Breaking Ties

by Tracie Puckett

  “So, if school wasn’t so bad, then what? Why skip?”

  “I wanted to be with my mom,” he said, bringing his focus back into the diner. He said it so quickly, so assuredly, that I already knew he’d prepared himself to say those words as soon as I asked. No slip of the tongue there. Something in the way he looked at me told me that this was his way of trying, of giving me a little more than what he’d been able to offer before. He was comfortable enough to tell me now, to confront a part of himself that he’d tried too hard to run away from.

  “We admitted Mom to Evergreen when I was a sophomore. That’s about the time the skipping started.”

  “Okay?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat.

  “Rewind a bit,” he said, focusing on his coffee again. “My dad was in the military. He died of friendly fire in the line of duty when I was two weeks shy of sixteen.”

  My heart suddenly felt heavier. It seemed crazy to even think it, but I hadn’t realized Gabe’s dad had ever been part of the picture. He’d never spoken of him, never mentioned anything about his other parent. All along, I just pictured his life without a father, but that hadn’t been the case at all. He’d lost him.

  “Gabe,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Dad was the love of her life.” I granted him a smile with that, and he swallowed hard before he continued. “When she lost him, it was the end of her world.”

  He kept alternating his hands between the table and his lap, constantly fidgeting his fingers, never settling in one spot. Still, he kept his eyes fixed on me as he talked, focusing on the promise that I wouldn’t judge him for anything he said to me.

  I’d made him that promise. It was his heart that I loved, him that I was after. Nothing he could tell me about his past would ever compromise my feelings for him.

  “We managed a month together after losing Dad, but that was it. We managed,” he said. “Mom couldn’t pull herself out of bed to do even the smallest things. I cooked her meals. I fed her. I made sure she was clean and taken care of.”

  He shook his head and focused off to the side for a moment, but his eyes quickly came back to me.

  “Money was never an issue for us,” he scoffed. “It feels so pretentious to say something like that, but it’s true. Mom had family money, so we had the resources to make it work. But the actual act of paying our bills was a problem. She wouldn’t focus the time or energy to do it, and I was sixteen. I didn’t have the ability or know-how to keep our household running all on my own. And when I couldn’t handle the pressure and stress anymore, I called in reinforcements. I asked for help.”

  “From Lashell?”

  “And her husband,” he said, and for the first time since this change of subject, there was a smile on his face. The mere mention of the Dunhams, and Gabe was happy again. “They never had children, but Shelly and William always loved me like their own, and when I needed them, they came to my rescue.”

  I rested my forearms on the table, watching him even closer. “And how did you know them?”

  “Mom and Shelly were childhood friends, before Shelly’s parents moved her out here to Sugar Creek in middle school. But they stayed in touch over the years. It was one of those friendships that was built to last.”

  “So what happened?” I asked, feeling comfortable enough to pose another question, to dig a little deeper. “After you asked for help?”

  “We did everything we could. Everything. Mom was manageable on days when Shelly or William came around, but she couldn’t be left alone with me. Just one look at me, and she saw Dad. She sobbed every time I walked into her room. She began blaming me for leaving her. She’d scream; she’d throw things. Little by little, she’d convinced herself that I was him. I don’t know if it was the hair or the eyes. I don’t know, but she thought I was him.”

  He looked down to the folded hands in his lap, and for one full minute, he didn’t make a move or a sound. He just sat there. I didn’t want him to feel alone, like I wasn’t fully committed to hearing everything he was putting out there, so I pulled myself out of the booth, and I slid in next to him. I took his hands and gave them a gentle squeeze.

  “Shelly and William said we needed to have her admitted for psychiatric evaluation,” he said after a cleansing breath. “So we did, and she required treatment.”

  I nodded. I’d already sensed his story was headed in that direction.

  “And that worked, for a while. It was about medicating her properly, giving her the treatment she required. And things started to look up. She could finally pull herself out of bed, feed herself, and carry on a normal conversation with people. Eventually, she came home. She had to maintain her focus—look forward and not back at what we’d lost. She changed her name after a while, and that was something even the doctor encouraged. The daily reminder of Dad’s name drew her back into her depression. Out with the Raddick, in with the Bennett, and strangely enough, it actually seemed to help her cope. And at that point, we were all for trying anything.”

  He dropped his head for a moment and gathered his composure.

  “Some days, she’d refuse her medication, but most of the time, things were okay. She was in better spirits when she was with Shelly, so there were a lot of trips and visits to and from Sugar Creek. Sometimes Shelly came to us; sometimes we went to her.”

  Gabe was eerily quiet again, looking down to our linked hands. Whatever he was preparing himself to say, it wouldn’t come as easily as everything he’d said up to that point. There was a hitch in his breathing, and his grip on my hands grew a little tighter.

  “I screwed up,” he choked, and tears formed immediately at the rims of his eyes. “We were on our way to Sugar Creek about a month after her psych-ward release. Mom was still adjusting to her medications and unable drive, so I offered to take her where she needed to go. Shelly was planning dinner and a movie—girls’ night in. I was going to drop off Mom, pick up Will, and take a much-needed evening out with him.”

