The Perfect Mom

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Diet? The idea would have been laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic and even grotesque. How could she cut any more? She barely ate a few leaves of lettuce, non-fat Jell-O and unsweetened herb tea now.

  “Honey…”

  “I’ll take it out myself!” Emma began clawing at the tape.

  “Stop!” Kathleen grabbed her wrist and wrenched her hand away, surprised at frail Emma’s strength. Holding her arm down, she said, “You collapsed because you’ve starved yourself. You will not take this IV out!”

  “That’s not true!” Emma glared at her. “You know I’ve been eating. You see me.”

  Near tears, Kathleen shook her head. “No. I don’t. You don’t eat enough to keep a…a mouse alive. You’ve been doing your best to kill yourself, but I won’t let you. You’re not coming home. You’re spending the night in the hospital, and tomorrow you’re going into residential treatment.”

  Screaming in rage, Emma tore her hand from Kathleen’s grip. “You promised!” she yelled. “You said if I stayed above eighty pounds, I didn’t have to go! You’re a liar, liar, liar!”

  Kathleen drew a shuddering breath in the face of her daughter’s vitriol. “I’m not the liar. Dr. Weaver says you don’t weigh anywhere near eighty pounds. You’ve been tricking us somehow. But you knew the consequences, Emma. You’re not getting better. You’re getting worse.”

  “I hate you!”

  “I love you,” Kathleen said, eyes burning, and turned to leave.

  Emma threw herself onto her side, drew her knees up and began to sob.

  Kathleen’s heart shattered into a million pieces. She wanted, as she’d never wanted anything in her life, to say, All right, you can come home, if you promise to eat. She wanted to see incredulity and hope and gratitude light her daughter’s face, as if her mother could still do and be anything and everything to her. Of course she’d promise.

  And then she would lie and scheme to keep starving. She would exercise in the middle of the night to burn off calories she’d been forced to swallow, she’d take laxatives, she’d hide food in her cheek and then spit it out.

  She would die, if she had her way.

  Paralyzed, hurting unbearably, Kathleen didn’t turn around.

  This was harder, even, than leaving Ian, harder than facing her own inability to provide a decent livelihood, harder than facing the fact that she, too, was responsible for Emma’s self-hatred. But if she truly loved her daughter, she had to be firm now.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pushed aside the curtains and fled.

  In the tiny, antiseptic rest room open to family members, Kathleen locked the door, sat on the toilet and cried until her stomach hurt and she’d run out of tears. The sight of her face in the mirror should have stirred horror, but she stared almost indifferently at the puffy-faced woman gazing dully back. She did splash cold water on her face and brush her hair before facing the world again.

  At the nurse’s station, she stopped. “I’m Emma Monroe’s mother.”

  Quick compassion showed in the other woman’s expression. “Are you all right?”

  Kathleen nodded, although they both knew she wasn’t. “I’m sure my daughter will take out the IV, if she hasn’t already. You’d better check it regularly.”

  “We will. Thank you.”

  Kathleen explained about Ginny, and the nurse came with her to get the child.

  Taking Ginny’s hand, she smiled kindly. “Let’s just go back and say hi to Emma. You can’t stay, because she’s getting ready to go upstairs to be checked into the hospital, but I know she’ll be glad to see you.”

  “Thank you,” Helen said, watching her daughter be led away. “She’s really scared.”

  Kathleen nodded. Her head felt disconnected to her body. Huge, and yet, eerily, weightless, as if it were a hot air balloon and she were the tiny wicker basket, dangling beneath, swaying in space.

  Jo’s arm came firmly around her. “You look awful,” she said frankly. “Is Emma mad?”

  Kathleen nodded again. Her head kept bobbing, as if it didn’t know how to stop. “I told her.” Her voice sounded far away, too, perhaps because it was being drowned out by the roar of the burners that kept the balloon inflated.

  “That she’s going into treatment?”

  Kathleen was still nodding. A dull throbbing suggested that a headache was building, a storm threatening her sense of unreality.

