And she was with Holly. My mother. The Queen of Cold.
“Here. Drink this,” Layla said softly.
I leaned up from her shoulder and sniffed deeply. I took the cool glass of water and chugged it back, feeling the alcohol slowly push through my veins. I drained the glass before handing it back to her, trying to get my bearings about me. What time was it? How long had I been at Lance’s?
“Thanks,” I said.
“Of course.”
“You need anything else, buddy?” Lance asked.
He clapped his hand against my shoulder, and I shook my head.
“Nope. And the next time you want to pour rum down my throat, warn me first,” I said.
He chuckled. “I’ll get you another glass.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Rum?” Layla asked.
I watched her quirk an eyebrow, and the expression on her face almost made me laugh.
Almost.
“Yeah. Rum. I think it’s your brother’s way of keeping me here instead of storming into my parents’ house and demanding Millie,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “I mean, I don’t want to bring up yet another tough conversation. But I figured with what’s just happened, it might bring your family closer together?”
“Yeah. Right. With my mother? She’ll use this as leverage for something. I’m sure of it.”
We sat there in silence as Lance came back into the room. I knew it was hard for people to process the severity of what happened with me and Susie growing up. It was hard to prove psychological and emotional wounds. If there wasn’t a scar or pictures of bruises, people usually assumed things were just fine. When in reality, things were never fine.
Not with a mother like mine.
“All right. Another glass of water and you should feel better,” Lance said as he sat down.
“Thanks. Again, I app—”
He held up his hand. “You don’t have to keep thanking me. You know your place is my place. You have a key to it for a reason. I’m glad you finally decided to use it.”
“I still feel bad for waking you up so early this morning.”
“The fuck? Cut it out, dude. If there’s any time for you to wake me up, it’s something like this.”
Lance put his arm around the back of the couch as Layla settled her hand against my knee. I sat there, in between them, feeling their foundation gird me. All my life, those two had been my rock. My solace. My soft place to fall. Layla always gave me that sweet reassurance with a warm hug, while Lance had no issues delivering harsh advice that was always needed. Every time I went through something, they were there. Every time I struggled with Susie after she had my niece, they were there. Hell, the two of them were the first at the hospital the day my niece was born. They got there before our own mother did!
They were more family than my own actual family had ever been.
I looked over at Layla and found her staring aimlessly at her hand on my knee. I wondered what she was thinking. How she was feeling. I couldn’t imagine the toll this was taking on her. Because I knew she and Susie had been close these last few years. But losing my sister to drugs like that? It had to be reminiscent of when she lost her fiancé.
A drug overdose in Vegas at his bachelor party.
I settled my hand on top of hers, and she took it. She looked over at me, her eyes clouded over with unshed tears. I nodded softly, letting her know it was all right to cry. Silently, she let them fall.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.
“Me too,” she said, sniffling.
She fell against my chest, and I held her around her shoulders. I set the glass of water down on the coffee table in front of us. Then, I pulled Lance into the mix. The three of us sat on his couch, crying and shaking and trying to make sense of this bullshit, trying to figure out how the fuck we were going to plan the funeral and support Millie and explain to my niece what in the world had just happened.
I held them tightly, the three of our bodies wrapped around one another. We lay back into the cushions of the couch after crying our eyes out, and my head began pounding. I released Layla, and Lance unraveled from me, their sighs dictating the same sort of thing. I wiped at my cheeks as I looked up at the ceiling, trying to crack my neck and release some tension.
“What brought on the drinking?” Layla asked softly.
I sighed. I looked over at Lance and wondered if it was appropriate to fill her in on everything. Because, as much as I cared for Layla, Lance always knew more than she did. I only told her what was necessary to get the basic picture across. Lance shrugged at me, and I rolled my eyes. Useless, that man sometimes. I closed my eyes and collected myself, trying to gather my thoughts as best as I could.
Then, I drew in a deep breath.
“You know, as much as I hate to admit it, Susie had always been a bit misguided,” I said.
“How so?” Layla asked.
I shrugged. “You know a bit about Mom. How cold she always was toward us. How we never had much because Mom always thought we were being selfish. That kind of thing. But I think it impacted Susie a lot more than it did me because she always saw it as her fault. Never a fault of Mom’s, but that she somehow kept disappointing her.”
“Lance has told me a few stories. But what I don’t get is why she was that way with you,” she said.
“The short of the story is Mom and Dad got pregnant with me before they were ever married. Hell, with what I’ve been able to piece together over the years, Mom got pregnant with me on her and Dad’s third date.”
“Yikes,” she said.
“Yeah. And when a high-society man gets a woman pregnant, there are two options. Pay for her to have an abortion and keep quiet about it or marry her. And he wanted to marry Mom. She didn’t want to marry him, though. She always had these dreams of being a famous singer and ‘making it’ in Hollywood one day. I don’t know the details, but they ended up married before she even started showing and they covered it up as best as they could.”