  “That hardly sounds like screwing up,” I whispered, recalling his words. I screwed up. “You were helping her. You were doing something for yourself.”

  “We ran late,” he continued. “We hit traffic outside of Desden, and Mom was getting restless. I wanted to get to Sugar Creek as quickly as I could—for my sake and hers. She was driving me crazy.”

  His expression turned solemn, and it was quickly overcome with guilt. He didn’t like admitting that; he’d lost his patience with his mother.

  “I went too fast,” he said, more to himself and less to me. “As if speeding wasn’t bad enough, I called to tell Shelly we were running late. I took my eyes off of the road for three seconds.” He closed his eyes, and a single tear broke and slid down his cheek. “Three seconds, and I nearly killed her.”

  I didn’t want to ask for the gruesome details. It was obvious by his expression alone that whatever happened hadn’t ended well for him or Lenora. It’d left him emotionally and mentally scarred, and it probably had done much the same to his mother.

  “The car flipped four times.” He swallowed hard. “Four times, and I walked away with bumps, bruises, and scratches. I walked away. She didn’t.” I held his hand tighter, caressing his fingers with mine. I’m here for you, I told him, without saying a word. “Her seatbelt snapped, and the impact threw her from the car.”

  Gabe was stronger than I’d ever given him credit for, especially in that moment. He’d carried so much on his shoulders, and somehow over the years, he’d found a way to dull the pain, hide it behind his walls, and deal with it all on his own. Like my sister had always done, Gabe learned to suffer in silence. He’d somehow managed up to this point, and I knew that this was the first and only time he’d ever vocalized the recollection of what happened that night.

  “After weeks of recovery in the hospital, the doctors called her lucky,” he said. “She woke up from a coma, maintained her memories and upper-body function, but had severe damage to her spinal cord.” He looked down to our hands again, and t
his time his fingers didn’t tighten; they fell limp. “But it was my juvenile mistake that left her a paraplegic for life. She lost complete function of her lower body, and they called her lucky. What kind of luck is that?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t tell him what I could’ve, reminding him that his mother was still alive and well. It wouldn’t have mattered. When it was only him, his own leg that was busted up and holding him back, he could see the silver lining. At least I’m alive. But when it was his mother, the fact that she was hurt completely destroyed him. He wasn’t going to say anything to make himself feel better about that.

  “She ended up at Evergreen. I couldn’t take care of her … none of us could. Having lost her ability to walk, the home seemed like the best possible place for her,” he said. “Where she lives is part of the Evergreen Estates, which she inherited from her parents when they passed. We took advantage of Mom’s position as a wealthy Bennett and checked her into the nursing home so that she could live out her life with proper care. And we knew they’d take great care of her there. I mean, she owns the place.”

  “And what about you? Did you stay with Lashell?”

  “They were my godparents, and that was a responsibility they took very seriously. They took me into their home, they raised me, and they gave me everything I’d ever need.” A small laugh escaped him, in spite of the conversation. “William believed in consistency—he would’ve loved you—and wouldn’t dare let me change schools, so he drove me to Desden every morning and dropped me off before work. He helped me with classes; she taught me to cook. In the most crucial years of my life, they became my parents. They were all I had.”

  Gabe relaxed then, leaned back in his seat, and breathed a little easier.

  “If only that were the end, huh?” he asked, shaking his head. I could see he wished as much; he wanted to leave it at that, but he didn’t. “I don’t even remember the last words my mother spoke to me,” he said. “I’m sure it was about the traffic or my mood or something. But I know that the last words were spoken in that car, and after the accident, not a word after. To anyone else, you can’t shut her up.” He gripped my hand tighter. “Our relationship was already rough after losing Dad, and then she began to recover. She was getting her life back, and I destroyed that for her. I took away the last shred of hope she had left. She’s never forgiven me for that.”

  “Gabe,” I said. “You were a kid. No one could blame you—”

  “She did. She does. And please don’t think I don’t know what kind of mistake I made. After it happened, I begged her to give me a chance. She wouldn’t. So I started skipping school. When Will dropped me off, I’d walk to Evergreen. I’d spend hours in her room, talking, reading, trying. I still go. Every day. And nothing.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for how things happened,” I said. “Accidents happen.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  “You were a kid,” I said again. “So you made a mistake.”

  “A mistake that’s cost me nearly six years with my mother,” he said. “Mandy, I even enlisted in the military straight out of high school, thinking that would somehow help me prove myself to her. I wanted her to look at me, to see that I could follow in Dad’s footsteps. I wanted her to be proud of me. I thought something, somewhere, someday might be good enough to win her affection again. Look where that’s gotten me.”

  He let out a long breath and looked down to the food the waitress had delivered sometime during his long-winded speech. Neither of us had noticed the plates in front of us until that moment. He gently pulled his hand away from mine and nodded at the food. We each started in on our plates, one slow bite at a time.