  Jo turned her so that Kathleen had to meet her eyes. “You’re doing the right thing. You know you are.”

  “Do I?”

  Once, she had been a confident woman who believed, the vast majority of the time, that she was doing the right thing. She had a perfect life, didn’t she? A handsome husband, a smart daughter, a beautiful home, and she worked hard for several charities, doing her share of good. She had glided serenely through life—the life she had chosen, had craved from the time she was a small child and could see the wretchedness of her parents’ crummy jobs and shabby house.

  Now, Kathleen could see how smug she had been. Pride goeth before the fall, she thought bleakly. Perhaps, pride caused the fall. With her nose so high in the air, it was easy to trip over an uneven bit of sidewalk, something that should have been right before her eyes.

  “I need to make phone calls.” She looked vaguely around. “I didn’t bring my cell phone.”

  “I have mine,” Jo offered.

  Returning, Ginny raced to her mother. Voice shrill, she said, “There was blood all over! Emma took out that needle in her hand, but they put it back.” Her fingers gripped her mother’s slacks and she gazed up in appeal. “Why does she have to have it in, Mommy?”

  Helen knelt and took her daughter by the shoulder. “You know why, don’t you? Daddy had an IV, too, remember?”

  Ginny’s lip trembled and she nodded hard.

  “It doesn’t mean Emma is dying like Daddy. All it means is that the doctors want to get medicine or just water into someone’s body. Daddy hurt so much, it was the best way to give him painkillers.” Her voice wobbled only a little. “But Emma isn’t even getting medicine. She’s getting water and maybe some vitamins and sugar, because she doesn’t eat enough. That’s why she’s mad. You know how she gets when someone tries to make her eat.”

  The six-year-old nodded, her expression relaxing. “She yells at Auntie Kath.”

  “Uh-huh. Well—” Helen glanced up wryly at Kathleen “—this is her way of yelling at the nurses. Right now, she can’t stamp her foot or race to her bedroom and slam the door, can she?”

  “No-o.”

  “So she took out the needle and said, ‘You can’t make me!’”

  Creases formed on Ginny’s high, arching forehead. “Only, they can. Can’t they, Mommy?”

  “Yep. They’re going to help her get better by making her eat. This is the first step.”

  “Oh,” the child said solemnly.

  Helen rose. “Kathleen, why don’t you make your calls from home? You can come back later. Emma will be fine. It might be just as well to give her time to get over her tantrum.”

  Yes. Home sounded good.

  Kathleen nodded and let her friends lead her to the nurse’s station where she explained, then to the business office where she gave all the information on insurance, and finally to Jo’s car.

  “See you at home,” Helen said, and started across the parking lot with her hand on Ginny’s shoulder. Poor Ginny, Kathleen saw, still wore the baggy T-shirt she slept in along with a pair of jeans and sneakers with no socks and the laces dragging. Her unbrushed hair was lank and tangled.

  Jo looked better, not because she’d spent more time on grooming, but because her thick, glossy hair seemed destined to fall into place. She wore little makeup at any time, and her sweater and jeans were pretty much what she threw on every day.

  Even through her dullness, which she thought must be nature’s form of anesthesia, Kathleen remembered uneasily what she had looked like in the mirror. Yes, going home was a good idea.

  As J
o drove out of the parking lot, Kathleen said, “Thank you.”

  Jo shot her a startled, even annoyed glance. “You mean, for coming? For Pete’s sake, Kathleen! What did you think we’d all do? Head off to school and work as if nothing had happened?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “Then let it rest.”

  Exhaustion and worry weighing her down, Kathleen gazed unseeing at the passing streets. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and pretend none of this had happened, that it was Sunday and she could sleep as late as she wanted.

  Instead, she should shower and make herself presentable, then start a formidable list of calls. Work, to explain why she wasn’t coming. Someone else would have to cover the front desk at the chiropractor’s office. The insurance company, Emma’s doctor, the therapist, the treatment program…

  Her mind skipped. Please, God, let there be room.

