Beach Glass

by Suzan Colon

My mother hasn’t let anyone call her Becky since my father. And I haven’t seen her cry in years. I’d always thought she was hard, but now I see she just built herself a shell to hide in after my dad hurt her. But Vic is showing her the way out, and however scary the world might seem, she’s willing to try this with him, just like I was with Carson.

  At the same time, I notice Vic holding my mother in the loving, protective way that Daniel has always held me. Quietly, I watch them, searching for a sign of which direction to take in the crossroads where I’ve found myself.

  A FEW HOURS later, I rest my head against the cool metal wall of the elevator. Visiting hours are over, and my mother fell asleep a while ago anyway, still holding Vic’s hand. Bethy will arrive in New York soon, and Vic will let her into my mother’s apartment, so I can go home and collapse for a while.

  I’m not at all surprised when I walk out to the hospital lobby and find Daniel still there, sprawled out on a reception area chair, not really watching the television mounted in a corner of the ceiling. When he sees me, he stands up quickly. “How’s your mom doing? The nurses would only tell me she was all right, but not much else.”

  “She’s fine. The heart attack wasn’t as damaging as they initially thought.”

  Daniel’s smile is wry. “She giving everyone hell already?” he asks, having been on the receiving end of some of my mother’s curt temperament.

  I think about her unfamiliar, soft new smile, which apparently blooms when Vic is nearby. “Not yet, though that’s not a bad thing.”

  With the situation no longer urgent, an unusual awkwardness settles between us. “Is he coming to take you home?” Daniel asks.

  I know exactly who he’s talking about. “No. He doesn’t know this happened.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows twitch in confusion, but he’s good enough not to say anything. He reads my face and sees how physically and emotionally exhausted I am. I lost my father suddenly. I almost lost my mother today just as quickly, in the snap of a finger. Relieved but still shell shocked, it’s all I can do to keep from lying down on the floor and weeping. I know that Daniel sees all of this and understands it, and that’s why he doesn’t ask why I’m not calling Carson. He just puts a gentle arm around me and says, “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say as he walks me out of the hospital. “It’s so far for you. And I’m fine, really.” He knows I can read the look he gives me that says my objections are pointless. Daniel would never let me go home alone, especially after something like this. He hails a cab and gives the driver my address.

  In the backseat, we sit apart for a few seconds, looking at each other in that deep, unguarded way you can look at someone you trust completely. Then my eyes fill, and I feel my chin trembling. Daniel comes to me immediately, without words, his arms open to catch me. And then I’m there, in that magic circle that always meant home to me. I don’t know how he creates this feeling of security, of love and complete acceptance that he didn’t get, but he does. I’ve never felt anything like it with anyone else. His arms enfold me, his body is stable and strong, his head lowers toward mine, and I’m enveloped by pure love. I have no right to this anymore, but God forgive me, I want it so badly. I need Daniel.

  We don’t talk for the entire ride home. Nor when we get back to my apartment, do we discuss him following me inside. It all seems so natural, and, in my scared and weary state, so necessary.

  When his phone rings, he glances at it for a second before handing it to me wordlessly. “Will you please,” my sister seethes, “turn on or plug in your freakin’ phone already, so I can stop calling your stupid ex?” The way she talks about Daniel makes me angry, but before I can say anything she asks, “How’s Mom? Vic tells me she’s all right, but I want to hear it from you. Is she okay?”

  “Yes,” I say, plugging my phone into its charger. “Well, she’s different.”

  “Oh, my God.” I hear Bethy hailing a cab at the airport. “What is it? Is her speech slurred? Is there paralysis? Different how, Katy?”

  My phone screen shows many calls and messages from Bethy and Vic. None from Carson. I look at Daniel, who is putting out two plates and cups and looking through my cupboards, and say, “She’s happy.”

  I tell Bethy I’ll see her tomorrow and collapse into one of my two dining room chairs. Daniel asks if I’ve eaten yet. We’ve had this exchange so many times over the years that I automatically ask him if he has.

  “I ate French fries from a vending machine in the hospital lobby,” he says.

  Knowing his food issues as well as I do, this makes me start to giggle.

