When Glass Shatters

by J. P. Grider

  “He said I was being a tease, because I let him touch me you know...but then I wouldn’t return the favor by…y’know…touching him. He made me feel so guilty. So, I did, ya know, but then when he wanted me to...well, with my, um, mouth. I just, I wanted to throw up. Then he kept saying if I really liked him, I would, and that all his friends do much more than what he’s asking. I just, I felt so guilty, but so...dirty.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but you did the right thing. Never let a guy make you feel guilty. He was just manipulating you so that he’d get what he wanted. You said no. Remember that. When you’re not ready, you say no. Punch him if he insists otherwise.”

  Norah laughed despite her tears. “Did boys do that to you, too?”

  “Some of them, yes.” Lorraine didn’t want to get into her own past; those were mistakes she owned and, hopefully, moved on from, but maybe she could help Norah to avoid those same mistakes.

  “Norah,” she began, “pleasing a guy…in that way,” Lorraine shook her head, “letting him do what he wants with your body and making you do things with his…that’s not love, and it doesn’t equate with your being or feeling loved. It just makes you feel bad about yourself. And it becomes a cycle too. Almost like an addiction. You seek that attention, and each time you get it, it feels great at the moment, and then the next day…you feel worse than you did before.” Lorraine stopped because Norah’s eyes were growing wide, and she was biting on her lip so hard she thought it would start bleeding. “Listen, Nor, I’m getting ahead of myself. Bottom line—you said no because it didn’t feel right. Go with your gut. And if you’re having any doubts, say no again. No, no, no, over and over. And then come and talk to me, ‘kay?”

  Norah hugged Lorraine. “Thank you, Rainy. I was so worried to tell you, because of all the problems Carter had given you, and Mimi said you had a lot on your plate. I’m sorry I ruined your trip.”

  “Oh, honey, you didn’t ruin my trip. I didn’t even need a trip. Mimi just worries. Besides, your brother was with me; what kind of relaxation trip is that?” Lorraine screwed up her face and pretended to be grossed out; she didn’t want to give Norah the wrong impression about their relationship. Even though Noah and Lorraine’s relations were probably the furthest thing from Norah’s mind.

  Norah tried to laugh.

  “Hey, I know it hurts that he broke up with you, but if that’s the way he is, you’re better off without him.”

  “I know. Thank you, Rainy.”

  “Hey, that’s what I’m here for. Is that what’s been bothering you all this time? Was he pressuring you a lot?”

  Norah nodded. “Yeah. I hated myself for letting him touch me like that. And then…”

  Lorraine saw that it was really affecting Norah, so she said, “Try not to give it another thought. You stopped yourself. I’m so proud of you.”

  The girls gave each other one last squeeze before going downstairs. Carter and Kara were now in the kitchen with Noah and Mimi.

  “Everything okay?” Mimi asked, Noah watching expectantly for an answer.

  “Yeah, Mimi, everything’s perfect.” Lorraine took Norah’s hand and said, “Now, what can we do to help with dinner?”

  “Whaaat?” Noah drew out the question. “You cannot still be hungry.”

  “Why? I didn’t eat my fudge yet.”

  “No, you didn’t. You left it in the car to melt in the hot sun.”

  “Fudge doesn’t melt.” Lorraine chuckled, then said, “Does it?”

  Noah laughed. “No, it doesn’t, but I brought it in when I got our bags.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “Fudge?” Norah perked up.

  “Yes. Chocolate-marshmallow. Want some?”

  “No, no,” Mimi said. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Just one piece, Meem. She deserves it.” To Noah, Lorraine asked, “Where is it?”

  Noah pointed to the counter by the sink.

  Lorraine opened the box and handed it to Norah, who took out a piece and handed it back. “Anyone else?” Lorraine asked.

  “No, thanks,” was the consensus.

  “How ‘bout you and I watch a movie tonight and eat the whole two pounds,” Lorraine suggested.

  “Okay,” Norah answered with a genuine, honest-to-goodness smile on her innocent face. Lorraine hoped her advice before got through to Norah, because she wanted Norah to keep that innocence and not go through the horrors of learning the hard way that sex did not equal love.

