Redemption Lane

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “For who?” I asked foolishly. I didn’t get deliveries except from . . . Lane. This must be a mistake.

  “Bess Williams, is that you? I was told this was your place and instructed to wait for you, make sure your hands touched the package.”

  “That’s me,” I said with a sigh.

  “Great, sign here,” he said, shoving a clipboard at me. Obviously, he was through waiting for me.

  I stood in the driveway, holding the small box with trembling hands until he was gone. Then I opened my door and let Brooks do his business before sinking to the floor for the second time in one day.

  Still wearing my jacket and Nikes, I stretched my legs out in front of me. With my dog’s head resting on my shin, I tore the brown paper wrapping off the box.

  It was a blue box. A Tiffany’s box. I only knew this from watching movies; I’d never been to Tiffany’s in my life. Had never even dreamed of going.

  My heartbeat picked up its already frenetic pace as I tugged at the narrow white satin ribbon, allowing it to fall to the floor like I had done with the airplane ticket months before. And like my heart had done when Lane walked out.

  When I removed the lid, my breath halted.

  I set my hand on my dog’s head, and he looked up at me with what looked like compassion. A letter fluttered out of the box and into my lap. I picked it up, my eyes almost too blurry to read it.

  My beautiful Bess—

  I’m sorry for my horrible behavior when I left your place so abruptly last month. I’m most sorry for hurting you and not staying to take care of you.

  There are no explanations or excuses. Just know that it wasn’t about you. There are pieces of me you don’t know, and I hope you never do. They are buried deep where they belong, but recently some stressors made them move to the forefront of my mind. The nightmares are not new. I thought they were contained; they had been for some time.

  I never meant to hurt you, either physically or emotionally. Your feelings and your body and its safety are of equal importance to me. I’ve come to cherish both more than I care to admit.

  You also need to know that I’ve maintained my distance over the last month for your sake. Obviously I wasn’t in a good place, and I had no intention of drawing you further into any of that. It’s age-old business that needs to stay where it was—in the past.

  But the more time passes without you in my life, the greater the void I feel. Like an idiot, I thought maybe time would make it easier, but there is nothing more that I want than to see you again.

  This is a little gift from me to you, but no expectations are laid on your receipt of it. Whether you agree to see me or not, I want you to have this.

  Please call me if you want. I can make arrangements to come see you or for you to see me.

  Bess, know this—my heart was on autopilot until I met you, and you made it beat steady and strong again.

  ~Lane

  P.S. The various shapes are for us—you and I are different, but together we work. The yellow is for the bright lemons, their zest only rivaled by your essence.

  My eyes stung, my pants leg soaking from where my tears had dripped on it, and my body was hot and cold at the same time. I was sweating, but a fine layer of chilled goose bumps had formed along my arms. Sensing my tension, Brooks whined and stood up, pacing back and forth next to me.

  My fingers shook as I took the gift out of the box. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A heart pendant hung from a white gold chain. I didn’t think it was silver. Not from Tiffany’s.

  It was a big heart, framed in white gold and filled with diamonds. Not just little chips of diamonds but diamonds. They were all shapes and sizes, clustered together in a random pattern that only made sense as a whole. Mixed in every few stones was a yellow one. I assumed these were some type of special stone or colored diamond, I didn’t know. But their yellow brilliance sparkled and shone brighter than the clear ones.

  The piece took my breath away; I was afraid to pull it out of the box. Tentatively I slid my finger into the box and stroked the piece without removing it, massaging it to life like the letter was doing to my heart.

  Then I shut the box, set it on the counter, and went to take a bath.

  My emotions were whipping back and forth like a yo-yo, something that was never good for me. When I was in high school and my feelings overwhelmed me, I found alcohol. When the boys took advantage of my body, I found pot and other light mood enhancers. When I got to college and didn’t know who I was, I demanded the harder stuff.

