Darker Water (35 page)

“Neither of my boys tell me much of anything.
The little I know about Carson’s predicament is due to the tirade
of phone calls from lawyers asking if I know where he is.”

“I don’t know much more than you, then. The
last time I saw him he was healthy…physically”—I dropped the volume
of my voice—“but otherwise he was kind of a mess.”

“Come in.”

I kept things simple but honest—about my
relationship with Carson, how it had started and how it had ended.
Renee was silent throughout the entire explanation, sipping her tea
whenever it seemed like she wanted to stop herself from saying
something.

Finally, I gave up. “You need to fix things
with him because he won’t listen to me.”

When Renee put her teacup and saucer on the
table, I understood why she hadn’t let go of it since we’d started
speaking. Her hands were shaking. “I don’t know if it would be any
different for me. You saw how he feels about me, how angry he was
when I announced my engagement.”

“He wouldn’t have gotten that angry if he
didn’t care about you.”

“I was the cause of a lot of hardship when
Carson was younger. I don’t know what I could ever do to make up
for that time in his life.”

“You don’t have to make up any time.
Regardless of whatever happened between you and your late husband
or any other man, you’re the only chance Carson has to start over.
He needs to start over, Renee.”

“I’ve spent the last seven years trying to
find a way to help him do that. I’m still looking.”

Obviously she hadn’t looked in a mirror. She
couldn’t change him, just like she couldn’t change any of her exes.
Just like I didn’t change any of mine into frogs. Just like they
hadn’t changed me. I changed myself, once I finally understood who
I was.

Renee smoothed her skirt, and I saw her bare
finger—the huge engagement rock was gone. When she caught me
gawking, she looked at her hand.

“You noticed,” she said.

“It’s hard not to—your finger was really
shiny last time we met.” I felt myself tense. I didn’t come here to
talk about jewelry.

“Yes, it was.” Renee’s smile was tight as she
moved to pick up her teacup. Then she stopped and put her hands in
her lap, her right covering her left. “I actually forget it’s not
there from time to time.”

My impatience disappeared, replaced with
blatant curiosity. Carson said Renee hated being alone. So what had
happened?

“Why aren’t you getting married?” I
asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Normally I’d completely agree with you.”
Deep breath. “But normally I’m not in love with someone who will
never be able to love me back. Because he’s afraid that if he does,
he’ll turn into the kind of man his father was. The kind of man his
stepfathers were. Men
you
chose to bring into your son’s
life.”

My curiosity turned into angry frustration.
“I’m not here to blame you or make you feel guilty, or even to
bring you and Carson closer together. I’m here to tell you that
you’re the only one who can help your son understand that he’s not
like any of the men you chose. Honestly, I don’t give a shit about
your personal life. All I care about is how it affects Carson.
Because whether he wants it or not, Carson is my business, and
therefore, why you’re not getting married to another reminder of
his father is also my business.”

I expected Renee to respond with an equal
amount of anger or intensity, but she seemed to have sunk into
herself, become smaller, less of a presence. Maybe this was the
real Renee—the one not hiding behind image and position, the one
who’d taken the abuse as if she’d earned it.

“Men can be charismatic.” She started
removing her rings one by one, placing them onto the coffee table.
“They can tell you it will never happen again, and how sorry they
are, in a way that makes it impossible to doubt.”

My mind flashed to a moment with Carson, when
he told me he didn’t believe in apologies. This was why—because
he’d seen how little they often meant.

“Every argument has two sides.” She reached
into the drawer next to her and took out a small bottle of
expensive hand lotion. “So it’s easy to believe you’re as much at
fault as he is. Maybe
entirely
at fault, because you pushed
him too hard or because he feels so much passion towards you that
it makes him unable to think. You want to believe it’s true. You
want to believe that he loves you so much, he has to fight to
control himself. Because those things make you feel desired and
loved. They make you feel powerful, even when you know it will only
last a moment.”

