Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Grayson explained the mechanisms of his travel chair to Helena, having her pick it up to make sure she was comfortable with its weight and it was not too heavy.
A little chain and hook at the bottom enabled the chair to fold in half, making it easily fit in the trunk of someone’s car, and he had her lift it again.
“Oh, that’s not bad!” Helena carefully put it down and set it upright again. “And it still has a joystick, so you can move yourself around.”
“Yep, it’s the easiest way for me to move independently when I’m traveling by car.”
Helena watched as her sharply dressed lover transferred himself into the smaller mobility aid, picking up both legs and planting them on the foot plate.
“Ready to go?”
They made their way down the ramp and to her car where she’d parked with the passenger side facing the street so he could get in. His block was fairly quiet, with hardly any traffic, so Helena was sure it was safe.
She opened the door for him.
“Your ride, Sir.”
“Don’t tease me, little girl. I can think of a few ways to take you even in your car.” He lifted a brow, transferring himself with ease into the seat. Grayson grasped his pant legs one at a time, folding his legs into the car.
“Is it okay? Are you comfortable?” Helena fussed over her car seat, wondering if it should be moved further back.
“It’s perfect, baby.” He gave her a kiss, tapping her on the nose.
With a little finagling, she fit the broken-down chair in her trunk, and they were off to her parents about twenty minutes away.
“You’re sure this isn’t too much for you? Because this is something we’ll probably do a lot if we want to travel farther in the future.”
His hand found his way to her thigh under her black maxi skirt.
“No, it’s not that hard. It really isn’t much heavier than my vacuum pack.” She shrugged, understanding Grayson’s reservations about needing this kind of support in going long distances.
“I just want you to be okay with it, princess. You know I’m generally independent, but there are certain things like this that I need assistance with.” His fingers squeezed her thigh, and she brought her hand to his palm.
“Well, I used to take my grandma around when she was in a wheelchair. It was one of those manual push ones, but I still helped her out with that. I even lifted her out of the car. It’s not scary to me,” Helena reassured him, tucking a stray strand of gelled hair back against his scalp.
“Where have you been my entire life?” He gazed at her, not frowning but not grinning either. He was awestruck. Amazed.
As if someone had once told him his needs were too much.
They pulled up to her parents’ house, and Helena repeated the unfolding of the chair with no issue, using the joystick to bring it to Grayson. By now, he had lifted his legs out of the car and turned his body outward.
In seconds, he was seated and properly adjusted in his chair, and they went to the door with two little steps.
“So the best way, baby, is to tilt me back and I’ll move the joystick just a little bit, then lift the back wheels up just a couple inches.”
“We’ve got this!” Helena did as she was told, and it was surprisingly easy. Her mother must have heard them because she opened the door with open arms.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, you should have called me, Helena. I would have come to help! Forgive me, I’m Diana.” Her mother held out her hand, and Helena held back a snarky remark.
“Grayson, Helena’s told me so much about you. Don’t worry about it, we’re here, that’s what matters.” Helena felt his hand reach back to hers, sensing how she had gone silent.
“Watch out, Mom, give him some room.”
One more tilt and lift, and they were in the house.
“You have a gorgeous home.” Grayson looked around.
“Thank you. My husband is around here somewhere. Raymond, they’re here!” Her mother skittered away.
Helena was cheered as they turned the corner to find her brother and niece.
“Aunt Hellie!” Her five-year-old niece jumped into her arms.
“Hi, baby, I missed you! Look how big you got.” Helena hugged her close, acknowledging the look of longing on Grayson’s face. Only then did her niece notice him, wriggling her way out of her arms.
“What’s this? This looks funny.” She pointed with little fingers to the chair.
Her father quickly stopped her.
“Emily, that wasn’t nice,” he reprimanded, mouthing a sorry to Grayson.
Grayson assured her brother it was okay, and explained his condition and the chair to her as best he could to a wriggly five-year-old with a short attention span.
“Ohhh, okay. Daddy, when’s dinner?” She hopped back into Eddie’s arms, as if the conversation hadn’t happened, to Helena’s surprise. Was that really all it took for a child to understand?
She and Grayson talked with Eddie, who lived another state away with just Emily after his divorce.
