Chapter Ten
Daniel arrived at the theater on time and was surprised to see that Marienne was already working. He guessed Johanna had asked for extra help, so he waved hello and went to work on the backdrop. He glanced over at Marienne. Her shoulders were slumped and she kept her head down. He was certain he hadn’t done anything to upset her, yet he got the distinct impression that she was avoiding him, which concerned him, greatly.
The evening wound down, and people were leaving to go home. He finished up then grabbed two Cokes and walked over to Marienne.
“Need some help?” He handed her a can.
“No, I’ve got it.” Her voice sounded different. Now he was positive something was wrong.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She smiled and nodded.
“I don’t think you are.” He surprised himself with his directness. He wouldn’t normally call someone on an answer like that, but he was worried and unable to stop himself. “Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing.” The tension was evident in her voice. Her eyes avoided his. “I’m just stressed. It’s a longstanding problem, with my mother.”
He heard another change in her voice the minute the topic of her mother came up, a cold edginess. He didn’t recall her mentioning her mother before. “Are you close with your Mum?”
“Not exactly,” Marienne said, in a way that made him think she meant not at all. “We have issues.”
Daniel sensed her hesitation and decided to let her off the hook. “Everyone has issues. Seriously, I know. I read people’s journals as a mandatory part of my job description.”
“You read people’s journals?” Her eyes widened, but her voice sounded normal again.
“Yes. Have to.” He helped her lift the last prop box onto the shelf. “My first time teaching Freshman Writer’s Workshop I assigned journal writing, as it specified in the curriculum, but I didn’t read them. It felt too invasive. Someone must have complained because word got back to the department chair, and I got a talking to about how all journals needed to be marked and commented on by professors. So I started reading them. I warn my students every semester, assuming they’ll select their topics accordingly, but it doesn’t seem like they do.”
“Personal stuff?” she asked.
“Heaps. Super personal. Health issues, sexual conquests and failures, lies told to significant others, fantasies.”
Marienne was silent.
“And,” he said. “Lots of people complain about their parents.” He paused to gauge her reaction. She seemed more relaxed. “What sort of issues do you have with your mum?”
Daniel knew that women often had a hard time getting along with their mothers, but he didn’t really understand. His own mother had been great, at least with him. Surely she’d have been a wonderful mother to a daughter as well, if she’d had one.
“Well,” she said. “My mother is very controlling and she’s…. emotionally abusive.”
Daniel snapped to attention. The idea of someone hurting Marienne made his nostrils flare. He rubbed the side of his face. “Abusive?”
“My mother’s one of those people who shouldn’t have had more than one kid.” She looked down. “My older sister, Susanna, has always been the ‘golden child’. She could do no wrong in my mother’s eyes, whereas me? Everything I did was wrong.”
Daniel gripped the Coke can so tightly it buckled. He forced himself to take a sip in an attempt to calm down.
“My mother thinks everyone should be, or should at least want to be, like her. She hated that I was more like my dad. That’s how I rationalize it at least.” Marienne shrugged.
“Susanna is more like your mum?” Daniel wondered how any mother could not like her own child. The concept was mindboggling.
“Two peas in a pod. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they fight sometimes, but Susanna has always known how to stand up to our mother, and they always come to some sort of an understanding.” Marienne gave a rueful smile, then took a deep breath and let it out. “I used to try so hard to make a relationship with my mother work. I spent my whole life doing it, up until about a year ago, when my father died.”
Marienne’s voice got very quiet. Daniel’s throat tightened. Her sadness pained him, but he wanted to hear her story.
“You were close with your dad?” Daniel started, unsure that was the right path to take, and trying desperately to keep too much emotion from spilling into his voice.
Marienne sighed. “Very. Especially when I was younger. I was a Daddy’s Girl. I mean, he loved me and Susanna equally, but he and I had the same sense of humor, the same quirky habits. My mother and Susanna were jealous, I guess. At the time I thought they hated me.”
The last crew members were heading out, and Daniel raised a hand to wave goodnight. The door banged shut, leaving him and Marienne alone in the empty theater.
He noticed she still hadn’t touched her Coke so he opened it and handed it to her. “I’m sure they didn’t hate you,” he said.
“Don’t be. Susanna was so mean to me. She was constantly putting me down and my mother would jump in and justify whatever Susanna said. The few times my Dad punished Susanna it made her even madder at me.”
“Did he ever confront your mum?”
“Once in a while he’d say something to her about trying not to be so hard on me, but she would argue and he’d drop it. He was a peacemaker.” Marienne looked off to the side, seemingly unable to look in his eyes.
“That must have hurt.”
“My father was my hero when I was little, but when I got older I felt let down. It took me a long time to realize I was worthy of being treated better than my mother treated me. When I did, I got mad at my Dad for not defending me. I know it sounds childish, but it was crushing. He never protected me.”
Daniel was speechless. Her pain was palpable. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to comfort her in some way. But he was frozen, afraid to move toward her, not knowing how either of them would respond to physical contact in such a heightened emotional state.
“Did you and your dad eventually work things out?”
“Sort of.” She sounded, if possible, even more miserable. “We had a big falling out, right after my wedding. I was feeling independent, and I wound up not speaking to either of my parents for six months. It was so uncharacteristic for me to take a stand. I tend to be ridiculously loyal, but it felt good to stick up for myself. My dad and I were just starting to talk again when he got sick. Really sick. Really fast. By the time they found the cancer it had spread throughout his body.”
