Tethered

by L. D. Davis

  “You have to be more specific, Emmet,” I forced a chuckle. I took a glance around the table and found that the other three were watching our exchange with curiosity and foreboding.

  “Stop trying to force yourself to feel fine when you’re not,” he said gently.

  I gave him a look that suggested what he was saying was ridiculous. Sam tried to cut in and said Emmet’s name in warning.

  “No,” I said, holding a hand up to Sam as I glared at Emmet. “I’m sorry, am I not behaving how you think I should behave? Because I didn’t know there was any precedence for this.”

  “Your mother just died,” he said patiently.

  “And?” I shrugged. “I hardly knew her. Your crazy mother is the only mother I really ever knew.”

  “Trying to harden your emotions isn’t going to help you,” Emmet said firmly. “You’re going to bottle it up and it’s going to explode when you least expect it.”

  “When did you become the authority on her emotions?” Emmy demanded. “Maybe she’s handling it the best way she can.”

  Emmet didn’t take his eyes away from me when he spoke to Emmy. “No, she’s not.”

  “Again,” Emmy said, irritated. “When did you become an authority on her emotions?”

  “You’re way off base, buddy,” I lied, forcing down another bite of food. “I guess you expect me to be falling into your arms, emotionally wrecked.” I was being mean to him and I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Stop,” he said again.

  “You know what?” I threw my napkin on my plate and pushed away from the table. “I came here for a good meal and to escape the herd of sobbing people in my mom’s house, but you won’t shut the hell up and just let me be.”

  Four voices called my name as I marched out of the dining room and towards the front of the house.

  “Donya, come back here right now,” Emmet demanded from behind me.

  “Fuck you,” I said harshly over my shoulder.

  As my fingers closed over the door handle for the front door, strong hands grasped my shoulders, almost painfully. I was yanked away from the door and spun around to face Emmet. I slapped him hard across the face. I heard Sam shout my name in horror, but I ignored her and punched him in the chest. As I continued to beat on Emmet, he took it with an occasional grunt, but he didn’t release me.

  “It doesn’t matter!” I shouted at him as I slapped at his arms. “She didn’t matter to me and I didn’t matter to her, so it doesn’t matter that she’s dead!”

  The last few breaths my mother took replayed in my mind and I could feel her hand go limp in my hand all over again. I stood there staring at Emmet with wild, wide eyes.

  “Your mom loved you,” he said firmly. “She knew she fucked up before and she tried really hard to make it up to you. You were the only reason she was afraid to die, Donya. She never thought she’d be able to make up for what she failed to give you all of those years, okay? She told me you were the only thing that mattered. You did matter.”

  It was right there in that foyer that I broke down when I found out my dad died. It was Emmet’s arms that held me then, and as an onslaught of grief slammed into me, it was Emmet’s arms that kept me from crumbling to the ground in that same foyer again.

  I clung to him as I sobbed, and he held me securely, rubbing my back and smoothing a hand over my hair.

  “It’s okay to cry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll take care of you. Always.”

  I don’t know how long we stood there like that before Emmet pulled away a little. Emmy was beside us, offering up a box of tissues as she cried for me. Emmet took a few tissues and began to gently wipe away the moisture off of my face. I was so thankful for him. I was so glad that he didn’t listen to me and came down to be there for me despite my objections.

  “Thank you,” I said softly to him. I was still crying. I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop, but I had to tell him how much it meant to me that he was there with me.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “I promised to always be there for you when you need me. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are or what other obligations I have, Donya. You supersede anything and anyone. Okay?”

  I nodded and I didn’t pull away or push him away when he leaned down to press his lips gently against mine. It didn’t matter that everyone we had been trying to hide from was now watching with rapt attention. The gasps and the curses didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I was in Emmet’s arms and he was going to take care of me. Always.

  *~*~*

  I didn’t cry again after that initial breakdown. I was sad, but I was functional. Emmet and Emmy drove me back to my mom’s house after I had stopped crying. I helped my aunts and uncle plan my mom’s funeral and write the obituary. Emmet stayed by my side and Emmy helped out by making tea and coffee and chatted up my cousins. Sam and Fred came by later that day with food. I was shown old pictures and videos of my parents and I almost cried again, because they had been happy at one time. Extremely happy. The pictures of us all together when I was very young, I requested to keep for myself. I needed to know that at some point in my life, I had a happy, functional family.

  Emmet and Emmy rarely left my side in the days following my mother’s death. Sometimes I felt like one of them would come into the bathroom while I was peeing, and I suspect they would have if I didn’t lock the door. They bickered a lot about who was going to do what for me, as if I was an invalid. I had had enough after a full day of this. I reminded them that my mom had died but I was alive and well and perfectly capable of going into the kitchen to get a cup of water for myself. I didn’t need help going up the stairs and I didn’t need anyone to hold my hand all day.

  The funeral was at the burial site. It was small with only my family – biological and adopted – and a few people that my mom became acquainted with over the past year or so. Even Felix showed up. He couldn’t stay afterward, but he wanted to be able to pay his respects to my mother who he had liked and to hug me. Lucille, Charlotte, and Fred Jr. didn’t come up, but they each called me and I appreciated it.