  Right now my emotions were in overdrive. My body was still reeling from the effects of AJ’s harsh, cold touch and the warm, gentle stroke of Lane’s tongue. At the same time, my mind spun because I had not one single clue what my life should or could be. The cumulative effect of all this upheaval in my life was very, very bad—bad times one million for me—and I needed to calm myself, not run away or slip into old habits like using drugs or alcohol or men to dull my pain.

  I didn’t know how to do this, how to cope with stress. I only knew day-to-day boring, and that was all I could handle.

  Bess

  Following Shirley’s instructions, I filled my massive claw-footed tub with bubbles and sank in, leaning my head back against the small rolled-up towel on the ledge. Outside the bathroom window, dusk was painting the sky with hints of orange and purple that filtered through the glass, the bubbles picking up the color in their iridescence.

  With my eyes tightly closed, snapshots like Polaroid photos flitted through my mind one after the other, highlighting snippets of my life.

  There was an image of my mom leaving, her beat-up brown suitcase rolling behind her as her long dark hair blew in the wind, her black boots carrying her far away from our apartment and me. I’d always imagined her with a big smile on her face as she left me and the responsibility that came with being a mom, but now I understood it. In my own way, I’d fled from any responsibility in my life too, first with alcohol and sex, and then drugs. I still did it today, creating a life for myself devoid of any true responsibility other than showing up to serve food to strangers.

  When I released that image, another took its place. It was me, a very drunk me, dancing on a table in college as I shook my hair all around me, my jeans riding low, boots up to my knees, and a guy standing below with his face at the level of my crotch. I was reckless, without a care other than feeling good. Later I lay underneath the same guy on a damp and musty futon, his small, almost-limp dick sliding in and out of me, his pelvis slapping against mine with little to no regard for making me feel good. The scene was blurry, but it was there burned in my memory. The alcohol and whatever else—weed, maybe—was enough to dim any responsibility on his part or mine. If I had demanded any sexual pleasure, it would mean I’d have had to care about his, and I had never done caring. Not since my mother abandoned me.

  Using my foot, I turned on some more warm water. The tub had chilled, and I wasn’t done yet with the photos in my mind. They might be awful and painful, but I needed to stop escaping.

  As if a video was playing in slow motion, I watched AJ driving away from me time and time again. Not because he was abandoning me, but because I was emotionally unavailable. I might have been sober and standing in front of him, but I was as shut off and unavailable as anyone could be.

  Then I saw Lane running away from me, truly escaping with the fear of God instilled somewhere deep, and I saw a lifetime of myself in his own actions.

  Running.

  I caught a glimpse in my mind of a blown-up picture of my friend Camper and me that I’d pinned to a bulletin board in my old apartment. We were standing in front of a long row of tequila shots, her wearing skinny jeans and a bright red tank top, and me in a navy minidress. We looked a mess, our pupils like pinpoints, our faces shiny from sweat and our makeup smeared all around our eyes.

  I was a fucking disaster those days, but didn’t know if Camper was; I’d never asked. I might have wondered, but didn’t want to care. Sh
e’d been with me the night I ended up in the hospital after the disastrous yoga class, and it was the last time I saw her. I had no idea if she’d tried to see me in rehab, and had never wanted to know.

  I could still see the nurse on the first day I was in rehab, standing in the doorway to my room as I’d yelled, “I don’t want any calls or visitors. Nothing! You hear me? Now leave me the fuck alone.” Starting that very day, I’d asked to be alone, planned to be by myself, asked for this life of loneliness.

  Me. I’d done it to myself—this was all on me.

  At that realization, I opened my eyes and took in the blue dimness of dusk wrapping its way around my bathroom now that the sun had set. The color made me think of Lane’s eyes, like a beautiful blue sky, but with a storm lingering in the distance, a furious, angry storm. I’d never asked what was behind those clouds in his eyes. I had gone on and on about my past, my demons, but I’d never asked about his.

  An empty glass on the floor came to mind. The sparkling cider. He heard me when I told him about my addictions, and he didn’t run. Instead he’d accommodated me. And what the hell did I do?

