Page 61 of Wretched Soul
“Why can’t you speak to her?”
She stares straight ahead, but her hand tightens in mine. “Luke was twenty-one, fresh out of college, and not keen on settling back into small town life after three years in a city. I was twenty-four, still living at home, and putting my accounting degree to zero use by working in a local realtor’s office. I was just as frustrated with the limited opportunities available, but our parents ran a hardware store and there was an expectation that at least one of us would continue the family business. Neither Luke, nor I had the courage to put them straight.”
“It’s hard growing up with the weight of your family’s expectations,” I agree.
“You too?”
“Different circumstances, but yeah, there was never any question of whether or not I’d join the family business. Luckily for me, it was exactly what I wanted and needed.”
Lily gives me a furtive look. She chews her lip. “By family business, it’s not the mafia or something crazy, is it?”
Thankfully, I’m good at masking my reaction. I don’t have a clue what she’d make of the life we lead. It might be ninety five percent legit, but it’s most definitely grey around the edges. “Something crazy,” I tell her because I won’t lie to her. “But we were talking about you. What happened to your brother?”
“He went a little off the rails. We’d been close growing up, but he came home from college with a suitcase full of ambitions and a fair amount of resentment too. He knew if he left, I’d be trapped at home, and he wanted better for both of us,” she says, running out of breath at the last. Her chest rises. “And it wasn’t as if our parents were the type to apply pressure. They told us we should make our own decisions, but when the people you love are that understanding, it’s hard to kick them in the teeth.” She churns up the snow with her boots. “We were all too damn nice for our own good.”
I could compare and contrast her family to mine, but I don’t, and not because of the veil of secrecy I’ve placed over my life. She doesn’t need that from me right now. She needs to be heard.
“Instead of looking for a job that would shackle him to our home town, Luke got up to no good with a group of guys who were better at it than he was. They got drunk one Saturday night and persuaded Luke he was fit enough to be their designated driver. He usually asked me to pick him up so our parents wouldn’t see what state he was getting himself into, but I’d said no, even though I was out that night too. In our last everconversation, I’d told him he wouldn’t make it to twenty-two, let alone the city, if he didn’t clean up his act.” She sniffs then clears her throat. “I was right on both counts. He took a bend too fast, hit a tree and two of the guys in the car didn’t walk away from the accident. One of them was Luke.”
“Shit,” I say, tugging on Lily’s arm to bring her to a halt. I cup her face in my gloved hands and swipe away her tears. “I hope you know that it wasn’t on you.”
Her laugh holds no mirth. “Try telling that to my mom.”
I only just manage to hide my shock, and not because I couldn’t imagine a mother being so cruel. I’d listened to the voicemail Lily’s mom had left. She’d said something about it not being Lily’s fault. This is what she was talking about.
Lily puts her hands over mine. “She wouldn’t look at me after the accident,” she says, her eyes glistening. “I stuck it out for a year, but even my parents were at each other’s throats. Someone had to take the blame, and one day, my mom finally broke and told me exactly what she thought of me. She said it wouldn’t have happened if I’d picked Luke up. She’s not wrong.”
I press my forehead to Lily’s as if I can drain the destructive thoughts from her mind. “Luke was an adult, Lily. He would have known he was being self-destructive, even if you hadn’t pointed it out to him. Driving that car was a conscious decision, no matter how drunk he was.”
“It’s OK,” she soothes, like she’s the one comforting me. “I’ve moved on, and now my mom doesn’t have to look at me every day and be reminded of what I did.” Before I can respond, she steps back and blinks away her tears. “It worked out for the best for all of us. Our argument gave me the push to escape.”
She takes my hand, and has to pull me to get us moving again.
“I hate that your mom made you feel like that,” I say as we continue walking. “But grief can take you to dark places whereyou can’t see other people’s pain. Your mom’s only human. Or am I missing something? Is she a really awful person?”
Lily’s shoulders rise then drop as she sighs. “No, she was a good mom, and dad was a good dad.”
“Do you miss them?”
She manages a nod.
“Your parents are still alive, Lily,” I say. “You lost your brother, but you haven’t lostthem. You’re just carrying around an extra crack in your heart that could be healed. If it was me, I’d jump at the chance.”
She doesn’t argue, but after a long silence, she says, “If it was you?” she says, repeating it as a question.
It looks like it’s my turn to share. I’m guessing that giving her my shoe size wasn’t enough.
“The closest I had to a mom was my dad’s second wife. Except I never called her mom,” I say. “I don’t know why… Or maybe I do.”
“I’m waiting,” Lily says when the silence stretches. She squeezes my hand. “I need to hear this, Shade. I need to feel like we’re in an equal partnership. If only for this weekend.”
My jaw ticks. She deserves someone less fucked up than me. If I had a shred of decency, I’d let her go, but since I can’t, I can at least give her this.
“Lisa raised me from a baby,” I begin. “My older brothers called her Lisa, so when I learned to talk, I copied them. She died never hearing me call her mom, even though I know she would have loved me to, and that’s a regret I’ll take to the grave.”
“Did she ever mention it?”
“Sure, when I was little,” I say. “But I was a stubborn shit. I hadn’t got over the arrival of my little brother when I was four. That was when I found out that Lisa wasn’t my birth mother.” I roll my shoulders to loosen the tension in my neck and stop my throat from closing up. “When she’d come home from thehospital, I overheard a conversation between her and her sister. I can remember exactly what was said. She’d told Lisa how different it would be this time because Reid was her baby, not someone else’s.”
