by P. J. Fox
“We should sit down,” Charlotte said.
They sat.
Tea appeared. And coffee for Belle. She held the single white mug, bone china with a gilt edge, feeling the warmth seep into her fingers.
Ash sat next to Belle on the couch, and Charlotte in the chair. The fire crackled merrily, an incongruous note. Warm weather was long in coming, in the mountains. As it was in northern Maine. Romania, with its unpredictable weather and its poverty, made Belle feel right at home.
Ash rested one arm on the back of the couch, behind Belle’s shoulders. A casually proprietary gesture and one that, in this situation, Belle appreciated. She needed to feel like she had support. Was part of a team. This whole situation had put her on edge.
And then the other shoe dropped.
“Belle,” Charlotte said, without preamble, “your father died.”
Belle’s heart lurched in her chest.
“The hell he did,” Ash said.
“No one else knew how to contact you.” Charlotte’s tone was soft.
“Because you didn’t tell them.”
Belle shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. “Where…is my mother?”
“In Scarborough. She wants to talk to you.”
“Does she…have my number?”
“No. No one does.”
Of course. Of course. Belle had isolated herself and….
“When?” she asked. Had he been dead weeks? Months?
“Last night.” Charlotte’s mask cracked. “Oh, Belle, I would have told you if I’d known he—”
“Bollocks.” Ash radiated a terrifying cold anger. Terrifying because it was so cold. “You manipulated this situation so you could deliver the news, you chav bint.”
Belle’s lower lip trembled. He was saying the things she couldn’t. Ash only reverted to schoolboy slang when he was well and truly furious. He’d just called Charlotte a white trash ho and Belle had to admit that, in that moment, she agreed with his characterization. With everything. And yet…her father had died and they were fighting?
“Excuse me,” she said, standing up. “I have to go.”
And she walked out.
She didn’t know where she was walking. She didn’t care. Her father was dead?
But Owen Wainwright was a young man.
And people—people didn’t just die. With no warning. Except, came a little voice from deep inside, maybe there had been warnings. Maybe she’d just missed them, being so wrapped up in her own life. Ignoring her family in favor of one stupid, pointless thing after another.
And now…now he was gone.
Belle didn’t know how to feel. Or, rather, she was feeling too many things at once. Conflicting things. Terrible things. Part of her couldn’t help but experience an overwhelming sense of relief. That was purely out of selfishness: she wouldn’t have to deal with that relationship anymore, a relationship that had brought her nothing but pain. Pain and a crushing, numbing disappointment. At least in her later years. She wouldn’t have to feel guilty anymore. Finally, there was nothing she could do—to save him, or to improve her own attitude toward him. She didn’t have to feel like she was abandoning him by living her own life. Or like she was abandoning her mother to cope with him alone.
But…he was gone. He wasn’t in the world anymore. There had been good times with him, too. At least when she was a child. Good times that didn’t translate well into stories, she’d discovered. She thought certain things were funny, but other people just stared at her in horror. They didn’t see the humor in discovering her father, passed out under his Barcalounger. Or in watching him yodel while urinating on her pediatrician’s bushes.
What made her saddest, though, was knowing that now there’d never be a chance to fix things.
And yet…it didn’t feel real.
Why didn’t it feel more real?
She found herself sitting on the railing of the colonnade, staring out at nothing.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there.
Diana tapped her on the shoulder, and passed her the phone. Belle hadn’t even heard the housekeeper approach. She accepted the phone reflexively. Diana vanished, leaving her alone. It was warm out, she thought abstractedly. Their first real taste of the growing season in the mountains. But there’d be no picnic now.
“Hello?” she said.
“Belle?”
“Hi, Mommy.” And then she began to sob.
“Belle, are you alright?”
“Mommy, is it true?”
A pause. And then, “yes.”
“What happened?”
“God—I’ve been so worried! We’ve all been so worried! How could you do that to me, just—just vanish? One minute you’re in class and then the next…you’re gone?”
“I met a man and I dropped out.”
“And then you—wait. You met a man?” There was a distinct note of excitement in Donna’s voice. Excitement, and disbelief. Clearly this whole situation was just as unreal for her. “Who is he? Does he treat you well? I’ve warned you about those college boys, all talk and no action. How do you know if he’s—”
“He’s out of college.”
“How old is he? Older than me? Oh, God, Belle, if you’ve—”
“No. He’s like, fifteen years older.”
“That’s still old enough to be your father.” And then, realizing what she’d said, Donna started sobbing, too.
That was the thing about conversations like this: they never went how you thought they would. Nothing ever did. Not falling in love, and not finding out that your parent had died.
Being an adult, Belle decided, was for the birds.
“I miss him, Mom.”
“I do, too. I only divorced him because…but I always hoped….”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
“Are you coming home? You have to come home.”
