Chapter Nine
Harley
The key slides into the lock. Of course the key slides into the lock. The key is made for this f*cking lock.
But my heart is sputtering, and I can hear it loud in my ears. I still feel like I’m slipping a credit card into a door, all clandestine and furtive, because I might have a key, but this is not my home anymore.
I used to come and go as I pleased. Not only when I was younger, but also my first two years in college. I’d stop by for dinner, or pop by in the mornings, or crash here at night every now and then.
The door groans as I open it, inch by inch. I glance down the stoop to the sidewalk, across the street, up and down the block, making sure no one sees or hears me.
The house is silent, except for the low purr of the dishwasher. She always sets it to run mid-day so the dishes are done when she returns home. My heart aches the tiniest bit as I remember this detail about her; a meaningless detail in the scheme of things, but one of the many pieces that add up to her. How she likes order. How she likes neatness. I know so many things about her. Too many things. Except not enough, and that’s why I’m here, sneaking in after my last class of the day.
“Hello?”
I call out, but am greeted by my own echo. Instinct kicks in, and I leave my purse on the table in the living room where I always leave it, then I find myself heading for the kitchen to grab a soda. But I stop in the doorway. Nature is a powerful force, and I fight back. I’m not here to make myself at home with a Diet Coke. I’m here to find things she kept from me.
“Anyone home?” I try again, just in case.
One of the last times I came here in the middle of the day I ran into her latest suitor. Naked. I cringe at the memory of Neil’s furry parts. I don’t even know if she’s with him anymore.
I head straight for her office. Her laptop is gone, but that’s not a surprise. She probably took it with her to the office today. I take a deep breath and picture myself as some cool, calculating Angeline Jolie soulless spy. I imagine slipping on leather gloves, then methodically exploring each drawer with ruthless efficiency till I find what I need.
I open the top desk drawer, and flip through papers, Post-its, scissors, and tape.
Nothing.
The next drawer is crammed with old bills. Another one contains folders full of her pay stubs over the years, then her royalty statements from her publishers for her bestselling books. I narrow my eyes at those, because her editor is a witch.
But that’s it. Nothing out of the ordinary. No letter from my grandparents. No telltale note from my dad. Nothing special, just the necessary documents to run her business. I scan her bookshelves, run my fingers over the edges, hunting for a card, or something poking out between pages.
I don’t even know what I want it to say. But I know I want more. I want something more than her.
The books are only books though. Stories of politics. Tales of war-room negotiations. Tell-alls about campaigns marred by bad behavior.
I try the drawer under her fax machine, even though I rummaged through it the other day and it only included paper. I yank it open, but there’s still only paper.
And a package of batteries, now.
Double A batteries.
My stomach curls. She always bought them online. Kept herself well-stocked in batteries. And the things her batteries go in aren’t in her office. They’re in her bedroom.
Her room.
The one room I stopped going into when I was a teenager. I didn’t hang out in her bathroom anymore to prep for parties; I didn’t help her pick clothes for parties. I had my own room, my own bathroom, and we’d meet in the hall.
If I were her, and I were trying to hide something from me, I wouldn’t hide it in the office. That’s a harmless room. And I wouldn’t stow it away in the kitchen. It would be in her bedroom. Sure, the card I found the other day was hidden under the laptop; but that was a way station, I bet. She hadn’t yet shuttered it away.
I reach her room and the door’s wide open. I walk in, and my nostrils are assaulted with her lingering perfume, the scent marking her territory: Obsession.
Her bed dominates the room, a huge king-sized creature that has claws and a heartbeat. It’s living, breathing, and watching me from beneath the red satin sheets. I tiptoe around the bed on quiet feet, keeping a distance, as if it might bite me. I reach the nightstand, wishing I had rubber gloves from the doctor’s office.
Because I bet the cards are in here. Her private drawer. Her secret hideaway.
I pretend I’m wearing a nose mask as I gingerly tug on the handle, sliding open the drawer. I peer out of the corner of my eyes, terrified of what I see: thick purple plastic, a red one with metal balls, a slim blue number with ten different speeds, one with straps, another with leather.
I gag, and slam the drawer shut.
I can’t do this. Whatever she’s hiding from me isn’t worth seeing this. I broke away from her for a reason, so I’d never have to know about her sex life again. I rush to her bathroom, crank on the faucet and scrub my hands, lathering up to my elbows like a surgeon, as I cough. It’s like I’m choking on fumes, and it’s merely from the sight of her pleasure toys. I wash harder, as if I can slough off all the layers of dirt.
Then my stomach clenches, and a wave of nausea hits me again.
Just my luck. I breathe deeply, as if I can will it away with a calming inhalation as I finish washing my hands. But the nausea is stronger, so I drop down to the toilet and yak up my breakfast.
Great. Just great. So far, pregnancy is really f*cking fun.
I return to the sink and wash my face, cupping water in my hands to clean out my mouth. I squirt some toothpaste onto my finger and scrub it against my teeth. I turn to the towel rack to dry my hands, but it’s empty. When I open the cabinet to hunt for one, I spot a wooden box tucked under the fresh linens. It’s the kind of box that holds mementos.
