Three More Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

  “Seems to me that she always lands on her feet,” Erick said. “Lorraine’s still attractive, and apparently she had plenty of admirers onboard. Maybe she just wanted to prove that Rex isn’t the only fish in the sea.”

  “Oh, that’s not it!” I gulped, unable to find words to explain how the woman who had given me life had found yet another way to undermine something good.

  7.

  divorcing my mother

  Life can only be understood backward;

  but it must be lived forward.

  —Søren Kierkegaard

  Even after I heard about Lorraine’s misbehavior at my wedding, I wasn’t angry, mostly because it hadn’t affected the joy Erick and I felt at the festivities. Besides, I think Lorraine was embarrassed, since she avoided me for a few months.

  “Hey,” she said when she finally phoned in June. “Still married?”

  “Yes,” I said with a laugh, hoping she was joking. “We’re very happy.”

  “Still in St. Pete?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said without elaborating. I’d moved into the house Erick had shared with Ian before Ian left for his job in Pennsylvania, and I had begun making decorative improvements.

  “That’s nice,” she replied in a dismissive tone. “Just wanted you to know that everything’s great here. I’m in touch with an old friend from high school who has a connection to NASCAR.”

  “Cool. Erick’s younger cousin is a NASCAR freak.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Jasper just turned twelve.”

  “Autumn will be eleven this fall, so they should get on fine.”

  Jasper and his older sister Penelope were the children of Erick’s cousin Tasha. After Tasha was arrested for possession of drugs, the Department of Children and Families had placed her children with Tasha’s mom, Erick’s aunt Liz, who had a demanding job as an X-ray technician. When she had to work overtime, friends and family took turns babysitting. Erick and I had volunteered to pitch in too.

  “Why don’t you guys join us in Daytona for the Fourth?” Lorraine asked.

  “Erick’s cousin will be with us then.” Penelope had plans with friends, and we were taking Jasper to the Courters’ to watch the fireworks from their boat.

  “He’s welcome too. Wes has a big house right on the beach.”

  I agreed to discuss it with Erick, and when I did, I admitted that the whole idea didn’t thrill me. “Jasper would flip out,” Erick said, “and it sounds like a hoot to me.”

  During the drive from St. Petersburg to Daytona Beach, Jasper prattled nonstop about his hero, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. “I hope he does better tomorrow than he did in the Daytona 500,” he said.

  “What’s the difference between the Daytona 400 and 500?” I asked.

  Jasper laughed uproariously. “A hundred miles!”

  “I have to watch them driving around and around for four hundred miles?”

  “Vroom!” Jasper said, doubling over. “Vroom, vroom, vroom!”

  Jasper was a smart, kind, polite preteen whose mother was too lost in her own problems to care for him. If anyone could understand his confusion, it was me.

  “Grandma Liz said Daytona is right on the ocean. Now I’ll finally get to see real waves!”

  “Yes, so will you,” I said as we passed the speedway and headed toward the beach.

  “Are you sure this is the street?” Erick asked.

  Although Lorraine had billed Wes’s house as “beachfront,” the address was actually across a highway from the surf. I knocked tentatively on the door, half expecting to be at the wrong place, but Lorraine opened it. Autumn popped out and pulled on my arm. “Come see my room!”

  “Give her a minute,” Lorraine said in an exasperated voice. She introduced us to Wes, who was watching some NASCAR news on the television. He raised his beer bottle in salute but didn’t get up. “Okay, now you can show them their room—and yours.”

  As soon as our bags were unpacked, we headed into the kitchen.

  “How can I help?” I asked. Lorraine handed me some cold pieces of white toast. “Put those on that baking dish, then put a slice of cheese on top of each.” When I was finished, she put the dish in the oven.

  When they were done, Lorraine scooped hot chili into bowls and placed a piece of cheesy toast on top of each. “You can add your own chopped onions or more cheese,” she said. “The sodas are on a shelf in the fridge.”