  “Hey, what about us?” Noah feigned offense, slapping his chest. “We wanna watch a movie and eat fudge too.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Carter said, looking dreamily into Kara’s eyes.

  “Get a room,” Noah said.

  “No!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Noah. They’re thirteen.”

  “Kara’s fifteen,” Carter corrected.

  Kara elbowed him, and Lorraine sent Norah a knowing wink. “Carter. No going into your room anymore. Not with a girl.”

  “What? No fair. Where we gonna play my games.”

  “The living room. Hook your game-thingy up to that TV.”

  “Where will we watch the movie?” Norah asked quietly.

  “My room,” Lorraine offered.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Noah said, grinning.

  “Or Noah’s apartment, since he has a couch,” Lorraine countered.

  Mimi laughed. “Let’s eat.”

  ***

  “So, you gonna tell me why we had to rush back home to Norah?” Noah asked after his sister went home to bed.

  Lorraine took the Overboard DVD out of Noah’s player. “No. I’m not.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  Snapping the DVD case shut, she said, “No. You should not.” She tapped him on the head with the movie jacket and said, “I’m taking my fudge.” Rain bent down, picked up her box, and said, “Thanks for watching with us.”

  Before she walked out the door, Noah figured he’d beat a dead horse and blurt, “I think your grandmother is okay with us…seeing each other.”

  Rain stopped with her hand on the door knob.

  “I mean, I think she already knows.”

  She turned slowly and dropped her shoulders. “She knows we…” She didn’t finish.

  Noah nodded. “She kind of implied it. Before dinner.”

  Rain sagged against the door.

  “Why is that so upsetting to you, Rain? Why is it so bad to let everyone know we like each other?”

  “Because it’s wrong, Noah. And it’s complicated.”

  Noah lolled back into the couch and laced his hands behind his head. “I disagree, but I’m not going to force you into it.”

  “Thanks.” She pushed herself off the door, she smiled half-heartedly, and Noah swore he saw disappointment cross her face before she turned and left.

  “One day you’ll see things my way, pixie,” he said to the closed door. “And not one day five years from now. One day soon.” Noah would make sure of that. Even if he had to distance himself from the family for a while.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  A month later, Lorraine felt her world caving in again.

  Gildart Haase School of Computer Sciences and Engineering accepted Noah immediately, and today, he was moving into an apartment closer to Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Teaneck campus to start summer classes. And a week from this Wednesday, Lorraine had to appear in court to plead her custody case. Her lawyer couldn’t guarantee a win for Lorraine, and she wasn’t strong enough to take a loss. She wouldn’t be strong enough to tell Norah that she’d be ripped from her family to live with an aunt she barely knew. What if the judge awarded Norah to Margaret Pearson? What would become of Norah? Would her self-esteem drop because she’d have no friends, no one familiar to hang with? Would she accept attention from anyone, just to fit in? Would she seek friendship any way she could, even if it meant giving up a part of herself? The very part she wasn’t yet ready to give?

 
No. Lorraine was not going to allow that. Without telling anyone, she left the house and took off in her car. Not even stopping to say goodbye to Noah.

  ***

  Noah tried calling Rain eleven times. “Where the hell is she?” he shouted, his sister, Carter, and Kara as clueless as he. “You’d think I’d be important enough for her to stick around until I left.”

  “Maybe she forgot,” Norah proposed.

  “Or you just weren’t important to her,” Carter added. “What’s the big deal? You’re moving thirty-five miles away. You can come home any fuckin’ time you want.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Noah scolded. “Fine. When you see her, tell her I said, ‘see ya.’”

  “What if something happened to her?” Kara suggested.

  “What? No. Ya think?”

  Kara shrugged. “Why didn’t she answer your calls then? Or Norah’s or Carter’s? That’s not like her, is it?”

  “Not really,” Norah said, crinkling her forehead.

  Noah thought about that. What if something happened to her? What if she was in a car accident? “We need to call all the police stations in the area—from here to her school, in case for some reason she went there. Carter, call the Jefferson police, Norah, Randolph, Kara, Dover. I’ll call Sparta in case she stayed at work.”

