Love Hurts (14 page)

Yeah, my mother didn’t love me. So what? There are millions of people in the world with the same shitty story. So what makes me so special? So my mother hated me. So she despised the very sight of me. But the question is why does it still matter?

Fuck!

Jilly looked up, expecting to hear Matty say, “Mommy said a bad word!” That’s what scared her the most; this anger that would come over her in such a wave. She didn’t even know where it came from, but the force of it terrified her.
 

She again put her pen to the paper, clenched her fist around the pen to stop the trembling, nearly bending it with the force of her grip. Gregg was right. She was sick.

Jilly leaned her head back on the soft down pillow. It felt like a cloud cradling a bomb. A sudden pain shot through her arm, as the pen dug in at the edge of her white bandage. She threw the pen across the room, where it bounced off the wall and fell to the carpet. Jilly felt exactly like the pen. Life had thrown her across the room and she bounced off the wall of experience and she now lay gasping on the floor of reality.
 

The pen had left a wide blue mark on her arm. Jilly licked her thumb and rubbed it off. She’d nearly broken the skin.

“Jilly?”

She looked up, sure guilt was written all over her face.

“What?”

“Your sister is here. Are you up for a visit?”

“Yes!”

Gregg looked at her strangely. “Okay. Well, I’m going to go out for a bit while you two visit. Is that okay?”

“Of course, Gregg. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Don’t you?”

It was the first time he’d cast any blame on her and his honesty actually made Jilly happy.

“No, I don’t, but thanks for caring.”

She wasn’t being sarcastic, but he arched a brow at her and again disappeared from the doorway.
 

“How you doing, baby?”

Relief surged through Jilly at Anna’s appearance. “I’m okay. You?”

Anna shrugged and walked into the room, stopping at the pen on the floor. “You drop something?”

“More like threw it.”

“Why?”

Jilly lifted the journal from her lap. “I was trying to write in this. I hadn’t yet written anything.”

Anna smiled and sat on the bed on Gregg’s side. She plumped the pillows and leaned against the headboard. “So? I knew you’d use it if you needed it. I guess you did today.”

“I wrote all of five sentences.”

“It’s a start.”

Tears sprang to Jilly’s eyes. “I had only just gotten started when I wrote about her.”

“Mamma?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that really a surprise? We’re going to visit her soon. She’s not going to be far from your thoughts.”

“I just don’t know if I can face her.”

“Me either.” Anna sighed and leaned her head back. “It’s going to be tough, but we’ve got to do it, if only for our own sanity. I was writing in my own journal this morning after Rob left. I didn’t like what came out.”

“Really? Why?”

Anna rolled her head around on her neck. “I thought I’d put it behind me years ago, and still it’s like this tiger crouching in the grass. I’ve spotted his yellow eyes and now I’m waiting for him to spring.”

“God, Anna, you are so good with words. That’s my feelings exactly. So, what do we do about the tiger, huh? Know anyone with a real big gun?”

They laughed, which released a lot of Jilly’s pent-up stress.

“Maybe one thing that will help is to try to remember the good times,” Anna said.

“How about the time I got a kitten?”

“I said a good memory.” Anna shook her head at Jilly. “I’ll start since you seem determined to be a poor sport. I remember when we went to the zoo that one time and saw the penguins. They were all flopping about and sliding into the water. You were so little, but we had to drag you away from the penguin pen. After that you decided you wanted stuffed penguins in your room. I bought you one for every birthday and Christmas after that.”

Jilly smiled at last. “You still do.”

They both looked toward the stuffed penguin sitting proudly on Jilly’s dresser. He had a red Christmas bow around his neck. Beside it stood a glass figurine penguin. Jilly had them spread all over her house, and Matthew was on strict orders never to touch them.

“I remember that, you know.”

“Do you? I’m surprised. I think you were only four.”

“It’s one of my earliest memories, Anna. I loved how you always remembered the penguin. She never did.”

“I know, but it was a happy memory, right?”

“I guess so,” Jilly admitted. “But, if we’re doing memories, I have to tell you that all my happy ones are because of you. She never did anything to make me happy.”

“I remember happier times, Jill.”

“Before I was born?”
 

Anna looked pained. “Maybe.”

“What changed when I came into the picture?”

“Do you think that some people get better with age, but others worsen?”

“Yeah, maybe. Are you saying that she got worse?”

“Yes. Mamma wasn’t too bad when I was little. She took care of me and treated me like her princess at times. When she got pregnant with you, things really started to change. Maybe she had postpartum depression. You had that for a while, right?”

“Yeah, but it went away after a few months. I don’t think it lasts for fifteen years.”

“No, but maybe that was the start of it.”

“Maybe,” Jilly conceded.

Jilly shifted on the bed and made herself more comfortable. “Do you think she hated me more?”

“What? Of course not! I always thought she hated me more than you since I am the oldest and more independent.”

“Really? That’s strange. I guess everyone sees things differently, don’t they?”

“I guess so,” Anna said.

“Why are you going back?” Jilly said out of the blue. “I know we’re both going, but why do you really want to?”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“To see Chris again.”

“Anna!”

“What?”

“That’s awesome.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that’s awesome. You guys were so in love. I can’t believe you left him.”

“Neither can I. I can’t believe how stupid I was.”

“Yeah.”

Anna smacked Jilly’s shoulder. “Thanks a lot, brat.”

