The Secret That Intervened

by Lisa Marie Stum

  My mom was fifty-two years old but she didn’t look it. Once a month she would dye her hair jet black to hide the grays. She was a tall woman, only three inches shorter than my six-foot frame. She almost always had an apron on even when she wasn’t cooking or baking. Mom had paid off the house years ago with my dad’s life insurance. She didn’t need to work and made enough money to support any expenses by selling her quilts and baked goods at the market in Luville, the next town over.

  “Let’s go inside and talk. Dinner is almost done,” Mom said.

  We walked into the country-style kitchen that my mom had redone with a small portion of the insurance dad left behind. The kitchen had tall white cabinets that extended to the ceiling, marble countertops, and stainless-steel appliances. The house wasn’t big by any means, but my mom spent most of her time in the kitchen so she had wanted to fix it up. Plus, the renovation gave her something to focus her energy on the year after Dad’s passing.

  The smell of gravy, potatoes, and carrots filled the room as my mom pulled down the door to the stove. I opened the cabinet that contained the cups and glasses, pulling out a glass and coffee cup for each of us.

  I hoped it would take us a few minutes to set everything up so my mind would clear a little more. It was a big jumbled mess of bad thoughts, not toward Hailey, but about the entire situation.

  Keeping myself busy, I started a fresh pot of coffee for after dinner. Mom got the pot holders from the drawer beside the stove and pulled the pot roast out of the oven.

  “Cody, can you get a hot pad for me?” Mom asked as she scooped the pot roast into her favorite ceramic dish. Hailey had given the dish to her a few years ago for her birthday; she had custom painted it with a little mural of trees and birds on the bottom. My mom loved birds. Not pigeons, or shit like that, but pretty ones like red robins and blue jays. Mom had a feeder outside and would often take pictures. She would either frame them or use them in her scrapbooking.

  As I opened the drawer to grab it, I saw a pile of pictures that my mom had not yet scrapbooked. Most of them were of Chloe. Mom had made the books for Hailey so she would have images of memories she’d missed. Hailey loved the books and pictures. She always worried about missing something important while she was at work. It was the smallest stuff about life that Hailey treasured. She never worried much about things; it was life experiences and special moments with Chloe that mattered to her most.

  I picked up a picture of Hailey smiling, with her hand on her hip as she stood in my mom’s kitchen. The picture perfectly captured her green eyes, white teeth, and beautiful brown hair. I took it before the last show she attended. We had dinner at my mom’s that night and then headed to the Dark Horse, the bar where my band performed. My mom had snapped the shot.

  I placed the hot pad, as my mom called it, on the table. My mind wandered back into my crushing thoughts.

  My life would never feel normal again without Hailey in it. Her moving out-of-town was something I’d never considered, and she sprang it on me out of nowhere. I had no idea it was something she was even considering. Not sure how long she knew, but it would have been highly unlike her to have made such a spontaneous decision. That’s how I knew she was afraid to tell me, because she kept it from me.

  I wondered how long it would be before I’d talk to her again. How long was “a while”? Not knowing how much time would pass before we would speak again bothered me, especially when I considered that it could be forever.

  After setting the table, I snatched an orange Fanta out of the fridge. I looked over at my mom, who was placing the food in the middle of the table. “Want some lemonade?” I asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  I placed the pitcher of lemonade on the table and took a seat. Mom joined me and we silently filled our plates with pot roast.

  We placed our hands in prayer and nodded our heads just as we did with every meal I’d had there since I could remember. My mom had always encouraged me to say a prayer at every meal. If she knew I only did it while I was at her house, she would’ve been disappointed with me. Not that I’d ever tell her I didn’t do it.

  “Dear God, please see my Cody through this, Amen.”

  That put a pit in my stomach. The reality of her words sunk in and rippled through me.

  “The two of you were on the porch for a long time,” she said as a way of opening up the conversation. She always began difficult conversations like that. Never a direct question, always an open-ended statement that allowed you to reveal how much you wanted to. She never pried, and I knew that’s why Hailey opened up to her about stuff.

  I looked down at my plate. The pit in my stomach felt like it was stretching its way into a gaping hole as I considered what I was going to say. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knew that I needed to talk about it, and talking to the guys about something like this was not something I wanted to do, at least not tonight. I could have talked to my mom about anything, except sex. Never sex.

  “I confessed everything.” I paused and picked up my drink. “Always thought that we would be together after Jason finished school and didn’t keep his promise to her. Never thought he would take both of them out of my life.” My voice started to crack, so I stopped talking and shoveled around the food on my plate instead.

  My mom listened and allowed me to continue without interruption. She always had that way about her and was so easy to talk to.

  “Jason isn’t any good for her. Guys that are in love with someone don’t disappear for months at a time, and he could have visited during the weekends since his school was only two hours away. I told her a weekly phone call is not a relationship.” I paused because I couldn’t take reliving the memory of her reaction. “I crossed the line and told her that Jason didn’t love her.”

  My mom placed her hand over her mouth and sucked in a breath.

