69. Dollie—present day #2
“So, why the fuck do you want to end our relationship all of a sudden after I come home and try to do something nice. You’re not even acting like you. You seem cold and distant.”
Yes, because I found out awful things this week.
Like, you lying about the letter.
What I did to my parents.
Glancing around Shane, I continue hiding the truth. “Could it not be because you’re trying to get rid of all I have left of my family?”
Shane has nothing to say in reply. He moves to the center of my parents’ room, surrounded by upcycled furniture and pretty decoupage designs, and I move to the doorway.
“You shouldn’t have done this without my permission.”
“You know what, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t sound sorry with his rushed words.
“Can you just get in here and take a look at all this free space? Maybe you’ll even agree when you see I’ve kept the basics.”
“The basics? It’s a shell.” I glance around the doorframe at the lack of personality any room has after a Shane cleaning spree.
“Stop being so ungrateful. I’ve worked hard.”
Dozens of reusable sacks fill the room, each one overflowing with everything from Mom’s underwear, to Dad’s endless collection of work ties, to the trinkets they collected over the years.
“I’ve seen, but it was for nothing, because I still want to keep everything.”
“Even your Mom’s panties? Don’t you think that’s kinda sick?”
“There are other things in that sack.” I point to one of the sacks, where some of Dad’s things hang out of the top. “Dad’s ties. You can’t toss out Dad’s ties. He wore that yellow one to their wedding, and I had a dress the same color.”
Creeping into the room, I forget the threat of repercussions from Shane’s anger and my fears over my parents, and rip open a sack. Ties and shirts fall over the soft carpet that hasn’t frayed with time. Hasn’t been ruined by the harsh feet of intruders.
The lemon tie is soft between my fingers. I can almost smell Dad’s musky cologne as I inhale it.
“Fine. Keep that one.”
The yellow tie flies through the air as Shane snatches it from my hands. It lands on the bed, set out on Dad’s pillow like a tie would be each morning as he got ready.
Tears continue to burn my eyes, and the emotion they travel with plays hell with my rattling chest. “I want to keep everything. I am keeping everything.”
“It’s just a load of damp old junk, though, Lancie.”
“Not to me, and this conversation is done.” I sit by the sacks, knees pressing into the soft carpet. My joints still hurt as I remove one item at a time from another sack.
The books Mom and Dad wrote about the grief of losing their children and feeling guilty come out next, and I tremble, seeing Ambrose and me on the cover, enjoying different Christmas gifts in the months before our lives changed forever.
Their plan was probably in place when they snapped this candid shot.
“I mean, seriously, Dollie, if you’d just let me clean this place out, we could stay in this room. It’s huge.”
“Shane, have you not been hearing me?” I look away from Dad’s thing between my moving fingers to Shane. “You just told me my brother was dead to see if I’d cry. This isn’t working.”
“It could, though, couldn’t it? If you just put in a little effort with me and less with him.
” He squats at my side, his calloused hand scraping along my thigh, never making it to the hem of my hoodie.
He settles one on my knee, his grip tightening.
“Is this the one that hurts him? Why he has that fucked up limp?” He smiles, all teeth.
Shifting away from him, I take his threat seriously.
“So, about this room?—”
“It’s not my room. I don’t want to stay in here. Just leave everything, and I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” I fold a shirt of Dad’s and place it to my side.
“You won’t, though, because you won’t part with anything.”
“Please, Shane. Let this drop.”
A dark shadow looms in the doorway, and I pivot, finding Ambrose’s dark clothes shielding me from the brighter hallway lights.
Even silent, his presence is enough to get Shane backing away from me.
“Sure,” Shane turns back to me, a false smile lifting his lips and squinting his eyes. The narrowed gaze lingers on me a second too long. “We can leave it. I was just trying to help.”
“Why are you crying, Dollie? What’s going on?” Ambrose’s green eyes burn with rage, his stare locks on Shane, who drifts away from the sacks.
“You talk now?” Shane careens back to Ambrose. “How did that happen?”
“None of your fucking business.” Ambrose’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard. He has no interest in telling Shane that, physically, he could always talk. His only interest is getting him out of this room. “What are you doing in here?”
“I just thought your sister might want to get rid of some of this junk.”
“Junk?” One of Ambrose’s eyebrows disappears beyond his greenish-blue—dark brown—hair as he steps inside the room and leans back, a clean sock against the wall as he kicks up his leg. “These are the only things we have left of our parents.”
“God, what—have you guys been spending that much time together? I mean, did you even like your parents?”
“They were my parents.”
“Yeah but given what happened.” Shane sticks an invisible knife into my chest.
“Stop making insinuations, Shane, or you’ll be joining them.” Ambrose shakes the tension from his body.
“You just sound so much alike.”
Ambrose approaches, his shadow looming over Shane, who steps back to get out of it. “Have you ever thought that maybe we just share the same feelings?”
I try to look away from the intense stare Ambrose gives me as he looks over Shane’s shoulder and delivers that two-meaning statement.
It’s a struggle.
Because all I want is his arms closing tightly around me, telling me everything will be okay.
And all I see in his eyes are promises that it really will be.
“Shane,” I stutter. “Why don’t you go and wait in my room. I’ll explain to Ambrose that we were thinking of cleaning and how we misunderstood each other.”
Shane doesn’t step in and take any blame, just accepts my lie, and has a jibe on his way out.
“Will you be okay here with him?” he asks, freezing in the doorway.
