Not Looking For Love: Episode 2 (3 page)

My skin is red and raw once I finally turn off the shower. The cold in my room feels like I've just walked out into a blizzard naked, or wearing only a negligee under a thin trench coat, because that's the kind of idiot I am.
 

I put on my flannel pajamas and pull the covers up all the way to my chin. But I'm wide awake, Scott's harsh tone still echoing in my ears. As he forced his cock down my throat, fucked me like I was a whore, the kicked me out like I'm just a piece of trash.
 

Sobs of frustration overtake me, and I ball my hands into fists, slamming them against the mattress. I won't cry. Not over that piece of shit.
 

And then it hits me, the realization more painful than a bolt of lightning. I'd already fallen for him, did the one thing that I didn't want. Stupid Gail, too dumb to separate feelings from just sex. And she ended up abused and hurt, worse than anyone deserves to be.
 

I hadn't heard any gasps or coughs coming from my mom's room since I lay down. Bolting out of bed, I'm beside her clutching her hand in what feels like a second. Dad is snoring softly beside her, and their arms are entwined, but barely touching. My stomach twists like I might break apart, bleed out on the carpet. This, this is what I never want. I will never lose anyone else but them.
 

The grandfather clock chiming ten wakes me the next morning.
 
I'm seeing the world as though through thick gauze, nothing touches me and I feel less. Something broke inside of me last night and I can't find the pieces to mend it back together.
 

The doorbell rings and I cover myself up again, letting someone else get it. Or not. I don't want to see anyone.
 

A few moments later I hear Edna walking up the stairs. She peeks in through the open door of my bedroom. "Gail, are you awake? There's a Scott here to see you."

I can't believe he would come here.
 

"I don't want to see him," I say. Never, ever again.

"I'll tell him. But this is the second time he's come today," Edna says, smiling at me. "I don't think he'll just give up."

"He will."

"OK, Gail. Why don't you get up and go see your mom now. She's awake," Edna says. "I'll bring you some tea on the way up."

"Thank you, but coffee would be better," I say, and stumble out of bed. My hair is still damp, and my tank is wet from it, but I don't bother to change. My mom might not be awake for very long, and every minute counts.
 

"Gail," Mom says as I enter, stretching an arm out and pointing to the window. "Would you mind opening it? I feel like some fresh air."

Outside I see Scott walking back toward Kate's. He notices me, and waves, but I turn away sharply and step away from the window.

"How do you feel today, Mom?" I ask. Her face and her lips are blue, and her hand shakes as she holds it out towards me.

"About the same," she answers, but I can hear the lie. The clear autumn air mixes with the feeling of deep longing and homesickness coursing through me, ripping me to shreds.
 

I'm beside her, crying into her hand, feeling like I've flown to her side, not walked. She's stroking my hair with her free hand, but I barely feel her touch.

"Gail, honey, remember when Grandpa died," Mom asks, and a sob catches in my throat. "You were so sad you wouldn't stop crying for days. I was too. But then it passed and it's alright now. That's just how I think it will be when I die. The pain will pass in time."

My mom's voice hitches and she sobs loudly. It turns into a vicious cough in an instant, made worse by the tears running down her face.

I straighten up and wipe her tears away with my fingers, even managing a small smile as I wait for the coughing to subside. She's trying to make me feel better and I should let her, I must let her. The pain squeezing my chest is so strong it's making me numb. It's as though I'm not even in the room.
 

"Don't worry about me, Mom," I hear myself saying. "I will be just fine. I promise."

I hope she can't hear the lie, because the dark, bottomless abyss is all around me, and soon it will be all there is.

She nods at me and smiles, then lies back. I nestle in beside her, my forehead against her arm. Edna comes in with my coffee a few minutes later, but I feign sleep and she just sets it on the nightstand and leaves.
 

I don't remember falling asleep, but the clock on the nightstand reads 4:06 PM so I must have. The doorbell startles me. I close my eyes, hoping Edna won't bother getting the door.

