by Claire Angel
“Okay, Lily, the mall won’t stay open forever,” I shouted towards her room. Elysha was holding on to my hand, excited to go to the mall, but she still looked like she had something on her mind.
“Come on, baby. It’s an hour's drive,” I tried again, my impatience began to grow. Aspen was lucky to having Audrey’s store back to life. I could not imagine how hard it must have been to take a two-hour drive out of Aspen every time they needed some basic needs. I guess that was why the store had received a great welcome when she decided to reopen.
Lily stepped out of her room with a mischievous grin on her face. “Can we go now?” I asked her, grabbing my car keys on the shelf. “I cannot remember where I left my phone,” I said as I scanned through the shelf again. “Has any of you two seen my phone?” I asked.
Lily handed me my phone and said, “I’ll be right back! Sorry, I forgot my muffler” and then took off again.
What was wrong with this girl? And what was she even doing with my phone?
She soon remerged with a purple muffler and a satisfied grin on her face.
“We can go now,” she said.
I remembered something as soon as we stepped out of the cottage. “Just a moment, I will be right back,” I said as I walked back into the house and shut the door.
I had forgotten to switch off the heater. I walked towards the switch as we heard a knock on the door. “Please open the door, Lily,” I said as I walked towards their room to see if all electrical appliances were turned off as well.
I walked back to the living room, and I was surprised to see Audrey holding the girls with puffy eyes and with a confused look. She looked in a terrible state. Her eye bags were big, and her face pink. She looked like she had left home in a hurry and cried all the way down here. I stayed rooted to where I stood, wondering what she was doing at the cottage and what I was going to say to her. I never had imagined to hurt her and I cursed myself for doing this to her.
“I know I had promised to go talk to her, but not now! I had not even come up with the things I would say to her,” I thought, running my hand through my hair as I walked towards her.
“Hi, Audrey… Are you okay?” I asked. “Your face does not look so good, are you sleeping well these days?” I asked, gesticulating avoiding making eye contact with her.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I received a strange call, was here to find out if you were all right, but I can see you are. So, I’d better leave,” she answered.
“I’m quite confused,” I said, looking straight at her now.
“So am I,” she returned.
I looked at Lily and Elysha, who stood beside each other and were now looking down at their feet. “This does not seem right,” I thought. “What is going on? Have you two done something?”
“Oh, oh, oh,” I thought as everything began to piece itself together in my head—little bits of information I had ignored. I pulled out my phone from my pocket and checked my calls. A call had been made to Audrey thirty minutes ago.
If I did not make this call. Who did?
I looked down at the girls and spoke to Elysha first. “Elysha, did you call Audrey on my phone?”
“No, daddy,” she responded, looking at Lily.
“Lily, it was you, right?”
She nodded in affirmative without looking up at me. Audrey, probably tired of our little drama, walked towards the couch to take a seat. She put her hands over her face.
“Why exactly you call her? Without my permission?” I asked Lily as I tried to figure out what was going on.
She just stood there and kept staring down at her feet. Audrey cleared her throat and told me Lily had called to inform her that I had taken them hiking, then fell down and broken my hip on our way back down.
If the situation was not so tense, I would have busted out into laughing. “Lily, I don’t understand why you would call Audrey without my permission… a distressing call. That was not something to joke about,” I said to her.
Lily ordinarily should have gotten a phone since her tenth birthday, but I had gotten worried and binned the idea. The case of pedophiles, who contacted kids through social media and groomed them, had continued to rise in Miami for a couple of years. And it had become a significant source of worry for parents who had young daughters like me.
There had been more than 250 cases halfway through the year last year, and the registered sex offenders list was rising rapidly. I thought to sync her device to mine and restrict her social media usage, “But would I really have time to monitor her cell?” I had thought. I barely even had time for mine.
Besides, social media itself was getting bigger with several networks I did not even know how to use or have the time and patience to learn. I was also worried kids her age were inquisitive, and they hardly ever stopped until they satisfied their curiosity. These pedophiles were getting bolder, as well, and I did not want to take any chances.
I had decided against it and bought them both game iPads instead. That seemed better. I also gave them access to my phone, only to be used under my supervision, though.
If they needed to call grandma or chat with their friends, they could use one of my phones. I had decided instead to get her a phone on her fifteenth birthday instead. Until that moment in my sitting room, this arrangement had worked out just fine without a single issue for almost two years.
“Why did you call her with that kind of frightening information, Lily?”
She had not only frightened Audrey and made her run all the way to our place with her hair looking like a bird’s nest. She had also lied to her. “You know how much I have emphasized on honesty. I have told you never to lie to me or anyone else.”
Lily just stood there, staring at her feet, refusing to answer any of my questions. Elysha had begun to cry. “A broken hip? Where did you even learn that from?” I asked. The camp had closed last Friday. It was only right since Christmas was fast approaching. They had both gotten restless with staying at home, and Lily was back bickering about taking them hiking while I blamed myself for packing the hiking gears. “I should have left our hiking gears at home.”
