Passion and Ink (Sweetest Taboo)

by Naima Simone

  “Eden gets pregnant, and you turn into Oprah.” I narrow my eyes on him. “What do you want me to say?” I demand. “Yeah, Cypress and I are fucking. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still Dan’s daughter, and coming clean with him would not only put Cypress and her mother in a financial pit, but it would possibly tear apart what little remains of this family.” As soon as the words exit my mouth, I whip around, facing my brother. “Knox, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  Anger sweeps over his face, settling it in hard, rigid lines. Propelling forward, he covers the space that separates us in two long strides. His hand cups the back of my neck and drags me up and forward until our foreheads are nearly touching.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of being the savior of this family?” he snarls. “Of being the self-appointed Atlas of this goddamn crumbling world? You climbed up on a cross at thirteen and haven’t gotten down since.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask it, but at the mention of “thirteen,” my heart starts thudding in my chest, my stomach bottoming out.

  “I’m talking about when mom tried to kill herself, and you saved her life,” he snaps. His grip on me tightens, and he shakes me like a puppy caught by the scruff of its neck. “I’m talking about her asking you to keep it secret and you doing just that.”

  “How—” I swallow. Try again. “How did you know? When—” My throat, dry and cracked, closes shut again.

  “I knew as soon as Mom came home, and I overheard the two of you talking. Not that that bullshit story you came up with made any sense. Her burning her hand on the stove? That didn’t explain me having to pick you up from the emergency room later that night or her two-day staycation in the hospital. But after I overheard her begging you not to tell anyone about what happened, I snuck into her room and found the blood you didn’t do a great job of cleaning up on the bathroom floor. The long-sleeve shirts in summer filled in the rest.”

  “You didn’t say anything,” I whispered, stunned, part of me still not grasping what he’s saying. He knew? I’d carried this load for over half my life, and he knew? I hadn’t been alone?

  “Because you promised Mom you’d keep her secret. I couldn’t put another burden on you, one of breaking your word. But I also couldn’t help you, and I was pissed. So damn pissed at her for doing that to you. To us. For deciding living without Dad was worse than living with us. That’s when I started fighting because I couldn’t help you, and I’d failed both you and Mom when you needed me most.”

  “That’s not true,” I protest. “How could you believe—”

  “The same way you believe that the fate and strength of this family is all on you. That Mom’s happiness is your responsibility. None of it is. I almost lost Eden a second time because I couldn’t stand the pain of disappointing Mom again. Of being another blow to the Gordons. But guess what, baby brother? We’re her kids. That’s what the fuck we do. Disappoint. Along with bringing joy and pride. You can’t have the good without the bad. That’s life. And if you let that woman walk out of your life—or you walk out of hers—because you fear breaking apart this family, then maybe it should be broken. Because that means we weren’t that strong anyway. And maybe we all need to fall apart to build something new. Different. Better.”

  Then he does something he’s never done before. Something that leaves me so blindsided that when he walks out of the room, I remain where I’m standing, those goddamn tears I battled back before sliding down my face.

  He does something no one has in the fifteen years since Dad died. Especially since Dad was the last one to do it.

  He kisses me on the forehead.

  And walks away, leaving me to stare after him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jude

  I stare down at the headstone. It’s weathered by time and the elements, but just like the man we buried there, the gray stone is still solid, the lettering bold and strong. Patrick Gordon. Beloved husband and father. And under that, the numbers detailing the too-short years of his life.

  Sighing, I glance around at the well-tended grounds and the flowers languishing on the graves. I’d considered stopping by the florist and buying a bouquet, but honestly, that would’ve been laughable. Dad was not a flowers guy; he would’ve appreciated a beer way more than roses. Preferably, Budweiser.

  Huh.

  Tipping my head back, I close my eyes, easily seeing him laid up in his favorite recliner, feet crossed at the ankles, one hand wrapped around the remote, the other around a red-and-white can. Maybe, it wasn’t being bougie that made Mom insist Dan keep his beer out of sight. Maybe it was the brand and the memories it evoked. It would be damn hard telling your current husband he couldn’t drink a Bud because they reminded her of her dead husband.

