The Sordid Promise (21 page)

“You say that like I should be scared of you. You, who goes back to the man who abuses you.”

“You don’t know shit!” She marched forward and thrust her pitcher in my direction, spilling some of the contents on my bare feet.

“My eyes don’t lie.”

She guffawed, “The joke on the world? Sometimes they do.”

“Why do you hate Eric so much?”

She glared at me. “Are you really so fucking clueless? He doesn’t usually screw around with idiots. The smart ones are more fun to manipulate. What gives with you?” She regarded me from head to toe. “You’re not
that
pretty.”

I stared at her, unmoved. “Failing to intimidate me again.”

Her eyes whirled around. “Who are you? Like really. You’re…so different for him. Not like the others. Not like the others he plays with at all.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Yeah…you would. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t. Guess you’re not so different after all. You’re just as stupid and oblivious as all the rest.”

“You think I’m some inane girl who confuses his huge cock for love? Nope. I’m aware there’s more behind him than what he shows me. I’m aware that he doesn’t really know what love is.”

“Do you?”

“I know of a different kind of love. I loved my mother and my father. But falling in love?” I shook my head. “I don’t. Most people don’t.”

“Well...I do.”

“Love isn’t tragic.”

“You said you didn’t know what it was.”

“I know what it isn’t.”

She folded her arms with a smirk. “What is it you think you know about Eric?”

“Why did he begin to…?”

“Become Dr. Assisted Suicide? If you make better money doing something else with less stress and guaranteeing people peace; why not jump on it?”

There. Another facet of information I wasn’t quite sure about. My mother and his uncle weren’t his only ones. I didn’t know whether to be comforted or worried. “I don’t believe he’d do it just for the money. I think he grew tired of his inability to cure everyone.”

“It pays well. It bought this house…it bought…a lot of things. I’m just fucking with you. I’m giving you my reason why. Eric’s reason? Don’t kid yourself. He doesn’t have a heart of gold. If he did, he wouldn’t take any money from it. That heart of his is dirty, twisted, and frozen.”

I contemplated the floor as I tried to read between her very broad lines. “Why did he really come here? It couldn’t have been just for a fellowship.”

“Sure, he got offers in other places. Eric is looking for action in all the wrong places.” She sloppily drank from her pitcher. A good amount of the contents spilled outside the rim.

“Can you make that less vague? You’re contradicting yourself.”

“Didn’t your mother tell you? You’re a pseudo smart girl. You can figure it out.”

“He came here…for me?”

“It’s hilarious, right? Came here and found out that the girl he thought he came here to visit, wasn’t really her at all.” She raised her pitcher to me and staggered upstairs.

I didn’t know what to do with what she just told me. Shock wouldn’t allow me to be logical. Shock wouldn’t allow me to keep my head down and pretend—not anymore.

Staring at the closed door that led to my mother’s bedroom, I had a difficult time going through. I kept the room closed off after she was admitted to the hospital on a permanent basis. It was as neat as she always left it—not at all. The room still held the scent of her perfume. I touched her bed falling solemn for a while. It hit me again. She’s gone.

Angie appeared in the doorway. She folded her arms while slightly brooding. “He has a shiftiness to him that I don’t like.”

I swept my palms across my face to clear my tears and glanced at her.

“Maisha woke me up.” She stepped inside while contemplating the bedroom. “Does this place bring back memories for you?”

“I was hardly ever in this room. It’s not like I can point there—” I pointed to her vanity. “—and say I used to play in her makeup. Or here—” I sat on the edge of her bed and ran my hands along the comforter. “—and say I used to snuggle up to her while she read me a story. That we watched TV together. That she read me her favorite economic magazine before bed.” I bobbed my head and began my search of the room.

“I tried to take you away,” Angie blurted out with difficulty. I immediately stopped and sank back on the edge of the bed. “I filed a complaint with CPS for child neglect the day after your mother and father left you alone at just ten years old to fend for yourself. It was a holiday weekend that they didn’t want to take off. Christmas, actually. While your mother was doing a seminar in Dubai, and your father was vacationing in the Isles of Palms, I came to check up on you after no one answered the phone. It’s not that you weren’t doing well for yourself. You were just far too young to be alone as much as you were. You were placed in foster care for a few weeks. I’m sure you remember staying with an Aunt Leslie, don’t you?”

“My mother said it was her best friend.”

“She lied to you, Nikki. She took the next flight out, pulled some strings, and got you back home. I don’t know how she did it. Whatever she did, it made me out to look like a liar. She told me if I ever pulled something like that again, she would make my life hell as only she could. She said quite a few other things, things that I’m going to attribute to her anger. If I told you what they were, you might look at your mother a little differently.”

Working through the little hints that I thought nothing of before, the truth rang stranger than I wanted to admit. She was right about one thing; my mother was scheming. “What does it mean when someone is being paid to love you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think she gave someone shares in her company in exchange for something.”

“Like?”

“Her peace and to solve her worries about me.”

“Eric,” she sighed. She sat next to me and placed her hand over mine. “She never stopped conniving and planning out other people’s lives. She could be ruthless to the point of dangerous at times. She claimed she had to be that way to get as far as she had. It was the bane of our relationship for quite some time.” Angie tossed her head and made a sour face.

“That wasn’t the only boon.”

“I’m sorry, Nikki. I could excuse it away with how young and naive I was, but I can’t. I can, however, show you how much I’ve changed. Why don’t you come with me? We can sell this house and build the relationship that we never had.”

“I don’t want to,” I replied flippantly.

