by Portia Moore
“Cal would never hurt us,” I say my voice tired but conviction peeps through.
“Okay Cal won’t, Chris won’t. But what if some other person pops up that would!” She is pleading with me and I know she only wants the best for us. I know she’s worried but God doesn’t she know I’m worried enough, stressed to the max, and I’m holding on to my hope by loose threads and she’s not helping.
“I may not be an expert about what DID is. I may not even be able to say if another alter will surface, or if that alter will be a jerk, but what I do know, what I will bet my life on is that there isn’t ANY part of my husband that would ever hurt me or our daughter!” I’m louder and angrier than I intended to be. Raven’s cheeks are flushed, and my own feel as if they are on fire.
“You are betting your life you and Caylen’s, and it’s ridiculous and selfish!”
“This is why I don’t talk to you.” My voice is quiet and weak now. I shake my head and rub the tears from my eyes.
“I know that you’re worried and that you only say what you do because you care, but I am trying my best to deal with this. It’s hard, really hard. Can you just put yourself in my place for a moment? With all that you know that’s happened, can you think of how I feel?” Tears are falling from my eyes and through my blurred vision, I see her face soften.
“Anything you have thought, I’ve thought it over a million times. I am already worried, I am already stressed, I am scared out of my mind that life will always be hard, and peace and easiness will never be a part of how we live. I am terrified of that, but I still have hope. If I don’t have anything else, I have hope and I can’t allow you or anyone else to take that away from me because if I lose that, I’m going to be the one in an asylum and that won’t be good for anyone. So please, I ask you, I am begging you to just support me. Please don’t make things worse.”
Her lips press together tightly, and she lets out a frustrated sigh but nods, and just like that, it's as if she’s accepted everything. Well accept may be the wrong word. She’s going to tolerate all of this. She heads to the kitchen and starts pouring coffee for us. She tells me that Collin has booked me a massage and facial and that he wants to take me to dinner. I’m shocked by the 180—not just from Raven sucking up and being supportive—but Collin wanting to take me to dinner.
It’s all that’s in my thoughts as the masseuse kneads away weeks of pent-up stress and frustration. What does it mean? Probably nothing. Is it an olive branch? Well not an olive branch since we haven’t been at war with one another, we’ve kept our distance though, amicably. More like cautious allies, yesterday being the first time the gap was closed. I remember that he said he had a surprise for me but that I couldn’t get it until Friday; today is Thursday. I think of the dream I had last night, one that I’m sad yet, thankful that I’ve forgotten. After my massage and facial I feel lighter, I look my age again instead of ten years older. I think of how thoughtful it was for Collin to do this. How he’s aware of almost everything. It is intimidating. I wait as the dial tone rings and Helen answers the phone half-surprised but enthusiastic.
“How are you, Lauren?”
“I’m… I’m making it,” I laugh half-heartedly.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Raven just got to town, and has Caylen. I was wondering if you had any free time today to talk,” I ask hesitantly. Talk, should I have said talk, should I have asked her for an appointment?
“Have you eaten already, we could do a late lunch, would three work?”
“Sure,” I respond. We go over the details and an hour later I’m meeting her at a new café. I make my way in and see Helen seated toward the wall. She stands and waves. I maneuver my way through the tight space, tables crowd one another, but thankfully there aren’t many people here at three. I make my way over and smile as I start to sit down, but she comes over and pulls me into a hug. I’m caught off guard but manage to reciprocate quickly.
“I’m so glad that you called me.” She moves her hair from around her shoulders to her back. Long dark waves cascade down her shoulders, stray pieces lying on her dark blue blouse with gold buttons.
She seems different, almost lighter, and I wonder if she is. No longer having to hold on to a secret that always stood in between us having a genuine friendship, I’m still not sure if the hole that secret left will prevent it.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I tell her, stirring the ice in my water.
“You look good,” she tells me and I can’t help but widen my eyes in surprise. I haven’t heard that in awhile.