Occasionally, Emily would poke Grayson, whispering a random question about him or the chair. Helena watched as he patiently explained all the buttons. Something inside her ached, the way it always did around a child. She never thought she would find a man to have a family with, or if she would ever have a family at all. But seeing Grayson with Emily teased something deep inside her. The possibility of a future.
Dinner arrived, along with her stepbrother and stepsister, who could barely stay off their phones long enough to finish a conversation.
Helena couldn’t help but notice the glare from Eddie in their direction for ignoring their mother.
Like Helena, he’d never particularly bonded with them, as they were expected to. Each pair was close in age, and Helena wondered if their parents really believed they would be best friends immediately.
“So… what’s your name again?” Jade shot her guest a bored look.
“Grayson.” Her Daddy answered her stepsister, albeit in a clipped tone.
“Oh, so if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you? Car accident or something?”
Her stepsister typed away at her phone, barely making eye contact with him.
“I contracted a virus when I was a baby. I’m an addiction counselor and work from home.”
“Oh. Cool. Helena never brings anybody home. She always hid men from us,” Jade mumbled.
Helena squeezed her fork so tight her fingers turned red. Her stepsister knew nothing about her love life, but always managed to poke her nose into it.
“Well, I brought someone I care about home to meet everyone. You can barely look at him,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Helena, it’s okay, I’m happy to be here.” Grayson took her hand that was white knuckling her fork.
“And we’re happy you’re here.” Her mother smiled at him.
“Yeah…” Jade obnoxiously murmured, dragging out any possible syllable she could.
“Addictions, that’s an interesting field. I heard it doesn’t pay much though.” Ray Jr., the other dim-sighted sibling at the table waved his fork in the air as he went into some diatribe about finances.
Helena loudly cleared her throat, not bothering to hide her “What the fuck did you just say?” face in her stepbrother’s direction.
“It pays just fine. I can assure you don’t have anything to worry about, that is if you’re concerned about me and Helena.” Grayson glared at him, clearly seeing his statement as a challenge, when it was really Ray Jr. just being wildly inappropriate. Eddie was her brother, and thus was the one who worried for her future. Ray Jr., not so much.
“I just find it weird that I used to see you around with some other guy. Around last year or so? And he was cute. But you never brought him home.” Jade made sure only Helena noticed the shit-eating grin on her face.
“What are you talking about, sweetie?” Her mother confusedly glanced between the girls.
“Drop it, Jade.” Eddie glared at her while helping cut Emily’s food.
Her brother knew full well what she was talking about, gladly taking Helena’s calls in the early days after deleting Daniel from her life. Days where she could barely leave the house, or when she felt so low and inadequate that she could only stay in bed.
Grayson’s eyes darkened as realization hit him.
How the fuck could she have possibly known about Daniel? Jade didn’t even stay in town.
“Maybe there’s a good reason I never brought him around.” Helena narrowed her eyes, wishing they had the power to kill at that moment. Deafening silence fell over the family. If it could even be called that.
Helena’s mother poked at her pasta, visibly annoyed. She eyed Raymond, silently signaling for him to do something.
“Um, Jade honey, why don’t you put that down.”
Ray tried to reach for her phone, which she angrily threw on the table.
“Well, some of us still have work to do. We don’t get to just sit around and do nothing.” She rolled her eyes, her green pools landing on Helena.
“Even so, I have a meeting with my designers later. Busy busy.” She raised her perfectly filled-in brows. Jade graduated with a degree in fashion and worked for some magazine sporting hideous and unaffordable clothes. Helena could never forget her graduation, since her parents bragged about it to anyone who could listen.
“Yeah, Pops, I have a call with my partners tomorrow morning. We have a deal we’re about to close on.” Ray Jr. tried to make a quiet exit from the table.
“Oh don’t go so soon, I made some pie and I can brew some coffee.” Her mother tried to convince Jade and Jr.
“I’d love some, Diana, thank you.” Grayson smiled at her, attempting to make some form of peace. Jade rolled her eyes so far Helena swore they’d get stuck in the back of her empty head.
“That cherry thing you make every year? I think I’ll pass, Diana. Watching my figure.” Her eyes landed on Helena again.
Helena let her fork loudly connect with her plate as she paused for a drink, preparing to unleash the biting insult that was right on her tongue.
