Page 76 of That Birthday in Barbados
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
?Margery Williams Bianco,The Velveteen Rabbit
Catherine
MY DAD IS waiting beside my mom when I come out of the ICU. The nurse who had shown me in had kindly, but firmly, told me I would have to leave when my allotted time was up. I could see that she would let me stay had it been up to her, but I didn’t want to put her in that position.
As soon as my dad sees me, he starts to cry, and then I’m crying, too, and we’re all hugging each other, our arms forming a circle of support like pillars under a bridge.
I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen my dad cry, and the sound of his broken heart deepens the cracks in my own. It’s thenI know I have to tell them the truth about what happened between Nicole and me. I don’t want to, but they deserve to know that I have a part to play in the reason she is here.
I pull back and look at them both. “Can we go somewhere private? There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Of course, honey,” Dad says in a shaky voice.
Mom leads the way down the hall and to the far end of the corridor where a small waiting area is marked for visitors of ICU patients. There’s no one else there, and as we step inside, I close the door behind us.
“What is it, Cat?” Mom asks, and I can see she is worried there is something more horrible to absorb, and maybe there is. One daughter who no longer wants to live. And another with a heart of stone.
I walk over to the window and look out across the road between the hospital and the water. I fold my arms across my chest, not sure I can hold back the dam of remorse waiting to spill out of me. The silence in the room becomes so loud that I have to get the words out. They arepoison in my soul. “It’s my fault she’s here.”
I say the words without turning around. I can’t face them.
My mom’s voice is a whisper. “What do you mean, honey?”
My dad walks over, puts his hand on my shoulder and slowly turns me to face them. “Catherine. You love your sister. You’ve always loved her.”
A sob rises in my throat, and I can no longer keep it inside me. “We haven’t talked to each other in a long time. . .something happened.”
“What?” Mom implores. The agony in her voice makes me realize I can no longer keep any of it from them. Maybe I should have told them long ago. Maybe they could have helped Nicole and me find our way back.
“Connor and Nicole had an affair.”
My dad takes a step back and drops onto a chair by the window. Neither of us says anything, the silence in the room thick with shock.
I wait for them to absorb what I have said. There is nothingto add to soften it. The truth is an ugly fact.
“Oh, Cat,” Mom says. “Why?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter now. Obviously, Connor and I had problems I didn’t recognize.”
“How could they?” Mom’s voice is a sob.
“I don’t know,” I admit on a broken note. “But is my sin of unforgiveness worse than their sin of betrayal? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself.”
“Catherine,” my dad says, disbelief underlining my name. “No one would blame you.”
“I blame me. She’s reached out to me numerous times. Asked me to forgive her.”
My mom starts to cry again. She walks to the window and stares out, her shoulders shaking.
I wish I knew what to say to comfort her. My dad. Myself. Forty years on this earth, and there is something I know with complete certainty. There are things that happen to us for which there simply is no comfort to be had.
*
THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR hours seem more like months. I stay at the hospital, make use of the family shower available on the ICU floor and sleep in the waiting room, going in to see Nicole whenever the nurses will allow me. I insist that Mom and Dad go to their hotel and get some sleep. They both look exhausted.
It’s almost six p.m. when they leave. I’ve assured Mom I will get something to eat from the cafeteria downstairs, but as I sit staring at the TV screen with a muted news channel glaring back at me, I feel sick at the thought of food.