Shrugging, I take a chance.
What have I got to lose now? I open the lid, and there’s a small padded manila envelope inside. On the outside of the envelope my mother has written 21 in a sharpie.
21?
The envelope isn’t sealed, and a thick pang of guilt stabs me, but I ignore it and peer inside. My heart springs inside my chest—I’ve found the buried treasure. I nearly squeal as I paw through more cards. All have different designs of animals in that vintage raised ink. I open one quickly; it’s a card for my thirteenth birthday. Then my ninth. Then my seventeenth. All with strange little notes and tales from the grandparents who supposedly never kept in touch with me, but always did.
They kept their promise.
I take the manila envelope, close the vanity, and race downstairs, my heart skittering angrily in my chest. She crossed so many lines, but this is something she took from me—the chance to know them. To know someone else in my family besides her.
* * *
Joanne pours ample amounts of cream into her latte, stirs in some sugar, and takes a drink.
“Are you sure they’re really from your grandparents?” Joanne asks. She leads the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous Group I still attend regularly, and she’s also my sponsor, so we meet one-on-one after the meetings.
“As opposed to?”
“Maybe they’re notes your mom wrote.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to look at all the angles.”
“They are definitely from my grandparents. I don’t remember details, but I know they told me they’d write to me every year. And they are signed Nan and Pop.”
“So, what do you think you should do about it?” Joanne asks, her hands wrapped around the mug, both her pinkies tapping the ceramic. She’s not knitting right now, and it’s strange to see her needle-free, but her fingers seem to cry out to be busy. Tap, tap, tap.
“I wish I knew what the cards meant. I don’t even know how to find my grandparents. I don’t know their last name, or my dad’s. She never told me.”
“She kept that from you? Your father’s last name?”
Even Joanne, cool, unflappable Joanne, seems perturbed by this.
I nod. “Yep, and there are no envelopes with the cards, and it hit me why as I was walking to the meeting. She doesn’t want me to know the return address. She doesn’t want me to know my grandparents. Not only did she keep them from me, she never wanted me to know.”
“But, to play devil’s advocate, if she wanted you to never find them why not throw out the cards? She kept them,” Joanne says pointing to the evidence, the manila envelope inside my purse.
“All I know is she hid these cards and my grandparents from me. For my whole life.”
Her finger taps the handle. “How does that make you feel?”
“Like she wanted to own me,” I say, narrowing my eyes, the words tasting sordid. “She wanted to box me in and make me hers, and not let anyone else near me.”
Joanne nods. “I agree. But the thing is, you don’t want to slip in your recovery and start letting these new discoveries about her cause you to return to your drug. You’re at a very critical time. You’ve been doing great battling your addiction, all while moving forward in a new relationship, and moments like this can cause a relapse.”
I look at her like she’s crazy, because that’s how she sounds. “You think I’d go back to being a call girl because of this? Give me a little credit, please.”
She shakes her head, her pink hair swinging back and forth. “No. But I’m saying it’s tempting at times of uncertainty, when we are hit with information that rocks us, to want to use sex, or love, or romance as a drug. You’ve only just broken free from her, but clearly she still has claws in you somehow. With each new discovery it can feel like another loss of control, and losing control can be a trigger. We crave control, and now, when your world feels unsteady, you could be tempted to get it back through old habits. But you want to be able to break your patterns. You want to end the cycle.”
“Okay. I get that. So what do I do?”
“You know you can call me anytime to talk. Pick up the phone, fly the Bat flag, I’ll try to help you. But you should also decide if these letters are important right now. Are you going to drop back into your mother’s life to learn about these cards?”
I don’t have to think about her question, because I already know the answer deep in my gut. It feels terribly important to find my grandparents. “I need to understand my family. I can’t be like my mom. I want to know what they’re saying to me,” I tell Joanne, then I decide now is as good a time as any. “Especially since I’m pregnant.”
She blinks several times, like a machine processing new data. Her index finger twitches faster against the mug. “Oh, my. Is that good or bad?”
I shrug, and a tear threatens to escape, but I manage to keep it together. Each day, each time it’s getting easier to say. “It is what it is. I guess it’s bad and it’s good, and you take them both. You can’t just say it’s bad. Because it’s this life inside of me that’s scaring the shit out of me, but it also must have happened for a reason.”
“Are you keeping the baby?”
I nod.
“What about college?”
“I have to find a way to finish it.”
“And how is Trey dealing with this?”
I smile once, flashing back to the other day in his apartment. Our baby. He’ll be a great father. “Surprisingly well.”
“That’s good then. And like I said, there’s a lot going on in your life. So be aware of triggers and temptations. And in the meantime, I’ll knit you some booties.”
“Good,” I say glancing at her hands. “Because I can tell you’re jonesing to be knitting something right now.”
“Like you can’t even believe.”
When I leave, I look at one of the cards, and the words written on the eggshell paper, wondering what mysteries lie behind this story that they promised to tell me . . .
Once upon a time there was a girl from the city who had sand and seashells in her hair, sun-kissed cheeks, and a smile as wide as the sun . . .