  I piled extra cheese into my bowl and we took our dinners to the dinette area. Jasper looked longingly at the speed trials on television, but I was afraid he’d slop sauce on the sofa and pointed to the kitchen chair. Just then Erick’s cell phone rang. “You told them we were coming here, didn’t you?” he said. “I’m sorry, Aunt Liz, but there’s no way we are turning around and bringing him back tonight. It’s over a three-hour drive.” He stared at the ceiling as if looking for divine intervention. “Yes, you can give her this number. We’ll figure something out.”

  Jasper looked upset. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. Your caseworker never did her June visit and wants to see you today.”

  “But it’s July,” Jasper griped.

  Erick’s phone rang again. “Hi, Clover,” he said. “Yes, I heard. But you knew about Daytona. Who said we needed a court order to take him to another county?” Erick rolled his eyes at me.

  I whispered, “That’s only necessary if he goes out of state.”

  “Look, Clover, we’re having dinner, and tomorrow we’re going to the races. There’s no time to drive back and forth, but you are welcome to come here.” He held the phone away from his ear as she blasted him about bogus rules and regulations. “Okay,” he said. “You have to do what you have to do.”

  “Do I have to leave?” Jasper asked.

  “No, she’s calling the local police for a child well-being check.”

  “What the hell?” Lorraine screeched.

  “They just have to verify that Jasper is okay,” I said gently.

  “What will the neighbors think?”

  Autumn burst into tears. “Everything’s ruined!”

  “You guys can go to a hotel and the cops can meet you there,” Lorraine said.

  Wes clicked off the television and strode over to the table with his hands on his hips. “There isn’t a hotel room available within fifty miles of here.”

  “You’d be crazy to let them come here,” she argued.

  Wes turned to Erick. “The kid can go stand in the driveway and they can flash a light in his face. Without a warrant, nobody is coming inside. Got that?”

  “No problem,” Erick said. He pushed away from the table. “We’ll wait outside.”

  “It could take hours,” I said.

  “We could use the fresh air,” Erick said, seething.

  Wes poured bourbons over ice for Lorraine and himself and went back to the sofa. She joined him, and they whispered together. I started cleaning off the table, and before I was even finished, I saw a patrol car pull up in front of the house.

  “Good thing Jasper had his school ID card with him,” Erick said when they came back in the house. He turned to Jasper. “Big day tomorrow. How about getting ready for bed?”

  “Sure,” Jasper said, anxious to get away from our angry hosts.

  Wes topped off their drinks but didn’t offer us any. He held up his and Lorraine’s high school yearbook and flipped through the pages. “Your mom was so hot back then!”

  Lorraine looked me in the eye and slurred, “I’d be in a lot more photos, except I got pregnant with you. You ruined my life.”

  Before I could absorb her harsh words, Jasper came out in pajama pants and a Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt. “Wow, you came prepared!” I said, forcing enthusiasm to cover my fury at Lorraine’s stinging words.

  “Maybe you’ll get to see him in person,” Erick said.

  “I’m sure I will! Tomorrow’s going to be the greatest day of my life.”

  The race wasn’t until the following evening. Lor
raine was planning to work on her tan during the day—a preoccupation I never understood.

  “What shall we do?” Erick asked the kids.

  “There’s a chocolate factory on the boardwalk, and you get free samples on the tour,” Autumn said.

  “Cool!” Jasper said. “I want to see the candy-making machines.”

  Unfortunately, the tour wasn’t running on the holiday weekend. “It’s no big deal,” Autumn assured us. “This is the best part.” She showed us where we could help ourselves to samples of the different types.

  She ate a chocolate-covered potato chip. “These are my favorite!” She reached for another. I pushed her hand down and pointed to a sign that read: ONE PER PERSON PLEASE. She pouted. “What can I buy?”

  “You can fill one of those small sacks with whatever you choose,” I said.

  Jasper picked chocolate-covered pretzels. “The potato chips are better,” Autumn told him.

  There were also gift boxes we could fill with hand-dipped chocolates. Erick selected some for Aunt Liz and Penelope, while I did the same as a thank-you for Erick’s parents, who were watching our dogs and house-sitting. The bill was almost a hundred dollars, but we were stuck because we couldn’t put the boxes with our personal selections back on the shelf.