I grabbed a box of tissues from a side table
and dropped them onto the coffee table between us, but I didn’t
think Renee would need one. The calm and tragic way she talked
about something horrible was something I’d never seen before. Grief
and vulnerability held in check by acceptance.

“Do you know how many people I’ve spoken to
openly about this, Laney? None. Ever. Not even Carson. But I love
him, and I believe you love him, as well. So you asked why I’m not
getting married.” She took a deep breath. “Because until that day
in the restaurant, Carson and I had never spoken about his father
or the other men. So I’d been able to convince myself that the only
person I’d hurt was myself and that my son had no right to be angry
at me. Not after I’d gone through so much to make sure he’d have
the future he deserved.

“After you both left, I went back to the
table and picked up my champagne for another toast. For the first
time in my life, it was too difficult for me to pretend. I couldn’t
stop seeing the fear in his eyes, the disappointment in his voice.
To know I disappointed my child, hurt him, was worse than anything
his father could have ever done to me.”

She covered her mouth with her hand for a
minute. “I took the first flight back here. When I told my fiancé
what Carson had said and how hurt I was, he agreed that I had every
right to be upset. Then I told him I couldn’t marry him if things
continued as they were. Instead of agreeing, he slapped me. And
then he struck me again and I realized it didn’t matter what I said
or did—he wanted to hurt me, and so he did. And until that moment,
I had let him. Just like I had let my first husband hurt my
children.”

She looked down to her finger again and then
opened and closed her hand. “The ring my fiancé had given me was
too heavy for me to carry anymore, so I gave it back to him.”

I nodded. “With a little time and rest, I’m
sure your hand will be stronger than ever.”

“I hope so.” I knew Renee had used up all her
energy telling her story. To help me understand. I’m not sure how
well it worked, though. I wasn’t her, I wasn’t there, and I was
seriously biased when it came to her son. But I wasn’t the one she
needed to convince.

“If you never tell him, he’ll never know,” I
said. “He’ll never understand.”

“Carson has every right to hate me. I put him
through so much, some of the worst things a man can ever do.” She
lowered her eyes and took another breath. “If I knew how to take it
all back, I would. But it’s too late. He doesn’t trust me, and
rightfully so, because I’ve given him so many reasons not to. He
would never listen to me.”

“You stood in front of the man who beat you
and told him the truth, so you can stand in front of your son and
tell him the truth, too. Because Carson would never hurt you, and
he still wants to love you because he’s amazing and kind and
special and in an incredible amount of pain.”

It took her a while to nod. “I’m glad he has
you in his life, Laney.”

“I’m not—” I wasn’t in his life anymore. “You
can’t tell him it was my idea. Honestly, none of this has ever
really been any of my business.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not what either of us wanted. Things
just got a little confused for a while.” Actually
I’d
gotten
confused and had dragged him into something he never wanted.

“Then you should unconfuse them as soon as
possible, don’t you think?”

“Some things are the way they are for a
reason.” I shrugged. “It’s better for both of us to move on.”

Renee looked at me silently for another
moment before she stood. “I suppose I should pack a bag, then.
You’re welcome to stay until you need to go to the airport.”

“Thanks, but I don’t get down here very
often. I’m probably going to visit some old friends.” It was a lie,
but a harmless one. I didn’t want to hang out with her, and she
probably didn’t want to hang out with me.

She walked me to the door. “When are you
going back to San Francisco?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I wished her good
luck.

“Any advice?” she asked.

“Um… Don’t give up even if he’s being stupid.
He’ll try to change the subject when something hits too close, but
don’t let him. And tell him—” I held up my hand. “Bye.”

I left the housing community as fast as I
could and pulled into the first parking lot I came to. Breathe.
Just breathe. What I’d done was a good thing. I should be happy. It
didn’t matter that Carson would be mad at me for butting into his
life because he could be sure it would never happen again.

