18. Fox
FOX
“ I ’m sorry,” Ashley said beside me as we left the villa and started up the path to the hotel.
“For what?” The air was sweet and warm, the surf pounded in my ears and my belly was full of home cooking. In this moment, life was pretty damned good.
“For my family putting you on the spot. For making you endure an awkward dinner.”
“It wasn’t that awkward. And observing family dynamics is a bit of a spectator sport for me. I never felt like a member of my own so I’m always interested in how other families function.”
She halted to study me. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”
Oops. I was still a little dull in the head, jet-lagged and mellow. I was being more raw and honest than usual. For the most part, I shelved my family in the ‘modern blended’ section and let people make of it what they would. I didn’t bother wishing things had been different because history couldn’t be rewritten.
“Did I sound like I was whingeing? I didn’t mean to. Let’s go this way. I’m curious.” I pointed down a path that veered left, trying to deflect her.
“I didn’t think you were whingeing. I just think it’s funny you would look to us for how a family functions. Spoiler alert, we specialize in dysfunction.”
“Every family has its quirks. Even the families that look super solid from the outside have their fractures and stress points. Look at Eddie and Sandy. Losing their son and Sandy being so injured? It’s kind of amazing they made it through all that.”
“I know, right? And even though they all love each other, Shane always had this wall between himself and them.” She mimed an invisible one before her. “Is that just growing up? Why do we all feel so disconnected from our parents?”
“Do you feel disconnected from your mom? See, that’s what I find fascinating. To me it looks like you have a really deep connection with your mother and sister and niece.”
“All we do is bicker and pick at each other.”
“Yeah, but it’s all done with love.”
“You don’t think Vicky and Gary love you?” she asked very softly, but appalled hurt amplified her voice. Each syllable reverberated through me the way an earthquake would tremble the ground beneath my feet, threatening to knock me off balance.
“They do.” My chest felt tight, making it difficult to find a tone of voice that wasn’t strained or clipped. “In their way. It’s mostly obligation, though.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I don’t know. But I find it telling that I didn’t consider going to Vicky when I was broke at twenty. You’re twenty-six and your mother is offering you her bed at the villa.”
“That’s Mom’s controlling, matriarchal energy. She wants her little worker bees inside the hive so she can wax up the hole and sting any man who approaches. Men are more independent by nature. You’re taught to be macho and proud about money. I can see you refusing to ask Vicky and Mitchell for help because you like to be self-sufficient.”
Or because I’d only received minimal support as a child, which had forced me to become pathologically self-reliant. I didn’t spell that out, though, only conceded, “It’s true that I don’t like asking Mitchell for anything.” I brought my own beer to his house every single time.
“I wouldn’t, either. He seems like a dickhead.”
“Sometimes,” I agreed, but I had to admit, “He and Vicky are the real deal. And moving to Sydney was a solid career move for him. My life would be very different if he hadn’t kept a roof over my head for ten years. These days we got along well enough.” Mitchell had achieved his goal of early retirement so he wasn’t wound tight as a snake looking to strike.
We continued walking. The path came out by the pool which was full of twenty-somethings holding neon-colored cocktails. The path continued around to the green space that formed part of the headland visible from our room. Marquis tents were set up and music was blaring.
“Really?” Ash complained.
“It’s the corporate event, not a wedding.” I pointed out the logo for a big pharma company.
She stayed on the walkway, arms folded as she watched the milling crowd in cocktail dresses and button shirts with loosened ties.
“That’s the dynamic I’m always trying to crack,” she said. “What kind of life are you living when the company you work for pays you to go to Hawaii and throws a party like this? Izzy gets schmoozed like this. She flies to head office and it makes her sound so important.”
“She’s not,” I said dryly. “They want her to believe she is. That’s the point of events like this. Shane and I get wined and dined all the time. They’re a sales pitch dressed up like a Broadway show and they definitely expect you to get in bed with them after. This is probably about some pill they’re supposed to push when they get home. My favorite is when these events are billed as a ‘team building exercise’ and all that happens is people get legless and do something so incredibly stupid, they have to quit their job and change careers.”
“You’re such a cynic.” She was smiling with affection as she said it and started walking again.
“I’d love to say I’ll change, but it’s not likely.”
“Nice. I see what you did there.”
“Thank you. I didn’t expect you to get it.”
“Now you’re reaching.”
I was, but I was also having fun.
We came to an entrance door to the hotel and I started to open it, but she said, “Mom is overprotective because my father was kind of abusive.”
I dropped his hand from the door latch and tried not to say, ‘What’ or ‘Really’ or any of those other disbelieving words, but I didn’t want to accept that she’d been hurt. As a child . It instantly made me sick.
After a stunned moment, I found my voice, but it was deep in the bottom of my chest, arid and flimsy. It felt as though it unspooled vital organs when I tried to use it.
“You don’t say much about him. I wondered what she meant at dinner tonight, when she said she should have listened to your aunt.” I wanted to ask what had happened, but wasn’t sure I could bear to hear it. I left the silence for her to fill with as many words as she wanted to offer.
“He hit me once.” She stayed in the shadows of the overhang. Her voice was really quiet, almost impossible to hear over the music floating from the party and the crash of the surf. “But it was only once and kind of an accident.”
“Once is too many.” My sharp retort bounced back to me off the stone path beneath our feet and wooden rafters overhead. My brain was splintering. I wanted to grab her close, hold her safe, but my whole body vibrated with bloodlust. Where was this bastard? No wonder they checked up on each other’s boyfriends, quizzing exes in the grocery store.
