“If this is all true, why did he disown Aunt Margaret?”
Her response was lighting fast. It was as if she truly believed in the man and had every intention of defending him. “He didn’t disown her. It’s true his upbringing made it hard for him to accept her choice of lifestyle. But it was she who decided against the money. She wanted him to give all his money away and be a true politician for the people. When he flat out refused, she told him to give any money he had put aside for her to charities for the needy. And he did. Every year, he gives to several charities in her name.”
For the first time ever, I hated my mother. All that she’d stolen from me and finally, I knew why. I knew why she hated me, but I didn’t know how far her hate reached.
A memory unfolded before my eyes.
thirty-seven
many, many years ago
The yelling woke me, and I found myself moving silently towards the noise as if I had to. I tiptoed down the hallway and stairs to stand in front of the location of the voices. The library. I knew if I got caught, there would be hell to pay. Through the closed door, I heard everything as if I stood in the room with them.
“It’s her isn’t it?”
“Livy, there’s no one but you. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Yet, you still communicate with her.”
I imagined my father with tufts of hair in his fist as he pulled at it. “What do you want me to do? She…” The rest of his words had softened enough that Mom’s cries drowned them out. The wail she let out made tears spill down my face. I wanted to go to her and curl in her lap. I knew I could give her a hug and make her smile again.
“What about me? What about all I gave up for you?”
“This again.” Dad sounded frustrated like he did when I spilled juice on his important papers.
“Yes. Everything I gave up. I gave you a son and lost my insides as payment. I’ll never have another child. If you leave me, who will have me? I’m hardly a woman anymore.”
“Livy, I love you, not her. I love our son and you should too.”
“For what?”
“He’s innocent in all of this,” Dad said in the same way he’d spoken to me about the dead bird I’d found in our backyard the day before school started.
“Oh is he now. He’s taken what little time you have from me. You’re always working or with him.”
“I’m working to get you all the things you want. The things you deserve to have.”
“I don’t have ovaries and a uterus. Can you get that back for me?”
The door crashed opened and for a second Dad and I stared at each other. His hand reached out, and I stepped back, confused. I wasn’t yet old enough to know what ovaries and a uterus were, but I was old enough to guess it wasn’t good.
“Everything is fine. Your mother and I had a disagreement, but it has nothing to do with you.”
It was one of the first times my father lied to me. Everything wasn’t fine. I’d heard it all, and the fight was about me.
Mom stood in the background wearing an empty expression, the kind she wore when she spoke to the housekeeper about something she did wrong. I couldn’t tell if she was upset I’d heard or not. I ran up the stairs with my father calling after me.
“Livy!” I heard my father shout.
I shut myself in my room and fell on my bed. It was one of the few times I remember crying. At some point, Dad came in and tried to make things right. The next day, I had my first motorcycle, a miniaturized one. It was the size of a dirt bike and totally cool. Dad taught me how to ride like everything the night before hadn’t been said. Later, he took me to little league practice against Mom’s desire for him to spend some time with her.
As young as I was, I accepted the peace in the house when we sat down for dinner later that night. It enfolded like every other night as if I hadn’t heard that Mom hated me for the destruction I’d caused her body. Mom was there in body but spoke to neither of us. After that day, she never even made an effort to hide her disgust of me. And it would be many years before I was left alone in her tender care by my cowardly father.
thirty-eight
Silence made it hard to sleep. Charlene had offered a room for me to stay the night in. I’d pulled my motorcycle in one of the garage bays because of the threat of rain. As I heard the crack of lightning, I was grateful I’d done so. The news that I wasn’t as in dire straits did nothing to alleviate the negative mood that cloaked me.
I’d used my grandfather’s office at Charlene’s insistence. I needed to borrow his computer as I hadn’t brought my laptop with me. She said the room hadn’t been used much in the last several months due to grandfather’s condition. While I was in his office, I placed a call to my Aunt that went as expected. I replayed it in my head.
“Aunt Margaret.”
“Ethan honey, is everything okay?”
She would ask because it wasn’t like we spoke often.
“I’m here at grandfather’s and they tell me it’s only a matter of time. I think you and Mom should come as soon as possible.”
Silence.
Her next words were choked. “We can’t afford a flight to DC on short notice.”
After talking with Charlene, she made arrangements for them to fly out that day. I lay back on the bed with my arms folded behind my head and closed my eyes. The cadence of the pelting rain eventually coaxed me to sleep.
A vision of Jess bare to me filled my dream in wondrous ways. When she dipped her head lower, I thought I would shoot off like a pop rocket. It was so real. I swear I felt the silky strands of her hair through my fingers. I was so close, I felt my body buck, which threatened to rouse me from sleep.
Expansive creamy skin was bared above me as she poised herself to sink on the part of me that stood at attention. When my eyes opened fully, I realized two things really quick. First, I wasn’t dreaming. Second, the girl about to ride me wasn’t Jess.
I scrambled away just in time and the girl who somehow got in my room toppled over like a house of cards.