"It's Scott again," Edna whispers into my ear.

"Tell him to stop coming," I say.
 

"Maybe you should go yourself," she suggests.

"Please, Edna." I don't want to see Scott ever again. He was just a mistake and I feel so much worse now for having made it.
 

Edna sighs and leaves. She returns a few minutes later, telling me she must change my mom's sheets and give her the medicine.

I take another hot shower while I wait for her to finish. I come out to find Kate's text saying she's with Mark in the city, but we should do something Saturday. I text back, OK, though I have no intention of going out this weekend.
 

Dad's lying down next to Mom when I peek back into her room, holding her hand, his eyes closed. I slip the door shut before he notices me standing there. The sun is shining outside, but I hear thunder in the distance. Longing and homesickness follow me down the stairs and into the kitchen, congealing into a menacing, black presence breathing down my neck. I run to my car to escape it all, go lose myself in the rushing waves and cascading sands of the beach, my last remaining refuge.
 

I drive down to the beach near my house, not the one where I ran into Scott on the pier. Despite the sun shining, it is chilly, and the only people at the beach are a group of teenagers, and an old lady with her straw hat tied to her head by a white silk scarf. She reminds me of Gran, which sends a new stab of pain through my heart. I should go see her soon, but the thought of sharing grief with her is unbearable right now, so I let it go.

The sand is damp, and my flats are leaving little crosses in it as I walk along, right where the surf licks the beach. I move closer to the water, looking back to see the waves wipe away my prints. My mom will be gone soon, just like this, leaving no trace. Then one day I will be gone too, leaving just as little behind. Yet this beach will still be here. And another Gail, her mom dying too, might walk this same path then. I don't wish her to have to, but it can happen regardless, just as it happened to my mom and me.

"Gail," Scott calls me.

He's running toward me, but I whip around and run too, away from him.
 

"Wait."
 

"No!" I yell back over my shoulder.
 

But he's faster and catches me, wrapping his arms around my waist. Like he's tackling me, soft like we're just playing. I punch down hard on his forearm, my knuckles cracking painfully. His smell bores into me, dampening my urge to flee. But that can't happen. "Let me go."

"Can we talk, Gail?" He's still holding me, but not very tightly, and I could break away and run. But what for? I should finish what I started or it will never be over. Maybe I even owe him a little.

I twist from his arms. "Did you follow me here?"

His eyes are a gleaming blue today, like the ocean in summertime, a gentle breeze pushing the sailboats along toward the horizon.

"Yes, I did," he says. His lip is slightly swollen around a nasty black scab. I'm sorry I bit him that hard, but it's a fleeting feeling.
 

"There isn't much to say, Scott, now is there?"

He looks directly into my eyes, the intensity of his gaze making me tingle as though lightning just struck right next to me. "I never should have treated you like that, Gail. I'm so sorry."

"No you shouldn't have," I snap. "But you did and it happened. You can't just take it back."

I don't know where my anger is coming from, I was sure I shut that lid down tight. Shivers pass through me, but they're on the inside, my hands and my voice are completely steady.

He drops his head and runs his hand over his hair, looking upwards at me. "You just came at the wrong moment, and I…I don't know what happened. But it won't ever happen again."

There's such conviction in his voice, I believe him. "I'm sure that's what every battered woman believes, at least in the beginning."

Shock makes his eyes wide, and his cheek twitches a little. "I didn't hurt you, did I? Not really?"

It didn't hurt. It was wild and rough and everything I wanted from him, back in the beginning. But not last night. The realization feels like a slap. I can't keep talking to him. I'm just dumb and mental enough to accept his apology.
 

"Don't worry about it, Scott. I'm fine and I'll get over it." What hurt the most was the way he kicked me out. But that's gone too now, just a memory, not something that touches me.

"Will you? 'Cause I don't know if I will," he says, searching my face, his eyes expectant like a child's.

"That's not really my problem," I say harshly, wanting to end this pointless, dangerous conversation.