  I never talked that way about Jason to Hailey. That’s not to say I didn’t want to, but it was an unspoken rule between us. My mom knew my thoughts on it, but I’d never figured out how to talk to Hailey about it. She was a strong person, but she was also sensitive to the core.

  “I was just desperate to get her to listen to me. I understand what her motivation is but I don’t understand his.” I stabbed a piece of meat and placed it in my mouth.

  “What was her reaction to your profession of love?” Swear to God my mom shot a look of pity at me, and pity was the last thing I needed.

  “She looked really confused and uncomfortable, and she also looked like she felt sorry for me. Then I said the stuff about Jason and she told me that she doesn’t think we should talk for a while.” I stopped speaking when my voice cracked again. I took a long swig of my soda. Then I looked down at the table with unfocused eyes.

  I quickly cleared my throat and straightened my body to push down the emotions that were coming up.

  I took another bite of food and stared at my plate for a few moments. Even though I was with my mom, I didn’t want to lose control of my emotions. I never lost control of myself in front of other people. Not my mom, not Hailey, no one. That’s not to say I didn’t cry. I did when my dad died, but I did it alone, and I hadn’t cried since that day.

  “My heart is broken, Mom. I’ve never felt this way in my entire life. I mean, it hurt so badly when dad died, but this is such a different kind of hurt. He was sick for so long, so I expected it. But this was like putting my soul out there and having it smashed into pieces.”

  We both focused back on the plates in front of us. I was pretty sure she was giving it time to see if I had anything else to say. Mom put down her fork and interlaced her fingers in front of her chest, dropping her elbows to her sides.

  “Cody, I want to give you my thoughts and I hope you find a way to heed my advice.”

  The fork dangled from my hand over my plate as I looked in her direction.

  “If you let this situation turn from pain into hatred toward her you will only destroy yourself. I want you to keep in mind her unf
ortunate circumstances growing up, and that she is being driven by a need to give Chloe something that she lacked. She wasn’t making a choice between you and him. In her mind there only was one option for Chloe, which was a relationship with her father. She’s young and she might have gotten it wrong, but she would have spent her entire life living with regret if she hadn’t made that choice. The same way she’ll regret not giving it a try with you if things don’t work out with Jason and you move on.”

  I listened to what she said and it kind of made sense, but my mind wandered, wishing things had happened differently. I meant every word I’d said to Hailey; even the bad parts I said were true. I didn’t regret saying what I did, I felt bad that it hurt her feelings, but I had held my thoughts back about Jason long enough. I couldn’t watch her walk away while remaining silent. I just couldn’t, there was nothing in my soul that would have allowed me to just stand by while the girl I loved left.

  My mom continued, “Every day we are faced with decisions, and those decisions shape our futures. The decision you have right now is whether you will forgive and move on with your life or let it change you in a way that is not conducive to your happiness. I implore you to feel grateful for the moments you had with the two of them and forgive the ones that caused you pain.”

  “Mom, I could never hate her. Right now I just hate myself. If in high school I hadn’t taken Shannon Colwell to the sophomore homecoming, or if I hadn’t taken Heather Simons to the junior prom, then maybe this wouldn’t be happening.”

  Of course, I was speaking in metaphors because I was talking to my mom and I was talking about sex. There were so many girls that I had crossed paths with since I hit puberty.

  I used to wonder if they were the reason Hailey turned me down for the prom in junior year. Now I knew they were; Hailey was anything but a risk taker and I was nothing but risk in her eyes. Always wished I’d stayed in watching movies with her that night instead of asking someone else to go with me. It was a stupid decision on my part. I rarely regretted things, but I definitely regretted that.

  She met Jason four months after I had asked her to go to prom with me.

  Of course, it bothered me when they started dating, but I never thought it would last this long. It was a high school romance, and how many of those lasted?

  At the time, I thought I had the upper hand. We had planned on going to the same college over in Luville, and even planned on sharing a townhouse with a few friends. Jason had applied to an Ivy League college that was a few hours away. I figured fate would take hold, and everything would work itself out.

  I finished off the last few bites of pot roast and scooped myself another helping. Nothing could kill my appetite. I could eat while watching an autopsy.

  My appetite was huge when it came to anything I enjoyed.

  I finished the last bite of food on my plate, and wiped my mouth with the napkin that rested in my lap.

  “I’ve always had a lot of compassion and empathy for that girl. I’ll never understand how she garnered the strength to take care of her mother at such a young age,” my mom said.

  “I get what you are saying,” I said. Not that I heard every word she spoke. I kept thinking about the things I could have done differently, and that Hailey was the only girl I’d ever told I loved, or had ever been in love with. Just this one time, just an hour ago, I’d told a girl that I loved her, and my heart kept sinking into the rejection from it. I needed a break from the conversation and a break from my thoughts.

  I excused myself from the table, and headed to the sink to rinse off the dishes I had used.

  “Our new band member, JT, is picking me up for the show tonight. I’ll pick up my truck tomorrow.”