“It probably was the facial and massage Collin got me. Before that I looked like an old maid.”
“Did you tell him to do that?” I wonder. Are Helen and Dexter secretly advising him? She smiles widely.
“No, Collin is attentive and intuitive. He doesn’t ask for my advice.”
“Intuitive,” I repeat, hearing the disdain in my voice.
“Has he been seeing you?”
“Yes, twice this week.” She sips her green tea. “Has he not told you?”
“Yes, he did,” I tell her.
She looks at me curiously. “You didn’t believe him?” Her smile softens.
I shrug and let out a sigh. “I-I don’t know. I did, I didn’t, I just…” I trail off when the waitress comes and takes our order. Helen orders a salmon salad and I settle on a chicken Caesar.
“Are you guys going to be at the dinner tonight?” I ask.
“Not that I’m aware. Why didn’t you believe that he’d been coming to see me?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not used to him being so honest,” I admit. “Not honest, forthcoming,” I correct myself. “It’s not that I think Cal or Chris are liars, but they both had their secrets. I just wonder what Collins’s is,” I admit.
“How have things been?” she asks casually, but nothing is really casual about Helen.
I go through all that’s happened. Telling her about the day Chris and Cal both made their appearance, how things have been going since. I focus on facts, and she looks on, never appearing surprised or biased in the least. By the time I’m finished, the food has arrived and we thank the waitress as Helen pops a piece of salmon in her mouth. I bow my head and say a quick prayer, a habit I’ve picked up from being around Mrs. Scott on so many occasions.
“So there has been a lot going on, understandably so, but how do you feel about them?” she asks, and I sigh.
“I feel like any normal person would feel. Overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated but grateful. Grateful that things aren’t completely worse, that we’ve made it past what could have been a life changer. If Cal had gone through with killing Clayton, things would be so much worse right now.” I say the last part with my voice low and she nods.
“How have you been adjusting to living life with Collin,” she asks and I shrug.
“He’s so different,” I train my eyes on my soup and I play with the spoon.
“But, there’s times I recognize things in him,” I feel my cheeks blush and I hate that I am blushing over him. “I-I don’t really know how to feel about him,” I say quietly. My hand massages the back of my neck, reminding me of the heavenly few hours I just spent. How he apparently extended the gesture himself.
“You feel distant toward him?”
I nod. “Should I not?” I ask genuinely.
“Who is keeping the distance you or him?” Helen is listening to a side of the story she already has the other half to. I wonder what Collin talks to her about, what treatments they’re doing to bring them closer to integration.
“I think it’s both of us,” I say only feeling a tad bit guilty.
“You’re going to dinner tonight?”
“Yes, It’ll be the first time it’ll be just the two of us,” my voice raises.
“And you’re nervous?” she covers up a smile, but I’ve already seen it.
“To be honest, yes,” I admit. “He’s so… he’s hard to read.”
“Collin?” she asks and I
wonder if she means it to come off as accusatory or if I’m just taking it that way.
“I know he says that he’s transparent, like he’s an open book, but I don’t necessarily believe that.”
“You think he has ulterior motives,” she asks but her tone is neutral.
“Don’t we all,” I meet her eyes. She picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth. She then folds her hands and leans closer into the table.
“Do you believe Cal loves you?” she asks.
“Of course,” I answer almost defensively.
“And Chris,” she asks and I nod.
“Collin,” she asks and I pause.
“I don’t know him enough to know if he loves me,” I chuckle. “I asked if he was gay. I read about that when I was researching,” I giggle to lighten the mood and even Helen cracks a smile.
“Yesterday, we had a good moment,” I say quietly, briefly meeting her eyes.
“Before then it was things that reminded me of Chris or Cal that he did, that I missed that made me want to be near him, but then was the first time I think I liked him.” I pick up my glass and take a small sip, my heart is beating faster and I just let out a long breath.