  “Pretty slick marketing,” Erick commented.

  Lorraine had pizzas reheating in their oven in the cardboard boxes for lunch, but the chocolate samples had ruined my appetite. Keeping up with the kids running along the boardwalk on the steamy July day had exhausted us. Erick and I slipped away for a nap.

  When we awoke in the late afternoon, the kids were watching television.

  “Where are Wes and your mom?” I asked Autumn.

  “She’s your mom too! How come you call her Lorraine?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, not knowing how much she had been told. “So where are they?”

  “Mom went for a swim, and Wes is helping someone move a boat.”

  I took out a pitcher of iced tea and placed two insulated glasses on the counter. One of the gift boxes of candy was open, and it was almost empty. I held it up. “Who ate all of this?” Jasper looked at his feet. Jasper’s background was almost as unstable as mine, and in foster care my knee-jerk reaction was to avoid the truth. What nobody understood was that it’s not about the lie—it’s about the why. Lies were my way of controlling what I wanted people to know. Was he headed in the same direction?

  “Well?” I asked him more harshly.

  Jasper held his head in his hands.

  “It was me,” Autumn admitted. Her face pinched into a defiant mask.

  Erick came into the room and saw the standoff. “What’s going on?”

  I pointed to the box. “Autumn ate most of this box.”

  “Is that the one we got for my parents?” Erick asked.

  “I dunno,” Autumn snapped. “I got it from your suitcase.”

  “While we were sleeping?” I kept my voice steady, but my hands were trembling. “You snuck into our room and went through our bags?”

  “T-that’s s-stealing!” Jasper stuttered.

  “Is not!”

  “What do you call taking something that does not belong to you without permission?” I asked her, my voice steely.

  I heard the sliding door on the back deck scrunching open. “What’s going on?” Lorraine asked, looking from Autumn to me. Her hair was wrapped in a towel like a turban.

  Autumn burst into tears.

  “You’re not going to blubber your way out of this one!” I exclaimed. “What you did was wrong and rude!”

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Lorraine asked me.

  “She took these chocolates from our room.” I tilted the almost-empty box.

  “Are you so stingy you can’t even give a little girl some candy?”

  “She had her own bag. Not only that, she snuck into our room while we were asleep and rummaged through our suitcase.”

  “Mom-my!” Autumn wailed, sounding more like five than ten years old. She batted her puppy eyes and encouraged more tears to flow.

  “I can’t believe you are so self-centered and insensitive,” Lorraine yelled at me. “Between this and the cops, you’ve destroyed our weekend.” She reached for her purse on the counter, pulled out her wallet, and tossed two five-dollar bills at me. “That should cover it.”

  All my life I had been able to repress strong emotions. Although a chain of child therapists had prodded me to identify sensations of fear or sadness or joy, I dampened feelings to keep myself from flipping out. But I could not restrain this volcano of rage. I could feel the spumes heating my neck, my face, tingling my fingertips. My core was ablaze. As I opened my mouth to let out the flames, the only sound was a hissing gasp.

  I pushed the money back at her. Erick put his arm around me. “The money’s not the point,” he told Lorraine before propelling his exploding wife back to our room.

  “I can’t believe Lorraine’s defending sneaking and stealing!” I tossed cosmetics into my makeup bag.

  “That woman is a piece of work,” Erick said in an uncharacteristically incensed tone.

  “What the hell are we doing here, anyway? Last night she tells me I ruined her life; now I’ve destroyed her weekend!” I grabbed the clothes on a chair and tossed them toward our suitcase. “She’s the one who never did what she promised. And now she’s blaming me for her rotten life choices and excusing bratty behavior.”

  Erick encircled me with his arms. “Not your fault,” he murmured. “You have every reason to be upset with your—” He stopped himself before saying the M-word.

  “Let’s just pack up and go home!” I sighed into his shoulder.

  He held my chin up slightly. “What about Jasper? He’ll be so disappointed.”

  “I just can’t stand being here a second longer.”

  He kissed me lightly on the cheek. “We’ll be going to the races soon, and then we’ll leave first thing in the morning. Okay?”