“Mom thought so, too.” She was hugging herself, still talking to her toes. “He didn’t mean to, not really. He was dropping us off at school. Whit and I were in the back seat, fighting over a scarf. It belonged to Aunt Gilly, but we both wanted to wear it and he kept telling us neither of us could have it, but we wouldn’t let it go. He parked in front of the school and he reached back to grab it. Impatient, you know?” Her voice shook a little. “He didn’t mean to hit me, but he knocked me in the face hard enough my head hit the window.”
I recoiled in unconscious reaction, appalled. Sickened. “How old were you?”
“Eight. Everyone saw. The crossing guard and one of the teachers, some parents and students coming off the bus. I started crying, obviously. My lip was bleeding and I had a goose egg and a fat lip. He said he was sorry. He felt bad, I know he did, but it turned into this huge thing. They took me inside so the nurse could check me. She had to call social services. The police came. It turns out he was drunk. Over the limit.”
“Holy fuck. Did your mom know?”
“No. She worked nights and came home from her shift at the hospital to cops and a social worker at the door. She’d been thinking about leaving him because was drinking so much. Gambling, too. Things were really bad between them. He was a long-haul truck driver, but he’d hurt his back so he hadn’t worked in a year. He was angry all the time. In pain, I guess. Frustrated.”
“You don’t have to make excuses for him.”
She flinched at the harshness of my voice.
I cleared my throat, tried to keep my inner beast on a tighter leash.
“They were having huge money problems. This was the final straw for Mom. She divorced him, but had to pay off a bunch of the debt he’d racked up on their cards. She got full custody of us and he wasn’t allowed to see us until he went through rehab and started paying support. He didn’t. Not right away. He would bang on the door in the middle of the night, sometimes yelling, sometimes begging us to let him come back. I would be cowering in Mom’s bed and Whitney would be trying to let Dad in the door, convinced everything would be okay if we just put everything back to the way it had been. Mom would call the police and he’d go into the drunk tank for the night. It was really ugly.”
“That’s awful.” I could hardly take it in. “How long did that go on?”
“A few years?”
“Where is he now?”
“In the oil patch. He calls sometimes. The last few times he swore he was sober. I know he feels really bad, but... I don’t know. I don’t really think of him if I can help it. We hardly ever talk about it.” She shoved her fists under her elbows, shoulders hunched. “The whole thing made me really cautious about stepping out of line. Mom plays into it, not that I blame her. Her life was in turmoil and she had two kids to support. Three, once Whitney had Fliss. She comes off as controlling and critical, but she’s trying to keep us safe.”
“I can see that,” I murmured.
“Whit acted out for years. They still fight, which makes me...” She rolled her hand near her stomach. “I don’t like conflict. Bad things happen when you rock the boat, you know? So I’ve spent my whole life terrified to take the smallest chances and I’m so tired of being that way. When Shane asked me to marry him, I didn’t want to regret not marrying and moving overseas. He’s a good guy. He drinks, but he’s a cheerful drunk. He gets all sentimental. Never sticks around for a fight. He never once pressured me to do anything?—”
She faltered and looked off into the dark as if realizing she was sharing more than either of us might be comfortable with.
“Cuddles and puddles,” I said mildly. It was what all of Shane’s mates called him when he was hammered and full of hugs, proclaiming he loved everyone.
“Can you imagine if we married? Between Shane’s aversion to hard conversations and my fear of conflict, we would have suffered a thousand cuts before we realized we ought to divorce.” She sounded very sad.
I wanted to touch her, but made myself keep my hands at my sides. “I’m going to say this in case you need to hear it, but I hope you know your father’s behavior is on him. None of that is your fault.”
“Oh, it was my fault,” she said with a creak of agony in her voice. “He told me several times that it was.”
I closed my eyes, but couldn’t close my ears.
“I shouldn’t have fought with Whitney over something so stupid,” she said tiredly, as though she’d heard these words a thousand times. “I should have told everyone it was an accident. I should have said I wanted to see him and not let Mom kick him out, even though he was so angry I was petrified of him.”
“Oh, Ash.” My hands came up and I showed her my palms, helpless before such hurtful acts against someone who was really very sensitive and kind. And she’d been just a kid. So vulnerable. “Come here.”
She stepped into my hug and squeezed her arms around my waist so hard she pushed the breath from my lungs. Her whole body was trembling.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you,” I murmured, rubbing her back and pressing my lips to her hair, trying to press the dark memories out of her while my heart pounded in angry hurt and my closed eyes stung.
“It was a long time ago. I’m being stupid, but I keep thinking that I did something to cause this mess I’m in now. That I wanted too much. Is that why it’s all gone horribly wrong again? Should I go back into my tiny little box and be happy there?”
“It is absolutely not your fault.” It’s mine . I sheltered her as best I could, chest aching.
“Thank you for saying that.” She took a shaky breath and drew back to swipe her fingertips below each of her eyes. “I swore I wouldn’t cry anymore on this trip. Not unless I stepped on a jellyfish.” She forced an over-bright smile.
“You didn’t cry that time when you did.” There was a silver drip on her jaw. I dried it with the edge of my thumb. “You were tough as hell.” So tough and so fragile I didn’t know what to do with her. And I couldn’t seem to stop touching her. My fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before I realized I was doing it.
I deliberately dropped my hands to my sides again.
“Seriously.” She caught one of my hands and brought it to her mouth to kiss my knuckle. “I’m so mad at you I want to scream, but I’m really glad you’re here. Thank you.”
I came dangerously close to hugging her again. I wanted to hold her and hold her and hold her. Never let her go.
Don’t . My heart pounded with confusion, wanting to comfort, but there were lizard-brain instincts that needed to be stomped down, too.
I shifted my grip so our fingers were linked before I reached for the door.
“You still okay to see Sandy? We can check in with them in the morning if you’d rather.”
“I want to see her. It’s going to be painful, but I’d rather cram it into this already shitty day and hope tomorrow is a better one.”