Chapter 7 – Cora #3
I snatch the butter knife and shove it down the drain.
The metal blades rip it from my fingers, grinding and chewing, the mangled silver clattering against the steel, and it’s loud, but not nearly loud enough.
I can still hear Adrian’s stupid voice when he shouts.
At least, I can’t make out the words now.
Next goes the mixing spoon, then a tablespoon. I cram them down, and the blades squeal. Adrian reaches past me for the switch. I slap his arm away. Maybe I scream. I don’t know. My head is too full. It’s bursting.
I grab the rolling pin. Adrian hooks an arm around my waist and hauls me away from the sink. The rolling pin flies, bouncing off his shoulder. I watch it happen, hovering above the action like a drone.
His backward momentum lands him on his ass on the floor with me sprawled between his legs, trapped by his arm across my chest. My heavy head snaps back and cracks against his chin. He grunts.
A rush of pure adrenaline surges through my veins, and I fight, kicking my legs, the soles of my sneakers squeaking on the hardwood as I wrench my torso back and forth, but he’s stronger and holding on, wrapping himself around me while I flail.
“Stop it, Cora,” he barks, panting.
Why won’t he just let go? He doesn’t care. He can buy another garbage disposal. He can buy a million.
“Fuck you,” I gasp, bucking. “Let go!” I drive my heel into his shin.
He tries to block my foot with his hand, freeing my arms so I can try to shove myself away, peel him off, pry him loose.
“I hate you,” I spit. “You fucking asshole. I hate you.” And I do, with every fiber of my being. He ruined everything, and he’s not sorry, and he’s never going to understand what he’s done, and he’s never gonna pay for it. I drive my elbow back.
“Enough!” he shouts and squeezes me, hard, so hard my lungs can’t inflate. “What the fuck, Cora?” he spits in my ear.
He’s breathing hard, his cool, calm, collected veneer gone. For once, he sounds like a real person.
The wild energy rushes from me like air from a popped balloon. I’d forgotten it can be like that. Usually, I’d wear myself out, but sometimes a circuit breaker gets tripped in my head.
The garbage disposal whines. The pitch is too high. I think it’s broken.
“I told you to shut up,” I mumble although I can’t remember whether I did or not. I’m in bad trouble. I’ve gone over the edge again, and he knows, and there’s no one who can help me. Mrs. Flowers is gone. She gave me a clean slate, and I’ve ruined it.
He did this. He shoved me down a slippery slide.
I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. I will myself to stop, but it’s too late. I’m not in control of my body anymore.
“Cora,” Adrian says, gentler. Confused. “It’s okay.
You’re okay.” He eases his hold enough that I’m able to take a full breath and tentatively begins to rock me side to side.
He held me like this in childbirth class, me between his legs, his arms roped comfortingly around me.
I’d basked in it, letting my head fall back to rest in the crook of his neck.
I’d felt like the luckiest person who ever lived.
“It’s okay now,” he murmurs again.
It’s not. Tears stream down my face, dripping onto the forearm squishing my chest. The pressure on my breasts hurts. I haven’t fed Winnie or pumped since she went down for her nap.
I need to stop crying, pull it together, and think of an excuse for what I’ve done. He can’t know that I’m crazy. He’ll take my babies from me. Send me away. Have me locked up. Visitation conducted under the supervision of Mr. Maddox or his designee. The tears fall harder, choking me.
“Shhh,” he says, turning me, pressing my face to his chest, wrapping me in his arms. “It’s okay. No permanent damage done.”
Such a lie.
I sob, and he strokes my hair, and I let him because I’m scared, and he’s here, and he’s being kind at the moment, and my enemies have always been the people closest to me, the ones who comfort and hold me after they’ve torn me apart.
“Mr. Maddox?” Minh calls from the doorway. I immediately freeze and clutch Adrian’s arm.
“Don’t let him see me,” I hopelessly hiss. Of course, Adrian will send him for help. Tell him to call Dr. Farhadi or something. No one keeps your secrets when you fall apart. They pass you off to someone who gets paid to deal with the hassle and then dust their hands.
“Is there something I can do, Mr. Maddox?” Minh sounds closer. I stiffen.