  After the cops and the drama, I couldn’t let Jasper down. “I sure hope he sees Gale Earmark or whatever.”

  “Dale Earnhardt Junior,” Erick said with a chuckle, and kissed me again.

  We all crammed into Wes’s quad-cab pickup truck. Everyone was in a sour mood except for Jasper and Wes. “Did you know Dale’s going to drive the Number Three Chevy, painted blue and yellow like his father’s car?” Jasper blurted.

  Wes grinned. “Right!”

  The Daytona International Speedway lit up the night sky. Seeing the huge grin on Jasper’s face, I was glad we had stayed.

  Lorraine handed me four tickets. “You guys are sitting together, and Wes and I will be in the VIP section.”

  Autumn protested. “I wanna sit with you, Mommy!”

  Lorraine gave her twenty dollars. “Here’s something for popcorn and sodas.” She turned to me. “Text me if there are any problems. When the race is over, meet us at this entrance.”

  Wes tugged her hand. “C’mon, woman!”

  Without another word they were off, leaving us with the two kids. “Now I get it,” I said to Erick. “She only invited us to babysit so she could party!”

  “Did you see that?” Jasper said. His mouth stayed open. A woman loaded with pirate beads flashed a guy sitting below her.

  “That’s inappropriate,” I said, pushing his head in the other direction.

  “Not going to kill him to see some boobs.” Erick winked. “Chill, babe. Let’s have some fun.”

  We had to climb to the nosebleed section to get to our seats. From that vantage the cars going around the track were hardly more than a blur.

  “Look!” Jasper shouted. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car had pulled up close to the stands. He jumped out, took off his helmet, and waved to the crowd. Jasper jumped on his seat and yelled, “Eighty-eight, eighty-eight!” He pumped his arms in the air and joined the crowd chanting, “Dale! Dale!” The kid was so happy; I wasn’t going to begrudge him this evening.

  “I
don’t think I have enough testosterone to appreciate any of this,” I said after half an hour of the same cars going around the same track. For a moment I thought about how much Luke would have loved and wondered if Lorraine had thought of including him in the weekend.

  I stood up. “What can I get you guys?” I volunteered to do the fetching as a break from the screaming people and screeching engines.

  “Popcorn, Coke, a hot dog, and candy,” Autumn said. I put my hand out for the twenty her mother had given her. For a second she pretended not to know what I wanted.

  As I walked away to get snacks, I continued to fume about Lorraine’s defense of Autumn and lack of respect for me. When I got back, the race was temporarily stopped.

  “This is bor-ing!” Autumn complained. She was fading and getting cranky.

  I rooted for Earnhardt, who led in many of the laps. Finally he did win. While the guys cheered, I gathered up our possessions and held Autumn’s limp hand so she wouldn’t fall down the bleachers. More than half the speedway had emptied out by the time we slithered through the crowds. Nobody was at the meeting point, and Lorraine didn’t answer our texts or calls.

  A security guard said, “We’re closing the gate. You have to go outside.”

  “We’re supposed to meet someone from the VIP section,” I explained. “Where’s that?”

  He pointed toward the track. “They’re all gone.”

  An hour later Autumn was sobbing from exhaustion. “Let’s call a taxi,” Erick said.

  Suddenly Lorraine yelled from inside the fence. “Where the hell have you kids been?”

  “I told you that’s where we said we’d meet them!” Wes told her. “Sorry, guys, this one managed to sneak into the pit, and the guard wouldn’t let me go in to drag her out.”

  “You shouldn’t have followed me in the first place,” she shot back. It was clear to me—and probably everyone else—that she was intoxicated.

  “Cut the bull,” Wes said. “I’m here all the time, and you insulting my friends and jumping security makes me look bad.”

  We followed them back to his truck. Even though we were practically the last to leave, we were still stuck in a long line of traffic. Both kids fell asleep before we reached the house, despite all the name-calling and yelling from Wes and Lorraine in the front seat. Erick sleep-walked Jasper to our room and took off his shoes. I made up a bed for him on the floor of our room instead of the sofa so he wouldn’t be in the middle of their fight, which continued nonstop for hours.