Pearl (28 page)

Her father dropped his head. “She didn’t make it.”

Pearl let out a howl as she fell to her knees, the glass crashing to the floor.
 

“I heard it!” she sobbed. “I remember, I remember.”

CHAPTER 25

Her father rushed to her side, but she held up her hand and forcefully pushed him away.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled at him.
 

His eyes widened, but he backed away, slowly picking up shards of glass on the floor. She curled into a ball, panting and trying to catch her breath. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a low sobbing moan. She tucked her head into her chest, fighting back the raging fury in her bones as the tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t comprehend what she had just heard, though her memory told her it was the truth. She had spent almost nine years repressing the sound that crept into her dreams—the sound she knew would end any peace and happiness she might have known. One screech, one scream, one crash, and all her joy was gone. Back into her shell she went, where she pulled the lid over her head and locked it shut.

“Pearl,” her father was saying, “please, look at me. Listen to me.” He was begging her. “I’m so sorry, my treasured Pearl.”

She tried to shut out his voice, but it was everywhere. She couldn’t think straight. She wanted to remember more. To dive back into that night to see what else she had forgotten. At the same time she wanted to run. If her legs could move, she would blast through the door and never return. The only thing holding her back was Billy.

Pearl lifted her head off the cold tiled floor and pushed her back against the refrigerator. Her blurry vision came into focus, and she saw her father studying the broken glass in his hand.
 

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, his voice weak as he fumbled with the jagged shard. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to tell you.”

Her focus came back sharply. She raised her eyes to glare at him.

“How can you live with yourself?” she asked. “How could you have looked at me, at Billy, every day and not felt sick from lying to us like that?”

He fell back on his seat, dropping the glass he’d picked up. His shoulders slumped.
 

“I just couldn’t,” he admitted. “I didn’t know how.”

She stared at him in shock. “You didn’t know how? What father doesn’t tell his own children their mother is dead?” Her voice was rising. “Have you lost your mind? What kind of man are you?”
 

She had felt pain before, pain she thought she could never survive. But no hurt amounted to what she felt at that moment. This was searing, with a bitter taste of betrayal and a dose of malice.

“I didn’t know,” he said. His eyes went blank as he stared at her. He was taking the anger that she gave him, gratefully. The years of holding back this secret showed in his face, in the crevices of his wrinkled skin. He looked tired. Tired of running from the truth, and tired of denying himself his own grief. “I didn’t know how.”
 

“You’re a coward,” she said, glaring at him.

He nodded.

Her head dropped as the words he had told her sank in. Her mother was gone. Gone for good. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, holding the aching sob in. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How did it happen?”

He looked up with caution. “What all do you remember?”

She closed her eyes. “Mom running,” she said with certainty. “I watched until she turned the bend. And then I remember the sound.” Pearl choked back as she spoke. “I never knew what it was, or maybe I did. I just couldn’t understand it.”
 

“I heard it, too,” he said sadly. “I hear it every day.” He pressed his head into the back of the counter he was leaning against. His hands dropped to his side. His face looked so much older, and yet his posture was that of a berated child.
 

She hesitated while she thought. “I don’t remember seeing you.”

“I didn’t see you in the window, either. I looked up, but the light was off. I didn’t see anything. I had no idea you were awake. If I did…” His voice dropped before he could finish the sentence.
 

 
“I think the noise had frightened me.” She pressed her lips in a tight line as she dug deep into her memory. “I think I hid beneath the covers until morning.”
 

Her father dropped his head at the idea that his daughter had been too frightened to even move. He didn’t speak.
 

She nodded to herself as she recalled the last night of her mother’s life. “Yes, I remember there was a fight. You and Mom were arguing. That’s what woke me up. And I looked out the window and saw her.”

Her father sighed.

Pearl’s fury returned. “You were fighting with her! Is that why she left? Did you make her leave?”

