Chapter 16
Rosie stayed silent and still on the sofa for a good while after Shay left to pack a bag and grab her passport. She drifted to sleep and dreamed that her mom had jumped up from the slab in the morgue and cackled like a maniac.
“Got you, Rosarita!” she’d screamed and then jumped into the arms of the hospital’s mortician and proceeded to make out. He turned out to be Keith. His stubby, broken, and blackened teeth had been a clue she’d ignored.
Rosie woke up screaming too, but that was as much from the desire to get away from seeing her mom starting to have sex than it was from the shock of her being alive.
She tugged her sweaty T-shirt from her chest and took deep breaths to steady her racing heart.
She picked up her phone to check the time and jumped up from the couch when she saw it was nearly noon, and Shay would be returning soon.
She hustled into the bedroom, opened all her closets and drawers, and stood in the middle of her room, staring at all her clothing options.
The weather in Tijuana was only a few degrees higher than Chicago right now, so her choices should be simple.
But what was she supposed to wear to identify her mom’s body?
Something formal? She tugged a few sweaters, blouses, skirts, and dresses from their hangers, half-heartedly folded them, and stuffed them in her small suitcase.
They were joined by three pairs of pumps and sandals, a selection of underwear, and her ever-ready travel toiletries and cosmetics bag.
Rosie still couldn’t quite believe Shay had offered to go with her.
She’d never envisaged going away with Shay for a couple of days at all, but for this?
Rosie couldn’t imagine a less desirable reason to travel.
She zipped her case and put it by the door along with her purse before heading into the living room to write to Franklin, explaining what she had to do and why.
She intended to continue working on the proposal on the plane and during any other time she could squeeze it in so that she’d still meet the deadline.
He didn’t need to panic, and he definitely didn’t need to reassign the account to someone else.
After sending that email, she closed her MacBook and put it in her purse, along with her passport.
She stared back down the hallway at the letter from her mom.
It had contained her mom’s last wishes, and they were as outrageous as Rosie had thought they might be.
She shook her head and grabbed the piece of paper from the coffee table.
She wouldn’t need it in Tijuana, but she had a strange desire to show it to Shay so they could share a laugh over on the plane.
She probably shouldn’t even be thinking of laughing right now, but she’d been preparing herself for this moment for most of her life and now that it was finally here, she had to admit to a deep sense of relief.
She couldn’t share that with anyone else, or they’d think she was a cold-hearted, poor excuse for a daughter, but she’d been a therapist too long to ignore her own emotions, as ugly as they were.
Rosie heard the distinctive sound of Shay’s car engine roaring up the street.
Funny, she’d never taken any notice of how a car sounded before, nor had she reacted to one quite like this either.
Her Pavlovian response wasn’t quite dog drool, but even today, when the engine cutting out wouldn’t signal the start of another marathon sex session, she couldn’t ignore the buzz of anticipation and excitement in the usual places.
The other things she was beginning to feel…
Well, she didn’t need to acknowledge them right now, and she reminded herself that she was an ex-therapist, so repression was a normal human response.
She headed back down the corridor to put the letter in her purse, gathered her things, and went downstairs to greet Shay. Rosie put her case in the trunk and got in the car. “Thanks again for doing this.”
“You don’t have to keep saying that.”
“I know, but I probably will.” Rosie clicked her belt into place as Shay pulled into traffic. “I’m pretty much used to being self-sufficient and having to fend for myself. I’m definitely not used to someone being willing to inconvenience themselves to help me.”
Shay glanced at her briefly and frowned. “Lori’s always there for you, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she is,” Rosie said, “but we’ve only known each other for just over six years.
I’ve been like this for over three decades, and it takes a lot longer to unlearn responses than it does to learn them.
” She stared at Shay’s profile, thinking that this would probably change everything.
After Shay had seen Rosie ugly cry, and after all that was to come in the next however many hours, she probably wouldn’t want to touch Rosie again.
The veil had officially been dropped, and there was nothing sexy about watching someone dissolve into their grief.