“And I’m sort of afraid of that,” I tell her and she nods as if she’s been waiting for me to say that. She stretches her arm across the table and takes my hand in hers.
“It’s normal, Lauren,” she says reassuringly. The show of affection brings tears to my eyes, but I blink them away.
“I feel stupid because… I’m supposed to feel about him how I feel about Cal and Chris… but at the same time if I do, I can’t help feeling guilty about it, which makes me a huge hypocrite because I tell Chris and Cal I love the whole man,” I spout all of this out in the span of one sentence.
“If you got closer to Collin… what are you afraid of happening?”
I reflect on her question all through the day. I didn’t answer her then. I just shrugged it off as me being silly, and she didn’t press since technically we weren’t having a real session under the guise of two friends meeting for lunch and girl talk when it’s anything but. The salad I ate swishes in my stomach like waves as I sit in front of my closet trying to choose what to wear. I feel as nervous as I did on my first date with Cal, so many moons ago. Then I didn’t have a closet full of designer dresses and shoes. He didn’t say where we were going but knowing what I do know of Collin, it will be somewhere fancy and calling for something nice.
“All of them are nice, Lauren,” Raven says as she and Caylen sit on the bed watching me pick through the dresses.
“And why are you so jittery, sweetie?” she asks.
“I don’t know, I’m being stupid,” I flop on the bed.
“Things have been okay between you and… Collin,” she reaffirms his name.
“Yes, they’re fine it just still takes some getting used to sometimes,” I tell her sounding as confident as I can, especially after the speech I gave her earlier. She squeezes my hand and nods. I give her a hug, and she hugs me back, the kind of hug she’d give me when I was little to let me know that everything was going to be okay.
“I still have my reservations about this, and I really wish I could pack you up and give you a vacation on an island away from all of this,” she laughs, but in a way I know that she is completely serious. “But if there is anyone who can get through this, it’s you,” she tells me quietly in my ear.
When she releases me, she walks over to the closet and picks up the little white one shoulder dress that clings to me everywhere.
“I can’t see any man not liking this,” she tells me with a soft smile. After I shower and put on my dress, I curl my hair and end up sweeping it in a top bun. I put on a little makeup and when I look at myself in the mirror, I can’t help but smile. I’m going on a date, and the woman staring back at me is excited.
I miss him, and the small part of me he opened up to show me last night, gives me hope.
Not just from being anxious and slightly suspicious like I have been. I keep thinking of how I missed doing this with Cal, how Chris and I had so much going on that it never came up, but the time before last Collin and I did this was right after he first appeared and that was the night before all hell broke loose. I’ve gotten to know Collin better since that night, but he still makes me nervous. He’s charming but almost too charming, and I just can’t read him. Not that I was great at reading Cal, but I knew what motivated Cal, I knew how to get my way most times. Chris is hard to read but only because I felt like he was so confused about what was going on, that his conflicting emotions get the better of him most times. Knowing his history and his parents I felt more at ease with him, and the fact I was determined to do whatever I needed to make things work for our family…. well that hasn’t changed.
Whatever it takes.
Family.
It can make or break you.
I’ve seen it. It was the thing that made him, but sometimes the cure comes from the same tree as the poison. Of all of us, I remember the most about our life before. Our mom and dad, well the man we thought to be our father, and our three sisters. I remember our life being good when our mother was stable, or more stable than the times she wasn’t. I remember feeling love at some points. We were her favorite, I remember the last moment with her before everything was changed.
Raven is sitting on the sofa, her eyes on Caylen.
“I love my niece, Collin. I would die for her and this little girl,” she continues looking me directly in the eye. I can sense her worry, her restraint, the pain she’s dealt with being interconnected to all of this. I wonder how many sleepless nights she’s had, how many prayers she’s said. I heard her and Lauren today when I realized I left one of my files. I heard their fight. I don’t know if they heard each others' plea, the one that’s really unspoken, hidden under the anger at the surface, both just want the pain to stop, a break from the underlying worry. I understand Raven; I’ve been in her place for all of these years. Through the tug-of-war, the opposite agendas of Christopher and Calvin. We all just want peace. I approach her slowly and take her hand.