  I was relieved when it was all over. In the days that followed, my Aunt Candy returned to Texas and my Uncle Roger and his family returned to Brazil. My dad’s sisters went back across the bridge to Pennsylvania, but Kera remained behind. The house my mother died in now belonged to me, but I didn’t really want it. I honestly had no happy memories in the place, but Kera was anxious to be out on her own, and though she had a great time with me, she was ready to get her own life started. So, I gave her the house – or at least, I paid the taxes on it and let her live in it.

  At my insistence and the instance of Fred and Sam, Emmet agreed that he would return to Harvard the day after the funeral. He had wanted to stick around for me and then escort me back to New York, but he had already missed almost an entire week of school for me, and that didn’t sit well with me at all. I would never want to be in a position where I held Emmet back, and I still felt badly for making him start his internship late earlier in the year.

  No one, not even Emmet and I, spoke about what had transpired in the foyer that day, but that was simply a courtesy since my mom had just died. Even Emmy managed to keep her mouth shut for a while, though I could see it all over her face that she was not only shocked, but most likely hurt that I didn’t tell her. Sam and Fred watched us carefully, making sure that we weren’t left alone too long and checked up on us to be sure we slept in separate rooms at night. It was almost laughable considering how much alone time Emmet and I shared over the months.

  The courtesy that had been extended to us, however, did not last once the funeral was over and done. Later that evening, we were summoned onto the back patio where Fred and Sam were sitting and drinking hot beverages. It was a little chilly outside, but not unbearable with a jacket on.

  Emmet held out my chair for me to sit down and I smiled up at him, but before he could even put his own butt down
in the chair beside me he was talking.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to say, though I have some idea,” he said. “But I’m letting you know right now that I’m not giving her up, and you can’t make me give her up and you can’t make her give me up, either. You’re just going to have to get over it.”

  I was looking at Emmet with awe, because he sounded so damn powerful as he spoke to his parents and stood up for us. He met my eyes and changed his tone for me before speaking.

  “Put your ring on, baby,” he said gently. “And don’t ever take it off again.”

  “Except for work,” I said with a nervous smile as I dug the engagement ring out of my pocket.

  “Except for work,” he said with a soothing smile as he took the ring from me. It was as if his parents weren’t sitting there glaring at us as he slowly slipped it back onto my ring finger and then placed a soft kiss on it.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Fred…well…cried out loud as Sam let out a string of curses.

  Reluctantly, I looked away from Emmet’s green eyes and faced the parents.

  “I’m about to put my foot right into your ass, Emmet Grayne!” Sam yelled. She went to stand up, as if she really was going to put her dainty foot in her son’s ass, but Fred pushed her back into her chair and gave her a stern look. She stayed seated but she threw violent threats across the table at both of us until Fred told her to zip it.

  “How long?” Fred demanded. “How long has it been going on? For once the damn tabloids were telling the truth a few months ago, weren’t they?”

  “It doesn’t matter how long it’s been going on,” Emmet said firmly to his father. “What matters is from here forward.”

  “Oh give me a break with the romance,” Sam snapped. She pointed in our general direction. “You two have been lying to us, and I’ll bet my sweet Louisiana ass that it’s been for a long damn time. You’ve been sneaking around up there in New York, doing God only knows what while we were down here believing that Emmet was just being a good friend and a good brother. You led us to believe things were different than what they really were. You lied, you sneaked, and you betrayed our trust.”

  Both Emmet and I began to object, but Fred cut us off. We weren’t finished being lectured yet.

  “Donya is barely seventeen and her career path is unpredictable. You have several years left of schooling. What made you think that getting engaged was a good idea?”

  “You married mom when she was nineteen,” Emmet objected.

  “Times were different then,” Fred snapped.

  “I don’t care if you don’t approve -” Emmet started, but Fred cut him off again.

  “You’re damn right I don’t approve!” he roared.

  Though I shouldn’t have taken it personally, I did. I felt like it was me specifically he didn’t approve of, and that thought hurt me deeply.

  “You don’t have to approve,” Emmet argued. “I’m old enough to make my own damn decisions and you have no legal claim over Donya, so you don’t get to make her decisions either.”

  “Your relationship is entirely inappropriate,” Fred said, slamming a hand down on the table. “You were supposed to look after like a younger sister, Emmet, not seduce her.”

  “I wasn’t seduced,” I piped in, insulted, but I was virtually ignored.

  “She is not my sister,” Emmet spat out. “My mother did not give birth to her. Your sperm had no part in her creation, and she’s not adopted. She’s part of this family, yes, but she’s not my damn sister, dad.”

  “You stepped over a line that should have never been approached!” Fred yelled.

  “The only line between Donya and I is the one that tethers us together,” Emmet, said, getting to his feet. Holding my hand, he pulled me up, too. “I’m disappointed in both of you,” he said angrily. “I didn’t expect you to be happy about being lied to, but you should be relieved that we have each other.”

  Emmet led me inside. Sam followed us.

  “Emmet,” she said his name firmly. “Come back outside.”

