Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Keeping up with current news affairs used to feel oddly comforting, like observing the beauty of a shark underwater behind the safety of a cage.
As Lee Holmes cycled through each and every news channel, living in a pattern of her own creation, it felt like the cage that she had become submerged in was breaking apart piece by piece, and the possibility of drowning, or worse, being eaten alive, was so prominent she could feel it, even now as she sat in the living room she had been intermittently avoiding since everything had unfolded.
If ignorance was bliss, then all of her bliss had disappeared.
It had been so easy before to watch Morgan walk out of the door, only to return a few hours later.
Watching her leave on Tuesday was like watching the closing scene of a sad movie, only for an after-credit scene hinting at the possibility of a sequel to hit her square in the face.
There would always be sequels with Morgan Finch if only because of the dark secrets they both wielded together. There was no closing scene, not really.
It was only then that it occurred to her that whilst she had been wallowing in self-pity, Sienna had just recently broken up with her abusive ex-boyfriend, and was now potentially pursuing something new and exciting with Kat, and she had completely disregarded both events in favor of stewing in her own misfortunes.
She couldn’t rectify this with a simple text, but it felt like the right place to start.
Lee H 11:48am: Hey, I know you have every right to not want to talk to me right now, but I just wanted to apologize for how much of an asshole I’ve been.
I was so blinded by what was going on in my own life that I didn’t even take a second to think about what was going on in yours.
I’ve been a terrible friend to you. If you ever want to talk to someone about Dylan, you know where I am.
She hit send, regretting it almost instantly as she bit at her bottom lip and began typing again as she leaned against the kitchen counter, dissatisfied with her current apology.
Lee H 11:49am: I also hear you’re going property hunting in a couple of days, and I would love nothing more than to go with you and help you find your perfect home. That is, if you’ll still have me. Love you S. x”
Lee was rifling through the fridge when the phone rang a few minutes later, gathering all of the snacks she had available in order to drown her sorrows in sugar and carbohydrates.
She placed a cream pie back on the top shelf of the refrigerator and answered as promptly as she could without checking the caller ID.
“Hey, Sienna,” Lee said, closing the fridge door behind her. “I’m glad you called.”
“It’s Diana,” the voice on the other side replied, simply, prompting Lee to lean back against the refrigerator if only to prepare herself physically for the potential fallout of the call after her breakup with Morgan. “Were you expecting your friend? I can call back later.”
“No, no,” Lee replied, shaking her head. “I just thought you were someone else, that’s all.”
The line paused for just a moment. “In that case, can we talk?” Diana said, in a voice far more unwavering than Lee was used to. “Perhaps not on a phone call,” she added. “We could meet for lunch? My treat.”
Had the proposition of paying not been presented, Lee might have thought that this would be the phone call that well and truly ended her; the call that told her that the game was finally over, and that she had lost. Those two definitive words at the end filled her with a sense of hope, taking solace in the fact that her ex-girlfriend’s mother wasn’t likely to offer to buy her lunch after discovering that her daughter was a serial killer and her now-ex-girlfriend had aided her in being one.
Lee shook her head again, as if Diana could sense it at the other end of the phone.
“No, you’re definitely not paying, but I would love to have lunch with you. ”
The sigh of relief at the other end of the line filled Lee with anything but relief.
What could be so important as to exhale at the confirmation of lunch?
The obvious answer was that Morgan had spoken to Diana about the break-up, and yet, that seemed unlikely.
Whilst Morgan was her ex now, she still knew enough about her to know that Diana would be the last person on Morgan’s list of confidantes about such a matter, opting to speak to the janitor at their apartment prior to her own mother.
“Excellent,” Diana said, sounding a little more like herself now as opposed to a concoction of nerves, her voice sounding lighter, more high pitched. “How does 1:00pm at Laguana's sound?”
“It sounds perfect,” Lee said, doubting herself as the words fell out of her mouth. Truth be told, it didn’t sound particularly perfect at all, given the situation between herself, and Morgan. Despite this, hearing the fluctuations in Diana’s tone made her say it anyway. “I’ll be there.”
And she would be there, if only to allow herself the slightest grip on reality, if only to see the woman that in turn had made the woman that she loved.
If only because Morgan had shown empathy by acknowledging Diana’s loneliness once upon a time, opting to spend time with her when her mother had needed it, and so, she could do the same.
Having not spent time alone with Diana in the past, Lee Holmes wasn’t precisely sure how situations like this were supposed to unfold.