“What kind of man would do something like this to someone who was losing—who just lost her mother? He’s a man obsessed with money. A man like that has no integrity. Frankly, I’m worried about your safety around him.”

“It would be perfect. Daughters marry their fathers, right?”

“Nikki,” she said gently and smoothed down my hair.

I leaned forward and rested my chin in my hands with my elbows propped on my knees. “I think his master plan is working. I think I’m starting to feel something.”

“Now would be the perfect time to get out the mess your mother created while you still can.”

“You’re not listening.” I held her strongly in my gaze. “I don’t
want
to.”

“You likely think you’re in love with this man. Self-preservation is very important, Nikki.”

“What can he take from me that hasn’t already been taken?” I looked at my thigh and rubbed my scars. “I haven’t been on my meds in a few days—”

“Nikki, that doesn’t make any sense. Have you…changed your prescription?”

“How did you know I was on medication?”

“I—just knew.”

“He changed my prescription.”

She stood with urgency. Her eyes erratically searched around the room. “Where are they? Let me have a look at them. Perhaps, I should get them tested.”

“Why? You think he’s poisoning me?”

“No. I think he’s giving you placebos.”

“That…wouldn’t be possible.”

“Wouldn’t it be? Nikki. Don’t you see that makes him even more of a danger to you? He doesn’t mean you well if he’s done what I’ve suspected he has. This isn’t the best environment for you to be in. Come with me to Chicago when I leave.”

“You can’t make me leave with you. You couldn’t do it way back when, and you can’t do it now.”

“Are you upset with me for trying to help you?”

“You weren’t trying to help me. You were trying to help yourself.”

“How can you assume that? Nikki, my mistake was years ago. You can’t hold it against me forever.”

“I think you wanted me out of the way so that you could get your hands on my mother’s husband,” I deadpanned.

Her eyes cast to the floor as they watered. “That’s very hurtful, Nikki.”

“I can say more, if it makes you leave.”

“You don’t have to.” She stood. “You know once I leave…that’s it.”

“Sorry,” I remarked insincerely. “You’ll never have a relationship with me. You don’t deserve to have one.”

“You know…there are many things I have knowledge of. Things I shouldn’t know, but do. I never once shared those things with anyone—“

“I remember differently. My father’s funeral? You made what you thought happened very fucking clear.”

“Fine.” She pressed her hands out as if pushing an invisible wall. “Then you should know that I know full well who murdered him. Knowing that, you should think very closely about who’s truly on your side.”

I glared at her as I stood. I couldn’t believe she dared to think she was in a position to threaten me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She raised her hands in defeat and disappeared down the hall.

When I got up, the rug slipped and revealed the corner of her laptop from underneath the end table. I opened it and took it to my room.

I tried to crack the password, using keywords that I knew rang as important to her. It took me two hours before I got it right. The password was my father’s first name: S@mue1.

I checked her backdated history, and found a few sites in her memory cache. One was a dating site. The more recent ones, two years ago, contained cached pages for a site I used to frequent. The site from which I met Trent: Suicide Angels. She posed as someone else, seeking information on anyone who talked to me. She sent private messages to people I used to talk to with plans to stage an intervention. No one would comply. Not even the elusive Dr. C.

When the server changed and reset all information, she made a new account. While pretending to be a manic depressive, she sought out information from other users on how to get in touch with Dr. C.

He direct messaged her one day:

Dr. C: Why are you asking about me?

LeNoirDe90: Because I need your help.

Dr. C: With what?

LeNoirDe90: Redemption.

Dr. C: Interesting answer. You have my attention.

LeNoirDe90: I need help with my mother. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and they want to cut her leg off. She doesn’t want it. But if she doesn’t get it done, there’s a good chance the cancer will spread, and she will die. She doesn’t want to go through the pain. Can you help her?

Dr. C: I might. I might not. Might not have any idea what you’re talking about.

The conversation ended. She knew about her sickness for two years and saw fit to tell me only seven months before she died? She could’ve…lived. Why would she have done that? Why would she seek out anything with Suicide Angels?

The cached pages ended; I suspect, because Suicide Angels changed servers again, and she was unable to find the new IP address. Two months after her first correspondence with Dr. C., he sent her an IM:

Dr. C: I got your e-mail to serve as proof. I’m sorry about your mother.

LeNoirDe90: It’s spread. She’s going to die. Maybe a year. Maybe two years. Will you help her?

Dr. C: I might.

During months of communication between her and the doctor, things moved into a flirtation. She lamented about how lonely she was. Said she never found anyone who understood her. Said that most people couldn’t relate to her. She said she was a cutter with constant suicidal thoughts—that she was on anti-depressants and had a social anxiety disorder.

It was clear whom my mother impersonated. Me. She revealed things about me that I never knew she had knowledge of. Revealed the one thing I never really knew about, because I’d never thought about it that way. She said, while impersonating me, that I craved pain to escape my reality. Dr. C. said he understood. Said he had sorted issues of his own, but never revealed what those issues were.

Eventually, he requested a picture. She put him off for a while. He grew despondent in her attempts to contact him. Finally, she relented and sent him a picture. A picture of Trent and me, from four years ago, just before we went to a rave in Seattle during one of his visits.

His words in response: I can’t believe how beautiful you are, my twisted angel.

My heart sank, because I just didn’t want to believe it. Eric was Dr. C.

They made plans to meet—that was a little over a year ago. Communication stopped…or maybe moved to a different medium.

I needed her phone.

I marched back to her room and started tearing through it as I hoped that when I was given her belongings in the hospital, I might’ve had the forethought to turn it off.