“So, she took her anger about not getting the life she wanted out on you guys?”
“In a manner of speaking. I didn’t get the worst of it. But Susie did. Mom wanted to turn her into the cream of the crop. Despite once having dreams of owning her own life, she tried to make Susie bend to her will. Dress a certain way, talk a certain way, be educated on things a certain way. And when Susie started to rebel around fourteen, things got messy in the house. She’d find her way into Mom’s good wine and get drunk. And eventually, that resulted in her getting pregnant at a party one night when she wasn’t quite seventeen,” I said.
“Yeah. I knew about the party. Susie called me that night, crying. That’s kind of how our friendship started,” she said.
I nodded slowly. “So, that’s kind of the gist of things. Like I said, it’s more complicated than that. But I refuse to let Mom do to my niece what she tried doing with Susie. If she thinks for one second she’s going to be the one raising Millie, she’s got another thing coming.”
“Are you saying you want to raise her?” Lance asked.
The room fell silent as all eyes turned back to me.
“I mean, if it comes down to that,” I said.
I fell back into the couch and sighed heavily. Fucking hell, this was too much for me to handle. And yet, it was the only way. I was the only other shred of family that girl had. Even if I hadn’t seen her in almost two years. That was an entirely different story, though. One I didn’t feel like getting into.
Not after all this.
“What did your mother do once Susie got pregnant?” Layla asked.
I picked up my glass of water. “Just about disowned her. Kicked her out. Cut off her access to the family’s money. She let Susie pack up her things and take them, but that was about as gracious as she was in that situation. She came to stay with me for a little while in the apartment I had at the time until she could find a job and get her own place. But that sort of took a turn all of its own.”
“Layla, we shouldn’t be bombarding him with questions right now,” Lance said.
I shook my head. “It’s okay. I know there’s a lot she doesn’t know about what’s happening.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t—”
I looked at her. “It’s fine. I promise. Susie came to stay with me, which turned into her staying at my place for a couple years. We fought a lot during Millie’s first year of life, though. I knew she wasn’t okay. But I couldn’t get her to realize that. Mom tried intervening, and I wouldn’t let it happen, which made Susie angrier. She always believed the best about Mom, when all I wanted to do was protect her from Mom’s wrath.”
Layla nodded. “When did she move out?”
“A little over two years ago.”
“Have you seen Millie at all since then?”
Layla really had a way of digging down to the truth. Even when someone didn’t want to expose it. I licked my lips and turned my eyes back toward the windows of the living room, staying silent on the question. But she knew. Lance knew. They both knew the answer to that question.
And I’d be damned if my mother got custody of that little girl.
Because I wouldn’t let her do to Millie what she’d done to my sister.
“Well, you know I’m going to help. Whatever you need in this scenario, if I don’t know it, I can get a hold on it quickly,” Lance said.
I snickered. “Thanks. Because I’m going to need a good lawyer in my corner if I’m going to fight for custody.”
“I’ve got some phone calls to make to refresh my memory on this subject a bit. But I’m an open book. And for hire. Pro bono, of course.”
“Exactly. I mean, I know I’m only an art teacher, but any way I can help, I will. Just let me know,” Layla said.
Only an art teacher. I had no idea why the hell she always phrased it that way. Because in my eyes, teachers like her had more impact on students than any other teachers in a school building.
“I really appreciate it, you guys. Beyond appreciate it. But I do have one question,” I said.
“What’s up?” Lance asked.
“Is there any way I can crash tonight with one of you guys? Because I don’t know if I can go back to my place right now.”
3
Layla
“Miss Harper, are you okay?”
I furrowed my brow. “I didn’t realize I looked upset. I’m sorry.”
I looked down at my outfit and understood. I was dressed in all black for the funeral that evening, which was a big shift from my usual brightly colored clothes. I put on my best smile as I looked out over my classroom, gazing into the eyes of my fifth-grade students. Part of the reason why I loved my job was because I got the chance to influence every child in this elementary school. Monday through Friday, kindergarten to fourth grade. Then, I took my creative efforts to the fifth graders once a week. One time a week, I gave up my planning period in order to do a fifth-grade extravaganza, a full-on assembly of nothing but art in the gym that my best friend Nicole helped me put on. It had been a pet project of mine last year, and it had taken me months of fighting with the principal to get them to understand that art and music were just as important to fifth graders as it was to the rest of the students.
So, that was the compromise. If I gave up one of my planning periods a week, Nicole volunteered the gym to help me bring art to the fifth graders.
And it was the highlight of my week.
“Well, I’m okay. I promise you that,” I said.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Because black is a sad color.”
“Why don’t we focus on our project? Because this beautiful banner is going to get hung in the hallway for everyone to see!” Nicole exclaimed.
She clapped her hands, trying to gain the fifth graders’ attention. But they were all focused on me.
