Chapter 38
thirty-eight
. . .
Crash
Present Day
desiree
Sunday, 10:11am
I’m curled up and reading a book on Taven’s patio when I realize I no longer have a ringing in my ear. It feels like the sweetest victory, I had googled stories of people’s encounters with lightning and was discouraged by how many have experienced long-term hearing damage. But as I sit here now, Taven beside me and also reading, something I’m shocked to see, I can hear the subtle rustle of the leaves when a breeze picks up. I can hear the nearby babbling of the stream, the distant sound of cars winding through the hills on the roads beyond. It feels peaceful.
Taven asks me what I want to do today, and I shrug. “Sitting here doing this feels pretty perfect. I’m back to work tomorrow.” Then something dawns on me. “Wait, did you have tickets for the music festival for the whole weekend? ”
He shakes his head no. “I was just going Friday night, knowing I’d have to pick up Evelyn.”
I lean back. “Oh, that’s too bad. I was going to say we could go. Today’s the last day, and I was actually looking forward to seeing The Killers. My mom loved them.”
He reaches over to me and squeezes my knee. “I’ll make it up to you. A future show to see The Killers, I promise.”
I smile. “So you think there’s a future with us?”
He laughs. “God, after what I did to you last night and this morning, I sure as fuck hope so. I’m not letting you go.”
I laugh too, my belly flipping at the thought of our night together. Of me against the massive window in his living room, overlooking the night sky, back pressed to it while he pumped into me over and over again in sweet ecstasy. Then later, in his bed, him trailing ice all over my naked body, one hand locking my wrists in a hold above my head, a feverish ache between my legs that had me squirming with need, begging him to fuck me.
And again this morning. In the shower. Me on my knees, taking Taven Carlisle into my mouth and bringing him to an orgasm, nearly dying at the sweet relief of finally tasting all of him while his body trembled within my grasp. I felt so incredible doing so, like nothing I’d ever felt before. He told me he loved me, that I was his and he was never letting go.
I look over at him and smile. “We’re going to finally do this right, aren’t we?”
He nodded. “We have to. It’s time.”
Later in the afternoon when I suggest we take a drive in Inferno to go visit my mom, he says he’d love to. That he himself had thought about visiting her, but never did.
“How often do you go see her?” he asks me as we make our way into the cemetery. I look at the rows of gray stone, some with fresh flowers, and I inhale the fragrance of the bouquet in my own hands.
“I’ve only gone once, actually,” I confess. “On the first anniversary after her death. It felt too hard, and I just sat there and cried and wondered if something was wrong with me that I didn’t visit more often.”
“Everyone grieves differently,” he says. He reaches over and grabs my hand, and it makes me think of all the times we’d spent in this car, doing this exact thing. Just two kids in love, no idea of all the terrible things happening around us. My mom’s sickness. Jacqui and my dad. I wonder if the thing with Jacqui started after my dad learned of my mom’s cancer. If it was his way of going insane over it. I can never forgive him for his actions, but I can at least have a better understanding of the torment he must have been feeling. He loved my mom, I do believe that. We all have a variety of ways of either dealing with or avoiding our problems. Taven used to drink. My mom smoked and popped pills. My dad apparently liked young women, just barely out of girlhood.
I think about my own ways of dealing with things. When I was younger, I would just avoid. Never allowing myself to get close to anyone, just keeping everyone at arm’s length. It seemed safer that way, though my therapist Ruth would gently push me to see what I was doing. I wonder why I’m like that. Part of it is my own struggles with feeling dependent on anyone, that much I know. I like to feel special, and it’s hard to do that at the same time as being vulnerable with someone else, so I subconsciously side-step it.
Taven makes me feel special, though. He always has, the way he looks at me like I’m something incredible, something to be cherished.
Even in those dark couple of months five years ago, when we were back together, and he was drinking. The straw that broke the camel’s back happened right in this very car.
We had gone out to dinner, were heading home, and he was driving erratically. I hadn’t realized just how drunk he was, but I should have known better. I had already confronted him at that point about his drinking. How I didn’t think cracking a beer at 9am was a good idea, and he’d say he had a hangover, to lay off because it was just a light beer to wash away the remnants of last night’s Scotch. That the beer would help him go back to bed and then he’d be fine.