  Daniel smirks. “They tasted like French fried fingers,” he says, trying to make me laugh harder, and succeeding. “They came out of a machine! What did they fry them in, WD-40?” he asks, to my peals of laughter.

  I’m still giggling as I watch him root around in my fridge. I haven’t done any food shopping since before I left for Costa Rica, which seems like a year ago. But ten minutes later, Daniel sets down a grilled cheese sandwich for me and a peanut butter and jelly for him with hot cocoa for both of us. Perfect comfort food. I devour mine as Daniel thoughtfully picks at his. “What’s the matter,” I tease, “did you fill up on French fries?” This triggers another round of giggles for both of us.

  After I’ve finished, I sigh with contentment. “Thank you.”

  “You must be wiped out,” Daniel says. I nod at him, realizing how exhausted I am. He stands and continues his caretaking, leading me to the bathroom to take out my contact lenses and washing my face with a cool cloth. Then he ushers me to the bed.

  I remember the last time the two of us stood here, by my bed, and all the times before when Daniel began the sweet ritual of undressing me before we made love. He kneels in front of me and unzips my boots, placing my hands on his shoulders to steady me as he pulls them off. When he stands again, his dark eyes meet mine. His fingers brush my neck as he reaches behind me to unzip my dress. I feel tingles as Daniel’s fingertips trail down my back with the zipper, the soft cashmere parting and falling away. My heart starts to pound, my body so accustomed to Daniel undressing me, knowing it as a sweet act of foreplay. He reaches down and takes the hem of the dress and slowly pulls it up, over my hips.

  Oh, I can’t. I can’t do this with him. I’m with Carson, my mind insists, but the thought is dim against the warmth of Daniel’s fingers and the feel of the dress being pulled up. I raise my arms, as if in surrender, and I see Daniel’s eyes go to my powder blue lace bra before the sweater blocks my vision. I can’t let this happen.

  I want it to happen. I know it’s too much to ask Daniel to be with me after I’ve been with another man. And I don’t understand how I could love Carson and want to be with Daniel this badly. It’s not about sex, and it’s more than a selfish desire for comfort. There is something I need desperately right now, stability. And it radiates from Daniel like warmth from a crackling hearth.

  The sweater is pulled away and I can see Daniel again, his eyes dark and sweet as syrup, his full mouth parted. The noise in my mind goes quiet. When I reach up to push the hair away from his handsome face, I don’t even try to stop myself.

  But Daniel stops me. Gently, he takes my hand and holds it before it can reach him.

  “Katy, I love you,” Daniel murmurs. “God, I love you so much. I never even knew what love was until I met you.” But as he speaks, he pushes my hand down to my side. “This means you’re saying yes, Katy. Yes to me. You wanted forever. Well, so do I. But I don’t want your answer now.” He caresses my fingers before taking his away. “Too much happened today, for both of us. I don’t care about him,” he says, though a hint of anger in his tone tells me otherwise. “I’ll get past that. But I want you to go back and look at him. Really look at him,” Daniel says, his voice strong and clear, “and if you think of me, even for a second, you’ll know what your answer is.”

  His pronouncement leaves me stunned as he pulls the covers back for me. Slowly, w
ith an empty feeling that can’t be filled, I climb into bed.

  Daniel kneels next to the bed and looks into my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  I’m so many things right now. Scared, spent, exhausted, and most of all, confused. I should tell him I’m fine so he can go. “No,” I admit. Daniel strokes my hair gently. I take his hand to stop him, but unlike him, I don’t have the strength to let go. I close my eyes as tears roll out of them.

  After a moment, I feel warmth everywhere as Daniel wraps himself around me.

  28.

  THE HAZE OF an exhausted sleep falls away too quickly the moment I open my eyes and see the tattoo of a cartoon mouse laughing at me.

  Behind me, Daniel shifts as I startle awake. All the events of the past twenty-four hours come rushing back to me as though I’m in a freefall from a great height. Even though I’m safe in bed, the feeling makes me cling to Daniel, who, even in sleep, cuddles me closer.

