by L. D. Davis
Not ready for the conversation to be over, I got up and followed him into the bathroom where he was just stepping into the shower. I got in right behind him, not even giving him time to close the glass door.
“Can’t your team function without you?” I asked, passing him his body wash. “I mean, you did hire them. You wouldn’t have hired half-assed bounty hunters, right? You hired people who can get the job done without you?”
“Yes, I did hire them,” he agreed with a sigh. “And yes, they are capable of functioning without me. In fact, they do very well on their own, and there isn’t anything half-assed about any of my people.”
“Great!” I said cheerily. “Then they can go catch the latest big bad wolf on their own.”
“Mayson,” he said my name with a gentle reproof. “I can’t send my team into dangerous situations while I am chilling at home, or at the museum or wherever.”
“Why not? I’m okay with it.”
He leaned in, kissed me softly on the lips and then once on my bare shoulder.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, trying to sound conciliatory. “We’ll play hooky on Friday, okay? We’ll do whatever you want to do.”
That was the end of the conversation. He had washed quickly as we were talking. Then he stepped out of the shower, leaving me with soap suds and my anxiety.
There had been too many days and nights over the past six months of waiting for Grant to return home after going to recover someone. You would think that I’d get used to it, that my anxiety level wouldn’t be so high. I wasn’t used to it. I could never get used to it. There would always be a small voice in the back of my head that dared ask the question, “What if he doesn’t come back?”
“I’m not going to ask that question,” I said aloud to myself in the shower. “Not going to ask. Not going to ask. Not going to ask…”
I joined Grant, the kids, and Juliette in the kitchen a little while later. My morning routines had changed, for the most part. I only stopped for coffee and a pastry if I was leaving from my own apartment, which was becoming more and more infrequent. The mornings I left for work from Grant’s, however, I drank my coffee and ate breakfast with him and the kids. I liked that routine, almost as much as I liked our evening routines.
Regardless of where I was going to sleep, as much as was possible, we had dinner together as a family. I liked hearing about Natalie’s half days at preschool, and Alex’s stories about the fifth grade. Since I didn’t experience the fifth grade in an actual school, I always found it fascinating to hear about his interactions with other kids and his teachers.
I always stayed until after the kids were in bed, because that, too, had become routine. Despite how often the nights could be crazy, I liked the goodnight hugs from Natalie and the occasional chats and Lego get-togethers in Alex’s room. I especially liked that strangely gratifying time on the couch with Grant after the kids were tucked away for the night. It was our alone time, our time to talk about our day, or to catch up on our television shows, or our time for physical activity.
Grant wasn’t always home at nights, though, and it seemed ridiculous to send the kids to their grandmother’s in New Jersey or to have the woman come stay at the ware-home while he was gone. Juliette sometimes helped out, but she was generally finished by six. It only made sense that I stepped in. The kids still visited with their grandmother on some weekends, but during the week, I was there, fixing dinner, helping with homework, and making sure they got bathed and into bed.
So…I had become something like a mother, even though I said I didn’t want to be anyone’s mother. I was, by no stretch of the imagination, an exemplary mother. I was still me, a little selfish, very much inappropriate, and a bit unstable. I probably let the kids eat too much junk and watch too much television, too, but I did the best I could with them.
“Don’t forget that tonight is dinner at your mother’s,” Grant said to me as he, Alex, and I walked down into the garage.
I groaned. “I forgot. I guess you’re reminding me now because you don’t think you’ll make it?” I gave him an unhappy look.
“I’m sorry,” he said with sincerity. “I don’t think I’ll be back by then.”
He put his arms around me and held me tightly. Feeling stubborn, I didn’t hug him back.
“Not only are you going after another big bad wolf who may or may not have bigger teeth than you, but I also have to go to my mother’s alone.”
He chuckled softly in my ear. “You won’t be alone. You’ll have Natalie and Alex with you. Now hug me and give me a kiss. I have to get Alex to school before he’s late.”
“You guys are grossing me out,” Alex announced.
I turned my head to look at the boy and narrowed my eyes. “In a year or two when your voice begins to change and you start growing hair in your nether regions, you’ll love to have a girl hugging all up on you.”
Alex looked disgusted. Grant shook his head and sighed heavily before kissing my forehead and releasing me from his embrace.
“I’ll see you later tonight,” he said, looking disappointed as he opened the driver’s side door of his Range Rover.
Alex gave me a wave as he made his way to the passenger side.
“Come back over here,” I said to Grant, wagging my gloved finger.
He looked skeptical, but after a moment, he came back to me. Thankful that I was wearing a pair of boots with a high heel, I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought my lips to his. Even though I could hear Alex making gagging noises from inside of the truck, I kissed Grant for what felt like a solid minute.
“I love you,” Grant murmured, rubbing his nose with mine. “Have a good day at work. I’ll keep in touch throughout the day and I’ll see you tonight.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered. “Do not come back home shot, stabbed, beaten, or otherwise maimed.”