“The last time my mom wore a black dress, she had to go to a funeral. Are you going to a funeral? Who died?”
Nicole shot me a wary look. A look that told me she’d intervene if I needed her to. But I softly shook my head, letting her know I was all right.
“I’m wearing a black dress today because a friend of mine lost someone very close to him and today is her funeral.”
The boy looked up at me. “Does he like pictures?”
“I’m sure he does like pictures, yes.”
“Well, the banner’s almost done. What if we make him pictures to make him feel better?”
The sentiment brought tears to my eyes. I smiled, trying to hold them back as I nodded. The boy ran off, yelling at the top of his lungs to the other fifth graders, doling out instructions on how they needed to “stop right now” and “make pictures that would make someone smile.”
“These kids love you, you know,” Nicole said.
I stood up and nodded as I watched that headstrong boy pass out construction paper.
“That’s Damien, right?” I asked.
“Mhm. He’s a spitfire in PE, too.”
I smiled as I watched the fifth graders get to work on their drawings. I enlisted Nicole’s help to finish filling in the banner a bit so the kids could go off into their own little world. We slid the banner over to the other side of the gym, so excited kids rushing off for the busses in the car lot wouldn’t trample all over it.
“I still can’t believe you got the school to approve this,” Nicole said.
I shrugged. “With all the fifth-grade teachers complaining to me about not having enough time to plan during their planning period, it wasn’t hard to get them on board with it all. Especially since it’s the last period of the day.”
“You like the chaos, don’t you?”
“I enjoy the kids, yes.”
“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?”
I gave her question a great deal of thought before I answered.
“I know a lot of these kids come from tough backgrounds. And we don’t think that way because most of their families are well off, in terms of money. But I guess I’ve always sort of understood that money doesn’t fix things. And usually, makes things worse. With schools pulling out art programs left and right, too, I have to fight to make sure this particular school understands the importance of an art program. The release it gives kids and the way it connects them to their emotions. It gives them an outlet. And I’m proud to be that outlet.”
Nicole rubbed my back. “They’re lucky to have you.”
“Thanks.”
I thought back to Cole and how he was handling everything. He’d been crashing with my brother all week, and I’d been texting every morning and every evening to check on him. He’d seemed appreciative to have the support from us that he clearly wouldn’t get from his own family.
“Here you go, Miss Harper.”
“I made a butterfly! I hope he likes butterflies.”
“What about rainbows?”
“I don’t have chocolate for him, but I drew some. Chocolate always makes me feel better.”
“I drew Thanksgiving dinner. Because who doesn’t like stuffing?”
“I love stuffing,” I said, smiling.
One by one, the fifth graders came by, showing off their images of things that made them happy before giving me a hug. It was all I could do to not break down in front of them. Their generosity and their kindness always stunned me in my spot. By the time the teachers came to pick up their students to take them out to the busses, I had almost sixty pictures to hand over to Cole.
“You could make a booklet out of those and give it to him or something,” Nicole said.
“That’s actually not a bad idea.”
I hugged her, thanking her for the help she always gave me with these art extravaganzas in the gym. Then, I headed for my car. I kept glancing at the pictures in the passenger’s seat and diverted my trip, making a quick stop at a craft store. I went straight for the aisle I needed, buying a three-ring binder along with some laminated paper inserts. I purchased
some pretty paper and a batch of markers. Then, I grabbed Cole’s favorite soda from a vending machine beside the cash register.
After gathering everything I needed, I put the small booklet together in my car. It didn’t take long, even with designing a cover. I slipped the pictures into the laminated paper holders, then placed them in the three-ring binder. I made sure everything was perfect, then I set the binder on the passenger’s seat and headed for the funeral home. I got there just in time to see Lance walking out, obviously looking around for me.
“What took you so long? You got out of school an hour ago,” he said softly.
“I stopped last-minute to make a present for Cole. I’m here. Settle down,” I whispered.
We took our seats just behind where the family would sit, and I placed everything at my feet: the soda, the binder, and my purse. I looked around, trying to find Cole. A few minutes later, I saw him walk down the aisle, holding Millie’s hand while everyone stared at the poor child. They all knew she didn’t get her pretty brown skin from Susie.
“My gosh, she’s grown, hasn’t she?” I whispered.
“I remember when she was no bigger than the length of my forearm,” Lance said, grinning.
Cole spotted us and waved, then came over to sit by us, making a point to turn his back to his mother, who was eyeing them from the other side of the aisle.
“Hey, guys. Sorry. Excuse us. Millie, come here. Let me pick you up.”
I smiled as he scooped the little girl up, watching as she clung to him. He came over and sat beside me, not once giving a look toward his mother. I looked at the clock on the wall, noticing we still had six more minutes before the funeral was to begin. So, I handed him the soda I picked up for him as well as the binder.
“What in the world is all this?” Cole asked.
Brother's Best Friend Page 2
