by J Grayland
Startled by my phone ringing, I reached out toward the bedside table and saw Nate’s name flash across the screen. I answered it with a sleepy, “Hi.”
“Sorry I woke you, baby. I know it’s late,” he said, and the sound of his voice put a smile on my lips instantly. Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes.
“No, I’m glad you did. I wanted you to,” I reassured him. “How was your flight?”
“Long and boring.”
“What, even in business class?” I asked, smiling to myself.
“Yes, because I didn’t have you as my blanket.”
“Are you at the hotel?”
“Yeah, I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep. I need to be up early in the morning. I just wanted to call and hear your voice. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. So much,” I said, cradling the phone tenderly like I was actually touching him.
“I know, it feels wrong being without you.”
“It’ll go fast,” I said.
“It better because I will not be doing it again. Is Mrs. Winters there with you?”
“Yes, she turned up with bags full of food, and we did some baking,” I said, smiling as I remembered how much fun I’d had.
“Yeah, well, she’s a great cook.”
“That she is. At this rate, I’ll be twice as big by the time you get back,” I laughed.
“Good, more of you for me to play with,” he said playfully, and I could feel his grin radiating through the phone. With a hesitant goodbye, I hung up the phone and lay down to cuddle back up to his pillow.
I awoke to the wonderful, mouth-watering smell of bacon frying. The odor streaming through the air and under the bedroom door made my stomach growl in response. Getting up and pulling on a pair of shorts and t-shirt, I made my way out to the kitchen, following the smell in a trance.
Carmel was standing at the stove when I entered the kitchen. She looked up from the frying pan that she was concentrating on as she moved crispy bacon and fried eggs around in it. “Morning, sugar, did you sleep well?” she asked, her southern drawl stronger this morning.
“Yes, thank you. Nate called around 1 a.m. He got to the hotel in London,” I told her.
“Oh, that’s good to hear. You hungry?” she asked as she pulled a couple of plates from the overhead cupboard.
“Starving.”
“Then you go sit down, and I’ll fix you a plate. This is ready for eating,” she said and started to serve what looked like a huge helping of bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes. “There you go, honey, tuck in,” she said, placing the plate in front of me.
Holy crap, there was enough food on my plate to feed at least four people. I was still staring at my plate when she brought two glasses of orange juice to the table followed by her own plate. She picked up her fork and noticed I was still staring at my plate of food.
“Come on, eat up,” she said, pointing to my plate with her fork.
“All of it?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Yep, every last bite,” she said, giving me a cheeky, playful grin.
“I’ll do my best,” I said, diving into the mountain of bacon and filling my mouth with it. There was no way on earth I was able to finish it all, but I did manage to convince her that I would keep the rest for lunch later. Carmel left around 10 a.m. to run some errands, and there were some things to take care of at the penthouse. I knew that Nate would rather have had her stay here with me the whole time, but she was very proud and particular about her job, and she liked to keep on top of the cleaning at the penthouse. She told me that it only took one day of not dusting, and the place would look like a crop duster had flown through. It did take a little convincing on my part in reassuring her that I would be fine, and that she shouldn’t change her routine because of Nate’s overprotective nature. Eventually, she relented, even agreeing to me cooking a meal for her tonight. Yes! I was starting to win with this woman.
After tidying up the kitchen, I went back into the bedroom to make the bed that I had hastily exited this morning. Tucking the sheets into my side of the bed, I spotted a hair tie on the floor. Picking it up, I opened the drawer on the bedside table to put it back into a small heart-shaped container that I kept in there. While I was putting my hair tie in the container, my fingers brushed against my mother’s diary. I pulled it out and sat on the side of the bed. I ran my fingers over the thin, leather lace that was wrapped around it and tied in a bow at the front. The whole book was bound in leather with my mother’s initials carved into the front cover. In the corner were small, carved flower heads surrounded by tiny leaves. Someone had spent a lot of time crafting it, and I wondered for a moment if maybe my father had made it for her. Thinking back to my childhood, I couldn’t actually remember much about him at all. I never saw him do anything physical around the house, like mowing the lawn or gardening. I never even saw him tinkering under the hood of the car. He mostly stayed in his study when he was at home, and I was pretty sure if he had made something as elegant as this diary, my mother would have surely bragged to her friends when they came over for her elaborate dinner parties that took place at least once a month.
I winced as I remembered those dinner parties. I knew when one was coming up, due to the ugly, frilly dresses that would appear on the end of my bed, along with a frilly pair of white socks and a pair of shiny, polished black shoes. It reminded me of an outfit for an old style baby doll, with layers of taffeta and bows. I was always instructed to take a bath, wash my hair, and get dressed. Then, she would come up to my room and do her inspection, making sure everything was in place just how she liked it. I would also receive a lecture on how she expected me to behave in front of her friends that evening, which usually consisted of me standing up straight with my hands behind my back, smile, be polite, and answer only if spoken to. Once the façade was over, I was sent up to my room to change, which was the best part because the dresses were always uncomfortable and itchy. After dinner, I was expected to be in bed, my dress neatly hung in the closet when mother came up with a sandwich and a glass of milk and a small after dinner mint as a treat for behaving myself. Getting the dress off and savoring the dark chocolate with its minty center was the best part of those dinner parties.