“Are you ever going to be well?” her words come out sharp, but I can tell that she doesn’t mean for them to be hurtful. “She deserves that, she’s been through so much,” her voice slightly breaking.
“And what about Caylen? How is this supposed to work for them?” She wipes her eyes.
“I know that this may be harsh, but I’m just so worried about them.” Her voice is tense but vulnerable. She stands and walks closer to me. “If Lauren knew I was talking to you like this she’d never forgive me, but I-I have to hear this from you…” She lets out a deep breath.
“Lauren will never walk away from you. I realized that today. She will never ever let you go, and it scares the hell out of me.” She glances up toward the bedroom Lauren is in. “You have to promise me. If you really love her, if you know that it is even a possibility of you coming anywhere near hurting her that you will walk away from her. I need that promise from you, from Chris, and from Cal. Knowing that would just help so much.”
She knows that I could easily tell her a lie. That I could give her an empty promise, but she seems relieved to have said the words, even if I could use those same words to turn the person she loves most against her. I remember when she was Cal’s biggest supporter, I saw her skepticism about Chris, and when she looks at me, there’s a mix of fear, skepticism, and exhaustion. I take her hands in mine and a flicker of a memory of the mother I used to know tries to enter my thoughts.
“I promise you that she’s safe with me, that I won’t do anything to hurt her. It isn’t in me or any of us to do anything that won’t be for her good,” I promise her, and can see that she’s still skeptical but hopeful.
“Is everything ok?” We both turn and see Lauren standing at the top of the stairs, and for the first time in my life, I don’t have anything to say. She looks like an angel, a white dress snaking around her body, a simple diamond necklace rests on h
er neck, her hair swept on top of her head showcasing the length of her neck. She’s always been beautiful. From the time Cal first laid eyes on her there was no denying that, but as she stands there right now, she looks regal, elegant, and vulnerable, like she’s a star of a 1950’s film, and it catches me off guard.
“You look beautiful, sweetheart.” Raven is standing and walks to meet her at the stairs. I realize I haven’t said anything.
“Thank you.” She glances over at me, and her cheeks are flushed pink, and my chest tightens. She smiles at me shyly, one that I haven’t seen from her directed at me at least.
“Thank you for today, it was really needed,” she tells me.
“It was well deserved,” I clear my throat.
“Don’t you think mommy looks pretty?” Raven says walking across the room and picking up Caylen in her arms. She beams causing all of us to break into a smile. I take Caylen’s hand and kiss it. She’s the best thing Cal has ever done. To see so much of myself in her is still surreal, to see a bigger purpose to be better is a reminder for us all to be a better man.
“You two have a great time tonight.” Raven gives Lauren a quick hug and she squeezes my shoulder, a passing understanding between the both of us.
“You be good for auntie Raven,” Lauren tells Caylen kissing her on the cheek.
“Be good princess,” I hug and kiss her good-bye. “Shall we go Mrs. Scott?” I ask extending my arm to her. She nods and the smile she tries to hide peeks through.
“Yes we shall, Mr. Scott,” she says in an amused tone.
Our car ride is quiet, but there is a tension that you can feel, that’s intermingled with the smell of her perfume. She’s nervous, but trying to hide it. She keeps squeezing her wrist and hums along to the music which are obvious signs of her nervousness. We’ve only made small talk about her day, Caylen, her trip to the spa. I engage her when she opens up, but my thoughts are clouded and more unfocused than usual. My eyes keep drifting to the hem of her dress that keeps edging up, my mind keeps going back to the moment in the shower where she looked at me with equal parts reservation, annoyance and desire.