“I promise I will come home in one piece, and Friday, we’ll have a hooky day, just like I promised.”
He kissed me once more, gave me a beautiful smile and a wink, and then he was gone.
I watched my mom’s face burn with a light I had never, ever, seen before, not until the first time she had met Natalie and Alex two weeks after we returned from the beach. We had gone to her house for dinner on the night that would have been my usual visit. I had expected the same detachment she’d always had, and her same old cold, impassive face, but that night I discovered a new version of Jasmine Santini.
She had smiled so much that night, that I thought her face could not have been real. It had to be a porcelain mask, and I expected at any time for it to slip and shatter on the floor, but it never did. She was this other person that I never knew—with her smiling, and laughing, and a softness that I was never taught. Conversation with Grant came easily for her. She was social and gracious and not my mother. She wasn’t my mother. She couldn’t have been be my mother.
She was, however, Taylor’s mother. Taylor, who didn’t seem surprised at all by the woman who beamed at Alex’s mashed potato and corn structure he’d built on his plate. Taylor wasn’t shocked when Natalie spilled grape juice on the white linen table cover and the woman she called Mom just chuckled and cleaned it up as if it were nothing.
Whenever her eyes met mine, however, she reverted back to my mom, the woman I knew so well. Her face would change, her smile dying on her face, her laughter swallowed back down into her cold, cavernous chest. Only when she looked at me did the light die in her eyes, but when she turned her attention to one of the children or Grant, or even Taylor and Aaron, she became that other Jasmine again, the one I was unfamiliar with. Eventually, she stopped looking at me so much, but I didn’t stop looking at her. After four months, I still watched her face with a sick kind of captivation.
I stood at the threshold of the dance studio that my mother had installed so many years ago for me. Alex sat on the floor with his back against the mirrored wall. He was playing a video game and pretending he wasn’t watching the girls—Taylor in
particular—as she and Natalie danced around the room. Taylor was teaching the younger girl some very basic ballet steps, as she had been after every dinner we’d had there.
I refused to go all the way into the room—I hadn’t been inside of it since I was sixteen years old. I kept an eye on Taylor and Nat, but mostly, my eyes were drawn to my mom, who stood only a few feet away from me watching the girls. Her posture was relaxed. Her face had a constant, amused and content smile, and there was that light…that light that seemed to burst from inside her.
She obviously didn’t see what I saw when I looked at the mirrored jail cell; she didn’t see the past. She did not see me as a child, begging to go outside to play with the other children. She didn’t see my tears of exhaustion, or the blood my raw toes left behind from hours of torturous dancing. She didn’t see the place on the floor where my father had lain, taking his last breaths, his heart beating its last struggling beats.
It was as if none of it ever happened. It was as if it were gone from her mind.
“Okay, it’s time to go,” I announced when I’d had enough of staring at the woman who was and was not my mom.
“But I’m still dancing,” Natalie whined.
“Badly,” Alex muttered from his spot on the floor.
“You think you can dance any better?” Taylor challenged, poking him with her toe.
“Was that dancing?” Alex deadpanned.
If no one knew any better, they’d probably think the little smartass was my kid by birth. I just lucked out finding a kid who had mastered sarcasm before puberty.
“It’s time to go,” I said again, with a little less patience. “You have school tomorrow.”
“Oh,” my mother said. “I almost forgot…”
She hurried past me. I didn’t know what she’d forgotten, or where she was going. I didn’t care.
“Get your shoes on, Nat.” I checked my phone for the millionth time.
I hadn’t heard from Grant since the early afternoon. It wasn’t unusual for him to go hours without any contact because he had to focus, but I still felt uneasy about the silence.
My mom returned a few moments later, carrying a pink gift bag that had a ballerina on it.
“What is that?” I asked as she passed the bag to Natalie.
She didn’t take her eyes off Nat. She watched her with an excitement that irritated me. “A surprise for Natalie.”
“But you alweady gave me a Chwistmas pwesent,” Nat said, peering down at the bag with confusion.
“This is a just-because present,” my mother said, smiling.
Without any further delay, Natalie reached into the bag, pushing pink tissue paper out of the way.
“My own balway shoes!” she squealed, producing a pair of pink ballet slippers.
“And there’s more,” Mom said, taking the slippers.
Nat reached into the bag once more and produced a pink tutu. She squealed again before leaping into my mother’s arms and hugging her. I watched with a sickening feeling in my gut as my mom hugged her back.
“She’s going to put that stuff on, and never take it off,” Alex muttered.
I was a little startled to find him standing at my side. I hadn’t noticed him get up and walk over.
“It’s time to go,” I repeated, my voice harsh.
It took several minutes to break up the happy little ballet party and to get to the front door.
“Are you upset, Mayson?” Mom asked me, just before I could step outside. Alex and Nat were already getting into the car, with Taylor supervising.
I looked at her, at her neutral face.
“You should have told me before you bought her that stuff. Now she’s going to beg Grant for dance lessons.”