“Shit,” Adrian mutters and gently but firmly pushes me forward so he can stand. “Stay down.”
He rises to his feet, and I stay down like he says, hidden by the island, huddled on the floor. I haven’t felt this low since I left Baltimore.
“Nothing of any concern,” Adrian says in his businessman voice. “Just a little kitchen accident. I seem to have broken the garbage disposal. If you would call the repairman?”
“Of course, Mr. Maddox. I’ll take a look at it first. I might be able to fix it myself.”
“No need. If you would just call the repairman and then order dinner for tonight. Thai would be good.”
“Yes, sir. Shall I order for eight thirty?”
“Six o’clock, please. The girls will be eating with us.”
“Yes, sir. Are you sure that—”
“That will be all.”
“Of course.” Minh’s steps retreat.
I hook my fingers in the edge of a closed drawer and pull myself up. I’m still shaking and numb, but I’m not going to cower at Adrian’s feet like a beat dog for a second longer.
Adrian stares in the direction where Minh disappeared. His jaw is clenched tight. He doesn’t look at me when he asks, “What was that, Cora?”
Depends on which doctor you ask. Borderline Personality Disorder. Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Complex PTSD. The doctors at Bellamy Cross had their theories, the doctor at Villa Theresa had her own.
Mrs. Flowers said acting crazy in a crazy situation is the sanest thing a person can do.
I don’t answer him. Instead, I cut to the chase and say, “I’d never hurt the girls.”
He doesn’t reply right away. I peek up. His mouth is drawn tight. He glances over at me. I hold his gaze.
“I know that,” he says. “Would you hurt yourself?”
I have to ask, Cara—have you had thoughts of harming yourself or wishing you were dead?
The correct answer is a lie. The question is a trap, a test of how gullible you are. They don’t want to know, not really. They want to be alerted in time so they can pass you off and not feel responsible or get in trouble if you do something.
I have no reason to tell this man the truth. I don’t trust him. And there’s nothing he can do to help me. He’s the reason I lost it.
He gazes at me, waiting for his answer. Cool. Calm. No pity or alarm or disgust apparent on his face. He really is a shark. There’s something about his eyes, though. Something different. I can see into them better than I could before.
A month ago, I’d have died of humiliation for him to see me in a state like this, but the jig is up now. What do I care about his opinion of me?
What’s stopping me from being completely honest with him? I want to tell him the ugly truth. The urge is not unlike the compulsion to shove that butter knife in the garbage disposal.
“Yes,” I say, as cool and calm as him. “But not too bad.”
For a few seconds he doesn’t respond, but then he drops a clipped nod. “Now? Tonight?”
I consider the question. No. I’m back in my body again, and my boobs are really aching. I need to feed Winnie. I promised Pearl we could have our pies for dessert after dinner. “No.”
“Would you tell me if you felt that way?”
That’s an easy one. “No.”
He nods again slowly. He’s silent for a few seconds and then says, “Why don’t you go get a shower? I’ll clean up here.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I’m almost out the door when he calls after me, “Bring the girls down to the dining room at six, please.”
I don’t turn or answer. I don’t know whether I will or I won’t. Probably I won’t.
I hurry down the hall and up the stairs like a dog is snapping at my heels, and it’s not until I’m finished feeding Winnie and standing under an almost painfully hot shower that I realize—for a few minutes in the kitchen, when Adrian was asking me questions, I was actually fully honest with him for maybe the first time ever.
I wasn’t playing Cora Jenkins. I was myself. The mess inside me.
It’s too big, too much, so I set it on a shelf in the back of my mind, but several times before I fall asleep, I take the realization out, stare at it, and wonder—if I was never honest with him, and he was clearly never honest with me, we never really knew each other, did we?
He thought I was the perfect, wide-eyed clueless girl who’d happily slot herself into the spot in his life that he wanted filled.
I thought he was a brilliant, cold, solitary man who I was saving with all the love I’d stored up over the course of my entire sad, wretched, lonely life. I thought he was my prince.
But I didn’t know him at all.
Kind of begs the question—was it love?
Or wishful thinking?
And why does the end of wishful thinking hurt so fucking bad?