  How could I have missed that?

  “I think if you were here, you’d give me a hard kick in the ass for misjudging her,” I murmur to Dad’s grave. “Come to think of it, there would probably be a lot of head-knocking for all of us.”

  “Jude?”

  I turn at the sound of Mom’s voice, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat. She frowns as she steps off the paved path winding through the cemetery and picks her way over to me. And Dad. For several long moments, she stares at the headstone, and I keep quiet, letting her have her time with the man she loved beyond reason.

  After a while, she inhales a shaky breath and squares her shoulders. Turning toward me, she smiles, but concern darkens her blue eyes.

  “Hey, honey. I was surprised to get your call asking me to meet you here.” She strokes a palm down my arm, patting my hand over my coat. “Is everything okay?”

  Yes, hovers on my tongue, the answer automatic, even rote by now. But that’s the peacekeeper wanting to speak, the family secret keeper. When I called my mom over an hour ago and walked out of the tattoo shop, I left resolving to be someone different. Someone free and unburdened.

  Even if that meant causing the woman I love most pain.

  “I’m tired, Mom,” I admit softly.

  A vee creases her brow. “I knew it, Jude.” She shakes her head, cupping my jaw. “You work too hard at that shop. I wish—”

  “Mom,” I interrupt, gently but firmly circling her wrist and pulling it away from my face. “Stop. This isn’t about the shop or my career. I’ve been tired a long time.” I drag a hand down my face, whispering, “A long time.”

  “Honey.” She twists her wrist in my hold and enfolds my fingers in hers. Clutching them. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

  This is the mother I remember. Not the one who is emotionally frail or shockingly accusatory. No, this is the mother who would give us our space when we were upset, but then, later, come into our rooms, sit on the bed, and wait quietly. Her relentless patience would eventually haul whatever was bothering us out, and she never failed to offer comfort and the right words.

  It’s the glimpse of her that grants me the courage to go on. “I never told you, but I suffer from panic attacks.”

  She gasps, her grip squeezing my hand. “Why—? How could you keep that from me? I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me. Why, Jude? How long?”

  “Since I was thirteen,” I answer, voice hoarse, meeting her gaze. Seeing the instant understanding dawn in her eyes. “Not too long after Dad died,” I add, making sure she really gets what triggered them.

  She jerks her hand from me, and agony spasms across her face.

  “Jude, I can’t—” Almost without her permission, she strokes the inside of her wrist. Where the scars are faint, just about invisible.

  “We have to,” I insist. Thrusting a hand over my hair, I turn and stare at Dad’s headstone. Give me the words, Dad, the strength. There’s no breeze, no clearing of the clouds and the sun breaking through. None of those signs that people mention receiving when they talk to their loved ones in the cemetery. But a calm settles deep inside my chest, and that’s confirmation enough. Resolute, I return my attention to her. “I’ve kept our secret for
fifteen years, Mom. We’ve never even spoken about it to each other. But I can’t anymore.”

  Inhaling a deep breath, I study her face, see the shadows in her eyes. Old hurts. Shame. I shake my head.

  “I don’t plan on announcing the past to everyone,” I assure her. What would be the point? Knox has known all along, and telling Simon and Dan wouldn’t do anything but inflict more pain. “But I’ve been so angry, Mom. Confused and angry about why Knox, Simon, Connor, and I weren’t enough to make you want to live. How could you want to leave us? But then you made me keep the secret, bear that burden. I was thirteen, Mom. It was too heavy.”