His gaze darted to her. “Of course I didn’t make her leave. I was begging her to stay. She was the one leaving me!”

“Leaving you?” Pearl asked. The frightened child in her returned. “So she was going to leave us anyway?”

He tilted his head sadly as he shook it. “No, not you. Me. She was leaving me. She would have never left you.” He ran a hand through his fine hair and closed his eyes. “Don’t you see, Pearl? It’s why I haven’t been able to tell you.”

“Because she was leaving you?”

“Because of why she was leaving me,” he corrected. “I didn’t want that to be the last thing you thought of when you remembered your mother. I didn’t want you to spend the rest of your life angry with her, and you couldn’t do a damn thing about it. That’s how I feel.” His mouth tightened. “And it hurts like hell.”

Pearl shrank back against the cold fridge. “What were you fighting about?”

He sighed. “Your mother had a boyfriend.”

“You’re a liar.”

He nodded. “I wish I was lying about this. She was angry at me, angry that my job kept me busy and away, angry that I didn’t spend enough time with her and you kids.” He looked at Pearl so she could see the truth in his eyes. “So when you were asleep, she’d leave to go see him. I never knew—she always had a lie for where she was going.”

“Why are you saying these things?”

“Because it’s the truth. And she told me everything that night, said she was going to leave me, and take you and Billy and start a new life with him.” His eyes pleaded with his daughter to believe him, but hers were too blurry from tears to see. “She ran off that night to go see him. I guess he was supposed to meet her at the corner.”

Pearl inhaled deeply. “Is he the one who did it?”

“No,” he said quickly, looking up. “No, it was a young kid. Drinking. Barely left a scratch on him. I never saw the guy your mom talked about. Never showed up, never heard a word from him. I don’t even know his name.” He laughed a humorless laugh. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to point him out in the crowd? I look at a guy and think, was he her type? Was he married? Could that be him with his beautiful wife and kids just shopping and going about their day? Does he even know that she’s dead? Or did he think she just changed her mind?”

Pearl watched her father torment himself.

 
“It’s a sick game to play,” he said.
 

“I’ve played similar games myself,” she admitted. “I swore I saw Mom standing outside the grocery store in Oregon.”

Her father smiled sympathetically.
 

Pearl shook off his pity. “So you chose not to tell me because you didn’t want me to hold a grudge against her?”

 
“I saw you the next morning. I had spent all night at the police station and hospital, and I was exhausted and worn out. I got home and couldn’t sleep, and you showed up and had the most fragile, terrified look on your face when you saw me. The first thing you asked me was where your mom was. I went blank. Of all the things I had thought about that night, my wife cheating on me, my wife dying, my hurt, my anger, it was never what would I tell my children. But when I looked at you…” He cleared his throat. “You looked so scared. I just couldn’t tell you the truth. The first words out of my mouth were that she had left. You wanted to know where. I racked my brain. I couldn’t say the store, or somewhere she would be right back from.” He paused for a moment. “Do you remember how she used to sing?”

Pearl shook her head.
 

He smiled softly. “She had the most beautiful voice. She sang all the time. It’s a shame you don’t remember.” He lost himself in the memory. “Joni Mitchell was her favorite. She’d sing to her album all the time. She’d sing in the car, in the shower, while making dinner, while giving you a bath, while putting you to bed. It never got old. She always dreamed of being a singer, but I guess I held her back.”
 

Pearl watched him intently, enraptured by his memory. These stories of her mother sounded only vaguely familiar. She had lost so much of her mother’s legacy in one night of terror.
 

Her father tilted his head against the cabinet, his eyes looking out past the dining room. “I was so angry with her, but I also loved her. She wasn’t happy with what I had to offer her, so I figured the least I could do was give her her dream.”

Pearl’s eyes followed his to the window as they both recalled the scene of that dreadful night. Pearl could still see the white nightgown blowing in the breeze. She closed her eyes.

