Tethered (32 page)

I closed my mouth.

“Come on, Donya,” he said with much less aggression. “You can’t blame me for being worried.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “I don’t blame you for being worried, Emmet,” I said, trying to keep my temper under wraps. “I blame you for asking me to stay. I blame you for asking me to possibly thwart my entire career because of your jealousy.”

He sighed and rested his forehead on the back of my head. When he spoke, I felt his breath on my neck.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hold you back, but…”

“Of course there’s a but,” I muttered.

“There must be some other way to help your career.”

“Emmet!” I yelled, frustrated and angry and damn tired. I had been up since four in the morning because I had to be at a shoot by five.

I shoved backward, making him move away from me. I turned around to face him, with my hand on the door behind me.

“I am getting on a plane tomorrow morning and I am going to California. Either support me or shut the hell up!”

He sighed and pushed his hand into his hair again. “I support you,” he said in such a low voice I wasn’t even sure I really heard him.

“You what?” I prodded and put a finger to my ear.

“I support you,” he said louder and with a scowl.

“That’s what I thought you said,” I nodded.

“Come over here,” he demanded, pointing to the spot in front of him.

“No,” I said. “I’m going ‘home’ to prepare for my trip.”

“Prepare for your trip later. Come here.”

“No,” I said incredulously.

Emmet quickly closed the distance between us and kissed me hungrily as he pushed me back against the door. When his hands began to slide up the inside of my shirt, I pushed him away. He was undeterred, however, and pressed his body against mine.

“I think we should slow down,” I said to him, even though I wanted to try sex against the door. We did it missionary, with me on top, and tried doggy style more recently. Why not try standing up against the door?

Oh, my god. I’m becoming a little slut!

“I don’t want to slow down,” he said, pressing his erection against me. “You’re addicting.”

“Emmet,” I sighed his name as his tongue flicked at my earlobe. “Stop.”

I didn’t have to repeat myself. He froze for a moment and then looked at how serious my face was. He stepped away from me and I honestly missed his body that quickly and despite the fact that I was the one that pushed him away.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” I said, running a hand through my hair with frustration. “I didn’t want us to be all about sex.”

“We’re more than sex,” he said, crossing his arms.

“I hope so,” I said quietly.

He put both hands in his hair and took another step back.

“You’re beautiful and your body feels incredible,” he said. His hands were still in his hair, holding it back off of his forehead. “I love you and I feel like I can’t stop touching you or I’ll die.”

I understood that. I really did. I wanted to reach out and put my hands on his strong chest and nibble on his juicy biceps and make love to him on the floor, but sex clouds the brain, and my brain had been pretty damn cloudy lately. I didn’t necessarily like the fog that I was in. I didn’t think it was a safe place for either of us.

“After I’m all packed and ready to go, I’ll call you,” I promised. “We can meet half way and say goodbye. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I have to go back to Cambridge this weekend,” he reminded me in not the kindest of tones.

“Oh,” I frowned. “I forgot. I got so used to seeing you every day.”

Emmet smiled and took a few steps towards me. My hand closed on the doorknob.

“I don’t mind missing a few classes if it means I can be with you on the west coast,” he said.

“No,” I said firmly. “You need to do what you need to do and I need to do what I need to do. You’re just going to have to get used to the idea that what we need to do for ourselves may not always bring us together.”

He frowned and rolled his eyes. “Fuck, Donya,” he growled. “You make it seem like we’re doomed.”

I hadn’t thought about us being doomed. I had only thought about how our roads were going in different directions with the occasional crossing, but now that he put it like that…

“Don’t say that,” I admonished.

He rolled his eyes again and sighed loudly. “Yeah, okay.”

I didn’t want to argue and I didn’t want to be exposed to his worsening attitude.

“I’m going to go.” I opened the door and quickly stepped into the hallway. “I’ll call you soon,” I promised.

