Leslie shook her head, but her eyes were focused again, giving him a small measure of relief. If she wouldn’t speak to him, how could he help her?
“You can trust me, Les. With whatever it is.”
His words made her cry. Not exactly what he’d been hoping for. But then much of his life during these past weeks had gone that way.
“It’s not a matter of trust,” She said, obviously trying to quell the tears. “Or maybe it is. I’m aware that I have trust issues, as my counselor likes to put it.”
She had issues. He wasn’t the only person she couldn’t trust. He slowed down—his mind, the beat of his heart, his breathing.
Amid the confusion, other things started to make a kind of sense. Whatever was wrong was far more serious than he’d suspected. Her rejection of his proposal wasn’t because they’d only known each other as adults for a couple of weeks. Or because if the marriage failed the kids would be hurt. Or because she’d be committing herself to a man who’d never had a long-term monogamous relationship in his life.
He thought about her isolation and independence—he’d been living in her house for weeks and she’d never received one personal phone call other than from her mother. And this, right after her brother had been killed. Surely friends should’ve been calling to see how she was.
He recalled her intensity at times he least expected it—like the previous Sunday night, when she’d been so upset over a conversation with Jonathan that had gone much better than he’d dared hope.
Her night-light.
Kip was afraid to ask himself what her secret might be. Afraid of what he might come up with. No point in wasting energy worrying about something that existed only in his mind. Particularly when his instincts told him he was going to need everything he had to help Leslie deal with reality—whatever that reality was.
But two things were clear. He wasn’t going to let her sink back into her isolation.
And he had to go the distance with her.
SHE’D JUST GOTTEN UP to get a drink of water. Would never have dreamed of eavesdropping on Leslie and Kip—didn’t want to be one of those nuisance mothers who didn’t know when to back off. She’d seen what her maternal grandmother had done to her parents’ marriage—judging her father, making sure her mother knew her opinions on his every action—driving a wedge so deeply between them that they fought constantly. And in the end, when her father gave her a mother an ultimatum—choose between the two of them—she’d taken a look at the options. Either live with a broken heart and guilt for turning her back on the woman who’d raised her, sacrificed to give her the life she’d never had, loved and protected her, or turn her back on the father of her children, the man she’d promised to honor and cherish until death, the love of her life. Apparently unable to accept either option, she’d created a third.
She’d taken her own life.
Clara hadn’t issued any ultimatums when her own mother-in-law found her lacking in every way and didn’t miss an opportunity to point that out to her adored only son. Instead, Clara had lived with the discomfort of never measuring up, the insecurity of not knowing if someday her husband would believe some slur of his mother’s and walk out on them. In the end, he’d died, too. Racing home in the rain to make it to Calhoun’s twelfth birthday party.
Yet now, as Clara stood at the window in the guest bedroom of her daughter’s home, none of the past heartaches seemed to matter. Something was horribly wrong with Leslie. Her daughter. Heart of her heart. Her pride and joy and reason for living. Her hope. She was suffering, and Clara had known nothing about it.
What had happened to her daughter to make her fall apart at a marriage proposal from a boy she’d loved all her life? When had it happened? How long had Leslie been suffering alone?
More importantly, what could she do about it?
LESLIE SHOPPED ALONE on Sunday. Clara and Kip were at the house with the kids. Thankful for once that her mother wasn’t the kind who asked questions or got involved in her personal life, she’d been able to escape without explanation.
Just as she’d done the night before with Kip. Using the wine she’d gulped—and the lateness of the hour—as excuses, she’d managed to avoid any further discussion between them.
At least temporarily. Pulling into her driveway with a trunk full of shopping bags, Leslie felt her stomach tense and her head start to pound. The time away had been a distraction; it hadn’t solved the problem.
Of course, ultimately, nothing would. She was what she was—a recovered victim. Nothing in this world would ever change the fact that she’d experienced things that had damaged her.
Leaving the bags in the car until she could get them into the house undetected, she unlocked the door from the garage into the back hall, listening for sounds of the children. Would they be having their afternoon snack in the kitchen? Or were they in the family room watching television?
She was met with total silence.
Maybe they were in the living room reading.
A quick check revealed nothing but furniture and a glowing Christmas tree. They wouldn’t have gone anywhere with the tree plugged in. It was a fire hazard.
Frowning, she started down the hall to her part of the house. “Mom? Kip?”
Clara met her in the hall, her face creased with worry. “Jonathan’s locked himself and Kayla in her bathroom,” she said quickly. “I’m so sorry, honey. I was only in my room for a second. I left Kayla playing in her room. I thought Jonathan was with Kip.”
Her first thought was the little metal key resting on the lintel above the door. It was her second thought as well. And her third.
“How long have they been in there?”
“Ten minutes or so.”
The bathroom door was right ahead in the empty hall. Kayla was screaming. “Where’s Kip?”
“At the door leading to the bathroom from Kayla’s room. He’s threatening Jonathan with all kinds of horrible fates and pounding at the pins in the door hinges.”