So when we were on the highway that night and he was pushing a hundred miles per hour, I was cursing myself for being so stupid. I was gripping the handle on the door and pushing my feet into an imaginary brake pedal, begging him to slow down. On the verge of tears, asking him what was wrong with him, why he was drinking so much. And for the love of God, please slow down.
“You wanna know why I drink so much, Dazzle?” he said, eyes wild and huffing out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s you.”
I had looked at him, hurt and terrified and confused. “Me?” I asked, trying to make sense of the world literally flashing before my eyes in the fast lane.
“Yeah,” he said. “Because I’m just fucking waiting for the day you’re going to wake up and realize you could do much better than me. Admit it! You know that’s what you think!” He was shouting at that point, swerving and yelling and saying such unfathomable things. I was dumbfounded, wondering what on earth was happening, and how I never saw it coming. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Desiree! You miss your fucking surgeon and are regretting pissing your life away with a loser, just thinking how much better than me you are!”
I started crying, pleading with him to know how stupid that was, how not true. He looked at me with something akin to contempt, though I know it was for himself and not me. “Don’t do that, Desiree,” he said. “Don’t fucking sit here and lie to me and tell me you don’t regret being with me! Don’t disrespect me like that! Don’t you dare.” He lowered his voice and started eerily laughing. I looked at him like he was a stranger that I didn’t even know. “Little miss goodie-two-shoes, too good for everyone else. Now with the fucking mechanic! Bet you thought I was better than that, right? I have the Carlisle name, don’t I?”
I floated outside my body, realizing he wasn’t even talking to me at that point, not really. I remained silent. I had already learned by then that when he was like this, there was not a thing I could say that was “right.” Nothing to break through to him. He was yelling at me to answer him, to say all the shit he just knew I wanted to say, but I stayed quiet. He continued to antagonize me, saying the most hurtful things that I’d rather soon forget, and I just prayed that we could miraculously make it home safely. I’d figure out what to do then. I just wanted out of this situation. I prayed to my mom, Please, Mom, if you can hear me. Please, please. Mom, just do what you can from wherever you are. Please try, so we can make it home in one piece. Help me. Please…show me a sign and tell me you’re there…
I played my silent prayer to my mom on repeat, it was all I could think to do. Mom, please… My heart was pounding, I was terrified, misery creeping in at the realization that nothing was as it seemed. I clung to a hope that my mom was out there somewhere, watching over us, and that she could intervene and put an end to this moment before Taven killed us both, and anyone else in his way. It was all I could think to do.
At some point he started to switch lanes, and I screamed for him to stop, that there was another car in the way. He slammed on the brakes, Inferno twisting and careening while I clung on for dear life, the world spinning around me in agonizing drawn-out moments.
We came to a stop on the shoulder. We were facing the wrong direction. I saw headlights whizzing past, horns screeching as I tried to catch my breath, realizing we were alive. We were okay. Thank you, thank you, Mom, I said in my silent prayer. I imagined her comforting palm on my head. I heard her voice, telling me it’s okay, but to leave, darling girl. That it’s time to go. To listen and know that it’s time to walk away.
I looked over to Taven, who looked stunned and unable to process what just happened, not like I had, anyway. “Holy shit,” he said. “What the fuck was that?”
I popped the car in park and snatched the key fob from the console where Taven kept them. I opened the door, walked a few steps on the pavement where cars were whizzing past us and honking. A car pulled up to us, parking on the shoulder, the headlights blinding me. The driver opened the door and asked if we were okay. I was shaking and terrified, wiping my tears and realizing how close we just came to death. I told the person we were fine, just lost control for a minute, but everything was fine. I tried to smile and reassure him and act like everything was perfectly normal. I worried the guy would look at Taven and question his sobriety. Even in that moment, after everything that just happened, I was worried about Taven getting in trouble. I’d cover for him and get us out of this. Hop in the driver’s seat and get us home before this guy could call the cops and make things any worse.
When I turned back to Inferno and made my way to the driver’s side, the door was open. Taven wasn’t in his seat. I looked ahead to see him walking along the guard rail, I could barely make out his frame in the dark. I panicked, not knowing what to do. I had this other driver waiting to confirm I was alright, Taven’s car crooked on the shoulder, headlights piercing the night around me. What should I do?
I got in the car, turned it on and carefully turned it around and back on the road, relieved when I saw the Good Samaritan drive off as well.
I left Taven to walk home, praying he’d make it back safely. I hoped he’d walk off his drunken haze and decide tonight would be his last time drinking.