  Ian. She should at least let him know, although chances were she wouldn’t actually have to talk to him. She’d leave a message on his voice mail or with his secretary. He probably wouldn’t even call back. Never mind phone his daughter and express concern.

  After all, Emma could eat if she wanted. She was just being stubborn. Melodramatic. Ridiculous. Taking her to doctors and therapists was playing her game, pampering her.

  He could not, would not, admit that his daughter had a real problem and was thus flawed in any way. After all, he’d had the perfect life, the perfect wife, hadn’t he? Kathleen thought bitterly. Why shouldn’t he have the perfect daughter, too?

  She’d like to believe it was because he wasn’t perfect. In his rage and intolerance, Ian had made it easy for her to believe he was at fault: his demands, his expectations, his irritation with the tiniest mistake or flaw in appearance or failure in school or on the tennis court or at a dinner party.

  What was becoming slowly, painfully apparent was that her expectations, her smugness, had hurt Emma as much if not more. Jo had once tried to convince Kathleen that Emma felt free to lash out at her mother not because she was angrier at her than she was at her father, but because she felt safer with her, knew Kathleen loved her. Kathleen hoped it was true.

  But she couldn’t absolve herself. If she were warm, supportive and accepting, why hadn’t Emma been able to shrug off her father’s unreasonable criticism? Why hadn’t she recovered, after Kathleen left Ian and she’d no longer had to face his sharp, impatient assessment daily?

  Would she be lying in the hospital, so perilously close to death, if her mother hadn’t failed her, too?

  Kathleen didn’t say another word on the short drive home. Jo parked right in the driveway instead of on the street, as she usually did, so Kathleen was able to trudge up the concrete steps, stumble on the tree root that had lifted part of the walkway, and make it onto the front porch before she realized she didn’t have keys and would have to wait for Jo.

  Fortunately, her roommate was right behind her to wordlessly unlock and let her in. Once inside, Kathleen glanced at the clock.

  “Don’t you have an eleven o’clock class? You could still make it if you hurry.”

  Jo shook her head. “No big deal.”

  “Go,” Kathleen ordered. “I’m fine. Really. I’ll take a shower, make my calls, and go back to the hospital. Anyway, Helen must be right behind us. She’ll be here any time.”

  Jo hesitated, then said, “Okay.”

  She bounded upstairs, returning almost immediately with her bright red book bag. “You know my cell phone number. Call if you want me. I’ll leave it on even in class. Promise?”

  Kathleen produced a weak smile. “Promise.”

  The moment Jo shut the front door behind her, Kathleen sank onto the bottom step. She would shower; she had things to do. In a minute. Maybe in a few minutes. Right now, she needed to sit, be alone and regroup.

  Pirate, the seven-month-old kitten they had rescued and adopted the previous fall, poked his fluffy Creamsicle orange-and-white head around the corner from the living room. His right eye, which had been hanging from the socket when Jo and the girls found him, didn’t gaze in quite the same direction as the other eye, so the veterinarian wasn’t certain how much he saw out of it. They didn’t care. The fact that he had two eyes was a victory.

  Kathleen discovered suddenly that she didn’t want to be completely alone. A warm, fluffy, purring cat on her lap would make her feel better.

  “Kitty, kitty,” she murmured, and patted her thigh.

  Pirate took a step toward her.

  The doorbell rang. Scared by the morning’s events, the kitten bolted again.

  Helen must have forgotten her keys, too, Kathleen thought, heaving herself to her feet. But, wait— She’d come from work. She’d been driving. Walking away in the hospital parking lot, she had had her keys in her hand. Kathleen remembered seeing the silly hot-pink smiley face attached to a key ring that Ginny had given her mother for her birthday dangling between Helen’s fingers.

  Mind working sluggishly, Kathleen was already in the act of opening the door before she had reached this point in her recollections, or she probably wouldn’t have answered the doorbell at all. She didn’t want to see anybody, even her brother, Ryan.

  But the man standing on her doorstep wasn’t Ryan. In fact, he was a total stranger. One who…wasn’t scary exactly, but could be.