“Of course, she will.” Ambrose answers on my behalf. “Now, do as she asks and get the fuck out of our parents’ room. And don’t touch any of their stuff on the way out, if you want to be able to use your hands tomorrow,” Ambrose rasps.
“Sure, man. We were just trying to clean up everywhere. No harm done. I’ll meet you in our room, Dollie? We can have a cuddly movie night? Rom com? To say I’m sorry for upsetting you?”
“Okay,” I answer, just to get rid of him.
Ambrose’s eyes roll and are still rolling when I meet his gaze. When Shane is out of hearing distance, he snorts. “Movie night sounds cozy. Rom-coms and cuddles.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t wonder why he’s here? Or what he’s done to make you cry? I know you’re lying for him.”
I don’t answer Ambrose.
“Dollie, talk to me or I’m gonna go in your room and ask him, and if he lies to me?—”
“I don’t want you fighting. How are you even home? I thought you were working a double shift.”
“I have another four hours. I took a lunch break to check on you.”
“Because you knew he was here?”
“Does that make me an asshole?” Ambrose’s voice breaks on the last word.
He looks to the bed before deeming it clean enough to sit on.
“No, but just so you can stop wondering, I’m not in the mood for cuddles. I plan on talking to him, but I can’t tonight.” I neatly fold some of Dad’s ties.
“Because you’re afraid to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t need to. I know you well enough to know that the condescending tone of his voice will keep you in line.”
“He hasn’t been violent tonight.” Yet.
“Dollie, if he does?—”
“It won’t come to that tonight.”
“But you’re waiting until tomorrow to talk to him?”
“Yes.”
“About what? The letter?” That question has Ambrose needing to clear his throat.
“About everything, and where we go from here.”
“Hopefully, that’s in separate ways?”
I nod.
“You could do better than him.”
I nod again, standing with a single tie in hand, and moving away from the torn-open sacks and the mess falling out of them. “I’ll sort these tomorrow. I need to get out of this room,” I say, with a scratchy throat.
“Are you doing okay?”
I stop before him, standing between his parted legs. “I feel suffocated by guilt. I can’t eat. Can’t relax. There’s just this heavy feeling in my chest constantly.”
“Dad said?—”
“I know what he said, but how can anyone forgive what I did.”
“You thought I did it. Did you forgive me?”
Nodding, I drop to his knee. His arms and the feeling of safety they bring wrap around my waist. He doesn’t flinch, grazing my colostomy bag over my clothes.
“I did. I thought it was a psychotic break, because I knew you’d never hurt them.”
“And that’s what it was, Dollie.” Ambrose’s voice gets croaky again, and I find my fingers on his throat before even thinking about it. “It was still a psychotic break. It wasn’t you. They’ve forgiven you. I don’t doubt that. I have.”
“But it hurts you.”
“It hurts us both.”
Nodding again, I wipe my wet eyes and turn the conversation in another direction. “I guess I should get back.”
“To him?” Ambrose holds me as I try to leave his space, his hands locking tightly on my hips. “If you’re thinking of staying with him, just know, you deserve better than a man you’re afraid of. Regardless of what you think, you deserve the world.”
“You mean like a man who’d do anything for me?” I ask, breaking free of his hold and edging to Dad’s pillow. I set down a lilac tie that’s been in my hands for the last few minutes, soothing me along with Ambrose’s touch.
This time, he nods.
Glancing at the door, I check to make sure Shane really has gone to my room and isn’t lurking somewhere. “It’s a nice dream, but you can’t touch me without being sick, Ambrose.”
“I’ll work on that.” He gives me a side smile, that irresistible dimple popping.
“That’s what you want?”
“I told you, I have no regrets.”
“You’re telling me lies, I can see it.”
“I’m not. It’s just that I worry about moving from siblings to more.
And in truth, about disappointing Mom and Dad, and what people will say.
” His words become silent, communicating with me through signing,.
That you’re brainwashed, because they won’t understand that you might actually be able to love me.
“No one else has to understand my feelings.”
“So much could go wrong. It kinda feels wrong to want you as much as I do, the way I do.” His hand massages his throat as he attempts talking with words again.
“Not to me. You never feel wrong. I never feel sick when I’m close to you. I feel safe. I feel sick when I think about losing you.”
“You won’t ever lose me again. We can’t take back what’s already happened, and I don’t want to, Dollie.”
I take in his words, letting them settle before I reply.
“Then, it’s best you work on that sick thing.” I step away, not getting far because he wraps his fingers around mine.
“I’m not perfect, Dollie, and you’ll likely be subjected to cruel taunts and whispers from everyone outside, but here with me, you’d be safe. I’d be good to you.”
“I know you would.” I squeeze his hand, my thumb running over his scars. It brings me comfort, his soft skin.
“You’re my person,” I whisper as low as I can.
“And you’re mine.” His lips place the softest kiss on my shaking hand. He notices my fear in those movements, in the sweat sticky on my palm. “You don’t need to do this. If he’s hurt you today, tell me, and you won’t have to face him alone. I don’t want you to be another statistic.”
“It wasn’t like that.” That’s true. “I’ll be okay.”
Shane never actually snapped, though I thought he would.
Maybe therapy is working. Maybe tomorrow we can have that chat—maybe I’ll be brave enough then.
Ambrose squeezes my hand lightly. “Just so you know, I’d never hurt you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ambrose.” My hand lands on his chest, gentle fingers skating up his neck. “Because you hurt me most of all by leaving me.”
“I did it to save you,” he whispers softly.
And I know that, but it didn’t change the fact that I cried myself to sleep night after night, because I knew I wouldn’t see him for years.