When you handled the ugly and waited for the beautiful?
She sat with me the entire day and we sang together. I never bonded with Mom before, but we’d found something to do together. The first song she ever sang to me was “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin, and I’d never forget the chills I felt as the words came pouring out of her mouth, like they were made to be sung by her. I loved every second of it. I felt like I belonged by her side in that moment, singing with her.
By the evening, she grew a little unsettled, and sudden teas fell from her eyes. She excused herself and disappeared inside her room.
“It’s nothing you did,” Dad reassured me when he later came by to see how we were. “Mom’s just a little sick, okay?”
I frowned. “Will she ever get better?”
He nodded, a hopeful look on his face as he answered, “If she keeps taking her meds, she’ll be on the right track.”
There was a strict regime when it came to taking her meds. He had the key to the cabinet in the bathroom filled with all of her prescribed medications. On occasion, when he knew he was staying back at work, he’d give me the spare key and tell me to use it only for emergencies. That if she lost a pill, I could be the one to replace it for her.
“Nevergive her the key,” he told me every time he did this. “You hide it somewhere she’ll never find it.”
“Okay,” I told him.
I’d usually hide the key in my sneakers, or under a rug somewhere in the house. Other times, I’d have it in my pocket just to be sure it was with me. She never, ever found it, but then again, she never, ever asked for it anyway.
I grew close to her when she was on her meds. She was vibrant and funny. She was affectionate and warm. She was everything a mother should have been to her little boy, and I loved her. Vastly. She meant so much to me.
“I love you, Mom,” I’d say on more than one occasion.
“I love you, Carter,” she’d say back, holding me to her; I’d bury my face in her clothes, breathe her in. She was everything to me.
But there were still dark days.
There would always be dark days, my father said.
Fifteen
Leah
He wasn’t in bed when I woke up the next morning.
The world had turned back on, and reality settled in swiftly, but my heart was beating differently now. It wanted him all over again, and I groaned in exasperation at myself for falling so quickly into him.
I needed to get away.
I was weak.
So, so weak.
In an ideal world, I would have been that strong woman, turning the other cheek at the man responsible for so much emotional turmoil. In that world, I would be looked up to for such strength and determination. But in the real world, with all its ugly truths, I wasn’t that kind of woman.
I was just a vessel of emotions. You couldn’t turn that off.
I got out of bed and dressed in a loose shirt and shorts. When I joined them on the deck outside for breakfast, I was happy that Molly was indeed gone. I could feel Carter’s eyes on me as I packed my plate with strips of bacon and eggs. My gaze found his on my way to the chair next to Marlena.
He gave me a wistful smile, and I was too shaken up from last night’s events to return it.
We’d talked for hours.
We’d drank.
We’d kissed.
And we’d cuddled.