  “You sure, Noah?” Norah asked, fussing with the silver Alex and Ani bracelet Noah had given her for her birthday. “It sounds kinda crazy. She probably just went to the mall and can’t hear her phone. I never hear it when I’m there.”

  Noah plopped on the couch and growled, “Fuck. We’ll call Rockaway too.” Since that was where the mall was located.

  “Noah. I know I’m not family, just being Carter’s girlfriend and all—”

  “You’re family to me,” Carter said, putting his arm around Kara.

  “Thanks, babe. But really, Noah, maybe she didn’t want to stick around to see you leave. And not because she doesn’t care.” Kara raised her eyebrows but said nothing else. But Noah knew what she was implying.

  “Then why?” Carter asked.

  “Eww,” Norah said, understanding completely.

  “Shit,” Noah said on a sigh.

  “She likes you, Noah?” Norah asked. “Like likes you, likes you?”

  Noah stared at his sister. Did Rain like him, like him? Yeah. He knew she did. Did she want Norah to know? Probably not. “No, Nor, not like that. Like a…like a brother though.” He nearly choked on the word brother. “I guess she just didn’t want to say goodbye, like if you or Carter were leaving.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Probably,” Norah agreed.

  Kara grinned. Kara knew better. Maybe because she was older than Carter and Norah. Maybe because she could be objective, and Carter and Norah just didn’t see their siblings in that way. Siblings. Dammit.

  Noah got up, said goodbye to Carter, Norah, and Kara, and took off on his bike to the new room he was renting off-campus in Teaneck. He could have avoided the move altogether and commuted the forty-five minutes to school, an hour or so with traffic, but he moved out with a dual purpose in mind. One—the lawsuit. Two—if he wasn’t living practically under the same roof as Rain, maybe she’d go back to seeing him as non-family. She didn’t see him that way when he first moved in after their parents died. He could remember the look on her face when she first saw him from atop the stairs, her nose all bloodied and spilling over the hand she was holding to cover it—she was attracted to him. He could see it in her eyes; they mirrored his. But then she went and said how she’d fallen, and he had to hold in the laughter so as not to embarrass her too much. He then recalled the fire he felt coming from her when she showed him to his new apartment. No, when he first moved into the Mattina/Mack household, Rainy Morning did not look at him like she was looking at a brother-figure, and Noah was determined to rekindle the ensconced fire he knew was still inside her.

  ***

  Lorraine made it to Branford, Connecticut in just under three hours. No stops. Lorraine was in Connecticut for a reason, and there was nothing that would deter her.

  She checked the address once more before getting out of the car and going to the door, taking a breath simultaneously as she rang the bell. The knots in her stomach made themselves known so painfully that she was clutching her stomach when the tall woman opened the door. Lorraine was immediately intimidated by her height.

  “Hello,” a smiling Margaret Pearson said before recognition set in. “Oh, Lorraine. Hi.” Lorraine wasn’t sure if Margaret’s smile disappeared because she was disappointed to see Lorraine, or because Lorraine was sure she, herself, was frowning at Margaret. Vaguely recalling what Norah’s Aunt Margaret looked like at the funeral, her appearance surprised Lorraine. She wasn’t expecting such a poised and professional woman. It seemed in Lorraine’s resentful mind, she’d built the woman up to be an unruly monster hard-pressed to ruin all of their lives. “Would you like to come in?” Like a vampire luring in her prey, Margaret’s elegance was enough to persuade Lorraine inside.

  Lorraine did not want to go in for a social chat; she wanted to say her piece, demand she withdraw her custody petition, and leave…without setting foot inside the cruel woman’s house. But Lorraine let a little thing like appearance intimidate her. So, she closed her eyes and stayed put in the foyer. “I’m not here for a social visit,” she said, her eyes still shut. There. She said it. She’d not step foot any farther. Opening her eyes, Lorraine continued. “I’m here to ask you to drop this case. You’re being totally unfair and cruel.” Lorraine blew out a breath and looked up at Margaret.