  Slowly, trying not to wake him, I shift onto my back. I can see him now, still fully dressed and on top of my comforter. He was probably cold during the night, and he still didn’t get under the covers with me, knowing that after the ordeal of what happened with my mother, I wouldn’t want to make love.

  That’s a lie I’m telling myself. Not that Daniel wouldn’t be so sensitive to my feelings, but that I wouldn’t have wanted to make love with him. I did. I wanted him so much last night. I push myself up to sitting and lean against my headboard. My God, I must be in shock over nearly losing my mother. It’s the only explanation I have for telling Carson I was in love with him yesterday morning and wanting to be with Daniel, needing him more than I’ve ever needed anyone, last night.

  With my movement, Daniel shifts sleepily. His long dark lashes and his calm expression make him look like an innocent child. As soon as he opens his eyes, that goes away. With one worried look at me, he sits up. Then his eyes don’t seem to know where to go. It’s so unsettling for us to be this awkward around each other. We know each other so well, but now we act like we hardly know each other.

  “Any word from the hospital?” Daniel asks sensibly.

  I pick up my phone from the nightstand. A text message from Bethy states that Mom is well enough to be discharged today. Nothing else, meaning no call or text from Carson.

  The look on my face makes Daniel ask, “Katy, is something wrong?”

  Everything. I broke up with Daniel because I thought he didn’t love me. I fell in love with Carson, and he said he never thought of anything without thinking of us. Now Daniel is here and Carson is . . . Where is he? I swallow hard. Even knowing him as little as I do, I would not be one bit surprised if I found out he was already back in Costa Rica.

  “Everything’s fine,” I lie, for my sake as well as Daniel’s. “Mom’s getting out of the hospital today.”

  “That’s good news,” he says.

  Both of us then turn mute with unspoken, unshared thoughts. I want to take Daniel’s hand just to stop this feeling of falling so fast and so hard. I don’t, because I can’t take him down with me.

  After a moment so quiet I can hear pigeons crooning to each other outside my window, Daniel mumbles, “I should go.”

  I climb out of bed, following him for some unknown reason. I’m in my underwear, and as many times as I’ve been naked with Daniel, our new status of not being together makes me reach for the dress he so carefully took off me last night. I hold it in front of me as though ashamed. Daniel’s gaze flickers uncomfortably to unfortunate places, from my half-naked body to the blue box with the engagement ring in it on my desk.

  But then his eyes lock with mine. He takes a step toward me, and that terrible, selfish hope that he’ll hold me in his arms again and never let go rises in me fast. He reaches up to touch my face, but his hand hovers, and his mouth is so close, but he falters away. I close my eyes to stop the tears, though I can’t, so I only hear him walk out the door.

  In A BRIEF conversation with Bethy, who is bringing my mother home from the hospital with Vic, I arrange to meet them all at Mom’s apartment later this morning. I shower quickly and, while I jump into jeans and a comfy, oversized brown sweater, I call Carson.

  His rich voice greets me in a recording. “Hey, I’m probably out surfing, leave a message.” He might still be sleeping or in the shower. Or he might be on a plane going to the other side of the world. I call again. No answer.

  My nerves are already strung tighter than banjo wire, so I make coffee more out of habit than need. The aroma of the coffee is nowhere near as good as it was in Costa Rica, and yet the scent triggers a memory of Carson so strong it’s as though he’s standing behind me, nuzzling my neck, whispering the word Us to me. I call him again. I hear his smooth, deep voice, but not his recording, and not in a way I’ve ever heard it before. “I cannot believe,” he says, his voice shaking with anger, “I was such an idiot.”

  “What? Carson, what are you talking about?”

  “You never told me there was someone else, Kate. I believed you when you said you were single. And then that guy was in your apartment, acting like I had no right to be with you. And you told me to leave! I can’t believe you let me go on and on about us, and I was being so stupid the whole time!”

  “Carson, Carson, stop!” I say, trying desperately to interject. “Where are you?”

  “I’m with Anthea Stanhope,” he answers tartly.

  When he says his ex’s name, my heart stops with jealousy it has no right to feel. “You’re where?”

