Calico (28 page)

“Lunch is almost over,” he says, leaning his head against mine. “Will you be able to come over later? We should probably talk some more about this.”

I tell him I can and I kiss him goodbye.
 

CHAPTER
 
TWENTY

CORALIE

Goodbye

THEN

The kitchen at Callan’s place is spotless. In between school, taking care of his mom and basketball, (Jo refused to let him quit) Callan’s somehow managed to keep this place perfectly clean and tidy, too. I can hear him upstairs, talking to his mother while she coughs and splutters. It’s so hard for her to sleep most of the time. She developed pneumonia a while back as a side effect of her cancer treatment, and even though she shook it eventually she’s never really rid herself of the wracking cough that plagues her whenever she lies down.

Malcolm fell asleep early tonight. He seemed relieved that I went back to school and no one questioned me about my time away, or the faint yellowish tinge of the bruises I covered up on my face, and so he left me be. I still hadn’t unpacked the bag I’d put together for my New York trip, so getting my things together had been simple. I’d thrown a few extra t-shirts into the duffel and kicked it under my bed. Then it had only been a matter of sitting on the edge of my bed and waiting for dark for fall.
 

I spent three hours perched there, wondering if Callan would come with me after I told him what Malcolm did. Now, standing in his kitchen, listening to him upstairs with Jo, it’s all too clear that he
can’t
come with me. It’s impossible. She needs him here. She could easily afford to hire someone to help out around the house. Have a terminal care nurse come by the house and bathe her, administer her drugs, and make sure she has everything she needs. But she wouldn’t have her son, and that would be the cruelest thing I could do to the woman. The cruelest thing I could do to Callan, too. I can’t even put him in that position.
 

I stand still for a very long time, the webbing of the duffel strap biting into the flesh of my palm, and I try to soak everything in. The sights and sounds of the Cross household are second nature to me, but soon they’ll be nothing more than a memory. I’ll never be able to come back here. I’ll never be able to see him again.
 

I feel like my body is being torn apart. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this. No idea at all. It doesn’t seem fair that I have to put Callan through this, or myself for that matter, but I can’t see another way out of this situation. My father is becoming more and more erratic and vicious as the months roll on. He won’t be able to stop himself soon, and he will kill me, unintentionally or in a pique of rage. Either way, I don’t want to end up dead by his hand, and I don’t want Callan to have to see my body being rolled out of next door on a goddamn gurney, covered with a sheet.
 

Better that he hate me. Better that he think I’m furious with him and never want to see him again.
 

I’m already crying as I begin my journey up onto the second story of the house. Callan’s just leaving his mother’s room, closing her bedroom door behind him, as I reach the landing. His face is ashen, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He doesn’t say anything when he sees me. Just goes very still. He stands there with his hand still on the door handle, his eyes traveling over my body, taking in the fact that I’m carrying a bag in my hand and the tears streaking down my face.
 

“Hey, bluebird,” he whispers. “What’s up?” I shake my head, trying to get out a breath before I tell him what I’m about to do. I don’t get the chance to, though. Callan sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Well, today’s been a seriously shitty day but I have a feeling it’s about to get ten times worse, huh?”

I look down at my feet. “I can’t stay,” I whisper. “You know I can’t.”

“Why?” His voice is small.
 

“Because…I’m not happy.” This is a lie. Despite everything I’ve been through and everything I’ve suffered, I am capable of happiness.
He
makes me happy. He somehow cuts through all of the hurt and continually helps to believe that there’s hope for my future. I will be forever grateful to him for that. I’m so damaged now, though. I don’t know how anything I touch or cherish or love could ever be good.
 

“You’re not thinking straight,” Callan says. “This is because of the baby? Because you’re not the only one who lost something here, Coralie. I lost my kid, too.” He speaks quietly, his words slow and measured, as if he’s trying to stay calm in the face of overwhelming odds. He’s hurting. I can see it all over him. He’s barely hanging on by a thread. I want to go to him, let him hold me, let him kiss me, let him fix all of this for me, but he’s already carrying so much. If I did that to him, the effort of it would break him and it would be all my fault.
 