Emmet simply nodded, acknowledging that he heard me, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk. I walked away, letting the door close behind me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

My mother looked sick, I decided. She looked sick and she acted sick. Though she had the skin tone of dark caramel normally, she was looking a little pale. She had lost weight, she was overly fatigued, and she couldn’t do much without wearing herself out, and it was very, very obvious that she was in a great deal of pain.

I stood in the doorway to my bedroom watching her move around the suite, packing for our trip to California. She walked as if every inch of her body hurt. She looked twice, if not three times, her age of thirty-seven. She wasn’t wrinkled or gray, but she looked old, nonetheless. Whatever was wrong with her was making her deteriorate fast. Every day she was a little worse than she was the day before. Admittedly, I tried not to notice. I went on with my life, pretending everything was fine. She didn’t have to accompany me for work, so almost daily I left her in the hotel in the mornings. I had refused to really look at her and see what was happening. I told myself she was just under the weather and maybe a little depressed and she would get better eventually. Now the truth was staring me in the face and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Mom.” I said her name in a way that demanded attention. It wasn’t a “hey, mom, what’s up” or a “mom, can I date a boy” or “mom, you ruined my jeans in the wash!” It was a quiet demand. I wanted her to look at me and see me and hear me.

She turned around and looked at me. She folded her hands in front of her and tried to stand up a little taller. Andrea Stewart did not know her daughter well at all, after years of living only inside of her own head, but she knew me well enough to guess at what I was about to say.

“What is it?” Again I spoke in a way that demanded an answer. My voice was hard and my words were spoken crisply.

She took a breath and said “You have a lot on your plate already for a child,” she tried to beg off. I noted that she did not deny that there was an
It
to speak of.

“We both know I am not much of a child,” I said rigidly. “I took care of you for years, like the adult.”

That hit her hard. She swallowed and blinked rapidly for a moment. “Well, now I’m taking care of you,” she said gently.

“But you’re not,” I pointed out. “I appreciate you being here with me, but you’ve been more like a companion and legal advisor than a mother.”

I remembered how she insisted on taking pictures of Emmet and me before Felix’s party. That was as close to a mom as she got. It had annoyed me then, but standing before her now, my heart expanded in my chest and I felt touched by that one sentiment; but facts were facts, and the fact was that we didn’t have many moments like that.

“I don’t know how to be your mom,” she said softly in a quavering voice.

I was stunned. I expected her to feed me bullshit, or to cop an attitude and try to turn it around on me, but she didn’t. She spoke truthfully and obviously from her heart.

“You’re more Sam’s daughter than mine,” she continued. “I don’t even know you.”

“I’m here,” I said patiently. “If you want to know me, I’m here, mom, but you can’t bullshit me. If we’re going to try to be a mother and daughter, you can’t withhold things from me. Tell me what is wrong.”

She started muttering more shit about me having enough on my plate, but I cut her off.

“Andrea!” I shouted her name and slammed my hand on the door.

She looked at me with a hardness in her eyes that had not been there moments before.

“Last year before you left for the summer I found out I had breast cancer. Stage four and it had metastasized. I declined chemo because it will only kill me faster, and I wanted to see if I could at least see my daughter graduate from high school before I died, but I’m pretty sure I won’t make it that far. I’m pretty sure that I will be dead before the year is out. I’ve accepted the dying part, but the not seeing you graduate from high school part, I haven’t accepted. I haven’t accepted all of the years I lost with you. I haven’t accepted all of the years I will lose with you in the future. I haven’t accepted what a terrible mother I have been and how much you suffered because of me. I’ve accepted that I’m going to die, Donya. I just haven’t accepted all of the shit I’m leaving behind.”

Speechless. Dumbfounded. Confused. Hurt. Angry. Mind blown.

I pushed it all aside, because this wasn’t about me.

I moved across the room and embraced my mother – gently so that I wouldn’t hurt her.

“You should have told me,” I whispered.

“I didn’t want you distracted,” she said, echoing Emmet’s words. “I’m very proud of you.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I chuckled to hide the pain I felt.