  “I’m with Anthea,” Carson repeats. Then he grudgingly adds, “And her husband, Winthrop, and I’m playing with their kids. I couldn’t stay at home last night because my father and I got into it the moment he came back from the office. I drove around for hours waiting for your call, thinking it would only be a little while until we were together again. Kate,” he says, now sounding more hurt than angry, “what’s going on?”

  I sit down on my bed, my head in my hand, and tell him everything that happened with my mother. Appropriately horrified, he says, “God, Kate, is your mom all right?”

  “She’s fine. They’re even letting her go home today.”

  Carson’s sigh sounds both relieved and anguished. “Kate, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I jumped to some bad conclusions.”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  “I can be to you in two hours,” he says, renewed urgency in his voice. “I’ll drive you to the city.”

  “No, Carson, wait. Please, just this once, slow down. My mother’s coming home from the hospital. It’s not the right time for you to meet her.” He agrees readily and says we’ll talk later, and after reassuring goodbyes, he tells me he loves me.

  With a mumbled “Me, too,” I hang up. I feel like I have about as much right to tell Carson I love him as I do to accept the engagement ring from Daniel that’s still sitting on my desk.

  WHEN I GET to my mother’s apartment, Vic is unpacking bags of groceries, but a huge bouquet of red roses is taking up most of the space on the speckled grey kitchen counter. He gives me a surprisingly gentle hug for such a burly guy. “You want some coffee and breakfast?” he offers. “I can make you ham and eggs. Actually, reduced-fat ham and egg whites. I’m putting your mom on a new regime.”

  “Oh, thanks, but no. My stomach’s still a little jumpy from everything that’s been going on.” I reach under the sink for a vase while Vic puts away the groceries. He doesn’t quite know where Mom puts things in her kitchen. Or maybe, I think with a smile as I trim the rose stems, he has his own way of doing things. I imagine adorable arguments when Vic and Mom move in together about which cupboard the cans of soup should go in, the kind of sweet debates I can’t wait to have with—

  With someone, I think as I put the flowers in the vase. I feel Vic’s hand on my shoulder. “You okay, kid?” he asks. “I know this was rough for you.”

  Normally I would say I was fine. Vic looks like the type whose kind blue eyes could see right through that. “I’m better knowing you’r
e with her,” I tell him, and he gives me a very fatherly hug. It feels so good. I may be thirty years old, but I’d still like to have a dad in my life.

  I take the roses into my mother’s bedroom. “Oh, Katy, those are beautiful,” Mom says. She’s propped up on a bunch of pillows and wearing a pink silk robe, something uncharacteristically non-functional that a woman would wear when there’s a new man around. “I can’t take the credit,” I say, setting the vase on her bureau next to childhood photos of Bethy and me and many of Celia. “They’re from your beau.” Mom breaks into a girlish smile.

  Just then, I hear Bethy’s voice behind me. “There’s my big sister,” she says, but when I turn around and take a look at her, she’s not my little sister anymore. As we enfold each other in a hug, I know it hasn’t been that long since I last saw Bethy, maybe six months? But somehow, she looks more mature. After a long, deep embrace, I hold her at arm’s length so I can look at her. She’s cut her hair sensibly short, and she has a maternal softness about her, but there’s nothing tangible that says she’s aged. I guess it’s just time, I think as I look from her to our mother and back again. Mom’s getting older, Bethy and Ray are probably trying for a second child. And here I am, the eldest daughter and big sister, seemingly stuck in time.

  Vic comes in with a glass of orange juice for Mom. “I’ll leave you ladies to catch up,” he says. “I’m going back to my place to get some things so I can stay over and make sure the queen gets some rest.” He leans down and gives my mother a light kiss.

  She smiles up at him and gives what graying hair he has left a little pat. Bethy and I exchange smiles and raised eyebrows of disbelief over this new, sweet version of our mother.

  Bethy begins updating me on Mom’s condition, relaying information the doctor gave her this morning. I sit on the edge of Mom’s bed, picking up various bottles of medication, looking at the names, trying to understand it all as well as Bethy seems to. My mother regards me for a moment and says, “It’s fine, Katy. I’m okay. I just have to watch my stress levels, make a few changes.”