  I now knew Lane was constantly racing, trying to stay ahead of his own dark clouds. I hadn’t made the effort to care last month or the month before, but I should have. He hadn’t really mentioned his family, which now made me wonder since my problems stemmed from my family, and I’d left it at that. But I should have asked.

  For the first time in my life, I felt like I had it in me to care about another person. To take care of someone else. To want to become concerned about their well-being. To be attached. To be their family.

  The pictures stopped flashing through my mind, having done their job, so I stepped out of the tub and nearly slipped on the cold tile. I knew now that I couldn’t abandon Lane. I would open myself up and learn to be caring. For him.

  While I was toweling off, a knocking started on my door. It echoed through my small house, punctuated by Brooks’s frantic barking.

  My heart raced as the thought hit me that it was Lane. Would he follow behind his generous gift, the gorgeous heart I didn’t deserve but wanted to more than anything?

  I put on my robe and padded out to the living room, where the knocking grew in intensity, becoming loud bangs.

  “Bess! Are you in there? Open the door!”

  Shit, it was AJ. Was he drunk? For the first time since moving to the mountain, I felt unsafe. I hesitated, leaning against the door as Brooks came to my side and pressed against my leg, letting out a low warning rumble.

  “AJ, what do you want?” I called out. “Are you okay?” I raised my voice, hoping it would travel through the wood door to the other side.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Open up.”

  “Are you sober?” I foolishly asked.

  “Yes! I want to talk with you, Bess,” he roared.

  “Okay,” I said weakly before unlocking and opening the door slowly. Darkness had started to settle on the mountain like it had on my heart.

  AJ’s boots ate up my wooden floor as he stomped in, stopping by the mantel before laying into me. “Bess, you’re driving me crazy. I fucking fell in love with you the day I picked you up at rehab. What the fuck? You give me a chance and then change your mind?”

  I stayed where I was, my back to the cool door, my dog at my feet on high alert.

  “AJ, it’s not like that. We had this talk, and I apologized. I confused my feelings for you with something more than they were.”

  He swung his hands out, his movements exaggerated, large and clumsy. “Damn right you did, and you fucked with me while doing that shit. And I’m a sad fucking sack because of it.”

  “I don’t know what else you want me to say, other than I’m sorry.” I reached behind me, gripping the door, looking for purchase as though I might fall.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it.” He spat out the words, his eyes narrowed. “Quit the diner. I go there. Quit Shirley. She’s fucking bad. Didn’t you ever hear her story? She’s bad fucking news. In fact,” he said with a sneer, “why don’t you go back to your new man, Mr. High-and-Mighty in Florida, and get the hell out of here altogether. This is my small town.”

  My head was spinning. Shirley? Why Shirley? I needed her. Although, it now occurred to me that I’d also kept a distance between her and me, only sharing about myself. I needed to change that too. Needed to connect with her story and care for her, not just let her care for me.

  The sound of glass shattering dragged me out of my head. I jumped and yelled, “What the hell?” not knowing what just happened. And then I saw it. The jar that I’d kept on the mantel with the sand and shells from Lane was spread out all over the floor, shattered and broken like my heart.

  Brooks leaped toward AJ, barking, warning him to keep his distance, but AJ didn’t pay any mind. He kept walking right toward me. With my eyes on my only memento of my time with Lane, I whispered no to myself. I treasured that votive. It was all I had left of that weekend, and now it was gone.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on it because AJ leaned into my face. “Is that what you do now? Make pretty little pieces of shit to remind you of that guy?” he yelled, his mouth tight, his hands flexing at his side.

  There was no time to answer because my cell phone, plugged in on the kitchen counter, started to buzz. AJ spun me around and said, “Get it! It’s probably Shirley. Tell her you’re busy!”

  With a trembling hand, I picked up the phone. When I saw who was calling, my heart cracked.

  “Hello,” I said, trying to control the shakiness in my voice. I turned away from AJ, pressing my hip into the counter, leaning all my weight into it until it pinched my side.