“Do you think those responses are reversible?” Shay asked.
“I used to think so.” Rosie shifted in the bucket seat so she could stare at Shay without getting a cricked neck. “That’s mostly why I followed the career path I did; I wanted to know that people could change, that I could change…and that my mom could too.”
Shay wrinkled her nose. “But now you’re in marketing…”
Rosie laughed. “Now I’m in marketing.”
“Because leopards don’t change their spots, or whatever cliché you want to go with?”
“I honestly don’t know anymore.” Rosie sighed deeply.
She hadn’t had this conversation with anyone, including herself.
“I had clients coming to me every two weeks for years, and it just got to the stage where I didn’t think we were making progress.
They just didn’t want to put the work in, or they felt like they couldn’t put the work in.
Whatever it was, there was no real change, and I started to feel jaded, like I was wasting my time and their money. ”
“Come on,” Shay said. “You’ve got to have had clients who got better, or improved, or something.”
“I guess so, but sometimes, people just stop coming, and you don’t ever get to know what their outcome was.” Rosie shrugged. “I needed a change of scenery, so now I—”
“Use psychology to manipulate people into buying expensive shit they don’t need?”
“Wow, that’s harsh.” Rosie gently shoved Shay’s shoulder. “You really know how to beat a girl when she’s down, huh?”
Shay turned quickly, her eyes wide and her expression concerned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I was trying to lighten the mood and keep your mind off…y’know, things.”
Rosie smiled. “And it’s working. I’m teasing you.
And honestly, it’s hard to grieve someone who was never really fully there.
” She bit her lip, a little unsure how comfortable Shay would be talking about the loss of her own mom.
“I’m sure it’s different for people who had good relationships with their parents.
But I feel like I might’ve grieved for her the most when I was a kid, when I really needed her, and she never came through.
” She took a moment to dig deeper and think about her initial reaction.
“I’ve got a whole mixed bag of emotions running roughshod through my mind right now, including guilt. ”
“Why guilt?”
“I told you that Mom said she had to go to Mexico for medication for kidney disease, but I didn’t really believe her.
” Rosie wiped her nails as if they were covered in a fine sprinkling of dust. “I called Aunt Sheila, but then I ignored the situation, thinking Mom’d just come back like she always does—did.
I left a message asking her to call me back, but I didn’t keep calling.
I didn’t find out what medication she needed to see if I could get it for her without her going to Mexico. ”
Shay slowed the car to join the end of the traffic line on Airport Road then half-turned toward Rosie. “She died of an overdose, so none of that mattered.”
“She took the drugs without the hospital staff knowing, yes,” Rosie pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head, “but the doctor I talked to said that Mom had been admitted with complications arising from her kidney disease. That’s why she was there.
And if I’d done more, maybe she wouldn’t have been there at all.
” She wanted to continue but had to stop as the guilt seemed to wrap around her lungs, making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak.
Of course guilt would be her overriding emotion, even stronger than her grief.
It was her overdeveloped sense of guilt that her mom had played on all her life.
Shay pulled into the airport parking lot and switched off the engine.
“You haven’t told me everything about your mom, but it sounds like she always did what she wanted to do whether you tried to help her or not.
You shouldn’t carry that kind of guilt around with you.
It only gets heavier as the years pass.”
Shay sounded like she was speaking from experience, but Rosie didn’t press.
She was conscious of the time, and their last-minute flight was due to depart shortly.
They got their luggage and headed into the terminal enveloped by a weighty silence.
Rosie was too preoccupied to make small talk, and Shay seemed lost in her own thoughts.
Only then did it occur to Rosie that Shay might be dealing with unresolved feelings around the death of her own mom—did she say it had been six years?
Shay had choked up and been unable to talk about it, other than to say that she thought her father blamed her in some way.
Her offer to come with Rosie now seemed like even more of an imposition.
Supporting her when she was still clearly grieving the death of her own mom was like exposure therapy.
Rosie began to worry that it might all be too much.