"I want to get to know you better, Gail."

"Look, Scott," I say, steel in my voice now, coming from the thought of laying beside the love of my life, waiting for them to die, nothing I can do to stop it. "We were both right to push each other away. We just weren't right about it on the same day."

He rubs the back of his neck and looks past me toward the sea. "You think so? I think maybe we were both wrong."
 

He turns back to me, his eyes pleading. It has to stop. Now. "I had no intention of ever getting to know you, Scott. I thought I was clear on that. Now stop following me and stop coming to my house. Whatever it was, it's over."

"If you're sure, Gail." His eyes are frozen now, like looking at a glacier. There's no anger there, no sadness, nothing of anything. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks away. And I fight it, but a part of me wants to run after him and start this conversation again, end it differently. But that part of me is the weak, crazy Gail. This Gail is strong and feels nothing at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

I make the drive to Gran's retirement home as soon as Dad comes home at lunchtime on Friday. Yesterday on the beach, after Scott left, that old lady was looking at me all the way back to my car, like she wanted to hug and comfort me. And all I kept thinking of was Gran, who lost the love of her life, her husband, and will now soon lose her daughter.

The drive to her retirement home usually takes about forty-five minutes, but I make it in thirty, speeding all the way there. I can stay for an hour or so and still beat the grid-lock back home.

Gran is sitting in a plush, old-style armchair gazing out the window in her room. A thick woolen carpet covers the floor, and her four poster bed is pure mahogany that gleams in the sunlight, complete with a white linen canopy. She brought all her own furniture with her when she moved in here two years ago after she broke her hip.

"Hi, Gran," I say loudly, because she didn't hear me come in. "How are you?"

She turns to me in a series of jerky movements.
 
"Gail, sweetheart. How is your mother?"

Her voice is hard, cuts like a sword. But her wide, watery eyes and shaking bottom lip betray her terror at the news I might be bringing. I force myself to smile, and stride over to her. "Mom is fine. Or you know…"

My voice cracks and I can't finish the sentence.
 

Gran turns back to the window, and I sit in the matching armchair across from her.

"I would like to go and see her, one last time," Gran says so softly, I'm not sure I even heard it.

"I can come pick you up and drive you there anytime," I say. "Or we can go now, and I'll bring you back tonight."

Gran takes a long, shuddering breath, which makes the papery skin on her face shake. "Not today, I've been having my spells all day. I'm afraid to even leave the room. On Sunday, perhaps."

I nod and gaze out the window too. A few of the retirees are making their way slowly along the wide paths that transverse the sprawling garden, clutching their walkers and moving at a snail's pace.
 

Gran whimpers. "I never thought I would live to bury my children. The pain is unbearable. I hope you never have to face it."

"I won't," I say and cross my legs. "I'm not planning on having any children."

"That's certainly one way to sort it," she says, a flash of the haughty, feisty heiress she once was clear in her voice. She places her hand over my knee. "But you'll change your mind, Gail, once you're a little older."

"No." Heat from her hand is searing through my leg.
 

"I lost my first baby during World War II," she says, again gazing out the window. "I woke up one morning with a terrible pain in my stomach, and blood covering the sheets."

"Was it Edmond's baby?" I blurt out.
 

A twitch twists her cheek, and she squeezes my knee. "Dear Edmond. Yes it was his."

The thought of him dying under machine gun fire on D-Day, just as his only child died in the womb is unbearable, but I ask anyway, "Did you love him very much?"

"I did and I still do," she says and smiles sadly, the years melting away from her face.
 

"How can you still love him?" The thought alone chokes me, and here she is looking like Edmond just walked into the room, ready to whisk her away and marry her.

"I accepted that it could never be, Gail. I've lived a good long life, and Edmond was a part of it, if only for a short while. It makes me glad to know that."

None of what she's saying makes any sense to me. I want to erase Scott from my thoughts, and the day I never think of him again will be the happiest of my life.

"Would you like to see him?"