She dropped them back into the bag. “We’ll see. Meanwhile, are your feet cold?”
His smile faded. “I really don’t know.”
She stared at him for a moment, as if aware that she had shattered the moment. “Of course you don’t,” she said finally. She pulled his blanket up and checked his feet. “Yes, they’re quite cold. I’ll put your socks on.”
He looked at the ceiling as she worked the wool socks over his feet. He didn’t feel a thing.
When she was finished, she stepped back and covered them again. “There now.”
“Thank you, Mother,” he said.
She stood looking at him, and it seemed that her eyes were glistening. And for the first time, he got the sense that she really did love him.
He let that sink in deep, in that lonely place he had kept locked up since childhood.
“So, let’s see what’s on television,” she said as she took the remote control. “You probably like those Discovery shows like your father did. Maybe there’s something on about dung beetles or the mating habits of snakes.”
He laughed again as his mother began to channel surf.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Jill had prayed about Dan’s mood all the way back to the hospital, but she hadn’t expected to hear laughter when she pushed through his door.
She stepped inside and saw his mother standing just outside of his bathroom, modeling a pink sweatsuit as if she walked a Parisian runway.
Dan was applauding and whistling like a sports fan.
Jill laughed. “Clara?”
Clara spun around and struck a pose. “What do you think?”
Jill looked at Dan. The pain was gone from his eyes, and his laughter was genuine. “It’s you,” she told her mother-in-law.
“Mom brought me several pairs of fleece sweatpants,” he said with a wink. “And she liked them so much she bought one for herself. I made her model it.”
“I could get used to this,” Clara said.
He reached for Jill, and she bent down to hug him. “Hey, check out the Nikes.”
Jill laughed again. “Clara, I just don’t know what to think.”
She seemed very proud of herself. “Well, I’ll have to change now. I can’t let the hospital staff see me like this.”
“Why not?” Dan asked. “You have to let you hair down now and then.”
“Maybe later,” she said. “I’ll have to get used to it. Plan for it. This is not a change you can make in a flash.” She shot Jill a teasing look. “After all, I’m not Ashley.”
She closed herself in the rest room, and Jill turned back to Dan.
He was chuckling. “What do you think?”
“I think . . . I’m stunned. Absolutely stunned.”
“Pretty good scheme,” he said. “Making her go looking for pants. But you underestimated my mother. She always gets what she wants.”
“I guess I did.”
She said a silent thank-you to God, and asked forgiveness for underestimating him, as well.
Chapter Sixty -Eight
Ashley sat in Jill’s living room, staring at the television and thinking about those high school kids she’d seen at church tonight. They had all sat together in their own section, all buddy-buddy and cliqueish, as if they’d grown up together. Several of the girls had shot looks at her when Jill paraded her in. She had seen them snickering at the way she looked, and she had chomped on her gum and taken grim satisfaction in their whispers.
They weren’t so different from her, with their highlighted hair and their Mary Kayed eyes and their haughty, holier-than-thou looks.
A news report flashed on, and the words “Icon International” caught her attention. She turned it up.
“ . . . breaking news on the investigation into the bombing at the Icon International Building last Monday. Sources tell us that the FBI is interviewing a former temporary employee of Icon, a twenty-three-year-old named Amber Williams, in regard to the money missing from Donald Merritt’s bank account. The former CEO of Icon is rumored to have had an affair with the woman, and speculation abounds that she may have actually had access to his accounts.”
Ashley pulled her bare feet up and hugged her knees. A news reporter solicited responses from people on the street.
“Nothing would surprise me about those people,” a chubby postal worker said. “That Merritt was a piece of work.”
Another citizen had tears in her eyes as she spoke into the microphone. “I don’t believe he’s even missing, what with all the witnesses who saw him on the stairs that day. I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald Merritt himself hadn’t set that bomb.”
Ashley caught her breath. Was it possible that her mother’s boss had set the bomb that had killed so many of his own employees? Jill had been with him right before the evacuation. Would he have been so stupid as to hang around in his office until just seconds before the bomb went off?
The possibility made her nauseous.
She heard Clara’s car pulling up in the driveway, and quickly she turned off the set and went back to her room. She couldn’t stomach that woman on top of everything else.
She closed the door and turned off her light, and wished she had a dark cave she could crawl into to die. Instead, she hunkered down in the corner between the chest of drawers and the wall. She sat on the floor, arms around her knees, and wondered where her mother was. If she’d been right about heaven, she was there right now, probably making some kind of holy pitch to God that her daughter wasn’t really as evil as she looked.
But if she’d been wrong and there was no heaven or hell, then her mother had ceased to exist at all.
Whichever it was, Ashley longed to join her.
Why had she run when her mother told her to? Of all times, why had she chosen that one time to obey? If she had just died there like her, it would all be over.
The news would have profiled her like a celebrity who would be missed. Those same people who’d acted as though she was invisible tonight would know her name and put roses and teddy bears on her grave.