Leslie hurried into the room. “Wait,” she said to Kip, standing on tiptoe to reach the molding above the door.
“Your mother heard Jonathan tell Kayla he was sorry, but he had to do it,” Kip was saying, his voice urgent, as she took down the key.
With one shove of the key, Leslie popped the lock and swung the door open. He was sorry, but he had to do it, was all she could hear as she rushed into the room, terrified she was going to find Kayla naked and praying she wasn’t too late.
Kayla was still wearing the purple corduroy pants and matching white-and-purple flowered top Leslie had dressed her in that morning. Seeing nothing but that fully dressed form, Leslie swung her up, rushing her out of the room and down the hall to her own suite, where she locked the door behind her.
“It’s okay, baby,” she said, holding the toddler against her chest as she crooned. “My baby, it’s okay, don’t cry. I’m here. You’re safe.”
Falling to the side of the bed, Leslie rocked the child back and forth. “I’m here, little darling, don’t cry.”
Kayla’s tears wet her neck, and the blouse she’d pulled on that morning. The baby grabbed her hair, yanking it from the barrette she’d used to keep it back. “Hay-er,” she said with a hiccup that was followed by a dry sob.
“Yes, that’s my hair,” she said, reaching up to caress the top of Kayla’s head.
“What?” she said aloud, drawing back enough to get a good look at the little girl. The braids she’d spent half an hour on that morning were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are your braids?” she asked the bewildered and still hiccupping child.
“Jon Jon, hay-er,” she said again, her lower lip jutting out and trembling.
“He cut your hair?” she asked.
Kayla nodded, a big fat tear rolling down her baby cheek.
He’d cut her hair. It was a terrible thing. Atrocious. Punishable. They’d have to find out why.
He’d cut her hair. Trembling with relief, Leslie started to lau
gh. And to sob. Cal’s son had only cut his sister’s hair.
JONATHAN SAID HE’D DONE IT so Kayla wouldn’t look different from Leslie and Kip. They’d talked to him together, while Clara took Kayla for a walk around the block in her new stroller. Kip didn’t think either one of them had said or done anything to help the situation.
Jonathan’s young life had seen repeated occurrences of loss. His mother, his father, his nana. The little boy who needed more security at home than most had none.
“I hated punishing him,” Leslie said Sunday evening. She sat beside Kip on the couch in the sitting room of his suite. The kids were asleep after a dinner of hamburgers and French fries—Kayla’s choice—and Clara had gone out to a potluck function at the new church she planned to attend.
“A week without his computer will be no different than last week, when he didn’t even have it yet,” Kip told her, offering her the plate of cheese and crackers they’d prepared, in lieu of dinner, to go with the sodas he’d poured. She took the plate, selected a cracker and a piece of cheese, put them on the napkin in her lap. And studied them. The rose flowers in the paper matched her slacks. The background matched her blouse.
She needed to eat. Her stomach didn’t seem to care.
“Still, it’s hard to punish him for trying to protect his sister.”
“There’s a right way and wrong way of doing things,” Kip told her. He’d been strangely unbending through the whole situation. “He has to learn that now.”
Closing her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the couch, Leslie hoped that someday right would be easy.
“I ASKED to speak with you privately for a reason,” Leslie said half an hour after she’d followed Kip down the hall to his suite. It was the first time she’d been there since he’d moved in.
She was fooling with her necklace again, something he’d noticed her doing a few other times. The day he’d gone to her office to tell her about Cal. At the law firm of her brother’s attorney. The first night they’d talked.
“I assumed that,” he said now, wishing he knew how to put her at ease. She’d declined his offer to get them some wine to go with the cheese and crackers they were having, not that he would’ve been able to drink much.
For the last hour, his stomach had been feeling the way it had before the All-American playoff game his senior year of high school—ever since she’d asked to put Jonathan down in her room. Then she’d picked up the baby monitor receiver, connecting her to Kayla’s room, before leaving with Kip.
“I didn’t want to take a chance that my mom would come home in the middle of things.”
He’d assumed that, too. And knew better than to hope it was kisses Clara might’ve been interrupting. He was half expecting her to tell him to move out. And half expecting some rehearsed explanation for her odd reaction to his marriage proposal the night before.
He didn’t know how he was going to get her to open up to him. He’d leave if she asked. And accept whatever reason she gave for not marrying him. But he couldn’t just abandon her to whatever torture she was feeling.
“I…” She glanced down at her uneaten cracker. “This isn’t easy for me.”
“I understand.”
She sent him a pointed glance. “No, Kip, I don’t think you do,” she said with uncharacteristic sharpness. “There’s really no way you could.”
He bowed his head once, silently, in acknowledgement—since he had only his own guesses as to what this was all about. And then he looked over at her, hiding nothing. “I want to.”
She nodded, taking a sip of her cola. Her hand shook as she set it back on the table. “Frankly, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get through this….”