  “How am I being unfair?” She had the nerve to wonder.

  Lorraine scoffed. “You’re tearing her from the only family she has left.”

  “The only family? I’m her only family, aside from her brother, and he is not equipped to take care of a teenage girl.”

  Laughing on a sigh, the sound holding no humor, Lorraine growled, “You don’t even know her brother to make a judgement like that. He gave up his entire college career to come home and take care of Norah. You barely know either one of them. Why are you doing this?”

  “I have my reasons.” Margaret walked away, returning a minute later with an envelope in her hand. “Maybe these will shed some light on why I want her.”

  Lorraine looked at the envelope, then up at Margaret.

  “Go ahead. Open it. Read them.”

  Lorraine did.

  When she was done, she folded the papers back up and placed them back into the envelope. “This is irrelevant now. Too much time has passed,” Lorraine said weakly, trying to hold back tears.

  “But you can see why I need to do this.”

  Lorraine almost nodded, but refrained, not wanting Margaret to use a nod-in-agreement against her in court. “No, I don’t see,” she said instead. “We haven’t even told Norah that you are fighting us on this. She thinks we worked it out already. It would break her heart if she knew. You can’t do this. And in the two or so years that I’ve known Norah, she’s become a real sister to me, and I to her. Carter is her brother as well. We’ve become a family in the time that my mom and Brick were together. You coming in and ruining that…tearing us apart…well, that would just ruin all of us, but most of all Norah, who’d be the one ostracized from her family.”

  “Oh, now, come on,” Margaret said, waving her manicured hand in the air. “Ostracized is a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “No. I don’t think. But I think you need to.” Dammit, why did Lorraine always have to sound so stupid when she spoke?

  Margaret chuckled.

  Lorraine bit her lip in anger. “Do you even know how to raise a thirteen-year-old girl? What would you say to her if she told you that the fifteen year old boy she liked manipulated her into giving him a blow-job?”

  Margaret gasped.

  “Or, because her self-esteem was down to nothing after being ripped from her family that she not only gives him oral-sex but her whole body as well. And then she finds out she�
��s pregnant because no one talked with her about contraceptives and safe-sex. You’re what, mid-50s? Do you even remember what sex was like?”

  Uh oh, Lorraine overstepped her bounds with that question. When she saw Margaret’s hand fly to her chest, Lorraine knew she’d offended the woman. But to Lorraine’s surprise, Margaret said nothing.

  “Well?” Lorraine asked, uncomfortable with the silence.

  “Well, I think you should leave now.” Norah’s aunt did not look happy, but Lorraine didn’t care. She had no right disrupting Norah’s life by fighting for custody.

  ***

  It was well-past midnight when Noah saw Rain’s Kia pull into the driveway. It’s about friggin’ time. Noah had moved all of his stuff into his room in Teaneck and then waited for Norah to call and tell him Rain was home. Norah never called. However, Noah called Norah a couple dozen times. It was nine in the evening when Noah decided to drive back home and physically wait for her in her house.

  “Where the hell you been?” he grumbled, sounding a lot like Archie Bunker in that old show his father used to watch at night. Rain had barely set foot through the back door, her dog not even able to welcome her appropriately, before Noah hounded her. He should have given her at least ten seconds before harassing her.

  She set down her purse, picked up her pup, and furrowed her eyebrows. “Aren’t you supposed to be at your new house or something?”

  “Or something,” he said sarcastically. “I was there, until you decided to disappear for fifteen hours.”

  Rain went into the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. Putting the dog back down to unscrew the cap, she then took a sip before she asked, “You know exactly how many hours I was gone?”

  “I was worried Lorraine.” Lorraine? Didn’t he stop using her full name a while ago? Next, he’d be using her middle name and saying, “Young lady,” after it. That was going to be a step backward in the Get-Rain-to-stop-seeing-Noah-as-a-brother project. “I was worried,” he said more softly, hopefully sounding less like a brother and more like a boyfriend. “You should tell someone where you’re going. At least answer your phone when we call.”