  After a few seconds of silence, he looked up again and asked, “What about your Mom?”

  “My mom?”

  I didn’t want to talk about her. But, yeah. I owed him that. After everything he’d said, everything he told me, it wasn’t exactly fair to hold out on him.

  “Bailey’s mentioned her a few times,” he said. “She told me a few days ago that your mom’s been trying to get back in contact with her. I was curious—”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” I said. “I suspected she might’ve been in contact with Bailey, but I didn’t know for sure until last night. All I know is Bailey and Dad are both in foul moods, and I can always tell when it’s something Mom has said or done. She has a very special way of wreaking havoc, even when she’s not trying.”

  “Not the best relationship, then?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Mom’s a character, let me tell you.”

  “Please do,” he said. “Tell me.”

  And then I did. I told him everything. I started with the first time Bailey and I had picked up on the subtle clues that things were failing in our parents’ marriage, recalling the few times I’d found them sleeping separately—Dad on the couch, Mom in their bed. I told him about all the arguments, the way Mom had screamed at him, lashed out at us … the way she would ruthlessly say anything she could to hurt anyone whom she felt threatened by. I even broke down and told him about overhearing that final argument, the one that left my mother surrendering her position in their marriage and banning all of us from her life. Go ahead! Leave. She said it so easily, like none of us had ever mattered.

  I didn’t stop talking until I’d told Gabe everything up to the conversation I had with Dad last week about Ronnie and the affair. There wasn’t much to share about Mom’s recent phone calls to Bailey, or the way Dad lashed out when he found out that Mom and Bailey were in touch, but I told him that, too.

  It was cathartic. Years of silence, years of feelings and stories I’d kept to myself, all let go. I told him everything. And he just watched me. He listened.

  “So what do you want?” he asked, when I was done talking. “Do you want to know why she’s calling?”

  “Do you know?”

  “I don’t,” he promised. “I only know what Bailey’s told me, and that’s not much. Just that there’s another man, and now your sister thinks she’s seeking approval.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that,” I said, not as quick to jump to any assumptions about our mother. “Mom’s motives are never so simple. On the outside, maybe that’s how it looks. But I think she wants something else, something more.”

  “Do you want to know what it is?” he asked. “Or are you happy not knowing?”

  “I’m kinda at a point right now where I’m numb to it,” I said. “It doesn’t feel like it’ll matter either way.”

  “You know what’s special about this?” he asked, lifting his fork and pointing between the two of us. “We have a special way of bumming each other out.”

  “That we do,” I agreed.

  “So, how ‘bout this?” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “No more Mom-talk. For the rest of the morning, it’s me, you, and everything else. No Moms.”

  “I like that,” I said, smiling. “No Moms.”

  “None.”

  And then we watched each other for a long, quiet minute, and I found myself staring at his lips again.

  “So … what next?”

  Chapter Seven

  We left the diner immediately after breakfast, both holding true to our promise to keep all the Mom-talk off the table. We sprinted out to his car and found ourselves at the Sugar Creek Park ten minutes later. Hand-in-hand, we made our way down the twisted paths to the amphitheater, and Gabe helped me up to the stage with promises that it would be prime viewing space for the sunrise.

  I had a feeling he’d watched the view from that very spot more than once or twice, especially during the park reconstruction.

  The darkness started fading, and the sky was already turning dull shades of orange and pink. And if Gabe’s calculation was correct, the sun would be up in a matter of minutes.

  We’d laid things on so thick back at the diner, and we needed a little lightheartedness to carry us through the rest of the morning, so as we waited on the bi
g moment, I turned to him.

  “All right,” I said. “Proudest moment of your life to date?”

  “Whoa, that’s a toughie.”

  Gabe laid on the stage, his legs stretched out in front of him, and propped his hands beneath his head. After a long moment of silence, I found myself falling back, too, leaning on my elbows for support.

  “I’ll go first,” I said, giving him some time to mull it over. I had no doubt that he would have a lot more personal triumphs and experiences to sift through in order to answer that question honestly. “Mine’s easy. Quitting RI.”

  “Ah,” Gabe nodded. “Yeah, that’s music to my ears.” And then he mocked me. “The proudest moment of my life was when I quit that program you started.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, shoving him. He lost his balance for a moment and had to take a second to readjust.

  “Starting RI,” he said. “And I know that’s a very broad ‘moment,’ but I can’t narrow it down any more than that. I planned for this program since I was a kid. I was constantly working toward it, scribbling down ideas, possibilities.”

  “Scribbling down ideas and possibilities in a big green binder?” I asked, angling my head to look at him.

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I’ve done my research,” I said, promising myself in that moment that I would never tell him that Jones had once described him as a freak in high school, who never stopped scribbling in a big green binder. There were a lot of things Jones said that day, things I was certain he would seriously regret saying if only he knew the pain and heartache living behind Gabe’s self-imposed isolation in high school.

  Gabe watched me, his curiosity piqued, and then he shook his head.

  “Any major regrets?” I asked, giving him an immediate look that warned him: no Mom-talk.