“You’ve done more than I have ever done,” she said, petting my hair. “Your dad and I didn’t do right by you, but you’re still so strong and good, and responsible.”

Now she was echoing Emmy’s words. I didn’t feel strong, though, or good, or responsible.

I pulled away, but kept my hands on her frail shoulders. I dug deep into that place I’ve had to dig into many times over the years and produced a smile for my mother.

“Have you ever been to California?” I asked her lightly.

She smiled, too as she wiped at a few tears. “When I was about your age, your Aunt Candy and I hitchhiked our way to San Francisco. I felt bad and called my mom to let her know we were okay. Don’t you know she came all the way to California and beat our asses all the way back to Philly?”

She laughed softly at the memory and I forced myself to laugh with her. I had never known my grandmother. She died when I was a toddler, and my mom rarely spoke about her. I had no idea what she was like, but that definitely sounded like something Sam would do.

“I want to hear more about her,” I said. “You can tell me some stories on our way to L.A.” I walked back towards my room. “And if I get this part, we’ll celebrate with a shopping trip on Rodeo Drive and have dinner in the nicest restaurant.”

“We can’t afford that,” she said behind me. “But thanks anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find the money,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m almost finished packing. As soon as I’m done I’ll come help you. Sit down and relax.”

“I can do it.”

I turned around, just inside my room. “Mom, please,” I said in a soft, but pleading voice. “Let me help you.”

She looked like she was going to cry, but she nodded silently. I forced another smile and went to finish my packing.

When I met Emmet later, I didn’t bother telling him about my mom. I didn’t feel like discussing it and I didn’t want any pity or for him to ask me if I was okay every five minutes. We ate dinner at what was becoming our favorite pizza place and I tried to keep the focus on his upcoming internship at a law firm near his apartment. I tried to keep the conversation light and comfortable and hoped that when it was time to say goodbye, he wouldn’t give me a hard time again about Felix and the trip.

“What’s wrong?” Emmet asked as we left the pizza joint.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, putting my hand in his.

“You’re really good at hiding your true feelings, but we’re connected, remember?” He stopped walking and put his hand over my heart and softly said “I know when you’re hurting, angry, happy, or sad.”

I put my hand on his and squeezed it gently. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

Emmet sighed and looked away from me as if the sight of me vexed him.

“Emmet,” I said, touching his face. I waited until he was looking at me again. “It’s not about you or us, okay? But I don’t want to talk about it. Just show me a good time for the next…” I looked at my watch. “…half hour.”

A devious smile that made him look like a naughty little boy appeared on his face. I couldn’t help but to smile, too. He hadn’t even said anything really, and he had the ability to make me feel better.

“Is that enough time to get back to my hotel room?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“No,” I laughed. “But it is plenty of time for you to buy your girlfriend an ice-cream.”

“As long as it makes you smile,” he said and kissed my smiling mouth.

I left my worries there on the sidewalk for the rest of the evening. There would be plenty of time to pick them up later.

*~*~*

The plane ride out had been enlightening. I heard a lot about my grandparents and my mom’s childhood. Her father worked at the
DuPont
plant in Delaware and her mother cleaned offices and houses a few days a week from time to time to supplement their income when things got a little rough, but for the most p
art she was a stay at home mom for my mother and her three siblings. The kids never knew they were poor because my grandparents always made sure that they had plenty of food to eat and nice, clean clothes.

Mom had been close to her siblings when they were growing up, but her oldest brother died in a car accident when mom was around my age. My other uncle, Roger, met and married a Brazilian beauty and moved to Brazil. I had only met him maybe twice in my life. Then there was my Aunt Candy. She and my mom had been very close growing up, but Candy had a superiority complex after marrying a well-off Texan. She judged everything my mom did. They went from being inseparable to speaking maybe once a year.

“Do you want to see your brother and sister again before you go?” I had asked her. I couldn’t bring myself to say the D word out loud.

Mom had shrugged like it didn’t matter, but the frown lines around her mouth said differently.