Chapter 29 #2
Sarah needed to learn those cues. She needed to learn how to look into her girlfriend’s eyes and realize that she was being sucked dry – that she was sucking her dry.
Jill had never learned to do that. She was still sucking Luca dry every time her disease manifested.
The fact that they had a child together did not help.
“How long has this been going on?” Luca asked her ex-wife with that same tone of voice. “When did you start drinking again, Jill?”
Her tone wasn’t accusatory. In another life, Luca would have made a wonderful therapist as opposed to a good ol’ capitalist.
Jill couldn’t look her in the eye. Not when she had something disturbing to say. “Since you moved to town. I couldn’t take it. I knew you were coming for Victor.”
Luca’s entire body bristled at that insinuation. “I wanted to be closer to him, yes.”
“I knew you were looking into getting full custody so you could take him back to Denmark with you. For fuck’s sake, we had talked about it enough.”
“You always said no.”
“Because I need him! He needs me!”
Luca took a step back.
“But…” Jill’s shoulders slumped again. “Look at me, Luca. I started drinking at six, and I’m only now sobering up. If Victor had been home…”
“Has he seen you like this before?”
She didn’t answer.
“Jillian…”
“I drank because I knew I still had it in me. All those meetings, the rehab, the counseling… I go through the motions, but in the back of my mind, I’m still lusting after a fucking drink.
He stresses me out. I love him, but he… he’s so much energy!
So demanding! What the hell do I do? I don’t work.
I live off your fucking alimony and child support.
Shouldn’t I be able to take care of my child full-time without wanting a God damned drink?
For fuck’s sake! I live with my parents!
I don’t even have to run the house if I don’t want to!
I…” She buried her face in her hands to muffle her oncoming sobs.
Luca spared Sarah a sympathetic look. “Wait for me in the bedroom, Angel. I need to speak with her in private before her sponsor gets here.”
Nodding, Sarah went into the bedroom, closed the door behind her, and surveyed the mess of bedding representing their evening together.
Her phone was alit with messages. Nigel. Her mother. Even the Moreaus had left voicemails asking her to call someone back.
She texted her mother that she was fine and would be spending the night with Luca. She called her brother.
“Hey,” he greeted. “You freaked a few people out today. I knew something was up when Mrs. Moreau called me directly to ask about your whereabouts.”
“Yeah.” Sarah sat on the edge of the bed.
The scent of the lovemaking she enjoyed with Luca lingered in the air, asking her to curl up against the pillow and relive those kind memories.
“I had a bit of a meltdown. I’m over it now.
I’m with Luca tonight. She’s talking to her ex-wife about some stuff. ”
They were silent. The line was always silent when they called each other. Just knowing that her brother was on the other side, ready to listen to whatever she had to say, was enough for her to feel better.
“She’s a good person, I think.”
“I think so, too.”
“And she’s got a little boy.”
Sarah didn’t miss the subtext of that observation.
Victor could never be the son I lost, but…
She couldn’t have kids. Not the old-fashioned way.
The more Sarah acknowledged her love for Luca, the more she acknowledged this fact about herself.
If she and Luca decided to have children together someday, she wouldn’t be the one carrying or giving birth to them.
It would be a lot of stress. Pain. Needless money lost. But that was something to address in the future.
For now, Luca had a wonderful little boy from her first marriage.
Victor Blackbourne had the name and potential good looks to coast through life, but everyone around him knew that coasting wasn’t good enough.
That kid needed a team of people to act as role models and to guide him to becoming a great man when he grew up.
That team included parents. He needed to see a parent in a successful relationship, with a woman who could step up when Jill was at her lowest.
Perhaps it was best for Sarah that way, too. She wasn’t ready for full-blown motherhood. Not after that heartbreak. Having that clear role in Victor’s life that was “mother figure and wife of my parent” was easier to understand than some nebulous replacement mother.
Besides, for all her faults and regressions, Jill still looked to her son as her biggest reason to stay sober. He needed to be in her life.
Luca knew that too. Which was why, when she returned to the bedroom, she patiently waited for Sarah to hang up on her brother before telling her what had been decided.
“When she’s sobered up again, we’re going to meet with our divorce lawyers and talk custody and living arrangements.
” Luca sat down next to her girlfriend, one arm instantly wrapping around her.
“I sincerely offered to move them all to Copenhagen so they can be near Victor if—no, when—I get full custody and can take him back home. She tentatively agreed, but obviously, I can’t take that at face value when she’s drunk and upset. ”
Sarah kicked at the carpet beneath her feet. “Did her sponsor come and get her?”
“Yes. They’re heading back to her place right now.”
How embarrassing for her. Sarah took no joy in that.
Jill was sick. She knew the damage her alcoholism caused, and to have her sponsor see her fall off the wagon must have made her sicker.
Even if people claimed to show no judgment, they still did.
It was human nature. Luca, Sarah, the sponsor, Jill’s parents…
they could all say that they didn’t judge her, but they did to varying degrees.
Luca’s judgment was probably laced with heartbreak.
Sarah’s? She wondered how a mother could keep falling that far down.
But judgment also made people hypocrites. Sarah had no room to judge when she had her own issues to sort out. Time to go into therapy, I guess.
Sarah hopped off the bed and picked up her cast-off wig from the floor. Although tangled and a little dirty, it still looked good on her head.
“One day, I’ll wear this wig and still be myself.” She said that as much to her reflection as she did to her girlfriend.
“You’re beautiful either way.”
“It’s kind of a token, isn’t it?” Sarah pulled the wig back off her head and held it in her hands. “A symbol of when we first met.”
“If that’s how you see it, Angel, then that’s how I see it too.”
She giggled. Sarah Clayborn, who seldom girlishly laughed in her life, giggled. “We’ve had some pretty good times.”
“And some not so good times.”
Sarah placed the wig on the nearest table. “We’ll have way more good times than not-so-good ones.”
“If you say it that way, Angel, then it must be true.”
Her reflection grinned at Luca’s in the mirror. Sarah couldn’t stand it. She rushed into her arms, tackling her against the bed and covering Luca’s face in heavenly kisses.
Even with all the crap that had gone on lately, it was still the happiest she had ever been in a long, long time. Someone who could make her this happy was clearly a keeper, yes?
From the way Luca kissed her back, the verdict was in: absolutely.