  At a little over six feet, he wasn’t unusually tall, but he was broad. Big shouldered, stocky, with strong legs and powerful arms and neck. His hair was dark and shaggy, his eyes some unnameable color but watchful, and his face was blunt-featured, even crude, but somehow pleasing, the only reason Kathleen didn’t slam the door in a panic.

  He was the kind of man she couldn’t picture in a well-cut suit, the antithesis of her handsome, successful ex-husband. This man had to work with his hands. Like her brother’s, they were nicked, callused and bandaged, the fingers thick and blunt-tipped. In one hand, he held a gray metal contractor’s clipboard.

  He seemed to be waiting patiently while she appraised him from puffy eyes.

  “May I help you?” she asked finally, warily, her hand on the door poised to slam it in his face if he lunged for her.

  “I’m Logan Carr.”

  He said his name as if it should mean something to her. Maybe it did, she thought, frowning. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it niggled.

  Buying time, she said, “Um…I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time.”

  “We had an appointment.” He looked expectant, adding when she didn’t respond, “I’m the cabinetmaker.”

  “Oh, no!” That was it. On Ryan’s recommendation, she’d called Carr Cabinetmaking and arranged to dash home during an early lunch hour so that he could look and measure and give her a bid. She, of course, had completely forgotten.

  “Are you all right?” He sounded kind.

  Somehow this was the last straw. One more thing to have gone wrong, one more thing to think about when she couldn’t.

  “I’m…I’m…” Suddenly he was a blur, and she was humiliated to realize she was crying in front of this stranger. “Fine,” she managed to say.

  “No,” he said, stepping forward, taking advantage of her nerveless hand to come uninvited into her house and to close the door behind them. “You aren’t.”

  The next thing she knew, she was engulfed in powerful arms and flannel shirt, smelling this stranger’s sweat and deodorant and aftershave, her wet cheek pressed to his chest.

  And did she, dignified, gracious but reserved, wrench free and demand he leave?

  No. She buried her face in that comforting flannel and let herself sob.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LOGAN CARR MADE SOOTHING sounds while he held the gorgeous blonde.

  What in hell? he thought with wry amusement. His face wasn’t pretty, but didn’t usually inspire women to burst into tears.

  When she didn’t quiet down, he became worried. Should he be calling the cops? An ambulance? “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he finally asked.


  She wailed something about her daughter hating her. Logan assumed she was Ryan Grant’s sister. There’d been an indefinable something about her that reminded him of Ryan. Logan didn’t know her brother that well, but now he tried to remember what Ryan had said about her.

  She was divorced, or at least separated. Logan remembered Ryan banging around one day on a work site, growling under his breath about his goddamn stubborn sister who was buying a house that would fall down on top of her idiotic head any day. Logan had paused, a screwdriver in his hand, and asked why she was buying the place. The gist, as he recalled, was that she’d left her bastard of a husband and she claimed this was all she could afford without asking for help either from him—or her own brother—which she refused to do.

  “I wouldn’t give a damn,” Ryan had concluded viciously, “except that the roof will fall on my niece’s head, too. Why couldn’t she buy a nice condo?” he had asked in appeal.

  Personally, Logan didn’t blame her. He liked the looks of this place. It was worth a little work.

  He kept patting her back and waiting while her sobs became gulps and then sniffles. Logan knew the exact moment when she realized she was crying all over a man she didn’t know.

  Her body went very still, stiffened, and then she all but leaped back. “Oh, no! I must look…” She scrubbed frantically at her wet cheeks. “I’m so sorry!”

  “I invited myself in,” he reminded her. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he ostentatiously glanced around, admiring the French doors leading into the living room, the staircase, the arched doorway to the kitchen. “Nice place,” he added.

  “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll just, um…”

  The doorknob rattled behind them, and the door swung open.

  “Helen!” exclaimed his bedraggled blonde. “Thank goodness! This is Mister, um… The cabinetmaker. Will you show him the kitchen while I…” She was already fleeing up the stairs.