  Lane’s voice swept over me. “Bess, I know I said you should call me only if you wanted, but I couldn’t wait. I know I messed up, and I need your forgiveness. Please?”

  From the other side of the room, AJ shouted, “What the hell is this expensive piece of shit? You on the job, Bess? I didn’t make enough money for you? I said, what the hell is this? Tell me now!”

  Frozen, I couldn’t make myself turn around; the countertop would have to hold me. I was all limbs and no spine.

  “What was that? Who is that? Are you okay? Bess!” I heard coming from the phone, but I couldn’t answer.

  I jerked as something sharp hit my head and fell to the floor. It was the Tiffany’s box. Stunned and disbelieving, I rubbed the spot where it nicked me, unable to move other than lifting my hand to comfort myself.

  “Bess, hang up the damn phone and turn around and answer me!” AJ demanded.

  I closed my eyes as Brooks went crazy, barking louder than I’d ever heard him as AJ’s footsteps pounded toward me. My world spun all around me; the voice on the phone sounded so far away.

  I felt it slipping from my hand, and then everything went black.

  Bess

  Something wet was on my forehead, but my arm didn’t feel strong enough to reach up and touch it. Maybe it was Brooks licking me? No, it didn’t feel like that.

  I heard a few hushed voices.

  “It doesn’t appear as though she hit her head, so it’s probably more a reaction to stress. She’ll come out of it. Her pulse is steady and her heartbeat sounds good.”

  “Are you sure?” a deeper voice asked. “Maybe we should be more careful and take her to the hospital in the city.”

  “No, she’ll be fine. Let her rest on the couch and she’ll come to.”

  The voices all sounded garbled, as if they were underwater. Or maybe I was underwater? Was that why my forehead was wet?

  I concentrated on lifting my hand and it worked. Bringing it to my forehead, I felt a towel or something soft there. It was cool and wet. I patted it in place, making sure it stayed put, and heard all the sounds in the room go quiet.

  “Bess?” the first voice said. It sounded like Doc. I’d just seen him, so I would know.

  “Bess?” he said again.

  I think I nodded my head, or at least I was trying to. Pryin
g one eye open, I tried to turn my head to the direction the voice was coming from.

  I squinted and saw a blurry Doc, May from work, and someone else who looked like Lane, but he had short hair. A buzz cut.

  When did he do that? Where am I? How did Lane get here from Florida? What happened?

  And then I remembered. The call. AJ. Lane yelling on the other end of the phone.

  I shut my eye and attempted to open both together. It took two attempts, but I did it. Taking in my surroundings, I noticed it was still dark out. I wondered if it was the same night or a night or two later.

  I swallowed. “Doc?” My voice was broken and raspy.

  “Bess, honey. Don’t strain.”

  “What happened to me? How long have I been like this?” I said while patting my hand along my body, making sure I was still all there. “Where’s Brooks? Forget me,” I added, straining to look around the room.

  “He’s in your bedroom. He was pacing and nervous while you were unconscious, and he seemed to settle down back there.”

  “Get him.” I managed to say it firmly, and Lane with short hair turned and walked away.

  Doc frowned down at me. “As for you, I think you had a panic attack and passed out. You sort of came to shortly after, but fell into a deep sleep right away. Probably stress-induced.”

  I took a shuddering breath and pressed my hand to my stomach. “How long ago was that?”

  “Well, AJ called Shirley about two and a half hours ago as he was peeling down your driveway, and said you were passed out. He was having some kind of fit himself, so Shirley decided to go after AJ and called May to take care of you. May found you about fifteen minutes after AJ called. That’s when you woke for a moment.” Doc came close and bent down, taking my pulse.

  Brooks ran to me after being released and nearly knocked Doc out of the way, sticking his snout right in my face and giving me his own snuffling once-over.

  In the soft light coming from the lamp, I reassured my dog as I watched Lane continue to stay back. He was hesitant, so unlike his normal direct self.