I would never have indulged her, but I needed the break myself. The monotony of my daily activities was now getting to me. And it seemed like it was not snowing so badly in the mornings yet. So I had taken them hiking at the closest hill to the house. We had packed some candies, pancakes, and juice for breakfast, which we ate while staring at the lush landscape below us. We returned home a couple of hours later. No one had even a scratch, much less a wound or even a broken hip
“Alicia told me her mum fought with Audrey,” she finally said. “She fought with her because of what I said to her at the camp. I was only trying to make things right.”
Lily went ahead to explain the things she had said to Alicia and Ms. Brenda and how she did not mean to hurt Audrey. She had only wanted Ms. Brenda to know their daddy liked Audrey; that was the only reason she was rude to her at camp the other day. “I don’t like Ms. Brenda, she is nosy,” she said.
“You both have not spoken for a while too, and Audrey does not send us cookies anymore,” she continued. “I just wanted you to come around so I could apologize to you and make everything right. I am sorry.”
Elysha, who was now bawling her eyes out, said: “Audrey doesn’t love us anymore.”
Audrey, visibly shocked by Elysha’s comment, got on to her knees and held the girls. “I love you. Come on, I love you girls!” she said repeatedly.
“I thought you were mad at Lily and me,” Elysha said.
“Why? Why would I be mad at two beautiful angels? I can never get mad at you for anything. You are my little angels.” She said, patting their heads as the three of them hugged.
I stood against the wall, at a loss for words, and unable to do anything. She loved the girls, and they loved her back with the same intensity. I had never seen them loving and sharing a bond with anyone like this. Not even with their grandma who visited them time to time back in Miami. Ther
e was absolutely nothing I could do about this bond, and it worried me greatly.
“I love you girls, okay? I love you so much,” Audrey said as she wiped their faces and kissed them. “Please give your daddy and me a moment; I will like to discuss something with him. I will see you before I leave, okay?” she said to them.
The two girls left the living room, and I was now left alone with Audrey, who was sitting and probably taking time to gather her thoughts. She stood up to me and stared straight at me for a moment as if weighing the impacts her words would have.
“Did you ever love me?” she asked. “Did you ever even care for me?” she continued, looking straight into my eyes. I could see she was fighting to hold back her tears. “Was I just a one night stand you?”
“I…” I started to say something but stopped. I honestly did not know what I should say to make things right. I was not ready to face her; I had no idea I would see her again so early.
“I do care about you, Audrey, I do,” I said.
“Then what is the problem? Why are you treating me like trash?” she said, tears running down her face.
It really hurt me to see this woman cry.
I wanted to hold her and make her feel better. I wanted to ease her pain, but something was holding me back—something—something I could not even place my finger on. I was hurting her so much without even trying. “Maybe if you love someone, you have to set them free, so you do not continue to hurt them.”
“I thought I had made up my mind to do this,” I thought as I moved towards her, thinking of what to say to fix the damages, I had done and still doing. “I care about you, Audrey; I just don’t want to hurt you more than I already have,” I said to her.
“But you are, you are. Can’t you see?” Audrey said.
“You are young Audrey, and you have a whole life ahead of you, and…” I stopped and sagged my shoulder in resignation, failing once again to express my thoughts.
If I said this, I have no idea how she would take it.
She looked up at me, a deep sense of disappointment written all over her face. She wiped her face with her t-shirt, whirled around, and left.
I wanted to run after her and pull her into a warm hug. I wanted to hold her, look into her eyes, and tell her how much I loved her. But something was holding me back, something I could not precisely explain.
Perhaps I needed an extra nudge. I needed the realization that I was losing the only person I had ever loved since Shelley because I was scared of loving again. Maybe I needed to know that I may never find someone who would love me, Lily, and Elysha the way she loves us.
Chapter 12
Audrey
The drive to Elliot’s house was the longest twenty minutes of my life. I could not stop thinking about how things had deteriorated. We had been friends, we had had an amazing time together, and suddenly things had gone south so fast, like an avalanche skidding racing down a hill with nothing to stop it.
Eventually, going to the house had brought me more distress. Things had gone from bad to worse, and I was afraid there was no coming back from that. I drove to the seaside as I left Elliot’s house, I felt suffocated all of a sudden, and I needed some air. The bank of the river had been my favorite spot in Aspen when I was a teenager, but I had avoided it like the plague since Mom died.
She had taken me there a lot of times while I was a kid and still unable to understand her fascination with it. She would sit and just bury her feet in the sand while I would ran around.
I began to understand it as I grew older. The environment felt like the home of divinity, a place you could come to express your pain or just bask in the euphoria of the moment without any disturbance or distractions. As I grew older, I found peace there. The little time I spent away from my mom’s bed while she fought for her life was spent there, on my knees, begging God for her recovery.
When Martin, the first man I have loved, broke my heart, I was sitting at the bank of the river almost for day. It was a place I shared most of my moments with, and it bore them all, without judgments. My pain, more. Until my mother left me, and there was nothing else to share anymore.