Nausea swept over Daniel as memories of his mother’s similar fate flooded his mind.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sure this is way more than you wanted to know.”
“No, it’s not.” He kept his eyes focused on hers. “Please tell me.” He’d never talked to anyone about the loss of a parent before, and suddenly he felt desperate to do so. She seemed to sense his distress, because after a moment’s hesitation she gave in.
“As soon as I found out he was sick I broke the silence with my mom. I’d have done anything to help. I called cancer centers and researched experimental treatments, but none of it did any good.”
The tears were visible in her eyes, glistening but refusing to overflow. Daniel’s gut twisted as he kept himself in check.
Marienne’s hair swept over her eyes as she lowered her head, her voice softer. “I’d have conversations with him, in my head. I’d rehearse exactly what I wanted to tell him. Then I’d sit with him and wouldn’t be able to say a word of it.”
She swallowed hard. Daniel fought the impulse to take her hand. The lump in his throat made it difficult to breathe.
“When he died I was relieved he wasn’t suffering anymore. I was almost happy. Then it sank in that he was actually gone.”
Although the situations were different, Daniel related to every word. As she spoke he felt as though his heart had stopped beating. No one had ever shared anything like this with him before. The closeness he felt to her defied definition.
Marienne exhaled a slow shaky breath. “Anyway,” she said. “That’s why I’m upset. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of his death, which is hard enough in and of itself, but then this afternoon my sister called and she was trying to convince me to call our mom, and I can’t. I just can’t. And it’s making me feel worse. I know it’s the right choice. I just need to get past these next few days.”
They sat in silence.
Daniel spoke first. “Tell me one of the similar quirks.”
“What?”
“You said you and your father shared the same sense of humor and the same quirks. Tell me one.”
“Well.” She paused. “We both loved watching and quoting from bad movies. We both kept our books organized by how much we liked them, rather than by author or genre. And we both believed that cookies contain some magical power that cures stress.” She smiled.
Daniel was happy he’d been able to get her to remember something positive about her dad. “Well I, for one, am very glad that you took after your father, because I love all three of those quirks. And if your mum can’t appreciate those things about you, and makes you feel bad about yourself, then you’re absolutely making the right choice to avoid contacting her. You deserve so much better.”
Marienne remained silent.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the first time all day that I haven’t felt like crying. I have a confession to make. I was kind of avoiding you earlier because I was afraid if I started talking about all this I would start crying.”
“Sometimes it’s good to cry.”
“I know, but I only cry in the shower, or occasionally in my car.”
“What?”
Is she serious?
She laughed and shrugged. “I know, it’s weird, but I don’t like to cry in front of people. It makes me uncomfortable, largely because I know it makes them uncomfortable, so years ago I stopped doing it. I’m really good at not crying now.”
Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her honesty overwhelmed him.
“But,” she said. “When I’m upset about something, I’ll get into the shower, and I’m alone, and I know no one can hear me, and then I’ll cry.”
The thought of her, standing in the shower sobbing, broke his heart. The urge to reach out and touch her returned. He wanted to put his hand on hers, but he didn’t dare move for fear of what he might do once the initial contact was made. He was drawn to her in a way that intrigued but frightened him.
“Do you do this a lot?” He hoped that wasn’t too personal.
“Not often. When my dad was sick, and right after he died, I did it daily. Very. Long. Showers. Car rides too. That’s another place no one is likely to notice you’re crying. Though I imagine there are drivers who saw me sobbing at a traffic light at some point. Sort of like the way you glance into another car and catch someone picking his nose.”
Her openness touched him. Any question he asked she seemed to answer without hesitation. He responded to her with emotions so strong they stunned him. Her words had a way of moving him, setting off feelings he didn’t even realize he had or hadn’t thought of in a long time. The thought of her crying her way through her father’s illness and death, once again brought him straight into his own memories of his mother being ill. During that time he’d felt completely alone, and, as he was staying with friends while she was in hospital, he’d also been very careful not to cry in front of anyone. She was right, it did make other people uncomfortable, and that had made him feel even worse. The shower was a loud, safe place to let your guard down.
“Surely you must at least cry in front of Frank,” he said, trying to bring his focus back to Marienne.
“He hates when I cry. It almost seems like he gets mad at me for doing it. If it’s not a problem he can fix, he’d rather not hear about it.”
“But—”
“Trust me. It’s not a good thing.”
He believed her, though it made him sad to hear it. “Okay.” He chose his words with as much care as possible. “Well, just so you know, should you ever choose to not be alone when you feel like a cry, you can always ring me and I’ll be right over. You can cry all you want, and I promise I won’t be even the least bit uncomfortable.”
She smiled.
“I’ll go one further,” he said. “I’ll be totally comfortable with it, so comfortable I may even join you.”
“Join me what?” Her eyes narrowed. “Crying? Or showering?”
Daniel bit his lip and shrugged. “Whatever you need.”
She giggled.
“Honestly,” he said. “I would be there for you, if you needed me. I’m a very good listener.”
“You’re the best, Daniel.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. His heart flipped over in his chest.
Chapter Eleven
“Another six inches.” Frank backed into the U-haul holding up one end of the leather couch.
Daniel adjusted his grip then hoisted the monstrosity as high as he could. “Got it now?” he grunted from the exertion.
“Little higher.” Frank was struggling too.
With one last shove the couch was in.
“Jesus this thing’s heavy,” Frank said.
“You’re telling me,” Daniel said, breathing hard. “I’ve been moving it around for years every time Justine decided to rearrange our furniture. I hate this bloody thing.”