He did make it home.
But the next morning, he didn’t remember a single thing.
I link my arm in Taven’s as we walk up to my mom’s headstone. It’s warm outside, the last days of summer upon us, and a light breeze gently blows my sundress against my legs. I kneel down to place my bouquet on the ground, frowning at the fresh flowers already there. Lilies and dahlias and roses, all my mom’s favorites. Plus a singular sprig of a holly branch, all beautifully arranged in a vase. From my father?
Taven stands above me. “Who are those from?” he asks.
I look up to him, shielding my eyes from the sun, and nearly fall over when I see Lynda Carlisle walking up behind him. “They’re from me,” she says. I feel like I must have misheard her.
Taven turns around, the shock on his face mirroring mine. “Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Hello, Desiree,” she says with a nod to me, then a nod toward her son. “Taven. I was visiting my old friend Holly, that’s what I was doing.” She says it as if this is the most natural thing in the world, not like she’s admitting to visiting with a woman she had written off many years ago. “I was just leaving when I saw your car pull up. Not exactly a common car to see on the road.”
“You could say that,” I agree, eyes narrowed and trying to process her presence.
She nods, then looks back and forth between us. “But I certainly didn’t expect to see the two of you walk up, arm in arm. Might I ask what’s going on?”
I rise up to a stand, heart racing and legs a little wobbly, like a kid caught cheating on a test.
Taven grabs my hand. Lynda looks down at our clasped hands, her mouth in a firm line. “Evelyn called off the engagement,” he explains, I suppose hoping his mother forgives what she probably sees as a grave indecency, her son standing here with me, holding my hand.
Lynda tilts her head to the side. “She what? When did that happen?”
Taven sighs and attempts to explain the briefest recap. That Evelyn had paused the engagement some time ago, and finally just recently ended things with him.
He doesn’t share that it was just yesterday.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Taven.” I watch as her dark eyes consider him for a moment. “Did something happen? Anything I should know about?”
I see it now what Taven was talking about. That he’s not sure how much trust his parents hold in him. She wants to know if he’s drinking again. She wants to know what he might have done to cause Evelyn to walk away.
I feel his body tense up beside me. “If you’re implying that I might have taken to old habits, you can save yourself the trouble. That’s not what happened.” He diverts his eyes down to me momentarily. “Nor is it because of this, so don’t even bother with trying to pass judgment.”
I’m proud of him for speaking up. I know it must be hard to for him to have his own mother look at him the way she is right now.
I wish so much that his mother could have the same kind of faith in her son that I do. I can’t blame her for her concern, I imagine any mother would have it, but I have a suspicion that Lynda Carlisle is the type of woman to attempt to identify where the problem is. Her default setting. I can see the way that Taven feels like he’s in a constant battle of having to prove her wrong.
She heaves out a sigh. “When my son suddenly appears to have a new girlfriend, when just last week, as far as I knew, he was engaged to someone else, you can’t possibly expect me to not have some questions. Especially given your past.
“And may I remind you that it was me who had to force you into rehab and help you get your life together.” She looks over to me. “Thanks to this one’s concern for you.”
I look up at Taven. Did he know that I’m the one to have called his mom five years ago? Would he be upset with me? I hope not. I’d like to think he would understand why I did what I did, but I would have preferred to have told him myself. I had planned to, just to clear the air, but thanks to Lynda, he’s now hearing it from her.
Lynda narrows her eyes at Taven. “Did you realize that it was Desiree that alerted me to your problems?”
He tilts his chin up. “She did the right thing. I have her to thank.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief in hearing him say that. I can only hope he means it, and it’s not just him keeping face for his mom. Either way, I like that he’s choosing us as a united front in her presence. It feels significant. Like we’re finally standing together as one, on the same page and ready to face whatever we need to. Together, no secrets or lies, just freely and beautifully us.
His mom’s face softens, just the slightest bit. “I agree. I can only hope you never again put her through the hell you once did.”
He huffs out a laugh, then releases my hand and crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t you think I feel bad enough about my mistakes already?”
“As you should,” she insists.
I just stand there, eyes switching back and forth between them like I’m watching a showdown about to take place, and I’d rather be watching on a screen, not here in the flesh.
He takes a step toward her mother. “I can appreciate that you’ve always worked to instill good principles in me and Jacqui, I really can. And I can even appreciate that you hope I don’t slip up again, because I admit, I’ve not always been the perfect son.
