The Other C-Word (33 page)

It was then that my mom found us. Just like when we were kids sharing secrets, she had a tendency to sneak up on us. “Are you girls dishing without me?”

“Mom, I was just telling Stevie that she needs to move out with Adam and Billie needs to go to
Columbia
.”

Mom smiled. “I couldn’t agree more. About time one of you moved out. I’m not running a boarding house, you know.”

Stevie shook her head. “Mom, you can’t do it by yourself.”

“I’ll take the stronger medicine. I’ll figure it out.” I was prepared for any arguments she’d offer. I knew it would be difficult for my mother to handle me on her own and I’d have to make some sacrifices for her sake.

My mom put her arm around my shoulder. “You will do no such thing. That medication makes you a zombie, Marley, and I won’t have it.” She turned and gave both Billie and Stevie a hard look. The one that said ‘I mean business so listen up’. “Do you girls think I can’t handle Marley by myself? I can handle her just fine. I toured with the Dead, you know!”

With that, we all laughed and I knew Billie and Stevie felt the relief of the moment too, enough that they would pursue their own lives. It made me feel free somehow, that my chains would not be their chains any longer.

That night I worshipped Rick’s body. In actuality, I was trying to memorise it. I wanted to remember every sinewy muscle, the strength of his arms, the heat of his skin and the taste of his mouth. He did the same with me, although I didn’t think it was for the same reasons.

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning I awoke as usual with him staring down at me. I ran to the bathroom for my morning ritual. He was already showered and dressed. When I came back to the bedroom, he was sitting on my bed with his head in his hands. “We did what you wanted Marley. Are you ready to talk or are you going to make me keep waiting?”

I decided to let him talk first because maybe after last night he’d come to his senses and end things. I wanted him to. It would be easier for me to get over him that way. I sat next to him. “Talk, I’m listening.”

He took my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist. “I’m supposed to leave next week. I don’t want to. In fact, I don’t have to. I can run my business anywhere in the country. I can also look for a position locally so I can be with you every night. It’s not because I want to fix you. It’s because I don’t want to let you go. You’re a very difficult person to get to know, but I’m so happy you let me know you. I love you, Marley Reba Mason.”

My heart felt like it had filled up and deflated all at once. This was not what I’d expected him to say. How could he love me after the way I’d acted last night?

“Rick, I would never ask you to give up your life for me. I can’t live with that.”

“Marley, I want you in my life. You don’t have to feel guilty. There’s nothing for me in
New York
.”

I looked up at him, forcing myself not to cry. I didn’t even recognise my own voice. It was strained and cold. “Rick, there’s nothing for you here either.”

His look told me that was all I needed to say. I might as well have slapped him again. When he spoke next, his voice was strained and cold too. “I see. Thank you for clearing that up for me.”

He gathered his things then headed for the door. I sat quietly on the bed, wishing I had some magic words to make him feel better, but there were no words to heal this kind of pain. Before he left, he turned once more to me. “You have a week of vacation time. I don’t mind if you take it this week.”

“Which would you prefer?” I asked him. I was wondering how this could seem like such a normal conversation after everything.

“I don’t fucking care anymore. I’m giving you the option for your benefit, not mine, because that’s all we are…benefits.”

I spent the rest of the day in bed crying. My only solace was that Stevie was on her honeymoon and couldn’t chastise me.

In the end, I went to work because it would be wrong to bail out on Rick. We were cold and cordial to each other. Mostly we avoided each other, which was funny, since we had done this before due to our sexual attraction. We had come full circle. We shared an uncomfortable moment at the last meeting with Henley and Kathy. Rick went over all the results of his implemented plans. He also reiterated his detailed, three-year strategy for our company.

Henley
showered him with much deserved praise. Rick had done everything he’d said he would. Our company wasn’t out of the woods, but we had a stronger bottom line. More vendors, more orders, more market share and our future looked brighter. He had done it all without firing a single person.

