Her Mother's Shadow (31 page)

“H
ow about pizza tonight?” Rick asked.

They were floating on rafts on the water behind his cottage, as they did every once in a while. They lay on their stomachs, covered in insect repellent because it was dusk and the mosquitoes were quite literally out for blood. Lacey rested her chin on her hands so she could look at him.

“Pizza would be great,” she said. “Do they deliver to your cottage?”

“They tried once, but the guy got so lost, the pizza was ice-cold by the time he found me.” His cheek was against the raft, the sound of his voice muffled. “It's easier for me to just go pick it up. So as soon as we go back in the house, I'll do that.”

Lacey's feet hung off the end of the raft and she kicked them gently in the water, thinking through all she wanted to say to him. That morning she'd called Judith, her old therapist, from the privacy of her bedroom. Judith had had no appointment time available, but she'd spent a good half hour with her on the phone, and Lacey had felt unleashed as she
poured out everything that had happened during the past couple of months. Finally, she told her about Bobby and the night before.

“Oh, Lacey,” Judith had said, “how hard that must have been for you.”

Tears had sprung to Lacey's eyes. Judith was the one person who never seemed to judge her.

“He's the personification of your old self-destructive pattern,” Judith said. “He's the one who started that pattern for you, back when you were fourteen, so how could you not be drawn into it again? I wish you'd come in the minute he showed up at Kiss River.”

“I thought I could handle it,” Lacey said.

“And you've done remarkably well,” Judith commended her. “You need to give yourself a lot of credit.
Yes,
you slept with him.
Yes,
you got sucked in. But you realized what you were doing and told him it wouldn't happen again. And you called me first thing this morning for help, so let's focus on what you're doing right.”

“I feel like he was my test and I failed it.”

“It was more like a pop quiz,” Judith said. “With all you had going on this summer, you never had a chance to study for it.”

Lacey laughed, but she still had tears in her eyes.

“I have a group I'd like you to consider joining,” Judith said. “It's for women like you, who've…you know, had difficult histories, maybe some self-esteem issues.”

Lacey wrinkled her nose. She didn't think she could take on one more thing. “Can I get back to you on it?” she asked.

“Of course. And Lacey, the other guy you told me about?”

“Rick?”

“He sounds like he's been good for you. Like he cares about you,” Judith said. “Nurture that.”

So she'd driven to Rick's cottage with a plan in mind: she was going to come clean with him tonight. She'd tell him the truth about why she'd been so reluctant to get close, about her history with bad boys and her desire to have a fresh start with him. If only she would open herself up to the possibility, she could be attracted to him. She'd tell him she truly wanted someone more like him, with his intelligence and education and the stability and security he offered. Right now, when they were floating out here, relaxed and at ease with each other, seemed like the right time to talk.

“Let's not go back to the house yet,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

He lifted his head from the raft to look at her. “You sound serious,” he said.

“I want to explain why I've been so…cold with you. Physically I mean.”

“You don't owe me any explanation,” he said. “You just have a different comfort zone than I do when it comes to timing, and you—”

“Rick,
please,
” she said. “This is hard enough. I want to tell you. Please let me.”

He tugged her raft toward him to put his hand on the back of her neck, giving the muscles an affectionate squeeze. He was so sweet. “Okay,” he said. “Go ahead.” Withdrawing his arm, he clasped his hands together beneath his chin and gave her his full attention.

She would offer him the abbreviated version. She didn't want to tell him the extent to which she'd slept with men she barely knew, and she did not want to talk about her mother.

“I've always been attracted to guys who aren't very good for me,” she said. “You know the ones. A little rough around the edges.”

Rick nodded.

“What would happen was…” She pretended to swat a mosquito on her shoulder, trying to gather her words. “What would happen was that I would end up sleeping with them and that would be it.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, that would be it?”

“I mean, there would be no real relationship. Just sex.”

“Lacey.” He took in a breath and blew it out again. “You don't need to tell me this. I really wish you wouldn't.” His reaction surprised her. For the past month and a half, he'd listened to every thought that had come into her head. But they'd never talked about sex before. Maybe that was what was making him uncomfortable.

“You're very different from those guys I used to be attracted to,” she continued.

“How so?”

“You're…well, you're very conservative,” she said, hoping that didn't sound like an insult. “You don't have a single tattoo that I know of.”

He smiled. “That's true.”

“You've probably never done drugs in your life.”

“Marijuana in my teens,” he said. “And I must confess to inhaling.”

“You have no pierced body parts.”

He tilted his head to look at her. “The kind of guy you're attracted to sounds suspiciously like Bobby,” he said.

She lowered her gaze from his, feeling the color rise to her cheeks. “It is,” she admitted. “And he's been wonderful with Mackenzie, I can't deny that, but—” she shook her head “—I don't completely trust him. I don't trust guys like him. Leopards don't change their stripes.”