Looking down at the book in my hand, I contemplated opening it. Did I really want to know what was written on the pages? It was a diary…maybe if I read it, I might have a better understanding of my mother’s feelings, her thoughts. Torn between wanting to read it and wanting to burn it, I realized that if I didn’t want to read it, then I would never have saved it from the box it was in and brought it with me. Pulling the leather lace bow, I unwrapped the book from its bindings and opened the stiff cover. On the top right-hand corner were the words, “My darling Corrine, love always, David.” The diary started on the 1st of January 1985, so I guessed it must have been a Christmas present from my father, and she had dutifully started writing in it at the start of a new year.
As I started scanning through the pages at her neat, flowing handwriting, I noticed that her words were so shallow and pompous. She discussed various cases she was working on. Not in detail, and without any names, of course, but she would also write down her thoughts of people that she worked with, which were just nasty and derogatory, and she did name those people. Names that were very familiar. As I kept reading, it struck me like a lightning bolt that all of these people that she talked about with such malice and hatred were the people that attended her monthly dinner parties. Flipping through the pages, I read as she talked about their cheap clothes and endless trips into hospital for plastic surgery, affairs, and gossip. This woman was just a pure bitch. Slamming the book closed, I placed it back into the drawer, wiping my hands down my thighs as though it would wipe the stain of her hateful words away. My thoughts were broken by the vibrating sound of my phone as it silently rang and moved across the bedside table. Picking it up, I pressed the green accept button an
d put it to my ear.
“Hi,” I breathed out shakily.
“Casey?” Nate said, his voice sounding concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Did you get some sleep?” I asked, trying to brighten my tone.
“Don’t change the subject,” he growled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I was just in the bedroom looking for something, and I was getting frustrated at not finding it,” I said more confidently.
Silence.
“Nate?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, now concerned that he wasn’t.
“I’m fine. It’s you I’m concerned about. When you answered, you sounded…agitated. Upset.”
“Well, I’m fine. Honestly, you just caught me when I was starting to get pissed off at all the crap in the closet, that’s all. Now, tell me about you,” I said, trying to steer the conversation off of me and on to him. Just when I thought I was starting to lose this battle, he sighed over the line.
“I’m fine, just missing you.”
“I know that feeling well. I am missing you like crazy, too. So, what are your plans for today, Mr. King?”
“I’m escorting the senator to his conference, then he has a dinner to attend after. Then, back to the hotel.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Yeah, about as exciting as getting my fingernails pulled out with a rusty pair of pliers.”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad. What about seeing some of London while you’re there?”
“No time for that. Anyway, I’ve seen it plenty of times before, I just…” he trailed off, and I could hear the frustration in them.
“I know, I feel the same. Just try and relax. The more you think about it, the longer time will drag, okay?”
“Yeah, I know. You’re right.”
“I know I am,” I said, grinning.
“Oh, crap, did I just say that out loud?” he asked with a playful tone in his voice. “Damn.”
“You sure did, and you can’t take it back,” I laughed. I was so glad he sounded less tense than when I first answered the phone. We chatted for a while longer as he told me about his room, the food, and the weather before he let out a relaxed sigh.
“I love hearing your voice,” he said.
“Yes, well, I think we may have become addicted to each other because I love hearing yours, too. Is that a bad thing?” I asked him.
“Nope, and if it is, then I am really, really bad.”
After hanging up with Nate, I glanced at the drawer in the bedside table again, thinking about the diary inside of it. I felt the need to read more now that I had started it, and yet I also felt like I should leave it. After a few moments, I decided to leave it where it was for now. By the time Carmel came back later that afternoon, I had cooked us a chicken curry with vegetables and rice, heaped some into two bowls, and we sat and ate in front of the TV. This was starting to feel like a girls’ weekend, sitting around watching old movies and chatting. She was curious about Australia. My home country was a subject that I could ramble on about for hours, and I did. By the time we had eaten, done the dishes, and tidied up the kitchen, she let out a big yawn, making me realize that this poor woman had been gone all day working, so I fixed us both a mug of hot chocolate and ushered her off to bed.
I took my own mug into my bedroom and climbed into bed. Chance jumped on the bottom and stretched himself out. “You better enjoy it while you can because in a couple of days, you will be back in your own bed,” I said, giving him a smile and a scratch behind his ears. Opening the drawer and pulling out the diary, I laid it on my lap and stared at it as I sipped my hot chocolate.