“Rick, if I could afford you full time, I’d hire you in a second. If you ever decide you want to move to
Chicago
and you don’t mind a pay cut, promise me you’ll at least give me the chance to make you an offer.”

I didn’t look at Rick, but I had a feeling he was staring at me. “Thank you, David. It’s been a pleasure working with you and getting to know your loyal staff. They are very dedicated and passionate and I’m sorry my time here is ending, but I’m happy to get back to
New York
.”

That night, I heard the sad, melodic sounds of
Pale Blue Eyes
by The Velvet Underground wafting out from his office before I left. I knew he was playing it for me. It wasn’t a plea to change my mind or even an attempt to help him move on. I knew what it was—it was a beautiful goodbye.

* * * *

On Friday, an email invitation was sent to the whole office summoning us to RJ’s for Rick’s farewell party. There was a new ambiance of excitement at work because it felt like he was giving our company a future. He had fixed us as he’d set out to do. Too bad he couldn’t fix everything, no matter how hard he tried.

On his last day, Rick came out of his office with his briefcase and paused next to me. “Are you coming to RJ’s tonight?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

“I didn’t think so. I wanted you to know that I recommended they place you in accounting. I told
Henley
you have a good head for numbers and filtering data. It’s not because of anything else. It’s only because it’s true.”

“Thank you,” I replied, sincerely. I couldn’t believe he’d do that for me after everything.

“Marley, would it be okay if I called you sometime to see how you’re doing?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rick.” I couldn’t even look at him, so I stared into my computer monitor. I knew his eyes were on me though.

“I didn’t think so. Will you call me if you need something or just want to talk?”

“No.”

He let out a sarcastic laugh. “I didn’t think so. Take care of yourself, Marley. Apparently you’re the only one capable of that job.”

With that, he left, out of my life. I sat there silently, as the realisation washed over me. No more secret jokes, no more intense stares, no more elevator rides, no more German chocolate cake, no more holding me, no more late night conversations, no more Rick. At least not for me. I laid my head on my desk as the tears started flowing.

Dillon came and found me then dragged me home.

“We’re going to have a break up party, kid. Just you and me.”

Dillon’s idea of getting over someone was to eat a ton of junk food and listen to sad music. He also suggested we bad-mouth Rick, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Rick was perfect and I was a perfect mess. He had done everything he could, but he couldn’t fix me.

I have no idea why listening to break up songs helped, but there was some psychological truth to it. In a strange way, feeling more miserable was almost necessary to the healing process. I think it’s akin to how sometimes bones need to be broken completely to heal correctly.

Dillon announced that my break up song was
Somebody to Love
by Queen, but I preferred
Somebody to Shove
by Soul Asylum. Both songs were amazing, but I couldn’t handle Freddie Mercury right then. Soul Asylum became my new favourite band and I listened to that song on constant repeat, thinking that my pain would decrease relationally to the amount of times I heard those lyrics. I listened to it so much that Billie threatened to delete it from my iPod.

The weeks wore on and I was in a complete slump, but I tried to hide it. I was very good at hiding things from people. My family knew how much I was hurting and they tried to help me, but I quickly changed the subject. I cried myself to sleep every night. I cried for myself, but also for Rick, because he didn’t have a family like mine. I hoped he had people that wanted to help him heal too. Not any woman, of course, but other males that would tell him I was a bitch and he deserved better. Of course, knowing Rick, he would punch someone for talking about me like that.

Dillon assisted me in organising my room. He brought over all kinds of crazy gifts for me like drawer organisers, velvet hangers and perfumed sachets. I replaced my hot pink bed sheets and curtains for darker colours. It made things easier, since I saw Rick everywhere I looked. As manly as Rick was, he looked damn hot under my pink bed sheets.

I cooked vegan meals with my mom. She suggested we make German Chocolate cake, but I vehemently refused. We stuck to savoury items only—I no longer desired sweets.

At work, they moved me to accounting as Rick suggested. I packed up my desk and walked into what had been Rick’s office one last time. I looked around and remembered all the secret and special moments we’d shared. Kathy interrupted me and asked why I was staring at the wall. Instead of answering her, I informed Kathy I was taking the ugly brass, planter home. I wanted to replant something in it and make it new again.