“Leopards are spotted,” he said.

“Don't make this difficult,” she pleaded.

He reached out to pry her hand loose from beneath her
chin and held it in the water. “You don't have to tell me all this, Lacey,” he said. “It's your past.”

“It was last night.” She winced. Last night was not supposed to be part of this conversation.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that I had sex with Bobby last night,” she said.

He was quiet for a moment as he absorbed her words. She waited for him to let go of her hand, but he didn't.

“It was a mistake,” she said. “And it's a mistake I don't want to make again.”

“And it was last night,” he said, nodding. “And last night is your past.”

She smiled. “You're so amazing. You're so tolerant of me. So patient. You listen to everything I say. I want…what I want is to feel…”

“You're not attracted to me because I'm too squeaky clean,” he said, helping her out.

“And I want that to change,” she said. “Not your squeaky cleanness,” she added quickly. “What I want is to
want
you.”

“I don't think that's something you can make happen.”

“
I
do,” she insisted. She needed it to be something she could make happen.

He smiled at the passion in her voice. “I still think we should take it slowly,” he said. “You regret sleeping with Bobby last night. I don't want you to regret sleeping with me tonight.”

“Not tonight,” she said, “but maybe soon. I just needed to be honest with you about my feelings. About why I've been holding back, so we're starting over with honesty. But now I want to move forward. Okay?”

He pulled her hand deep under the water so that their rafts were drawn together, and he kissed her. “Okay,” he said. “Now let's go inside and I'll get the pizza.”

They paddled toward shore and didn't get off their rafts until they'd reached the beach to avoid having their legs grasped by the long water grasses. Something was not quite right. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she felt a chill from him, despite that kiss. She was not certain how to make things better, since it was obvious that he'd wanted to end the conversation, and she needed to respect that. After all, she'd just told him that she'd slept with someone else, someone she was attracted to in a way she was not attracted to him. She could hardly expect him to welcome that news.

She followed him onto the small deck behind his cottage, where they dried off with the beach towels they'd hung over the railing. He was quiet, the silence uncomfortable and tense, but it occurred to her that there was one topic she could always get him to talk about.

“Could we work on my victim's impact statement after we eat tonight?” she asked, as they walked into the cottage. He was three steps ahead of her and he turned around.

“I thought you weren't going to write one,” he said.

“I decided I need to.”

“No,” he said, “you don't.” He put his hands on his hips and there was something in his eyes that she'd never seen there before: annoyance.

She squeezed the wet ends of her hair with her towel. “I don't blame you for being fed up with me,” she said. “I know I've been going back and forth on this. But I
do
need to write it, Rick.” The attorney had called her twice that afternoon, and it was clear she could not get out of it. She had to do it, and she couldn't seem to do it alone.

“You don't,” he said again. He pulled his T-shirt from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and pulled it on over his head. “
Look
at you, Lacey,” he said, nearly punching his
arms through the sleeves as he put on the shirt. “You're in…you're in
distress.
And this whole victim's statement thing is a big part of it. You've put so much energy into hating Zachary Pointer that it's eating you up.”

She shook her head. “It's not that I hate him,” she said. “It's that he doesn't deserve—”

“I sympathize with your past,” he said, interrupting her. “With the loss of your mother. With your issues with men. I sympathize with all you've gone through this summer with Mackenzie. But I'm having trouble sympathizing with you over this. By all accounts, the man's rehabilitated.” He was nearly shouting now, his voice so loud the little cottage couldn't contain it, and she was glad he had no neighbors to overhear them. “And it's very obvious,” he continued, “to
me
at least, that having to write this damn thing is taking a toll on you. So, I just don't get why you're putting yourself through this.”

She didn't know what to say. She had never heard him raise his voice before. He was more than annoyed with her; he was
angry.
She'd thought it was safe to talk to him, that he was so generous a listener he would listen to her into the next millennium, and she knew that that had been a very unfair assumption. She'd used him as her listening post. She'd used him all summer long.

“I think you're angry with me because of Bobby,” she said. “And I understand that. I would be, too. I shouldn't have told you about last night.”

“Whether you told me or not, it still happened, right?” he asked as he strode to the door. “I'm going to get the pizza.”

She watched him leave, the screen door slamming shut behind him, and she bit her lip. If only she could wind back the entire evening—and the night before, while she was at it. Making love to Bobby had been wrong—for her, for
Bobby, for Mackenzie. She thought of the woman she'd seen him with. The drug history. The alcoholism. The ridiculously ancient VW bus. The income that was probably punier than her own.

And yet, she found the regret very hard to hold on to.