After a while I’d be back to my old self,
kind of. Maybe I’d be better. Probably not, but I couldn’t
possibly
keep crying this much, so that was something.

I’d never be the person I used to be—pre or
post frogs. Because real love isn’t as easy to get over as the
pretend kind. Especially when you can’t be angry or blame the other
person. Somehow, knowing it didn’t work out because some things
never would was worse than being cheated on or lied to.

I couldn’t blame Carson—he’d never promised
me anything more than a good time. And he’d given me a
ton
of them. It was my own fault that I’d made it into something he
hadn’t wanted and wasn’t capable of. He’d warned me.
Repeatedly.

He helped me figure out what I wanted. It
wasn’t his fault that what I wanted was
him
.

I spent the rest of the day driving around
the city, trying to get a feel for where I’d want to live. That was
a perk of my business and my art that I’d never thought about—I
could do it from anywhere. It would do me good to shake things up.
Hillary was probably going to move in with Eric soon, I could still
show at the gallery even if I wasn’t in the city, and if I lived
closer to San Diego, my parents would be thrilled. Career-wise, Los
Angeles might actually be better for me. I could start over, make
some new memories—less painful ones.

My plane ticket back to S.F. was for Monday,
so I had all weekend to explore and figure out what was next for
me. No men, that was for damn sure. The last thing I needed was a
reminder that my useless little brain couldn’t separate sex from
love. Huge fail on that one, despite Carson’s heroic efforts.

“Oh my god.” When reality hit me, it came
from multiple directions.

I’d always been so sure the physical and the
emotional came as a package—sex and the delusion of love. But
everything I’d believed was total bullshit. Everything.

I
could
have sex without love. I’d
always
had sex without love. Because until now, I’d never
actually been in love.

And the man who’d done his best to convince
me I could separate one from the other was the only one who’d ever
helped me put them together.

“Hold the door for me, Carson.” Anna brushed
past me, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She probably didn’t
mean to smack me with it, but Anna has always been capable of far
more than she thinks she is.

“I’m pretty sure I paid for your cell phone
through this month. So why are you here?”

“Because I was told to come by your smarter
and hotter older brother,” she grumbled.

“I’m way hotter than he is.” I’d give him
smarter though. Well,
normally
I’d give him smarter, but not
right now. Because I distinctly remembered telling him Anna didn’t
need to be here for this. I didn’t want drama. I wanted this to be
as pain-free as possible, and pain-free was an impossibility around
both Anna and my mother, in a bunch of different ways.

Hayden peeked out of the conference room.
“The only two who don’t have somewhere else to be are the two
holding everyone up. Do you mind?”

Right, but I couldn’t help mouthing off as I
headed for the room. “Not true, Hayden. Anna’s probably supposed to
be getting a facial or hair thing done right now. Or was it a
facial hair thing? I always forget.”

I let Anna go in first—not because I was
feeling polite, but because before I could move my feet, I had to
remove my brother’s hand from my shirt.

“Is there a problem?” I asked quietly.

The board members were all standing, showing
the kind of chivalry my stepsister only expected from men she
barely knew.

“You don’t have to do this,” Hayden said. “We
can handle O’Leary, and nothing has to change.”

“
I
have to change, bro. Me. I can’t
pull anyone else down while I’m trying to figure out how.” I shook
his hand off. “Wish me luck.”

“It’s a bad idea, Carson.”

“Then you shouldn’t be surprised I had it.
Bad ideas are the only kind I have.” Damn it, my laugh sounded
sadder than if I was actually crying.

“What are you going to do after this? You
think you’re unnecessary and that people only need your money, but
you’re wrong. You get as much from this place as the families
do.”

“You’re right,” I whispered as I went inside
the room. “That’s why I can’t fuck it up.” The truth—and something
I tried not to think too much about because it was depressing as
shit—was that I was never gonna have a normal family and I was
never gonna have kids of my own. And this place, the families it
helped, well…they were as close as I was ever going to get.