  “I know, Jude,” she breathes, tears glistening in her eyes. Her face crumbles for a moment, but in the next, she straightens it. But the tears… One spills over, rolling down her cheek. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’ve wanted to tell you that for years. I should’ve never done that to you. None of it. As soon as I…” She trails off, again rubbing her wrist. “I regretted it. I wanted to live, to be here for you boys. I was so ashamed you found me, saw me like that. And you already knew about what I’d tried to do. I feared anyone else finding out, knowing the sin I’d tried to commit. God,” she whispers. “You should’ve never had to shoulder that burden. And I-I’m sorry.”

  Emotion swells in in my throat, choking me. Squeezing my eyes closed against the stinging in them, I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her. The first sob tears free of her, soon followed by another, and I hold her through them all.

  “We still need you, Mom,” I murmur when the worst of the storm eases. Cupping her shoulders, I step back, staring down into her grief-ravaged face. “You are so strong. We couldn’t have asked for a more loving, nurturing mother. After the suicide attempt, you eventually came back to us and gave us the parent we almost lost. But after Connor— No, Mom, you need to hear this,” I say, pouring steel into my voice and tightening my hold on her when she tries to step away from my words.

  “I can’t do this. Not right now,” she objects, lifting her hands, palms out, toward me. As if warding me and the subject off. “Don’t—”

  “You need to hear this,” I repeat. “Even if you were talking to Knox, he wouldn’t tell you because he loathes causing you any more pain. Dan won’t say anything because he wants to protect you from the world, even if that means yourself. And Simon…” I huff out a breath, shaking my head. “I can’t let Simon tell you because he’s too angry, too hurt himself. So that leaves me. We. Still. Need. You,” I reiterate. “You haven’t come back to us since Connor died. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lain awake wondering if I’ll get a call from Dan that you’ve…that you’ve…” I can’t finish the thought, fear and horror strangling me.

  “No,” she nearly shouts. And instead of trying to back away from me, she shifts closer, cupping my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her gaze. “No,” she says again, vehemently. “I would never do that again.”

  “Part of me knows that… Or at least I want to believe it. But the other,” I whisper and give my head a shake. “The other remembers how devastated and broken you were after Dad died. Every time I see you, I feel this overwhelming relief, but it’s not too long before the anxiety, the worry returns. You’re not you anymore. The grief, I understand. But the meanness. The lashing out. The spitefulness. That’s not you. The mother we grew up with would never blame her son for her other son’s death. Would never abandon him, disown him. The mother we knew would hold him, comfort him, release him from all guilt. Tell him he’s loved and forgiven.”

  “I do love him,” she rasps, her hands dropping from my face, and she clasps them together over her chest. “I just… I can’t…”

  “Eden’s pregnant, Mom.”

  I drop that info and study her. Spy the shock, the sadness, and thank God, the flash of joy that’s so quick, if I hadn’t been scrutinizing her so closely, I would’ve missed it.

  But I didn’t.

  Hope surges within me before I tamp it back down.

  “She’s pregnant?” she asks, a tremble vibrating her husky voice.

  “Yes. She and Knox are going to have a baby. She and Knox, Mom. You have to ask yourself if you’re willing to cling to your grief and pain more than you’re willing to forgive and welcome back your son who has been the rock of this family for years. If you want to hold on to your grudge more than you want to hold your future grandchild. That’s your choice. But I know Connor, and he would have wanted them to be happy. However they could.”

  I pull her into my arms again for a tight embrace, inhaling her fragrant, familiar scent and silently praying that when I return home, it’s to a whole family.

  “I love you, Mom.” Placing a kiss on her cheek, I release her and walk away, leaving her with the man she’d once been willing to follow into the grave. Walk away, thanking God that she didn’t.

  Moments later, I reach the parking lot and glance over my shoulder.

  She digs into her purse and pulls out her cell phone. For several seconds, she stares at it. Then, she taps on the screen and lifts it to her ear. I’m too far to hear who she called, but damn.

  Again, there’s that hope.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cypress

  Inhaling a deep breath, I hold it for a long, long moment.

  Then I tap the laptop’s mousepad before my mind can yell out, “Hold up, hold up! Let’s think about this,” and hit send.