Stevie and Adam moved into their new house. We had a painting party and managed to put a brilliant colour on every wall of their bungalow. I was happy for the distraction, but when Stevie showed me the room they wanted to use as the nursery, the fake smile I wore hurt my face.

Adam took me aside to talk to me. “Marley, Rick’s been texting me and asking me how you are. I’m not sure what to say. He’s my friend, but you’re my family. What do you want me to tell him?”

I swallowed. “Tell him, I’m coping…that’s the C-word I am now.”

Adam regarded me curiously, but nodded.

“Adam, do you know how he is?” I asked, tentatively.

“Yeah, he said he’s…conflicted.”
Conflicted?
What the hell did that mean? At least my word spoke of the devastation and need for healing. His word just confused me. It was ambiguous and vague.

My mother and I visited
Columbia
with Billie. My mother had a friend in
New York
who was a nurse and we stayed with her. I knew I’d had a pretty awful terror the next day because even my mother’s friend, who I’d only met once, felt the need to hug me.

I considered visiting Rick. I knew his address and I longed to see him. In the end, I decided to refrain from making a crazy ex-girlfriend appearance by standing at his front door. It would serve no purpose, except making me miserable. Rick was probably dating again and I imagined running into him and some girl when I was walking around
Central Park
. I imagined her to be a perfect, dark haired hussy that looked good in running shorts whose lipstick always matched her nail polish. I had no idea why I imagined that or why my thoughts were so bitter, but they were. He was preparing for
London
anyway. He’d be leaving in a week for that assignment. I was sure every girl in that city would throw herself at him…it was a den of gorgeous, glamorous women. He might as well have been visiting
Babylon
.

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all was talking out of their ass. I had never experienced such pain and misery. I saw his face in every missed caress, every empty space and every lonely cry.

Chapter Eighteen

I went to my father’s grave. I had never been there. I hadn’t even gone to his funeral. I cried silently, letting the cold wind blow around me as I stared at his headstone. I would have looked like a grief-stricken mourner to any passers-by, but I wasn’t. The source of my tears was from no other emotion than white-hot anger.

I silently said all those things I’d never had the courage to all those weekends so long ago. I thought of spitting on his grave, but my moral compass wouldn’t let me. Instead, the words rang in my head that I wanted to say to him in person. I hoped wherever he was, deep in the ground beneath me, he could hear me.

I hate you. You took everything from me. You took my innocence and my good dreams. Now, I only have bad ones. You not only fucked up my life, but you screwed up my whole family. They all feel guilty because of what happened to me. Because of what you did to me. You even took my memories, the ones I wanted to keep. The craziest thing is that you stole my catharsis. I never got to stand up to you and to see you pay for what you did. Even though you’re dead, you’re still taking from me. You’re still taking all my chances at happiness and I will always hate you for that. I will always be the girl who never catches the bouquet because of you.

I felt better after that. I didn’t realise it, but just purging myself of the words, even though he couldn’t hear them, provided some relief. The resentment had been building up for a long time, like a poison to my system, and I felt a release, if not a complete catharsis.

The memories started coming than and I didn’t like that, but maybe it was better that way. They were fleeting dreams with fuzzy edges that came to me at night. They weren’t night terrors because I could remember them. I woke up shaking and cold, but never alone. My mom was always there to soothe me. I wished she wasn’t.

* * * *

I’m eight years old and my daddy says he’s going to take me to the circus. My mom thinks circuses are wrong because of how they treat animals, but my daddy says that’s bull. I’m excited. He’d bought me a pink dress and he’d combed my hair. I love my daddy.

“Pumpkin,” he says, gathering my hair in two ponytails—he always liked two ponies. “I have to talk to you and I really need you to be a big girl and understand what I’m saying.”

“Okay, Daddy,” I say, looking at him in the mirror. He’s tall and he always smiles at me now. Not like before when Linda was here. He loves me now.

