion gave me that. No one else would pay me what Victoria did.

“I enjoy my time here,” I said. “The richness of the costumes, the way Sandy pampers me, knowing I have Victoria if I need her…and the money. So that’s what I’m focusing on, along with my interests outside the mansion.”

His arms crossed, and his fingers moved to his chin. His expression also changed; the lines in his forehead deepened. “I’m happy to hear that.”

His words didn’t match his face.

Did I detect sympathy in his eyes, or remorse behind his stare? Was he disappointed in my answer?

“I’m glad you feel so comfortable in your surroundings,” he said, “that you’re able to continue working and accomplishing given the trauma you’ve experienced so recently.”

My time with the Doctor was different than most of the other hours in my week. This was our fourth session and, like the first, he had gotten me to purge. I didn’t feel contrite over the words I had shared, but it was confusing. All the other men wanted to fuck, and my job was to please them. I wasn’t Charlie then; I had even learned how to separate myself from Cee and go somewhere else during those sessions. But with the Doctor, I couldn’t escape. He pulled me, Charlie, into this room and opened her up. I wasn’t sure this was what I wanted today, especially after what had come in the mail this morning. I wanted to lose myself, allow my brain to shut off, to surrender. But this escape never lasted. I always had to come back at some point.

“There’s something else bothering you,” he said, his focus sharpening. “Please tell me what it is.”