She felt Grayson’s hand on her thigh, the look on his face a warning.
Helena ignored it, her blood close to broiling.
“Don’t get up, Mom, I’ll get the pie.” She got up, letting her full cup of wine spill all over the table, and Jade’s expensive dress.
“Oh!” Her stepsister angrily stood up and dabbed her hideous outfit.
“Oh god, Jade, I’m so sorry. It just slipped out of my hand. It’s tiring not doing anything all day.” Helena sauntered past her stepsister. Ray Jr. began snickering as it formed an embarrassing stain right at the crotch.
“Shut the fuck up.” Jade sneered at him. Luckily for her, Emily had gotten bored and began to play in the other room. Eddie would have crawled across top of the table to let Jade know what he thought of her saying that in front of his daughter.
“This was hundreds of dollars!”
“Jade, honestly, it’s a dress.” Raymond tried to appease her.
“Easy for her to think. She’s a maid going to school to work with dead people, she doesn’t need to look nice!” Jade screeched.
“You’re welcome to get the hell out of my mother’s house.” Helena crossed her arms, leaning her hip on the counter.
“Uh, my father lives here too, bitch.”
Raymond it seemed, had had enough, and stood up.
“Jade, in the other room now.”
She listened for once and stormed off, cheeks puffed out and red faced.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Jade!” Helena yelled
Ray Jr. awkwardly stood, and wisely fled the scene. Eddie offered to clear the table, and all that was left in the dining room was Grayson, her mother and herself.
Her mother stood up slowly.
“This was supposed to be a nice dinner.” She defeatedly threw her napkin on the table. “I don’t understand why you guys could never just get along and we could be a happy family.”
Helena felt the world around her numb, and any shred of calm left her body.
“That is what you took from what just happened here? Princess Jade is allowed to be rude and say whatever she wants, but I let her have a taste of her own medicine and I’m in the wrong?” Helena raised her voice, and she heard Grayson’s chair approach her from behind.
“Helena, that’s enough.” His calm tone barely registered.
“I didn’t raise you this way, Helena Sophie and you know it.” Her mother’s usual smile was gone, replaced with a wrinkled grimace.
“No, you wanted me to be a doormat just like you!”
Her mother froze in horror.
“Jesus, Mom, she insults you in your goddamn house and you did nothing! Ever since Ray brought them here when we were kids, you never set boundaries and they walked all over you, treating you and me and Eddie like trash!” Helena unleashed years of pent up rage against her mother, wishing Ray was there to hear it. She could hear him comforting Jade in the other room, probably holding her and promising he’d have her dress dry cleaned. The princess always got her way.
“Helena, he’s your father—”
“No, he isn’t! And he doesn’t think that either! Stop forcing us to be father and daughter because that’s something we’ll never be. I was never Dad’s pride and joy and I certainly won’t be Ray’s either.” Helena whirled around. Grayson stoically waited by the door, her keys in hand.
“We’re leaving.”
“Grayson, I’m sor—”
“No. We’re leaving.”
Helena turned her back on her mother, making her way into the foyer.
Ray sat on the stairs just to the left, his head in his hands. Jade’s muffled whining coming from the half bathroom.
“I’m sorry, kiddo. She didn’t mean it.”
“Yeah, keep making excuses for her, Ray. See where it gets her.”
Eddie came to the rescue with Emily, helping Helena maneuver Grayson’s chair and get to her car.
He put his hand on her shoulder, balancing Emily on his hip.
“For what it’s worth, she deserved it.”
She hugged and kissed her brother and niece goodbye, slowly loaded the chair in her trunk and folded herself in the seat. She couldn’t even look Grayson in the eye, too ashamed.
A single tear raced down her face as she started the car.
If she opened her mouth, she was sure she would begin crying, rendering her unable to drive. Helena white knuckled the steering wheel, afraid that she would just break down. Grayson didn’t deserve to see any of this.
After an eternity, he broke the silence.
“Come inside with me when we get there.”
“But I have to—”
“I said come inside.”
Helena nodded, seeing him hold out his hand from the corner of her eye. She interlaced her fingers with his, and more tears came.
Grayson reached with his other hand, wiping them away.
“We’ll talk about it when we get there.”