“It’s not the baby,” I say. “It was the photo. I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. If my father sees that magazine, he’ll fucking lose his mind. He won’t just hit me next time. He’ll fucking
kill
me.”

Callan’s face screws up. He takes a step back. “
What
? What do you mean, he won’t just hit you? When has he
ever
hit you?”

Shit. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m distracted, trying not to break down into a flood of tears. I’m not thinking about the words that are coming out of my mouth. “I didn’t mean—”

Callan holds up his hand, guiding me away from his mother’s bedroom, ushering me into his. He closes the door behind us and then rounds on me, eyes alight with horror. “You dad fucking
hit
you? When? What happened?”

I sigh. His reaction is one of immediacy—the kind reserved normally for breaking news. This is fresh for him. An atrocity that demands action. For me, the cruelty is so commonplace that it’s become routine. No surprise here. No outrage.

The fight has completely left me. I can’t even muster up the strength to continue lying about it. I feel weary in my bones and deeper down than that, closer to my soul. “He’s always done it, Cal. Always. Ever since my mother died.”

Callan sinks down heavily onto his bed. Some photographs slide from on top of his duvet, fluttering to the floor. I see a picture of myself there on the floorboards, lying on my back, surrounded by long grass, face lit in golden sunlight. I’m smiling, my teeth showing, but I can see the quiet pain lurking in my eyes. How can he not have seen it? How can he not have known somehow?
 

“Goddamn it, Coralie. You should have said something.”

“I should have done a lot of things.”

“That bruise was because he hit you, then? You didn’t get it playing lacrosse?”

“Yes.” My mouth forms the shape of the word, but no real sound comes out. At least I don’t think it does. My ears are ringing, buzzing with a high-pitched noise that blots everything else out.
 

Callan covers his face with his hands and sits there like that for a long time, his shoulders rising up and falling down as he breathes deeply. When he finally looks up at me, his eyes are bloodshot and his face is even grayer than before.
 

“You have to stay,” he says. “What can I do to make you stay?”

I look at him and I see everything in my life that brings me joy. I see hours spent on the riverbanks after school. I see the gentle way he studies me when he’s inside me. I see love, and I see hope, and I see possibility, and it hurts so fucking much. I go to him, placing one hand on his cheek, feeling the sharp prickle of his stubble scratch at my palm.
 

“Nothing, Callan. There’s nothing you can do.” I sound strangled as I force out my next words. “Don’t follow me. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” I kiss him quickly, crushing my lips against his. He takes hold of my wrist, making a gasping sound, but I pull away. I turn and I leave, and I don’t look back.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CALLAN

Blame

NOW

“I don’t understand.” I keep looking at her, trying to figure out what the hell she’s talking about, but it just won’t make any sense. “You told me at the school that it was just one of those things. That sometimes women just have miscarriages. And now you’re saying it was Malcolm? He found out you were carrying my child and he
beat
you until you lost it?”

“Yes. And I felt so guilty. I had to leave. I was going to ask you to come with me, but…”

“But?”
 

“I came there that night, Callan, and your mom was so sick. You were the only one there to help her. You loved her and you were losing her. What would you have done if I’d have asked you to leave?”

“I would have talked you into staying.
With me
. You could have moved into the house. You know my mom wouldn’t have minded. Especially if she’d known what was happening with you. Fuck, Coralie! I can’t believe this.” She looks like she’s exhausted, worn out by her confession. Slowly she wraps one of the dustsheets around her naked body, tears chasing down her face. “I couldn’t have stayed close to that house for one more second. I couldn’t have lived here, right next door, knowing what I’d gone through in that basement. He would never have let me go. And you would have understood that. You would have come with me, Callan, and Jo needed you. You both needed each other. I couldn’t do it.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make, Coralie. Jesus. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” I get up and stalk back through to the kitchen, where I find my clothes. I put my boxers and my jeans back on, and then I take Coralie’s clothes back to her where she’s sitting on the couch, swamped by the tattered old material she’s pulled off the coffee table. She takes her bundled things from me and quickly gets dressed, not looking at me. I lean against the doorjamb, watching her, torn between screaming at her and crying. She went through that alone. She went through all of it alone, and I would have supported her. I would have taken care of her given the chance, but she chose to carry the burden on her own back, and look what happened.
 