“Hey, I call it like it is. You had to be temporarily insane to leave that hottie behind.”

“I know. But I was desperate to get away. I kind of …” Anna ran her finger along the crease in her pants, straightening it until it ran in a perfect line down her leg. “It’s dumb.”

“What? Tell me.”

“I kind of wanted to become a new person. Like the old Anna didn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s not dumb. I wish that all the time.”

“Even now?”

“Yeah. Even now.” Jilly lifted her bandaged arms. “Especially now.”

“Why can’t we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if we want to so badly, why can’t we just become the people we want to be? I mean, I know exactly the kind of person I want to be, don’t you?”

Jilly thought for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“So what’s stopping us from being who we want to be? I’ve been asking myself that question for years now and it always comes back to the same thing.”

Jilly leaned forward. “What?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what?”

“Of becoming that person.”

“If that’s the person you want to be, then why would you be afraid to become it?”

“Then I wouldn’t have an excuse.”

Jilly shook her head. “Stop speaking like you’re writing poetry. Make sense.”

“I wouldn’t have an excuse for not excelling in my life. You know? If I were that person, I would be successful and happy and do all the things I’m only dreaming about right now. I’d be an author and travel and all that. But to get there I have to change who I am and then I have to succeed.”

“It all sounds like a lot of pressure to me,” Jilly said.

Anna threw up her hands and then let them drop into her lap. “See what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do, actually. It makes sense in a crazy kind of way.”

“So now I feel like I’m stuck in this in-between place. I know where I want to go and who I want to be when I get there. I’m no longer comfortable being the person I am, but I’m stuck, terrified and immobile because I’m not sure which direction to go.”

Jilly watched Anna’s face, saying nothing, thinking over what Anna had said.

Anna picked up Jilly’s slender hand and played with her fingers. “Jilly?” she asked. “I feel bad that I still haven’t figured this out and I’m the older sister. Does it make you feel more uncertain?”

Jilly gave Anna’s hand a quick squeeze. “No, silly. You’ve got to let go of the responsibility you have toward me. You’re no longer my role model. I’m proud of you, don’t get me wrong, and I’d love to be more like you, but we’re sisters. You’re not my mom, no matter how much you were forced into the role. Let’s just be sisters like this.”

Tears came to Anna’s eyes. “Thank you for that, Sis. I’ll try to let it go, but it’s hard.”

“I know.”

“I don’t have a baby that I can put all of that maternal feeling toward, so I guess it’s stayed with you.”

Jilly’s face crumpled and tears spilled down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s a crime.”

“What is?”

“That you’ve never had a baby. I think it’s horrible that you of all people should be denied something that would have fulfilled you and made you so happy.”

Anna brushed away tears of her own. “Yes, it’s an awful thing, but now I know it’s not my fault.”

Jilly shook her head, “What do you mean? How could it ever have been your fault?”

Jilly listened in disbelief, her anger rising, as Anna told her about Rob's deception.

“What? Are you serious?”

Anna didn’t answer, just stared down at her lap, tears dropping onto her jeans.

“What a fucking asshole!” Jilly couldn’t believe anyone could hurt her sister the way Rob had for so many years. Jilly had kept quiet about his roving eyes for her sister’s sake. She hated him and was happy Anna had finally left the creep.

She took Anna’s hand and sat, grieving, with her.

Chapter 14

The room had been long abandoned, musty, no smell of paint anywhere. The sadness of its neglect made Jilly’s dry eyes feel gritty. She stepped across the threshold for the first time in at least three years. She’d kept the door locked since Matthew’s birth. She didn’t even know what drew her to the room now. Probably Mamma’s painting. Nausea spread warm across her stomach and she hesitated, wondering if it would grow.

Steeling herself, she stepped across the room, her feet silent on the floor. The tiles were warm from the sun streaming in the huge windows. Gregg had built the room, added it onto their modest home so she’d have a place to call her own. It hurt him she’d never used it. Jilly knew he put love into building it. Gregg had been so proud of her art.

She’d set up her easel near the biggest window, stacked up canvases in the corner, filled the bureau with brushes, paints, and all the things a real artist needs for her craft. She’d known at the time that she wasn’t a real artist though. A real artist can paint.

With a rusty hand, she put a canvas onto her easel. She squeezed paint onto her well-used palette, the one she’d used in art school and hadn’t been able to throw away. Jilly went through the motions, hoping this time the wall that blocked her creativity would magically crumble.

Her hand trembled as she dipped her brush into the cerulean paint. She mixed a little white with it, and with a loaded brush, moved toward the blank white canvas. It loomed large and threatening. Her hand stopped an inch from the pristine surface and she couldn’t make it connect no matter how she pushed. Her hand locked just above the canvas. Jilly lunged and the brush hit the canvas, smearing blue paint in a swipe. It was the first color she’d applied to canvas in far too long.

At the sight of the blue smear, a rage boiled up. Anger she didn’t even know was there. It took over her body and she moved like a dervish. Jilly grabbed the crimson paint and squeezed a blob onto her palette. Then she grabbed ebony, orange, ochre, and a few other vivid colors, until she had an intense spectrum. Jilly swiped her brush through the red and slapped it onto the canvas. She repeated it over and over, grabbing a different color, each angry swipe blending and swirling them together into a miasma, a cacophony. The colors nearly jumped off the canvas, screamed in her face.