“What happened last night was me showing you how much I love you. That you’re my only girl. It’s a special thing that only daddies who really love their daughters do. I don’t want you to ever tell.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think your sisters’ daddies love them as much as I love you. It would make them sad to know they don’t have what we have. You don’t want to make them sad, do you? You don’t want to make your mom sad that I love you more than she does. It has to be a secret or they’ll get mad at you
because daddy loves you so much. They’ll get mad at me too and then Daddy will have to stop taking you out on dates. I have so many places I want to take you, but I won’t be able to if you tell.”

“I won’t tell, Daddy. I can keep a secret.”

“I know, pumpkin. That’s why you’re my number one girl and my weekend girlfriend. You’ll always be that, no matter what.”

* * * *

Fuck, I was still that. He’d kept me silent with my love for my sisters and family and I’d believed him completely. I’d wanted to make him happy. He used guilt to make me comply and that was the strongest feeling in the world to a little girl because it was the most tangible.

I started seeing a therapist. It helped to talk about the things I’d never wanted to talk about with my mom or sisters. I knew that the descriptions would mortify them and they’d never recover. They felt guilty enough.

Although I was sad, I could feel the mending of my heart, as if someone was literally sewing it with needle and thread. The days went on and I moved through them. It hurt, but my smiles weren’t always artificial. I could eat dessert again and laugh at a joke.

I loved my new job in accounting too. I was in a cubicle and not closed off to my co-workers. We joked around sometimes. Eric Wells asked me out. Eric was tall with shaggy brown hair and hazel eyes. He was very cute and sweet. I declined, but I told him to wait another two months and ask again if he wanted. It had been three months since Rick had left. Another two wouldn’t be enough to heal, but the thought of a date might be a possibility.
Does love die out, like the light in a dead star?
I didn’t think so. At least my life was returning to some semblance of normal, even if it was a new normal.

That’s the thing about an emergency—you never know when it’s going to happen.

I got the call at work. A car had struck my mother in the parking lot. Dillon drove me to the hospital. The hospital waiting room had all the cast of characters that usually sat in our living room. No one joked or laughed tonight, though. Stevie, Billie, Dillon, Adam, Adam’s mother Kate and I all sat around sombre and silent. Billie had had to fly in from
New York
and Adam had picked her up from the airport. We waited while my mom had some massive brain surgery. She’d sustained a major head injury from the impact.

We sat for hours, barely speaking. We mostly hugged each other, walked around like zombies and cried—privately or together as a group. Adam pretended he wasn’t crying, but I saw the redness in his eyes when he came back from the bathroom. He loved my mother too. Dillon had no pretentions about crying. He cried more than the rest of us combined.

Stevie sat next to me, clasping my hand. “Marley, this maybe bad timing, but I need to tell you something I’ve never told you.”

“What’s that?”

“I was attacked.”

I turned to her, blinking my eyes rapidly not sure, if I heard correctly.

“It happened when I was in college and left late one night. Adam knows. Mom and Billie know too.”
Why didn’t I know?
“I wasn’t raped, I fought him off. I had pepper spray, but it was traumatic.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Stevie?”

“I felt guilty. I felt like it was nothing compared to what happened to you. I told everyone not to tell you. I’m fine. I’ve dealt with it. They caught the man. My biggest regret was that I never told you. I didn’t tell you because of my guilt, but the ironic part is you were probably the one person that could have helped me the most. I’m not telling you now to make you feel worse, or sad for me.”

“Why are you telling me now then?”

“Because you deserve someone to be there for you too, Marley, and like me, the guilt is blinding you to that fact. You think you did Rick a favour by casting him off, but I know how you felt for him. It’s obvious how much you’re hurting right now. You love him and he loves you. Being there for you was his decision to make, not yours.”

I smiled softly and embraced her. “Stevie, I appreciate what you’re saying to me, but I don’t think it’s the same thing.”

“To quote the great George Michael,
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
.”

Despite the traumatic events, I chuckled. “Are you suggesting I call Rick?”