“What the F—” I called out.
My pants were tossed on the side of the bed. Crouching on the other side, I bent to put them on.
The girl stood naked, unabashed, on the other side without a hint of shame. My eyes narrowed.
“You.” The one word was an accusation because I knew her.
“Congratulations. I’ll give you points for remembering me.”
“How could I forget?” Spittle flew from my mouth as I spat out the words. She was the whore who had singlehandedly destroyed my relationship with Jess. The blonde who had drugged me. I couldn’t have been more convinced of it at that moment.
Reasons for why she was there corrupted my mind like a computer virus. Did grandfather send her?
“You need to get the fuck out of here?” I yelled because I was on the verge of hitting a woman for the first time in my life.
Guys talked about fantasies of waking up with a girl giving them head. All I felt was a total sense of violation. When she didn’t move, I yelled my fury more.
“What the hell is your game?”
“My game. I didn’t come to you. You came to me. I thought it was fate.”
Her home. The door to my room opened, and Charlene came to a halt just inside. She looked at me where I held a sheet against my dick like a shield. It didn’t matter I had pants on. I’d been undressed and used like a toy for ends I didn’t know.
“Clarissa what are you doing in here?”
“You know her?” I could feel my face screwed up in a messed up scowl.
“She’s my daughter.”
“Daughter?” I choked.
Charlene didn’t have a chance to answer. Clarissa had words for us all.
“Yes, mother. What am I doing here? I’m doing what you should have done. I was trying to secure our future.”
Curse words filled my head like a crossword puzzle. I forced myself to say them inwardly because I had a feeling I wanted to
hear what the crazy bitch had to say.
“What have you done?” Charlene appeared furious, making me doubt she had any part in what scheme was unfolding.
“The old fart has days, mother. After which, we will be out flat on our asses. If you had some sense and gotten knocked up by the Senator and not some backwoods good for nothing cowboy, we wouldn’t be here.”
Charlene stared at her daughter as if she sprouted horns. Somehow her words came out composed.
“The Senator took me in after I was caught with one of his colleagues on the Hill. My career was shot to hell. I had an opportunity here for a good life for you. I was able to raise you here, and you went to the finest schools.”
“Public schools,” Clarissa amended.
“The school you went to is consistently in the top ten in the nation.” Charlene’s veins strained in her neck as she yelled the last bit.
“Still when he dies, he will leave you with nothing.”
“It doesn’t matter. With free room and board all these years, I’ve saved enough to live a nice life.”
“Not like this.” Clarissa’s arms went wide to encompass the walls and what lay beyond them.
The two were quietly closing the distance. I had a moment to wonder if I should stop them. I held my ground. If I lay on hand on either of them, I could be put up on charges. I had enough to worry about as it was. If things got to death con levels, I would intervene.
“I read to that fucker, drew him pictures, and tried to make him proud of me every year of my life. And what did I get every birthday?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Fifty dollars in worthless saving’s bonds. Every Christmas I got a doll until I’d grown out of them. Then I got a hundred dollar bill in a card probably signed by you. And what did I get for graduation, a fabulous European trip? My college tuition paid? NO! The old fart has more money than God, and I got a hundred and fifty dollars in cash and a fifty dollar gift card to Starbucks.”
“Clarissa, he owed you nothing.”
The bitch pointed at me. “And this absentee grandson will probably end up with it all. He doesn’t even know him. I know the Senator, and he didn’t give a crap about me. And when I tried to seduce him, he ordered me out as if he had better options.”
Charlene’s jaw dropped. “Clarissa, tell me you didn’t?”
“Someone had to. We have nothing mother. Nothing!”
“Money isn’t everything. I thought I taught you better.”
“Yeah. Not. I found him at a party and gave him a specially mixed drink. After all my troubles, he couldn’t perform. Kept calling me Jess. And tonight, I had him all but good, and he wakes up.”
“Clarissa, have you ever heard of something called rape.”
The younger woman who might have been considered pretty if she wasn’t a complete psychopath let out a chilling laugh. “Rape. Who would believe that?”
Charlene held up her phone. “Everyone who hears you tell the story yourself. I’ve been taping you.”
Gray eyes went flat. “You wouldn’t.”
Charlene may have been shocked by the depths of Clarissa’s depravity, but she knew her daughter enough to protect us all by recording the conversation.
“I would. I think it’s best you leave. I’ll have a car called and you can stay with your grandmother. I can’t have you here. I’m not sure what you will do. All the locks will be changed, and the staff will be notified you aren’t welcome in the house for any reason.”
“Mother.” The crazy woman stamped her foot.
Charlene stepped back and pressed a button on a wall unit just inside my door. When a voice crackled through the speaker, she answered.
“Please have security come and escort my daughter off the grounds. Please get a car service to take her from here. Have her things packed and ready to be shipped out.”
Clarissa pointed a finger. “Think about what you’re doing mother. I’m all you have left.”
“I have thought about it. And what you did was wrong. You need to speak to someone. This isn’t right.”