“Borrowing trouble from the future again, Sanderson?” It was probably an asshole thing to say—insensitive and inappropriate. Kip rubbed sweating hands along the legs of his khaki slacks. Swiping at a nonexistent speck on the chest of his black polo shirt.
“Just take it one step at a time, okay?” he said, glancing over at her hesitantly when she didn’t respond. He was so afraid of screwing this up—of not being what she needed. But how the hell could he know what that was when he was running blind here?
Carefully folding the four corners of her napkin around a cheese-topped cracker, she nodded again. She didn’t look up. Didn’t do much but shudder for a moment or two. Kip waited.
“This afternoon, when I came home and found Jonathan in the bathroom, I learned something about myself.”
Once again she’d caught him completely off guard. This was about Jonathan? Not about last night’s proposal?
“What’s that?”
“I’m not as healthy as I wanted to believe.”
“Healthy how?”
“Mentally,” she said, folding the napkin, unfolding it, refolding. “Emotionally.”
When no response occurred to him, Kip remained silent, knowing that he was completely out of his element.
“The thing is,” she said now, her words accompanied by a humorless chuckle, “I really had convinced myself that I had it all under control. That I’d done my job, dealt with my…issues, and other than one area that I’m still working on, was fine.”
“You’re one of the healthiest people I know,” Kip said. “We all have crap to deal with, Les. Stuff from our pasts that screwed us up, even if it was only the fact that we had perfect parents, a perfect childhood and nothing in our adult lives will ever be as perfect.”
Her lips trembled. “I put up a good front.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “To some extent, everyone does. But I’m not talking about that. You’re leagues ahead of many of us because you’re aware of yourself.” He had no idea where the words were coming from, but they seemed right. “You’re strong enough to take an honest look at yourself, to see the good and the bad—and to try to fix what you don’t like.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she replied in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “It was either do that—or lock myself up.”
“Of course you had a choice.” He should shut up and let her get on with whatever she had to say. “Les, I see people every day who’ve spent their whole lives blaming other people for what happens to them. Nothing is ever their fault. And if they believe that, they have no power to fix the things in their lives that they don’t like.”
She glanced up from the napkin and then back. The brief glimpse gave him very little to go on.
“I know what I’m talking about,” he continued, despite that. “I don’t blame others for what happens to me, but I’ve spent much of my life refusing to look at the things I don’t like about me. With one exception. The time I listened to Cal about women.”
Leslie crushed the napkin, cheese and cracker and all, in the palm of her hand.
“For the most part, the guy I was in high school is the guy sitting before you now. And that’s because—to this point—I’ve done little to make him more.”
Something stronger than cola would’ve been better. Anything to stifle words he hadn’t even been conscious of thinking—yet felt clear to his core.
Leslie tried to smile at him. Her lips moved upward slightly, but did nothing to crack the stiffness of her expression. He wished she hadn’t taken her hair down. Though normally he loved to see it wild and free, tonight it allowed her to hide from him.
And he was already in the dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JULIET MCDANIEL DIDN’T often indulge in flights of fancy. And she didn’t buy into new-age philosophies, many of which, in her opinion, were a convenient excuse to relinquish accountability for individual actions and choices. If it was always about other people—their issues, their journeys, their realities—then it could never be about oneself.
She very rarely, however, ignored her intuition. And Sunday night it was prompting her to call a client at home. Something else she rarely did without predetermined instructions.
Leslie Sanderson had called her that afternoon. Her message had said
only that she’d like to schedule an appointment for the following day. Nothing unusual about that right now. The call had been just like the other three she’d received from the woman who’d come to mean much more to her than a client. Leslie was an example of the human ability to heal—of the power of choice and openness to eradicate darkness. She was an inspiration to Juliet, who’d studied all the books, accepted most of the philosophy, had practiced for years—and still hadn’t understood what it was all about until Leslie Sanderson, a twenty-year-old anorexic, had called and asked for her help.
Listening to the computer generated voice of Leslie’s home answering machine for the third time in an hour, she hung up, trying Leslie’s cell phone number again, just in case.
Getting no answer, she turned off her phone, lay down, and willed herself to sleep. But not before saying a prayer that the morning would find Leslie alive—and in her office by noon.
Something had happened. Leslie needed help. And Juliet was not about to let her down.
“I CAN’T FIND a way to begin.”
The lost tone in Leslie’s voice was too much for Kip to tolerate without action. He moved across the couch, taking her hand in his.
“Whenever you figure it out, I’ll be right here.”
She seemed to nod. Or else she was swaying to some internal force. A couple of minutes later, she started to cry. Kip held her hand. And waited.
When the tears turned to sobs, Kip still held her hand. And waited. Some unknown instinct was guiding him, and he gave himself over to whatever it was. He sure as hell wouldn’t have known what to do.
After awhile Leslie’s sobs quieted. Other than an occasional welling up, the tears stopped. But the empty look on her face disturbed Kip more than anything that had gone on before.
“Thank you for being so patient,” she murmured.
“I’m here because I want to be,” Kip told her. “There’s no need to thank me.”
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