Chapter Thirty
Casey
Still staring at it half an hour later, I placed my empty mug on the bedside table and let temptation get the better of me. I opened up the diary to the last page I had read. By looking at the dates at the top of each page, she didn’t seem to write in it every day, but at least one or two times a week. A lot of what she wrote, I considered egotistical shit. And that was being nice. She was just so shallow and self-centered, so unemotional that the only thing she seemed to talk about with any form of enthusiasm was herself and occasionally my father. Flipping through the pages and skimming over her words, I glanced back up to the date again at the top of the page and looked at the year: 1985. My stomach did a tiny somersault as I went through the math in my brain, trying to count back from when I was born. I flipped the pages past April and May until I got to June, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, nothing. 4th, 5th, nothing. And then on the 6th, there it was, right in front of my eyes, so clear and shocking for me to see that I dropped the diary back onto the bed as I put both hands to my mouth with a gasp.
Staring down at the open book on the bed in front of me was all I could do. I never thought when I started reading it that it would bring me to my mother’s feelings while she was pregnant with me, yet just a glance at her words on the paper caused me to feel torn once again, not sure of whether I should continue to read or stop. Getting up from the bed, I walked into the kitchen, and made myself a hot cup of tea to take back into the bedroom. Sitting back on the bed, I leaned back against the headboard and sipped my tea, my eyes glued to the still open diary like if I blinked, it was going to close itself and disappear or something. Or maybe that’s what I really wanted it to do? Fuck, this was crazy. Finishing off my tea, I picked up the diary and started to read.
June 6th, 1985
Today, I feel as though my life is over. I went to see Dr. Woods about some worrying symptoms that I thought may be due to early menopause last week. I had some blood tests done while I was there, and I have just received a phone call from her with the results. It seems that I am expecting a baby. I’m not sure it has fully sunk in yet, even after talking to David about it. He was just as shocked as I was, as our whole married life we have been so very careful. What is even more devastating is that David will not even consider having an abortion, as it’s against God’s will. This is something I am unprepared for. I cannot find the words to describe how I am feeling at the moment, and with no abortion or even giving the child up for adoption after it’s born. David said if it’s God’s will that we must have a child, then we will abide by it. I think it has nothing to do with God, as this child is a curse and I am beside myself.
I wasn’t sure how one should feel as they were reading their mother’s experience and emotional state on the day she found out she was pregnant, but after reading her words, I was pretty sure it wasn’t hatred. For most women, it would be a joyful day, but not for this emotionally inept one. Turning the page, it had skipped to the following week.
June 13th, 1985
I am still in a state of turmoil with this thing growing inside of me. It makes me feel so tired, and the constant feeling of illness makes it very hard to get through the day at the office. I have no plan of telling anyone until I really have to, as it will be hard to hide the shame and pretend to be happy about the whole thing. Dr. Woods has advised me to limit my wine to one glass a day, but I have no intentions of doing that. In fact, I may increase it, and when this constant sickness wears off, I am going to take up running in the afternoons. Maybe with the increased alcohol consumption and vigorous exercise, this thing may just fall out of its own accord.
Slamming the book closed in fury at the thought of this woman trying on purpose to harm an innocent baby made bile start to rise in my belly. What made it even worse was that the innocent baby was me.
Shoving the diary into the bedside drawer, I switched off the lamp and snuggled down under the covers, reaching for Nate’s pillow to cuddle into, taking comfort in the knowledge that he would be home soon. I woke early the next morning after a terrible night. I guess that’s what you get for reading a horror story just before you go to sleep. After I showered and dressed, I went out into the kitchen and started makin
g some breakfast for Carmel before she headed off for work.
Throughout the day, as much as I tried, I just couldn’t get my mother’s words out of my head. I mean, I knew she was a bitch, but I think when I decided to read her diary I thought I might find some kind of reason for why she hated me so much. I guess I was looking for some kind of silver lining amongst the shitty clouds of my childhood. I had, and so far, I was getting exactly what my parents had given me my whole life…nothing. My phone started to ring just after lunch. Picking it up, I saw Paxton’s name on the screen. “Hey, Paxton,” I answered.
“How you doing, Casey?” he asked.
“I’m great. Missing Nate, but I’m good.”
“Yep, I miss the asshole, as well, but he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“What time does his flight get in?” I asked.
“Around five in the afternoon. I offered to pick him up, but he took the Audi and left it in long-term parking. He said he wanted to get home fast, and something along the lines of me driving like an old lady,” he chuckled.
“Well, Paxton, I like old lady driving just fine.”
“Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I organized your volunteer work at the free clinic. All your paperwork came through from the medical board, so I thought you might be eager for something to do until you get an internship at the hospital.”
“That’s great, Paxton, I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Good. I just wanted to double check and to see when you might want to start?”
“As soon as they need me,” I answered eagerly.
“They’re a free clinic, Casey. They wanted you, like, yesterday,” he said with amusement.