  My application to Chicago State University’s College of Education quickly disappears, and the confirmation screen pops up. My belly flips like a goldfish tossed out of its bowl. Which is pretty much apropos considering at this moment, I’m like that gasping, scared, hyperventilating animal pushed outside of its safe environment into this new, terrifying world. Only I’m hoping my new world won’t kill me. God, that’s morbid.

  And then again, my brain is probably hyper-focusing on that dark metaphor as a self-preservation tactic against my body going into shock.

  Because I—magna cum laude graduate from USC Leventhal School of Accounting with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, former financial manager with one of the largest insurance companies in the nation—am going back to school. And not in finance, but education. A Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a Secondary Education Concentration, to be exact. Yes. I’m going to be a teacher.

  “I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.” I may not have agreed with Condoleezza Rice’s political affiliation, but she was right. I needed to stop doing drive-bys through the hood of my past and focus on where I’m headed, my future. It’s past time that I stop thinking of myself as an ex-financial manager who used to own her own stylish condo in one of L.A.’s better areas with the latest fashions in her closet, and the most expensive shoes on her feet. I’m Cypress Winters, temporary waitress at a dive bar, soon-to-be grad school student, future accounting professor who rules her own life, claims that life whether I succeed or fail, and who won’t ever allow another person to wield control over it. If I fall flat on my face, it’ll be because I tripped and face-planted. Not because someone snatched the rug out from under me and pushed me there.

  Or at least, I’m walking the path toward that Cypress Winters.

  Shutting down the laptop and slipping it into its case, I glance toward the front door of Jude’s apartment—and the three suitcases I placed there nearly an hour ago. My life packed not-so-neatly in three pieces of luggage. How sad is that? Not nearly as it should be. Or it would’ve been just days ago.

  I slide my hand over the large, white manila envelope with the attorney’s name and address sitting on the coffee table. Inside, closing documents for the sale of my condo. All I have to do is sign, have them notarized and returned, and that part of my life will be over. Once I have the furniture I didn’t sell before I left shipped to me, California will be my past. In a matter of a week or two, I will have funds wired to my bank account here, and I will no longer be broke and homeless.

>   Sighing, I rise from the couch. For someone who stands on the verge of the start of a brand-new phase in her life, I’m almost…numb. Probably because the sight of the luggage at the door is eating a hole inside my chest.

  I committed the ultimate cardinal sin.

  I got attached.

  Unable to stare at the suitcases any longer, I spin on my bare heel and return to the room that had been mine for four weeks. Seemingly without my permission, my hand lifts to my chest and rubs the ache that’s been there in some degree for the past week. Since I left Mom’s apartment in the middle of the night, actually.

  The night I admitted to myself that my time with Jude had to end.

  It hadn’t been him witnessing the emotional mess that is my mother. Well, mostly not that. It’d been me seeing it fresh and devastatingly new through his eyes. Seeing how I’d grown up, always second fiddle to a man who played center stage even after he’d up and gone without a single shred of remorse or thought for those he left in the background.

  Seeing who I would become if I ever fell in love so hard, so deep, that nothing and no one else mattered. Becoming a gray, ghostly shade of my former self. Surrendering my independence, my dreams—myself—just for a phone call or any hint that someone thought of me, cared for me.

  Yes, viewing all that through Jude’s eyes almost broke me. Did shatter me on that dark, cold sidewalk. Stepping out of Jude’s arms had been one of the hardest things I’d done, but it’d been necessary. Because in that moment, the truth had been as clear as the mantel with all the pictures capturing the best times of her life.

  I only had myself.

  True, I’d failed myself, disappointed myself, had even hurt myself. But never, never would I abandon myself. That is the one thing no one else can ever promise or do to me. Not if I don’t let them.

  That’s why I’m standing in the safest, most peaceful, happiest place I’ve stayed since returning to Chicago—maybe in my life—and am searching for anything I might’ve missed when packing. Because I made the mistake of forgetting that truth and depending on Jude. Trusting in Jude.