I drove down there, barely aware of what I was doing. I just wanted to get away from Elliot. I was desperate to rid myself of the stab of pain I was feeling, and I would have gone anywhere, even if it reminded me of my mother.
The place looked deserted when I got there; people hardly visited during the winter anyway. I sat in my car and pulled my knees to my chest as the pain began to build up.
I had gone to Elliot to try and fix myself. I wanted to tell him that I was pregnant. But when I asked if he had ever loved me, and he had given an incoherent answer. I had asked again, giving him another chance, just like I had given him when I called him the last time, just like I had also given him after the incident at the store.
He had looked at me like a weakling, probably thinking he had never asked for any of these chances. He never outright said it, though, perhaps because he didn’t have the nerve to. “Elliot is a forty-five-year-old man, who is never bold enough to declare his intentions,” I said, growling at myself.
What will you do now?
“I blame you for this Audrey, I blame you,” I said to myself as I turned my car mirror to face me. “I blame you!” I screamed, pulling at my tattered hair.
“If you had never had sex with him and f you had not cried like a stupid baby and told him you loved him, this would never have happened!” I recounted, hitting my car seat.
I bit my arm and shuddered as the pain shot through me. It was too much for me to take, and it was ripping my soul apart. Losing Elliot felt like losing my mom all over again.
Handling losses was not something I was good at. My dad had left without giving me a chance to adequately meet him. Grandfather had left shortly after him. And when I was beginning to think the coast was clear, another loss had reached out again and snatched my mother away from me.
Each time, these losses had affected the people around me without me knowing what to do. When it finally came for me, too, I had been unable to help myself either.
I had thought my mum would be the last and I always thought I could never love anyone as much as I loved her.
Who was I kidding?
I wiped my face as I stepped out of the car, trying to steady myself. I kicked off my shoes and walked towards the river, my toes sinking into the sand as memories of the past times I had spent there washed through me.
The air was raspy and cold as it blew against my skin. I wrapped my hands around my body and continued to walk.
“This is too much pain momma, I can’t do it anymore,” I cried, as more memories I thought had buried came back. I stayed on my knees for what seemed to be the longest time, just crying out my heart and trying to tell myself I was going to be okay. Even though I did not believe it, I had to say something before my mind went over the edge.
When my knees could no longer carry me, and it looked like I had emptied my soul, I sat in the sad and spent hours just looking at the water.
Maybe I could go Aunt Penny to catch a break and return when Elliot went back to Miami.
I can at least share with Aunt Penny that I am pregnant. She would definitely take care of me and the baby.
I sat there for another hour, weighing my choices. Aspen no longer appealed to me. The memories that held me down here now caused me pain. Maybe it was indeed time to move on.
If I had anything to worry about, it was the store. I had not been to the store for a while now, and things had remained in shape. The store was in good hands. Martha handled things and reported me time to time.
“After all, Elliot had taught me he used the same tactics for months now, and it had worked for him, how much more my small business?”
My classes could have been another worry, but I was somewhat glad Elliot had introduced me to online courses. “This man had been a huge part of my life in just a few months, will I ever be able to get rid of him?” I asked myself
.
What about his baby? I don’t think he deserves to know that he was going to be a Dad again.
“What about the girls?” A thought popped in my heart. “They will be fine. I am of no use around them if my mental health was terrible, anyway. Elliot could send my rent to my account and drop the cottage keys with Philip when he was ready to leave town.” My mind kept jumping from one thought to other. I wanted a family this Christmas, and I was going to be all alone with my baby. Thought of being a single Mom in a small town also bothered me to some extent. I knew it was going to be a big challenge.
So it is a best idea to leave Aspen and stay with Aunt Penny.
Still hurt and broken, I walked towards my car.
Maybe, I will never come back to Aspen. And that would be the best decision for me and my baby.
I took a deep sigh as my mind relaxed a bit at the thought of being a Mom. I knew having a baby would heal every wound.
And I could never forget Elliot even if he had caused me so much pain. He had been the guardian angel who had given me tips for success and now gave me a baby.
I took a deep breath of the cold air one more time, probably my last for an extended period. It was time to move on.
I slipped in my car and drove home. The tears had given me some clarity. I was not there yet, I still had a long way to go, but I was suddenly sure I would pull through.
I spent some time in my driveway after I got home, looking at my lush environment, and taking all of it in. I would probably leave all of them behind soon.
I quickly made a coffee for me and ate some pancakes. I didn’t want my baby to be hungry. I picked up my phone from the dashboard and called Aunt Penny. I needed to hear my aunt’s soothing voice and inform her that I was finally coming to my second home.
“Hello baby, how are you doing?” she said in most loving voice on this earth.
Her voice reminded me of the times she had held me as I moaned the loss of my mother, her sister. I remembered the way she held my hand during the burial procession, caressing it and pulling me to her shoulder when I needed to cry. She had been my shield and an adequate protector.