“Yes. I—we—are.”
“We? You’re a we?” Donna sniffed. “My daughter is twenty years old and she’s a we….”
“I’m almost twenty-one, Mom.”
Why were they debating such inane things?
“I’m not going back to school, Mom.” There. It was out. No time like the present to completely crush her remaining parent’s soul.
“But how are you…I wanted better things for you, Belle. I know you think I was always hard on you and I was, I was a terrible mother. I am a terrible mother. I had you way too young and I messed up. A lot. But I love you and…and…I didn’t want you to end up like me.”
Belle heard the sound of Donna blowing her nose. She resisted the urge to tell Donna that she hadn’t been a disappointing mother.
“I’m fine. He’s good to me. And he has a good job.”
“Is he a contractor? Does he manage something?”
They came from a town, Belle reminded herself, where the richest citizen managed the town’s only Dairy Queen. The town’s only restaurant at all, not counting the truck stop on the highway. The nearest McDonald’s was over an hour’s drive away, in a different county.
“He’s in materials fabrication.”
“He—what?”
“He’s rich, Mom. Really, really rich.”
More sniffling. Another wet blow. “But are you alright?”
That one question contained a wealth of other questions: about who Belle was now and where she’d been. About whether Donna had failed her only child after all. And that was, to Donna, the most important question. She needed to know if this was a reflection on her. If she had to feel guilty, now, about something else or if she could relax on that one score. And suddenly, clearly, Belle saw that her mother’s life had been harder than she’d ever realized.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
They shared the silence for awhile.
“But you’re coming?” Donna’s voice was small.
“Yes. We’ll be there as soon as possible. I’ll let you know exactly when.”
“But—can you get a flight? Can you afford it? And
remember, nobody flies into Portland. They all fly into Logan and then you have to rent a car and….” Tears overtook her again.
“Trust me, Mom, it won’t be a problem.” And then, “what happened?”
Donna told her.
It was strange, having this conversation with her mother. Like they’d just talked the week before, and not six months ago. Longer, maybe. Belle had never been very good at keeping in touch. Calls to her mother usually involved hearing about how she needed to study harder—without Donna inquiring into her grades—and get out more—how she was supposed to do that while studying more, Belle didn’t know—and meet a nice boy while, at the same time, not sacrificing her future career potential for some pointless Nicholas Sparks sap story that would only end in tears.
“He had a massive heart attack.”
“How? When?”
“We don’t know. His landlady found him. He’d…I guess he’d been fighting with somebody down at the docks again. Something about traps.” Which made sense; Owen was always complaining about someone stealing his traps. Which they wouldn’t, as he kept them in shit repair. And it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway, as he didn’t have a boat.
“When was he diagnosed with heart disease?”
“He wasn’t. You know your father. He always refuses to visit the doctor.” Donna took a deep, ragged breath. “I mean refused. He refused….”
Belle’s shoulders shook with deep, silent tears.
NINETY-TWO
Ash found her there, some time later.
He must have gotten the information from Charlotte, about how to contact Donna. She wondered vaguely where Charlotte was, but she didn’t ask. Charlotte could die, for all Belle cared.
Ash put his arm around her. She leaned against him, her eyes closed, breathing in the comforting scents of cotton and expensive cologne and that something that was just him. She was still holding the phone in her hands, although she’d been off it for a long time now. Donna had been worried about long distance bills.
On top of everything else, she felt so stupid.
Talking to her mother had opened something up inside her. Something she’d tried to keep closed. She’d wanted—needed—to escape that world. The world her parents inhabited was one of hollow, dragging despair. The world they had inhabited. But the truth was, too, that she hadn’t realized how much anyone needed her. Hearing the raw yearning in Donna’s voice made Belle realize something that should have been obvious all along: her mother loved her, and missed her. And because Belle was the strong one, and always had been, needed her. Particularly now.
When it came to her family, the line between want and need was blurry. Maybe it was in all families. Maybe Donna loved her so much because she needed her. Maybe all parents needed their children, needed them to grow up and be strong as they themselves diminished.
“Someone yelled at him until he died.”
Ash stroked her hair, and said nothing.
“The dock master told him he was a drunken fool, which he was, and to screw off, and no one thought to offer him a ride home and so he walked…and it was too cold…and he died.”
“And all my mother wanted to know was why I hadn’t gone back to college.”
“Come inside,” Ash said.
“I need to go to home.”
“I know.”
Pulling back, she looked up at him. Willing him to understand. That this wasn’t about him. Or her. It was about duty. Moral obligation. She’d abandoned her family in pursuit of her own happiness and now she needed to go back. Not to stay, but to arrange things so she could leave again. Hopefully, this time, for good.
But she didn’t have the words.
