Chapter 10 #2
Another sneeze escapes me, reminding me of my aching bones, and I head back out to Borris, who is nearly passed out on the bed, exhausted from playing with the puppy earlier today. I smile at him, scratching the back of his ear as he gets cozy, and open the box.
I laugh at the first photo of Lily and me in middle school for some dress-up party. It’s the first time I ever did both of our makeup, and it shows.
The next one is of me in high school, riding Maisy, the white filly my mother bought for my thirteenth birthday.
I'd missed living on a farm, and my mother had grown tired of hearing about it, so they'd bought me a horse, and I enjoyed that for a few years until the novelty wore off, at which point I found myself interested in other things—more specifically, painting, girls, and boys.
I smile at a picture of me and my first girlfriend, Clara. We only dated for a few months. Then next was Billy. He asked me to prom, and before graduation, I dumped him because I didn’t want to be tied down with my upcoming travels.
I’ve been nothing if not flaky in relationships, and have never wanted anything serious. All these years later, not much has changed.
My hand freezes on the next photos, the ones I came here for.
They’re in a small envelope, and I pull out the first one, a sad smile pressing on my lips.
It’s of my father and me. He was sporting a moustache at the time and wearing his large-brimmed hat.
I was sitting on the small four-wheeler he bought me for my sixth birthday, only a few months before my parents told me they were getting a divorce.
I chuckle as I look at the leather jacket I’m wearing in the photo.
I remember he had it tailored, bedazzled with a gemstone llama on the back, because I loved them so much.
I search the box to see if there’s another photo of the back of the jacket.
I’d forgotten about that, and have no idea where it ended up.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t realize you were visiting,” my mother says from the doorway, and I look up at her, offering a small wave.
Her gaze lowers to the box, and her lips turn down as she dumps her shopping bags at my door.
Despite having the house staff who could put them away for her, she’s always enjoyed admiring her purchases and putting them away herself.
“What are you looking at?” she asks cautiously, and the tension between us from the way we last spoke to one another flares up.
When she sits beside me, looking over at a snoozing Borris, I pull her in for a hug.
She seems surprised but puts an arm around me and looks down at the photo on top of the pile.
“He was such a striking man, wasn’t he? Do you remember that jacket? You never wanted to take it off. I wonder what happened to it.”
It’s funny how some things you love so deeply get lost along the way.
Much like my mother’s love for my father.
As a child, I never understood how love wasn’t unconditional, but as an adult, I now understand the many things that can pull people apart.
My mother was born into money, married for love the first time, then remarried into money again.
She once told me love doesn’t always conquer all.
That security and freedom are even more attractive, and she always only wanted what was best for us.
“Do you ever miss him?” I ask.
She sighs as she looks at the photo, trailing her finger over it. “I do. He was my best friend for so many years, after all.”
The friendship might’ve remained, but the lifestyle wasn’t one my mother was satisfied with, even when she might’ve convinced herself once that she was.
But her heart had already moved on. I didn’t understand it at the time because I was so young, but I vividly remember the way she crumbled when she received the news that my father had passed.
Even though she’d divorced him two years prior and had remarried, we both lost him that day.
“There’s my two girls,” Barry says from the doorway. He’s neatly dressed, obviously having just come from work.
He leans over and presses a kiss to my mother’s cheek in greeting and then shuffles his feet awkwardly.
It’s not that I dislike Barry; we’ve just never had much in common.
But he’s always provided everything I could ever want, and has tried his hardest to be a father to me.
However, he never lived up to my father.
“I haven’t seen you for a while, Romi. Not after… Well, you know… your roommate. How are you doing, love?”
My mother’s head whips in his direction, giving him a stern expression, and I place the photos back in the envelope then into my handbag.
“I should get going; I just wanted to pick up a few things,” I tell them.
“Stay,” my mother pleads, and I offer her a small smile as I take the box into my closet and bury it back in the bottom drawer.
“I’d love to, Mom, but I’ve got plans tonight.” She doesn't need to know those plans include me back in the comfort of my pajamas in my bed, after I know a certain asshole has left for work. “Oh, Barry…” I add, facing him.
His gaze moves from my mother's reproachful glare to me. She was most likely scolding him for mentioning Lorraine, even though she’d intruded only days ago herself.
I don’t know how to best articulate my question. I mean, after all, I don’t even know what type of doctor Dante pretends to be, but it’s bothered me ever since I pulled out that satchel of scalpels.
“Do most doctors take their tools home with them?” I ask.
His eyebrows dip, and he looks to my mother. “I’ve definitely brought injectables home, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Way off the mark.
“Never mind.”
“Wait, Romi. Promise me you’ll come back for dinner sometime soon. Please?” my mother begs.
I sigh, that mounting guilt weighing on me.
Everyone wants me to pretend like everything’s gone back to normal.
But it hasn’t, and it won’t.
I squeeze her arm but make no promises.
I’m not yet ready for her help. Not ready to accept anyone's assistance in drawing me out of this personal hell I live in—mostly because I think I deserve it for failing Lorraine.
And I don’t want any of them seeing the real me right now, afraid they’ll uncover the ugliness within. This way I can protect them and myself, in a time when I’m grieving because I failed someone else I cared about deeply.