“I listened to that album all the time. It was how I connected with her. I wasn’t ready to let her go.” He turned his gaze back to Pearl, but her eyes remained shut. “Do you remember the day you came into my room and I was playing the album and you asked if it was Mom?” He waited for her to answer. She nodded lightly.
 

“I said yes,” he admitted. “I guess I just froze.”

Pearl felt a surge of anger rush through her. She could daydream with her dad, wish her mother still alive and recall her sweet moments. What she wouldn’t stand for was her father’s betrayal. What he had done he had done with full awareness. She would not be fooled to think he hadn’t calculated his next step.
 

She pushed herself off the floor. “That’s your answer to all of this? You just froze?”

“I panicked!” he said, standing so he could look his daughter in the eye. “By the time I wanted to backtrack, it was too late!” His hands shook in frustration, landing on his face. He stretched his mouth with his fingers as he confessed. “I was a coward. I waited for you to ask me again where your mother was, to see through my lies, but you never did.”
 

“No,” she sneered. “Instead you kept feeding me your bullshit lies by making me my own CD to play. You wanted me to never ask again.”

He slammed his fist on the countertop. “You believed me, actually believed me! And I didn’t know how to tell you the truth without crushing you!”

Pearl glared at him. “You had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth! And Billy? What did he ever do? Do you think he deserved this? ”

He closed his eyes. “I know. I’d do it all different, I swear to you.” He opened his eyes and took a step closer to her. “I’m so sorry, Pearl.”
 

She held out her hand. “Don’t even think about coming near me. I’ve kicked one guy’s ass for the hurt he caused me—don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”

Her father flinched.

She squared her shoulders and took an aggressive step toward him. Her father cowered.

“Do you know what your lies did to me?” she asked. “Do you have any idea how they tortured me?” She was in his face now, his back against the counter. He lifted his hands to calm her, but she jerked away from him. “Did you ever stop to think that your single response to ‘freeze’ fucked up my entire childhood?”

Her father’s shoulders fell as he took the verbal beating.

“I thought my mother abandoned me. Do you know what that does to someone? How worthless and unlovable and unwanted that makes them feel? Did you ever stop to think about that as you sat pissing yourself in fear of getting caught in your lies?”

Her father scowled. “What’s happened to you? You don’t even sound like yourself.”

She glared. “I am not your little girl,” she snapped. “I left because I needed to escape this madness of watching you drown yourself in depression as I raised your child for you.”
 

Her father cringed at her hateful words.
 

“I couldn’t breathe in this house!” she cried out. “Every memory is of her. Hell, the house hasn’t been redecorated except for the things that Billy and I outgrew.” Pearl was fuming. “Everything we did every day was because of her.” She counted on her fingers. “My lack of schooling. Staying home to cook and clean for you. I had to replace her. It was my job to be my mother. My solitary confinement from friends was all because you didn’t want us to be known as the kids with the famous mom. What a crock of shit! I would watch you sit on the patio and wait for her to come home. It was gut-wrenching!” She threw up her hands and stepped away from her father. “So I left. I went to be with someone who actually wanted me.” She laughed as her father’s eyes widened in distress. “I walked right into the devil because he had the audacity to actually make me believe he cared.” Her voice softened to a sly sneer. “I guess I am a fool for liars.”

She spun on her heels. She couldn’t look at her father any longer.

“No, Pearl, please.” Her father reached out to her, but she shook him off. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She stomped up the stairs to her room, her body shaking with rage. She passed a cracked doorway on her way down the hall. Billy sat trembling in the dark, his head sticking out of the door.
 

“Is it true?” his small voice asked.
 

Her breath caught as she looked to her feet to see her little brother huddled on the floor. She knew instantly that he had heard the fight, and from the look on his face it was obvious he now knew the truth about their mother. All anger dissipated as she looked at his sad face, the brave boy sinking back to the child she had left behind.

She dropped to her knees and pulled him to her. “Shh, it’s okay, kiddo.”