L
acey changed out of her wet bathing suit in the cottage bedroom that had, for a very short time, belonged to Bobby. She thought she could still smell him in there, that funny blend of sweet shampoo and pungent tobacco, but it was probably her imagination. She lay down on the bed on top of a thin and faded bedspread that she feared had covered the sweaty, sandy bodies of too many renters over too many years. She hoped Rick would have cooled off by the time he returned with the pizza. Right now, as she replayed their conversation in her mind, the last thing she felt like doing was eating. She was an idiot. You don't tell Guy Number Two that you just slept with Guy Number One. She had wanted to clean the slate with Rick for a new beginning. That had probably been unfair. She had thought only of her needs, not his.

She must have dozed off, because the sound of knocking seemed to be coming to her in a dream. The sound came again, waking her up, and she felt the slightest twinge of fear at being alone in an unlocked cottage in the middle of the
woods. Evening had turned to nighttime while she'd been asleep, and the cottage was as dark as the outdoors.

A woman's voice called from the deck, “Hello? Fred?”

Getting off the bed, Lacey padded out of the bedroom and across the sandy linoleum floor of the dark living room. She could see a woman standing on the other side of the screen door, illuminated by the deck light, her short hair a golden color.

“Hi,” Lacey said, as she neared the door. She flipped on the light switch in the kitchen so she wouldn't be a disembodied voice as she spoke to the woman. “I think you must have the wrong cottage,” she said through the screen. “There's no Fred here.”

The woman looked at a sheet of paper in her hand, holding it under the light. “You must be right,” she said, “but I'm so turned around. It took me ages to find this place, and—”

Lacey pushed the door open. “Come in,” she said. “Maybe I can help you figure out where you need to go.”

The woman offered her a look of gratitude as she walked into the cottage. She appeared to be in her late forties, probably pretty under other circumstances, but right now she had that dazed, puffy-eyed look of someone who was completely lost and tired of trying to find her way.

Lacey switched on the table lamp in the living room and motioned to the woman to sit down on the old couch. “Have a seat,” she said.

“Here are the directions I have.” The woman held out the sheet of paper, covered with lines of neat handwriting and a hand-drawn map, complete with squiggly lines that served as waves in the sound and tiny trees dotting the woods. Lacey sat down on the end of the couch closest to the light and studied it.

“Well, it certainly looks like this is the right cottage. But
you know what?” It suddenly dawned on her. “The owner is away for the summer, and I don't know his name. Maybe that's who you're looking for?”

The woman frowned. “I don't think so. I'm looking for my son, Fred Pointer.”

Lacey shook her head. “I don't know—” The name suddenly sunk in, and she felt an icy chill up her spine. “Pointer?” she asked.

The woman nodded. “Do you know him? Oh, I forgot! He goes by Rick, now. I've always called him Fred, though.”

Lacey pressed her hand to her throat, suddenly nauseous, wondering if she was going to throw up. The woman was beginning to look familiar to her. She could picture her face across the serving table at the women's shelter as she ladled green beans onto her plate.

She stood up. “Oh, my God.”

“Are you all right?” The woman looked alarmed.

“He's been
using
me,” Lacey said.

You don't need to write that victim's impact statement, Lacey. Let them go ahead without yours.

“Are you talking about Fred?” the woman asked. “About Rick?”

She couldn't answer. She felt afraid, her head spinning, as she tried to sort one thought from another.

The woman got to her feet. “You'd better sit down,” she said, taking Lacey's arm. “I don't know what's got you so upset, but you look like you might pass out.”

The woman nearly had to bend Lacey into a sitting position on the couch. She felt as rigid as a stick.

“I've upset you, and I'm very sorry,” the woman said, sitting close to her.

Lacey turned her face to hers. “Do you recognize me?” she asked.

The woman shook her head. “I…you do remind me of someone,” she said. “But I'm afraid that woman died a long time ago.”

“My mother,” Lacey said. “Annie O'Neill.”

It was the woman's turn to blanch, her mouth open in disbelief. “Oh, honey,” she said, touching Lacey's arm. “Oh, my God. You were there, too. I remember. And I've thought of you so often. But…” She looked around the room, helplessly. “I don't understand what's going on. Why would you be here with Fred? Is it just a…coincidence?”

“Oh, no.” Lacey stood up again, anger replacing the shock and nausea. She remembered the book he'd given her about forgiveness. She remembered the flowers. She remembered how he'd steer every conversation to the topic of Zachary Pointer's parole. “
Damn
him!” She picked up an empty mug from the coffee table and threw it at the wall with such force that the woman recoiled. “He's been using me all summer.” She raked her hair away from her face with her fingers as she let the reality of the situation sink in. She looked at the visitor. “Are you in on this?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your husband is up for parole,” Lacey said.

“My ex-husband.” The woman nodded. “I learned that just today.”