She supposed convention wasn’t observed here regardless due to the fact that she and Morgan were no longer together.
Despite this, she followed the same etiquette of opening her arms for a hug in greeting, before taking a seat within the booth where she had just been sitting previously.
Diana followed suit, taking a seat opposite Lee within the booth.
It quickly came to Lee’s attention that the worst thing about being alone with Diana is that Diana had nowhere else to look besides Lee and Lee had nowhere else to look besides Diana.
With their eyes latched onto one another, Lee was grateful for having ignored etiquette, ordering a coffee prior to Diana’s arrival, taking a sip of her distraction.
“I need to know the truth,” Diana said, taking Lee’s distraction instantaneously and crushing it underneath her incredibly worn-looking loafers.
“Has Morgan been getting into any more fights lately that I should know about?”
The question took Lee by surprise, placing her coffee down as she shifted within the booth. “Not that I know of. As a matter of fact, I’ve never known her to get into any fights besides the one that she had with Dylan in the five years that we’ve been together.”
Morgan’s mother nodded and offered a simple “mm,”, her eyes diverting to the table for just a moment as her mind wandered elsewhere.
“I’m glad to hear it. I just want you to know that there are things in her past that she might have failed to tell you, and I say that not to cause a wedge between you both.
I tell you because I’m sure she would want you to know, but doesn’t quite know how to tell you. ”
Lee Holmes leaned forward now, as if inviting the conversation with her entire body.
After wishing to be anywhere else besides in this booth, she had now come to the swift conclusion that there was nowhere else she would rather be.
If Morgan wouldn’t be forthcoming herself about who she was, perhaps her mother would be.
Diana’s eyes looked glassy, her attention diverting towards the waiting staff as opposed to Lee’s own eyes.
She exhaled, centered herself, and glanced back over towards Lee.
“I’m sure you know that she lost her father, my husband, when she was fifteen, in quite possibly the worst way imaginable, at the hands of someone else.
It’s why I became a detective in the first place.
Most kids they…” she paused, finding the right words.
“They cry about it, they talk to their friends, their family, you know? Loved ones.”
Lee nodded, urging her to continue, swallowing down the empathy she felt for Diana at that moment in time.
She had never seen Diana cry, and perhaps she wouldn’t see her cry today, either.
But as the words fell out of her, it appeared that this was just about the closest she had ever come to being vulnerable in front of her.
Diana huffed, leaning over the table in order to take a sip of Lee’s coffee, which was much unlike herself.
“Morgan didn’t mourn in the conventional way, some might say.
Truth be told she got angry. She shut down.
We barely spoke for weeks at a time,” she said, shaking her head as if she could expel the bad memories, a characteristic not unlike Lee’s own.
“She’d come home,” she continued. “Knuckles bruised, sporting a new black eye every other day. I think the worst part is that part of her might have invited it, chased it even. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I haven’t seen her knuckles bruised like that for a long time.
Not until last week, when she was charged for assault, and last night, at least. She’s lucky that’s the first time she’s been charged.
I worry that she is going back to her old ways again. ”
Morgan currently sporting bruised knuckles was news in itself to Lee, having not seen her since their break-up.
Of course, Diana seemingly didn’t know that, and as a result, she attempted to push the thoughts of panic aside, adopting her best poker face in the process.
“She doesn’t talk about him much,” Lee commented, latching onto the opportunity that had unfolded before her, desperate to discover more. “Her father, I mean.”
Suddenly the room had gotten smaller around her, and the gravity of the situation made itself known.
Perhaps it wasn’t for Diana Finch to unveil the mysteries of her daughter.
Digging away at the truth felt like digging up graves, and Lee Holmes had done enough of that already.
“I think it’s best if I allow her to tell me more about him herself,” she continued, letting go of the opportunity to find out more only seconds after latching on.
“Not only about him, but her past, as well. I know you mean well, Diana, I really do, but it’s her experiences to share, when, and if she desires to. ”
Morgan’s mother didn’t know it yet, but perhaps Lee Holmes may never discover such truths now that things had ended between them. It was a strange feeling, she thought. Their relationship may have ended, but their lives would forever be interlinked, for better, or for worse.
Diana stared directly into Lee’s eyes as if she may just swallow her whole. The room only returned to normal when she chuckled ever so slightly and took another sip of Lee’s coffee. “I always knew I liked you, Lee.”