“Um…no you don’t have to.”

I stared at her quizzically.

She looked down at her hands sheepishly, which was a rare expression for Stevie. “Adam texted him. He’s on his way here.”

My mouth dropped open. “What? You didn’t have a right to do that.”

Stevie crossed her arms. A gesture that
was
familiar to me. One that said, ‘you can’t tell me what to do’. “If I had told you I was attacked when it happened, what would you have done?”

“Anything you needed me to. I would have helped you.”

“Exactly! That’s what we’re doing now.”

“You told him to fly in from
London
?” I was shaking from the realisation he’d be here and I didn’t know what to expect.

Billie put her arm around me from one side. I hadn’t even realised she was next to me. Stevie did the same thing from her position. “He was in
New York
. The
London
job was over. We didn’t tell him to fly here. Adam just told him about Mom. He wanted to be here for you. I wanted to give you some warning. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“What! Stevie, in whose freaking book is a few minutes any kind of warning?” I barked at her.

That was when the doctor came out. I swallowed all my anger, fear and depression so I could listen actively. He was a young surgeon and I wondered if he was experienced enough to work on my mom. I restrained myself from asking for references.

“She’s out of surgery and it went as well as we could hope. However, we had to induce a coma to minimise any brain damage.”

Brain damage? Coma?
My knees buckled, but I felt strong arms clasping my waist. I recognised the strength of those hands and the comfort they brought. Rick was holding me steady. He whispered in my ear, “You need to be strong for your mom, Marley.”

I was able to stand on my own, but he kept his arms around me just the same. It comforted me. It felt safe.

“Can we see her?” Stevie asked Dr Doogie Howser.

“In an hour or so when they have moved her to a room. She won’t be responsive and you can’t stay long. I would suggest you all leave after that and get some rest. There will be some long days ahead. We can’t be sure how she’ll progress until we can monitor her.”

We all sat down. I rested my head on Rick’s shoulders. There were so many emotions running through me, I didn’t trust myself to speak to him. Luckily, he didn’t expect it. After a few minutes, Stevie approached us. “We’re going to grab a bite to eat in the cafeteria before we see Mom. Do you guys want to come?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, we’ll bring you back something. I know you’re starving, Marley.”

They all left and it was just Rick and I. I still didn’t know what to say, so I asked him the most nonchalant thing. “How was your flight?”

“It was great. There were no failed abductions or any sexual harassment or anything.” Despite the craziness of the moment, I laughed. He always had the ability to make me laugh when I needed it most. “Are you hungry, baby?”

I nodded and he placed the Zesty bar in my hand. I stared at it like a lifeline. That’s when the tears flowed. I cried and hugged him. I wrapped my arms around his neck while he comforted me. It was exactly what I needed. I uttered some semblance of a muffled thank you and it was for so much more than the Zesty bar. He held me against his chest, drawing small circles against my back. No more words were necessary.

* * * *

My sisters and I stared at my mom’s bandaged body and all the tubes that seemed to be supporting her life. It was scary, but gave us hope too. We stayed for fifteen minutes until they kicked us out.

When we returned to the waiting room, I saw Billie’s look of fear and I knew it was for more than my mom’s condition. She was frightened at the prospect of being in the house alone with me. She had been ever since I’d snatched her hair out during a terror.

“Billie, why don’t you spend the night with Stevie and Adam tonight?” I suggested.

“It’s okay,” she replied.

I don’t know how Rick figured out what was going on, but he chimed in, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Marley tonight.”

“We’ll all stay at the house tonight. We should all be together.” Stevie decided for us.

Stevie was right. We were a family and we needed each other more than ever. We went home and sat around in our pyjamas. At least Dillon and us girls did. Adam and Rick wore shorts and T-shirts—I doubted they slept in anything other than boxers. Dillon had stopped at the bakery and brought a dozen cupcakes. The house had never seemed so crowded. Stevie brought Van Morrison with her too. Even the cat seemed uncharacteristically docile, sitting in her lap. He didn’t even try to scratch or hiss at me.