“But what I can’t understand is why not a single ounce of you holds any kind of question regarding how or why I struggled so much in the first place. Only questioning how long I could potentially keep my shit together.”
“Of course I question why you struggled,” she says.
He narrows his eyes at her. “In what ways, as it relates to you? Wondering why your son isn’t like you or Dad? Wondering how you were cursed with the kid who would rather be taking apart engines instead of designing the world’s latest technologies?
“Because I gotta tell you, Mom. If I were you, I’d be wondering what I might have done wrong as a mother, wanting to know how I ended up with an alcoholic son, or a daughter who threw herself in the arms of a predator ,” his says, spitting out the word, “in the first place.”
“Taven,” I say, placing my hand on his arm and willing him not to do this right now. In front of my mother’s grave. My chest tightens as I look at Lynda’s face.
And then I see it. The hurt in her eyes. A mother who loves her child, and realizes she maybe got a few things wrong.
But Taven continues. “You put so much pressure on us as kids, it crushed us. Squeezed the fucking life out of us that we never felt like we were getting anything right, do you realize that? Just when we were doing something good for ourselves, you’d push us to whatever that next level was. An impossible ladder with no end, and nothing ever felt good enough. Ever.” His chest rises as he takes in a breath. He unwinds arms and places one around me. “I know I haven’t exactly made you proud in the ways I’ve lived my life, and that I’ve hurt and maybe even scared you when I’ve been at my worst, and for that I truly am sorry. I am.”
“But?” Lynda offers, and I can’t help but smile, because I can see the pride she’s feeling in seeing her son stand up to her right now. Even if Taven can’t see it, I do. An unmistakable look of a mother’s pride in watching her son speak his truth and face his biggest battle—the one within himself.
I’ve seen it in my work with parents and their children. I’ve seen it in small moments like when a child bravely takes that needle administering a vaccine. Or when a daughter courageously hears some diagnosis and says, “Okay, what now?” There’s fear and sadness in a parent’s eyes, but also the undeniable proud look of love. Watching their child grow right before their very eyes. And I can see it in Lynda’s eyes now, too.
Taven squeezes my shoulder. “Even if you don’t agree with my choices, the least you could do is respect that I’m living the life I’m meant to. And I’m doing it sober, and I’m happy. I’m finally really and truly happy, Mom.”
Lynda smiles. “I have more pride and faith in you than you could ever possibly know, Taven Carlisle.” She looks to her side, eyes caught on some distant sight. “I didn’t exactly have the greatest model for a mother, so maybe I’m not the best at showing affection.” She looks back to him. “But I don’t ever want you to doubt for one second how much I love you. And all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be comfortable and secure and happy.” She shrugs, and it’s such a simple and human gesture that defies the usual statuesque sight of her. “Your happiness is everything to me.” She steps forward and kisses his cheek, then steps to me and does the same.
“It’s good to see you both. I’ll leave you to be with Holly, now,” she says as she turns to go.
I look up at Taven, who looks stunned. He expected some backlash from his mother after his rant, I imagine. I’m tempted to laugh at how blind we can all sometimes be to the things that are right in front of us. His doubt in his mother’s love and support wasn’t just because of her, no matter how stoic her default setting might naturally be. It was because of his own struggles to see all the wonderful qualities he has within. To accept himself fully and completely. It’s something I understand.
I call over to Lynda as she’s walking away. “Wait,” I say. “Lynda, wait up.” I jog over to her and place my hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, my dear?”
“It’s good to see you,” I say, realizing it’s not a lie. “But before you go, do you mind explaining what you meant when you said you were visiting with your friend, Holly?”
She stares at me for a moment, then glances back to Taven. When her eyes meet mine again, she smiles. “You really don’t know? Your mother never told you?” she asks with surprise.
“Know what?” I ask.
She plays with the pearls around her neck. “A woman of her word, then. Down to her dying days, I suppose.” A sigh. “I would have thought she had told you, especially before her death. ”
“Told me what?”
You’d think I’d be nervous to hear what Lynda has to say, but I’m not. Her face is warm and smiling, like whatever it is I don’t know is in fact a good thing.
The breeze picks up and Lynda’s flawless dark hair floats gently around her face. She brushes a few strands aside and nods her head toward the small walkway ahead. “Come on. Let’s take a walk. And I’ll tell you all about the way your mother and I met, and the sister I soon started to think of her to be.”