Lacey sat down on a lumpy old chair near the window. “Well, here's what happened,” she said. “Your son showed up in my art studio one day. He never said a word about Zachary Pointer being his father. He told me his name was Rick Tenley and—”

“That's his partner's name. Christian Tenley.”

Lacey stared at her. “His law partner?”

The woman shook her head. “His…his significant other.”

Lacey was incredulous. “He's
gay?
”

The woman nodded, and in spite of her rage, Lacey could not stop a laugh. “Well,
that
explains a few things,” she said.

“So…” The woman prompted her. “Was it just a coincidence he came to your studio?”

“No way,” Lacey said. “He knew what he was doing. He started…courting me. Sending me flowers. Asking me out. And when he got close enough—not that we had sex,” she added quickly. “You can tell this Christian guy that Rick's been faithful to him, if to nobody else.” She thought back to their conversation that evening. It all made sense now: He had not been angry about her sleeping with Bobby. His rage had to do with her decision to write the victim's statement. “When he got close enough to me,” she repeated, “I told him about my mother's death and that my family was going to fight her killer's parole. He started talking about the whole parole thing, telling me how I shouldn't fight it, how I should learn to forgive your…husband, or whatever he is to you now. I was so touched that he took such an interest in me. He was such a good listener. God, he really sucked me in!” She looked at the table in the corner, where a stack of papers rested next to his computer. “He told me he was staying here in his friend's cottage so he could have some peace and quiet to write, that he was working on a book about tax law.”

“I believe he
is
working on a book,” the woman said quietly, “but Christian told me it has something to do with parole.”

Lacey got to her feet and walked the two steps to the table in the corner. Lifting a few of the sheets from the top of the pile of paper, she scanned them quickly. The word “parole” was everywhere on the pages. “Bastard!” She lifted the entire stack of papers in her hands and tossed them
into the air, letting them fall into disorderly layers on the floor. She felt wildly out of control. She wanted to destroy something.

The woman was leaning forward, watching Lacey's tirade, with her fist pressed hard against her mouth and a deep crease between her eyebrows. Suddenly, she lowered her hand to her knees and sat up straight.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Lacey O'Neill.”

“I'm Faye Collier,” the woman said. “I took back my maiden name when I divorced Zachary, and I've been estranged from my son since he was a teenager. I've had no contact with him, and I came here to try to reconnect with him. I live in California now, but I was able to find out that Fred lives in Princeton, so I—”

“Princeton?” Lacey stood riveted to the floor in the sea of papers. “He told me he lived in Chapel Hill and taught law at Duke.”

“He
does
teach law,” Faye said, “but it's at Princeton. I went to the address I had for him there and met Christian, who told me I could find Fred here. He doesn't know I was coming. We haven't talked in ten years, Lacey, so I don't even know him anymore. But even though I don't…” The woman blinked back tears, and Lacey could see the pain in her eyes. “Even though I don't know him, I feel like I need to apologize to you for what he's done.”

Her voice was calming. Lacey sat down on the couch again, sideways, drawing her feet up and wrapping her arms around her legs.

“You're not the one who owes me an apology,” she said.

They both turned at the sound of the screen door creaking open, and Rick walked into the room carrying a pizza box. It took him a moment to recognize his mother, but
when he did, Lacey saw all color leave his face, and the box fell to the floor with a thud.

“Mom?”

No matter what Faye had just learned about her son, it was apparent that it didn't matter. She rose from the couch in a rush, moving toward Rick, motherhood transcending all else. And despite the fact that Rick had to know the jig was up, he opened his arms wide for her. They embraced with an intensity that Lacey couldn't watch. She rested her head on her knees, feeling intrusive, and it was a full minute before the two of them finally let go of each other.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Christian,” Faye said.

They were both quiet for a moment, then Rick seemed to notice her. “Lacey,” he said.

She lifted her head and saw that he was crying, his face red.

“I'm truly sorry,” he said.

She shook her head slowly, without speaking, filled at that moment with more pity than anger.

“I lost it,” he said. “I'm sorry. I just want my father to be free. He was crazy when he shot your mother. Crazy and needed help, not prison. I need to get him out. I—”

“What you need right now is time with your mother,” Lacey said abruptly, standing up. “And what I need to do is go home and write my victim's impact statement. And you can bet it's going to be a good one.”

She marched past the two of them, deliberately stepping on the loose pages of his book about parole, and let the screen door slam behind her as she left the cottage. She'd forgotten to get her bathing suit from the spare bedroom—the second bathing suit she had lost in as many days—but she didn't care.

It wasn't until she was sitting in her car in the dark
wooded driveway that she started to cry. The windows were down, the song of the cicadas blaring in her ears, and she didn't reach for the ignition or even bother to wipe the tears from her face for a long time. She'd been taken advantage of sexually by men, too many times to count. But Rick—the one man she'd never imagined would hurt her—had used her in a way that cut right to the core.