But wasn’t that what she wanted, for people to ignore her and leave her alone?
She honestly didn’t know what she wanted. She thought about going back to her friends, letting their drugs numb the pain, finding laughter in a vial of cocaine. But something kept her from it. Grief, she thought. How could she go and get high when her mother was dead?
She heard the clomp of Clara’s high-heeled shoes on the floor as she came down the hall. They stopped outside Ashley’s door.
She knocked.
“What?” Ashley asked.
“I’d like to speak to you for a moment,” Clara said through the door.
Ashley didn’t say anything, and finally the door came open.
Light spilled into the dark room.
Clara looked around for her, then finally saw her on the floor. “What on earth are you doing?”
Ashley sighed. “Thinking.”
“In the dark, on the floor?”
Ashley didn’t appreciate her tone, as if she’d been caught tunneling through the Sheetrock. “Did you need something?”
Clara turned on her light, flooding out the darkness. So much for her cave. Ashley got up and faced her stiffly.
“Actually, I came to talk to you about our relationship.”
Ashley was slightly amused. “We have a relationship?”
“Well, no. But I thought since we’re going to be living here together for a while, that we should make the best of it.”
“So what, exactly, brought about this sudden burst of goodwill? Did you get caught up in the Christmas music on the way home?”
Clara came into the room and perched on the edge of the chaise. “Actually, I was just looking forward to the day my son comes home. And I was trying to think of ways to make things easier for him. If he’s coming home to two new people in his home, we could certainly make an effort to be cordial to each other.”
Ashley was suspicious. “So . . . I c
ould be more cordial to you . . . how?”
Clara’s face tightened. Ashley knew her tone had set her off. “Respect would be a good starting place.”
Ashley got up and sat down on the bed. “Yeah, whatever. Like you respect me.”
“Young lady, you need to understand that Jill has invited you into this home out of the goodness of her heart. It is a privilege, not a right, for you to be here at all. And while she hasn’t asked any payment from you, I think respect is not too much to ask.”
“I do respect Jill.”
“Oh, do you now? You call your behavior respectful? It was bad enough when your hair was pink and sticking out all over the place.”
“Burgundy,” Ashley muttered. “My hair was burgundy.”
“Young lady, the last time I looked, there’s no such color hair as burgundy.”
“I got it out of a bottle,” Ashley said, “just like you.”
The barb hit home. “You see? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. That kind of disrespect.”
“Oh, I see,” Ashley threw back. “You can talk about the color of my hair, but I can’t talk about yours?”
“You are not my equal, young lady. I am your elder. Have you never been taught to be respectful of your elders? Did your mother just completely overlook that in your upbringing?”
Ashley felt the heat burning her ears. “You leave my mother out of this.”
Clara huffed. “I’m trying to make a point about this blackness that you’re wearing all over your body like some kind of cloak. It looks ridiculous and frightening, and it has to be embarrassing to my daughter-in-law. And my son, God help him, has an overwhelming amount to deal with, without worrying about the cult wanna-be living in his house.”
Ashley’s mouth trembled. “Jill didn’t tell me it was embarrassing her. She doesn’t have a problem with it.”
“Everyone has a problem with it, young lady, and you know that! That’s why you do it. I’m telling you, you’ve got to clean up your act before my son comes back to this house.”
Ashley just stared at her. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be gone long before then.”
Clara’s face suddenly changed. She actually looked happy. “Really? You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I’ll be checking out before you know it. Then Dan will only have you to contend with when he gets home.”
Clara’s thin lips tightened. “So where are you going? You don’t have a job or an education. How do you suppose you’ll support yourself?”
“My mother had some money,” she said. “Jill’s going to get it for me.”
Clara got up and dusted her slacks off. “I might have known you weren’t here out of some grand sense of bonding that took place on that stairwell.”
That did it. Tears came to Ashley’s eyes, and she sprang up. “What do you want? I haven’t done anything to you.”
“I don’t like to see my family abused. When they’ve extended mercy to you, you should be more conscious of how you respond to it.”
“It’s you they’ve extended mercy to, lady. They should have thrown you out the day you walked in!”
Clara’s mouth fell open. “You have no right to say that to me!”
“I’m just making observations,” Ashley said, “just like you seem to be doing.”
Clara pointed at her chest. “I am Dan Nichols’ mother,” she said. “You are no relation to this family.”
“You don’t even have the right to use the word ‘mother,’” Ashley cried. “You hadn’t even seen your son in ten years. You didn’t even come to his wedding.” Ashley slapped at her tears, despising them. “I don’t understand why good mothers like mine have to die, and mothers like you . . .”
Her words broke off and hung in the air.
“How dare you?” Clara whispered.
“Get out of my room!” Ashley screamed. “Get out of here or I’ll call Jill and tell her you’re harassing me.”
Clara stood there a moment, her eyes blazing. Finally, she slammed out of the room. Ashley heard her heels clomping into her own room, and another door slammed.