  “I don’t want to go back outside,” he snapped. “I don’t need to hear any more bullshit about how you don’t approve and how inappropriate our relationship is.”

  “We’re upset,” Sam said with a frustrated sigh. “We are all saying things we don’t mean.”

  I really thought Sam met every word of what she said, but I remained silent.

  “What do you think I’m saying that I don’t mean?” Emmet demanded. “Do you think that I don’t mean it when I say I love Donya? Do you think I don’t mean it when I say that I won’t give her up? Which part, Mom? Because I happen to mean every last word of it!”

  I put my hand on Emmet’s arm to calm him. He glanced down at me and took a deep breath. He looked back at Sam, but there was a little less tension in his face and his body.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Sam said gently with a gentle nod as she looked at us. “It was easy to fall for each other because you’re close and you’ve spent so much time with each other, but once this initial…infatuation or whatever it is passes, you’re going to realize that you’ve made a mistake, and I don’t want it to be after you’re already married.”

  I stared at Sam with my mouth hanging open. Her words were like ice cold water pouring over me. I didn’t believe we had made a mistake at all, but it chilled me and hurt me that she and Fred believed that we did. I had always been rather sensible, but now they didn’t believe I was being sensible at all. They thought that Emmet and I were just lusting after each other.

  Before Emmet could open his mouth and verbally rip his mother’s head off, I spoke first, just as gently as Sam had.

  “I love Emmet, Sam. He loves me, and maybe you will never understand the connection we have, but this is more than lust. This isn’t a wild, short affair, and it’s not some childish puppy love. This is real. I feel him here,” I said, putting a fist to my heart. “No matter where we are, how far we are from each other, I feel him, and he feels me. We had no immediate plans of getting hitched soon, but Emmet wanted to claim me, and I wanted to be claimed.” I looked at Emmet lovingly for a moment before turning back to Samantha. “Maybe life will be unpredictable. Maybe there will be something strong enough out there to tear us apart, but we are eternally joined. In the end, we’ll always find each other. So, you don’t have to approve. You don’t have to like it, but even if we wanted to, we can’t break the tether that holds us together. It will always be there, regardless of what you or anyone else has to say about it.”

  Sam stood there gaping at me for a long time. When she finally closed her mouth, she looked dazed. To my surprise, she dabbed at her eyes, but no tears fell.

  “I’m going to go talk to your father,” she whispered, and without another word or glance, she went back outside.

  Emmet looked down at me and cupped my face in one hand.

  “You are so perfect,” he whispered before kissing me gently. He pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head.

  “I better go talk to Emmy,” I said after a moment.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, releasing me.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I have to do this one on my own.”

  I left him in the kitchen and went upstairs to face my best friend.

  *~*~*

  “I am trying to be understanding here, I really am,” Emmy said a little while later in her room. “Your mom just died and the dirt hasn’t even settled over her grave yet, so I really am trying to be sensitive to your emotions and all of that shit, but you’re sitting there with that big ass rock on your finger that I didn’t know about until now and you what? Want me to be excited? You want to start discussing bridesmaid’s dresses and color schemes? Because I’m so not there yet, D.”

  I sat in the chair near her bed, nervously pulling on my ponytail. Emmy sat on her bed with her legs crossed facing me.

  “I’m just trying to make you understand why I didn’t tell you,” I
said to her.

  “I don’t think there is a reason in the world for you not to tell me if I was really your best friend,” she said. “Unless imminent death was one of those reasons. Was there a chance that someone would die if you didn’t tell me, Donya?”

  “No,” I said quietly.

  “Then I see no reason for you to withhold such pertinent information from me. I tell you everything. You know me right down to the deepest, darkest corners of my life, Donya, and you give me nothing. Like ever. I got used to not knowing what you’re thinking or feeling, I actually kind of admired that, but this wasn’t one of those things that you not tell me. All of the times I brought it up -”

  “You mean all of the times that you told me how much the idea disgusts you?” I interrupted, releasing my ponytail. I folded my hands in my lap and stared at her.

  “Emmet is my brother, Donya,” she said, looking at me as if I was stupid. “I would be grossed out by him kissing anyone. It’s a sibling thing, and you should have known that because you’ve been a part of this family almost all of your life.”

  “In the beginning I was just afraid of how I was feeling,” I said to her. “I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone because I couldn’t even wrap my own mind around it. And everything was so touch and go in the beginning. Everything was so complicated. ”

  “What about when you got your mind wrapped around it, Donya?” Emmy asked. Her tone was harsh, but I didn’t blame her. “It doesn’t seem so complicated now.” Her eyes flickered to my engagement ring.

  “I was going to tell you a couple of times, but you always had perfect fucking timing and you would tell me how gross you thought it was.”

  “So what?” she retorted.

  “I didn’t want to hear your shit about it, and then we weren’t together for a long time so it just didn’t seem to matter.”

  “How long has this been going on?” she cried. “You make it sound like it’s been years and years.”

  I looked down at my jeans and started picking at imaginary strands of fabric.

  “It was years?” Emmy nearly yelled.

  “Not exactly,” I answered.