“So you were here? That whole time I thought you were in New York, you were here? Next door? In the basement?”

Coralie buries her face in her hands, sobbing. Her head bobs up and down. She can’t speak. I have to rush back into the kitchen. Leaning over into the sink, I throw up, my stomach tensing, my back tensing, everything tensing as I realize what that means. She was
alone
. Coralie silently appears in the kitchen, still crying, though she seems to have gathered her senses. She places her hand on my back, and I turn around, catching hold of her at the wrist. “Did you ever love me? Back then?” I snap.
 

“Of course I did. I couldn’t breathe without you half the time, Callan.”

“Then how could you have kept me in the dark like that? How did you not trust me enough to let me keep you safe?”

She dips her head, swallowing hard. “I always trusted you, Callan. I
always
trusted you. Everything was so raw at the time, though, and I knew how it would affect you. Knowing the truth about what happened would have turned you inside out, and it was too late to keep me safe. I was beyond saving. And you…you were still good. You were still light. I knew losing Jo was going to be heartbreaking enough as it was. I couldn’t pile more pain and suffering onto you. I just couldn’t do it.”

“Goddamn it. I could have taken it, Coralie.” I start pacing up and down in the small kitchen, trying to walk off the frustration I’m feeling, but it doesn’t dissipate. It only grows stronger and stronger, building inside me until it takes me over. I’m so angry, fit to bursting with rage that I don’t know what to do with myself. I let it have me in the end. I hand myself over to the fizzing, bubbling chaos inside me, and the next thing I know I’m pile-driving my fist through the plasterboard of the kitchen wall. White dust flies everywhere, clogging the air, but I can’t seem to make myself give a shit. Coralie yelps, skittering back, wrapping her arms around herself. She looks so scared, and for a heartbeat I struggle to understand why. It clicks when a small voice in the back of my head whispers, ‘
she was beaten, you idiot. Her father used violence against her for years. Of course she’s going to freak out if you start smashing your fist into things.’

“God, Coralie, I’m sorry. Fuck. Come here.” She’s rigid as a board, shaking like a leaf as I take hold of her and pull her to me. “I would never, never hurt you, no matter how angry I was, bluebird. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” My hand is pulsing with pain, my knuckles scuffed and bruised, but it doesn’t hurt anywhere near as badly as my heart. Coralie cries against me, her tears running down my bare chest, and the two of us stand there like that for a while. I know she’s in pain. She’s been in pain for all these years. I hurt for her, for everything she’s been through, but I’m also a little resentful, too. If only she’d had faith in us. If only she’d trusted me to protect her. Sure, I was a teenaged idiot at the time, but the love we had was real. I would have laid down my life for her if I’d thought for a second she was in danger. I’d have moved mountains and held back the seas if only it meant that she was safe.

Eventually Coralie stops crying. She looks up at me, eyes wide, wet with tears and I find myself lost in that damn dark spot in her iris. I told her once it looked like the raging storm on the surface of Jupiter, and it still does. She’s the most stunning, fascinating creature I’ve ever met. She really is like a bird—small, cautious, intricate and beautiful. And ready to take flight at the first sign of danger.
 

“I need you to leave now,” I tell her.

Her face falls, like she’s been waiting for this to happen ever since she spoke. Like she’s already accepted it. “Of course. It’s okay. I understand.”

“I just need a moment to process everything. I can’t do that when you’re looking at me like this.”

She nods. “I know you probably won’t be able to forgive me, Callan, but you should know that I’ve regretted my decision every day since I said goodbye to you. I
know
I should have told you, and I
know
I should have stayed.” She lets me go and slips quietly out of the kitchen. I’m left, staring through the gigantic fucking hole I just knocked through the wall into the family room next door, and for the first time in twelve years I feel empty. It’s a goddamn relief.