She looked surprised, but only for a microsecond before she fixed her face and it was neutral again.
“I apologize,” she said simply. “I thought she would enjoy wearing them while she is here or even around the house.”
“She’s not another little girl for you to use to make up for what you missed out on when you were a kid,” I snapped. “You can’t live vicariously through her like you tried to do with me, and like what you do with Taylor. You’re not going to bloody her fucking toes.”
She didn’t hide her shock; she let it show on her beautiful face, but I didn’t care. I walked away without another word.
By the time Grant’s phone call came, both kids had been sleeping for at least an hour. I had been pacing through the ware-home, anxiously waiting for his call and thinking about the night at my mother’s.
“It’s about time,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief when I answered.
He sounded like he was bone-deep tired. “I’m sorry. Are the kids asleep?”
“Yes, of course they are. Where are you? When will you be home?”
There was a hesitation that instantly made my anxiety return.
“There was an incident,” he said carefully. I said nothing and waited for him to continue. “I didn’t call you earlier because I didn’t want the kids to know, and if I told you, you wouldn’t have been able to keep it from them.”
“What happened?” I asked, feeling panic slice into me.
“I’m okay,” he said quickly, not answering my question.
I closed my eyes and placed the palm of my hand over my forehead.
“Grant Alexander,” I said his name slowly as I tried to hold on to what little sanity I had left. “What the hell happened?”
There was another hesitation, and finally, he told me.
“Mayson, the big bad wolf got me. I got hit with a bullet today.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I was very specific,” I growled, yanking the blankets down on the bed. “I told you not to come back home shot, stabbed, beaten, or otherwise maimed.”
“Maybe we can print that on a shirt,” Grant said, kicking off his sneakers. “I’ll bet the bad guys will think twice before shooting at me, stabbing at me, beating me, or otherwise maiming me.”
I glared daggers at him. “Do you think this is funny?”
“I believe that I, of all people, know how not funny this is.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head.
“I don’t know, Grant. You seem very unconcerned with the fact that a bullet went through your arm.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes wearily.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he said with a small smile.
I stared incredulously, mouth open and eyes wide. Grant popped one eye open and peered at me.
“Monty Python. No?”
My voice was soft and deadly. “You’re making jokes about Monty Python? You’re sitting there, with a bullet hole in your arm making jokes about Monty Python? There is a bullet hole. In your arm. And you’re quoting Monty Python.”
He sighed my name. “Mayson.”
I shook my head and held up my hands. “Don’t Mayson me. Don’t say my name like that, like I can’t take a joke. This isn’t funny, Grant, but you know what? Make all the jokes you want. I don’t have to stay here to listen to them.”
I walked out of the bedroom. Grant caught up with me in the nook, where I had left my bag after returning from my mother’s.
“Mayson, stop,” he said tiredly when I tried to walk around him.
“I will poke you in your bullet arm,” I warned. “I will poke the shit out of that arm if you don’t get out of my way.”
“I thought we were finished with the running away.”
“I’m not running away,” I snapped. “I am just going home where life kind of makes sense, because this doesn’t make sense, Grant. I want to go somewhere where getting shot isn’t funny.”
“I told you. I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Then why were you smiling and cracking jokes, Grant? I don’t understand. I don’t get it. My heart is still in my throat. You’re standing right in front of me, still breathing and alive, but I’m still terrified. You came home this tim
e, but you might not come home next time. Then what? What am I supposed to tell Alex and Nat then? That they’ve lost another parent, that they’re orphans?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, taking my hand and pulling me to him. “I’m sorry.”
He held me with his uninjured arm. My fingers twisted in his shirt as I pressed my ear to his heart. Even though he was clearly alive, I had to reassure myself that he was okay and hear the strong thumping of his heart.
“You asshole,” I whispered, unable to hold back my tears. “You asshole.”
“So, what will you do now?” I asked Grant sometime later, as we changed into our bed clothes.
He grimaced and moved stiffly as he pulled off his shirt, revealing the bandages around his bicep, but he didn’t utter any complaints.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean are you going to find another line of work and stop going on these suicide missions?”
He looked surprised by the question.
“No,” he said slowly. “Mayson, I’m not giving up my job.”
I stared at him for several seconds, before patiently asking, “Do I need to remind you that someone aimed a gun at you and shot you?”
Grant, who was usually so patient with me, even when I was nonsensical, snapped at me.
“I don’t need you to remind me that I got shot, Mayson. Stop talking to me as if I were a little kid that got in trouble at school today. I know what happened. I didn’t get shot in the damn head.”
“Well, you could have gotten shot in the damn head,” I snapped back. “That’s what you don’t seem to understand.”
“I understand it!” he shouted, making me take an astonished step backward. “What the hell do you think was going through my head when he started shooting? Do you think I was thinking about the grocery list or what I was going to eat for dinner? I thought I was going to die out there and never see my kids or you again. I don’t need you to tell me what I don’t understand about it.”