She shifted her focus in my direction. The heat of her gaze was only matched by my fury. I held her stare daring her to say or do more. “This isn’t over. I already got a hold of some of your money easy enough. Kyle was so easy to manipulate. I was shocked when I had a taste of a teenage boy again. He surprised me by his level of skill. Too bad he’s a stupid fuck. Tell him thanks for the couple of hundred or should I thank you because there was never a baby. And, by the way, he tearfully tried to talk me out of doing it but respected my decision. He’s going to be a heartbreaker that one.”
Clarissa winked at me before she spun on her heels and shoved passed her mother.
“I’m sorry Ethan. I’m truly sorry,” Charlene said, wearing a mask of misery before she scampered away trailing her daughter and her path of destruction. I stood stock still for a moment before I ran for the door. I made it out the hall just before the crazy ass chick rounded the corner.
“Did you send me the notes?” I called out.
She’d been so free with exposing all her schemes, I was hopeful she could put the last of my questions to bed. She stopped and gave me a horror movie smile. I felt the cold of it travel down my spine.
Her words belittled her shrug. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Then she was gone, and I charged down the hallway towards my grandfather’s room. I wouldn’t have put it past her to kill him thinking she had me right where she wanted me.
thirty-nine
Sleep and I were like two ships passing with thick fog between us. I lay reeling at Clarissa’s admission. I had no idea if I should be over the moon that I hadn’t cheated on Jess or fucking depressed that it didn’t matter. More than ever I should stay away from her especially with that nut on the loose.
I picked up my phone thinking despite the hour the person I was calling would be up.
After three rings, I was about to give up.
“Hello,” came a groggy voice.
“Kyle.”
I thought about calling Jess, but Kyle was the most affected directly by what I’d learned.
“Ethan, what the hell man it’s like two in the morning.”
“I thought a popular guy like you would be awake.”
“Dude, school,” he said as if that one word was the answer to it all.
“Look, do you remember that girl you knocked up?” As if he would have forgotten. My mind was crap too, so I was talking out of the side of my head.
“Um, really, a lecture. I already got the talk from Mom and Dad… Again… after Mom found condoms in my room.”
Awkward, I wanted to laugh but what I had to tell him wasn’t funny and squashed the light-hearted feeling.
“No, look, if you see her again stay away from her.”
“Okay, I’m almost afraid to ask because somehow I don’t think you’d call me at two in the morning to just tell me that.”
“She’s not who you think she is.”
“How do you know?”
“Is she about Jess’s height with blonde hair and light gray eyes?” I took a chance with the next question before he could answer. “Is her name Clarissa?”
“Are you stalking me?” He sounded confused and I couldn’t be sure if it was because I woke him up or I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Just answer the question.”
“Yeah. What the hell is going on?”
“She’s used you to get to me.”
“What? That’s even a little too egocentric for you.”
Frustration clawed at my throat. “Kyle, think. How would I know all of this?”
He was silent.
“Exactly. It’s too long of a story, but I ran into her and she told me about you. She used you to get to me.”
“Man, I don’t know.”
“Does she go to your school?”
“No,” he said thoughtfully.
“That’s because she’s graduated from high school. And for some crazy reaso
n she’s got it in for me. So she found out about you and well, you need to be careful who you mess with.”
“Dude, I wore a condom but they say it’s not full proof. I trusted her.”
“She wasn’t pregnant, by the way. So you can rest easy on that. Just be careful. This shit about me on the news is bringing the crazy out of people.”
Clarissa had come to him before that, but I was banking on his sleepy self not to put it all together. I just wanted him to think a little more and be more careful.
“Does Jessa know?” It had been a while since I heard someone call her Jessa. But her family did.
“No.”
“Are you going to tell her?” he asked incredulously.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you don’t. I will.”
“Maybe you should. I’ll leave that up to you. You know the situation with us and I don’t think she’s necessarily in danger. Clarissa could have targeted Jess, but she went for you instead. I think that because we are broken up, she’s safe.”
“Yeah, how long will that last. She’s like still in love with you. When she was home a few weeks ago, she got in a fight with Jenna on Skype when Jenna tried to put you down. Jessa put her in her place and put you on a pedestal. Mom had her convinced to take you dinner.”
“Well, she didn’t bring me dinner.”
“Maybe Dad got to her.”
That stopped my next words. I knew her Dad was upset, but not having him want Jess and I to be together hurt.
“Just be safe, okay Kyle? If anything happened to you because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You tell Jessa. She needs to hear this crazy crap from you. And if you don’t tell her I will.”
We hung up and I placed a hand behind my head and the other over my eyes as if I could shield all the images conjured in my brain. Memories of the first time I met Jess assaulted me.
forty
two summers ago
Summer sucked. Having to contact the authorities every time I left the state to complete my mandatory community service in Washington, DC rankled my nerves. It was better than working somewhere I didn’t have any say in the time I served, as I did at Mom’s butterfly exhibit where I volunteered.
Broken Lens Page 20