“I called the airport. The plane is being fueled as we speak. We can leave when you’re ready.”
“I didn’t ask her about the funeral…I didn’t ask her about anything….”
“We can figure that out when we’re all on the same continent.”
“I should pack.”
“Let Luna pack for you.”
Belle rounded on him. “I can do things for myself! I’m not useless!”
“I didn’t mean to suggest—”
But Belle was striding toward the door.
Ash followed her. He was so calm, so disgustingly calm. “Belle, all I meant is that you need to take care of yourself.”
“Because then I’ll feel better?” She didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“No. Because then dealing with your loss will be easier.”
“You don’t know anything about my loss!”
He didn’t respond.
She felt like an ass. Of course he did. His own mother had died.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Grieving is a process.”
And then, half enraged at him and half enraged at herself for being so irrational and for lashing out at him when he was only trying to help, “don’t lecture me!”
This time, when she turned on her heel, he let her go.
She went up to their room, intending to pack, and found that she couldn’t bring herself to do anything more than curl up face down on the bed. There were five stages of grief, or so some intro class had once claimed: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But she didn’t feel any of those; she felt nothing. There was a huge, sucking void where her feelings should be. She’d cried, without feeling sorrow; she’d yelled, without feeling anger. Or, if she felt anger at anyone, it was her mother.
Typical Donna, wailing on about Belle’s future no matter how inappropriate the circumstances. Leave it to her to find a way to blame Belle. To make anything about how Belle wasn’t doing the right thing. Probably could be doing better. Her fucking father had just fucking died and all Donna wanted to talk about was long distance charges. That, and Belle’s career plans. And yet, Belle knew perfectly well that if she’d brought up either of those things, Donna would have had a cow.
I can’t believe you’re thinking about something so shallow at a time like this.
Belle was like the Cubs: she couldn’t win.
Bargaining—for what? For him to come back again?
Everything was so fucking stupid.
She fell asleep.
When she woke up, Ash was sitting on the bed beside her.
She wondered how long she’d been asleep, glanced at the window, and knew. A long time. Which was strange, because she’d had no sense of time passing. But it had been late morning when she’d laid down and it was nighttime now.
She got up, used the bathroom, splashed some water on her face and came back.
Ash hadn’t moved.
She sat down.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing.”
He was still calm only this time his measured words acted on her like a balm, soothing her troubled mind. He was here and, simply by being here, he made her feel like things might be alright. Somehow. Some day. She smiled slightly. “Well that’s not true. There’s plenty wrong with me.”
“No there isn’t.” He gestured. “I had Luna pack your things.”
“What? And risk further feminist rage?”
“It was a risk I had to take.”
“I must have really been asleep.”
“You were. She was in here, being…herself. And so was I.”
“Being yourself?”
“I suppose.” He shrugged. “Telling her what to pack. Of my things, I mean.”
Belle understood that. She wasn’t sure she’d trust Luna to pack things for a man, either. She was the type who’d forget, in her excitement, that they wore underpants. She stared at her suitcases. She wasn’t wondering what was inside them. She stopped to think about that fact for a few minutes, realized she didn’t care, and found that obscurely troublesome. Shouldn’t she care? She hadn’t seen her mother at this point in almost a year; what if all Luna had packed was lin
gerie?
Then, she supposed, she’d greet her mother in lingerie.
Her thoughts were making no sense.
She wanted to go back to sleep.
“Would you like me to send for sandwiches?” Ash asked.
Belle nodded. Was she hungry? She didn’t know.
“And then we should leave.”
But Belle was staring out the window, and didn’t respond.
“Belle.” Ash’s voice had taken on a different tone. “We need to talk.”
She waited.
“I—”
“You were acting funny this morning,” she said abruptly.
She wanted him to deny it. To tell her that she’d been imagining things, that their life together was the same as it had always been. That now, of all times, she could rely on him to be stable. To be her rock.
Instead, he said, “yes. And that’s what I need to discuss with you. And, unfortunately, it can’t wait.”
Her blood ran cold. He sounded so…heavy. Final. As though the weight of the world was pressing down on his shoulders.
Her eyes searched his.
“Belle.” He paused. The silence stretched, filled with a thousand and one nightmare scenarios. “I can’t go to Maine—”
“What?”
“Belle—”
“But I thought—”
But he’d just told her that he’d packed, too. What was this, some kind of sick joke? Telling her that he was coming with her, leading her to believe that she could rely on him, and then— “Are you breaking up with me?”
“Belle, let me finish—”
She jumped off the bed. “Because honestly, I can’t believe this.” She strode toward the door. With no clear idea of where she was going but desperate to put some space between them. And after she’d actually let him make her feel better, after she’d actually felt guilty that she’d been so rude. “Couldn’t you have waited until—”