  JT had moved into town a few weeks ago. He’d approached us at the Dark Horse to see if we needed a guitarist or another singer. We’d auditioned him last week and decided to add him to the band. It would give me a break from having to learn new guitar chords and allow me to focus on singing instead. I loved doing both, but we were working on changing the lineup to include new songs. It was too much for me to handle, especially since I had a day job too. JT came around at just the right time. He was a good guy, a little rough around the edges, but a good guy nonetheless.

  “Getting drunk is not the solution.” My mom flashed me a stern look.

  “It’s not a permanent solution but it is going to be my solution for tonight.” I wouldn’t relent.

  My mom shook her head in disappointment. I didn’t care though; the pain in me pulled away any chance of caring about others’ thoughts.

  We cleaned up the dishes. She pulled out a Tupperware dish to save the leftovers.

  “Should I keep this warm in the stove for JT?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll text him to let him know that there’s dinner here for him.”

  My mom always truly listened. Not the way others did, absorbing half of the conversation because they were too busy thinking about what they were going to say next. She always heard every word and evaluated the facial expression and body language of whoever was speaking to her. If someone spoke to her whom she genuinely wanted to understand, she wanted to assess where they were coming from, and wanted to know how they truly felt about things. It was a characteristic that led most people to open up to her.

  She put away the Tupperware dish and placed the pot roast back into the oven on the warm setting.

  “I’m going to head up to my old room for a little bit and listen to some music,” I said.

  Forgetting about the coffee I had made for after dinner, I headed upstairs. When I turned the corner I went into the old office that my mom had converted into a nursery when Hailey was pregnant. I flicked on the light switch and looked around the room.

  Glancing at the wall, my eyes focused on the pictures and the memories they held. One of the pictures was of Chloe taking her first step. That day I was really lucky and had already been recording her when it happened. Hailey had looked so happy while she watched the video I’d shot. I was so jacked up with excitement to show her, and ridiculously proud of myself for having filmed it. Hailey had always worried about missing that moment, and I’d captured it for her. I’d never forget the look on her face when I showed it to her.

  I looked at Chloe’s bed and remembered the way it had looked when it was a crib. I’m going to miss the both of them so much. I turned out the light and made my way into my old bedroom.

  I plopped myself onto my old bed, popped in my ear buds, and stared at the ceiling. The conversation I’d had with Hailey just kept replaying in my mind over and over again. I’m going to need to get drunk and laid tonight.

  Chapter 3 - Cody

  My bandmates set up the equipment on the stage while I sat at the bar of the Dark Horse. JT fiddled around with the microphone while performing a sound check. Matt assembled his drum set, and Zach tuned his bass. Peyton Layne, our keyboardist, had just exited the bathroom and was heading toward me.

  We were due to go on in an hour. Not that I felt much like being onstage. I’d already had four beers at Jack’s Bar with JT. As I stared at the wall in front of me I worked on my fifth. My mind kept shooting back to Hailey, even though I had a decent buzz.

  It was like every bad feeling I could possibly ever have was crashing against one another inside of me. My heart kept sinking and the sadness took on a weight of its own.

  Not going to lie, I was jealous too. I wished I was in Jason’s spot. He was going to live with her, with them. Everything I’d ever wished for and thought about had just vanished like it was nothing, disappearing into an asshole’s hands.

  I’d never know what it would have been like with her. I knew that he could never make her as happy as I wanted her to be. I was sure of it. I was more certain of that than anything I’d ever been in my life.

  When she was six months pregnant I’d helped her move, not him. He was probably banging some college chick at school instead of helping Hailey out. She knew the rumors, but somehow she managed to co
nvince herself it was just gossip.

  It wasn’t just gossip, it was a truth she chose to ignore.

  The day Chloe was born I was there, not his loser ass. He was never there when it mattered, when she needed him. He wasn’t there the day she slipped at work and broke her ankle. He wasn’t there every time her piece of shit car broke down. He wasn’t there when my mom couldn’t watch Chloe.

  I was there, every single fucking time, not him. Shit, he wasn’t even there to help her move her stuff into storage.

  Fate had intervened again between me and Hailey. It always had a way of doing that. I swear fate fucking hated me. I knew I could have made different decisions, but I felt like they would have all led to the same outcome. No matter what I did, I was certain that she would have gone anyway.

  I didn’t believe in blind optimism. I learned that while watching my dad die when I was thirteen. Every time the chemo looked like it would take hold, I had hoped that it would finally work, and that I wouldn’t lose him. The first time I thought he was going to be okay. By the fifth time I had lost all belief.

  Now my philosophy was to expect the worst and not to hold on to hope. It keeps disappointments at bay. It might sound like a depressing way to view life, but I look at it as more happy moments for myself. Everything beats my expectations. It was the reason I was normally upbeat; shit just didn’t get to me.

  Except for earlier today. I was desperate and didn’t think of the worst possible outcome. Even if I had considered being rejected I would still have said what I did. I would have done it even if I knew all about the aftermath that would take place in my heart.

  I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say to Hailey. I never thought I would tell her I was in love with her, at least, not until Jason was gone and out of her life. I had been certain that it was eventually going to happen. Never would I have expected him to hold his promise, to move in with her once he finished school.