Ashley turned the light back off and went back to the corner of her room. Hunkering down in a little ball, she wept and tried to make a plan.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Ashley ran up the staircase, taking the steps two by two. At the top she could see her mother standing in front of the bomb, and she knew that if she could just get to her, she could change the fate of both their lives. But as hard as she ran up those stairs, she couldn’t get to the top. A super-speed escalator sped her down as she ran up with all of her might.
So she screamed out, “Mom!”
But her mom only smiled and mouthed, “Ashley.”
“Mom, get away!” she screamed. “Get away! Please, Mama!” But the stairwell only grew longer, and there were more steps. The faster she ran, the farther away her mother was.
Then the world exploded, and she watched her mother vanish in a wave of flames and smoke, and she felt herself falling down a canyon, falling, falling, with no place to land.
She saw her mother falling next to her and screamed, “Mama!”Debbie waved her arms as if she were a bird flying, but her wings were clipped. She fell faster than Ashley. Ashley couldn’t reach her mother.She watched her hurl headlong into the earth and explode like the bomb had, sending up a mushroom cloud that cradled Ashley and softened her fall.
Mama! Mama!”
She woke suddenly and sat upright in bed. She was covered with sweat and trembling all over, but the mushroom cloud was gone.
She turned on the lamp next to her bed and pulled the covers up around her, trying to stop crying. Trembling, she pulled the pillow to her face and sobbed into it with all the anguish she felt for her mother, with all the rage and hatred and anger she felt at whomever had done this to her life, and all the self-disgust she felt for not loving her mother more while she was alive.
It wouldn’t have taken that much. If she had just stayed at home, finished school, brushed her hair once in a while—her mother would have been so pleased with her. But it was too late now, and life was just too long to endure these memories in her head. Somewhere there had to be relief. Somewhere there had to be an end to all this.
From the other room Clara lay awake in bed, listening to the sound of the girl’s sobs.
She should get up and go in there, she told herself. Maybe the girl just needed human contact—any human contact. Maybe she should do what Jill had done the other night. Hug her and hold her still.
But she still nursed the sting from her indictment tonight.
I don’t understand why good mothers like mine have to die, and mothers like you . . .
She could prove Ashley was wrong about her by going into her room. But what if the girl recoiled from her efforts? What if she said more hurtful things?
What if she spoke more truth?
Clara closed her eyes and wished the things Ashley had said hadn’t cut so deep. But she knew that truth was the sharpest blade. Clara didn’t have normal maternal instincts. How could she go in there and hug Ashley now when she hadn’t even hugged her own son since before he was ten years old?
Why was that?
She thought of Dan as a boy, leaping with excitement when she and his father had returned from one of their important trips. He would throw himself at her, strangling her with his hug.
She thought of how crushed he would be when they left again. His hugs then had been desperate, clinging.
Why hadn’t they broken her heart?
At some point, he’d grown more stoic about the whole thing and, sometimes, didn’t even show up to say good-bye. Eventually he had stopped welcoming them home. He had been in good hands, she’d told herself then. His nannies had been more maternal than she. They’d been more organized, more resourceful. They had known what a boy like Dan needed. Unfortunately, none of them had stayed more than a couple of years before she had found fault and fired them. The replacement had alway
s seemed like an improvement.
I don’t understand why good mothers like mine have to die, and mothers like you . . .
Ashley’s words played through her mind like some kind of evil mantra bent on her destruction. Maybe the girl was right. But for the life of her, Clara didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.
The night was long, and finally, as morning began to shine through the blinds on Clara’s window, she got up and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She was just sitting down to drink it when Ashley’s door opened and the girl walked out, fully dressed, carrying her stuffed bag over her shoulder.
Clara wondered if she had slept at all that night. Guilt spiraled through her at the thought of how she had failed to go and help her, but now she didn’t know how to cross the divide between them.
“Good morning,” Clara said gently.
Ashley tossed the house key on the counter. “Tell Jill I appreciated her taking me in.” She headed to the door.
Clara got to her feet. “You’re leaving? For good?”
“That’s right,” Ashley said.
“Ashley, I wish you’d reconsider. Wait until you talk to Jill.”
“I’ve waited long enough.” The words sounded hollow, lifeless.
Clara followed her to the door, racking her brain for the right thing to do, the right thing to say. “Ashley, I didn’t mean to hurt you last night. What I said about your mother and your upbringing was wrong.”
But the confession came too late. Ashley opened the door and trod across the lawn to her car.
“Do you at least have any money?” Clara called after her.
The Subaru’s motor choked to life, and Ashley drove away.
Chapter Seventy
Dan’s brooding had gotten worse, and Jill felt that the slightest thing could set him off. She’d had trouble sleeping on the hard extended chair in his room, and several times when she’d awakened, she’d found him staring into the darkness.
For the life of her, she didn’t know how to help him.
When a man knocked on the hospital room door at midmorning, Jill was relieved for the diversion.
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