When she didn’t answer, he lifted her chin even higher. “Are you listening to me, baby girl?”
“I’m listening,” Mia answered.
“And?”
“And I think you’re right. There are a couple of things I need to do. I need to talk to my brother and I need to talk to my mother.”
“You’re going to give her a call?”
“No, I’m going to Phoenix.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Mia smiled. “No, this time I won’t need a knight riding in to save the day. This is something I have to do on my own.”
“I never thought of myself as your knight, more like your Prince Charming and you were my Sleeping Beauty.” He leered at her. “And baby, I enjoyed awakening your passions.”
His tongue slid into her mouth and a sense of urgency filled his kiss and his arousal pressed against her. Damien’s muscles bunched with the swiftness of his hunger. He lifted her into his arms and carried her back into their bedroom. He entered her unsheathed, and Mia accepted that that was her husband’s way of sealing the bargain. Just as he would not brook closed doors or her silence, she had a right to a few demands of her own. She wanted him without the feel of latex.
* * *
“You don’t think I’m wrong to hate my sister, Dr. Terrell?”
Mia had given up trying to tell the patient that she wasn’t a doctor, not yet. She wore a name badge that spelled out plainly that she was an assistant, little more than a student really. But for the past several months she’d been on her own more and more. And this patient had become one of her primary charges, going so far as to ask for her visits to be scheduled with Mia. While exhilarating, it was also scary.
“Doctor, did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” Mia answered.
“Well, what do you think? Should I be angry after all this time that my sister slept with my husband and had his baby? After all, the child is my niece. My pastor told me I have to forgive her for my peace of mind. What do you think?”
“Tell her to go to hell,” Mia blurted out without thinking. “You don’t need her in your life.” It wasn’t until the patient stared at her open-mouthed that Mia realized what she’d said.
“Are you saying I’m right?” the patient asked.
“I’m saying your feelings on this are valid.” Mia thought momentarily of the consequences of what she was about to say and wondered who would be reviewing the taped conversation.
“My parents told me to be strong, to be heroic and keep the pain inside. I’ve been trying to be heroic, doctor, but I’m losing the battle. I don’t think I know how to be a heroine.”
“My idea of being heroic is living through the pain, making mistakes, not knowing what to do, yet not giving up. You’re here, you’re talking, you’re not giving up. You’re trying to get better, trying to accept your own role in your life. And I find that heroic. You could just say forget it, but you haven’t,” Mia said.
“But doctor, all the women in romance novels, they’re always so strong.”
“That’s fiction. In the world I live in there is no such thing as perfection. No one is strong all the time, trust me.”
“How about you? You always seem in control. You seem like one of those romance heroines. Are you?”
Mia smiled. “I’m human.” She stood then. “So are you. Yes, we professionals advocate forgiveness and it’s because its healthy for your own spirit.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“You know I can’t tell you what to do.” Mia sighed, then decided to do a little more than book protocol psychology, aware that when she did she might very well lose her rights to treat patients until she became a full-fledged psychologist. Right now she didn’t care. Her patient needed help now, not in a year when she was done with school.
“I’ll tell you what I’d do.” Mia saw the hope surge through the woman and knew she was doing the right thing.
“I would confront the person who’d hurt me and I would tell her that she’d hurt me. I wouldn’t worry so much about the forgiving. I’d opt for baby steps, first things first,” Mia finished.
She smiled, knowing she’d just solved her own dilemma. She was planning to implement the things she was telling the patient. She too would confront her own demons. It was past time she put an end to the ghosts that had chased her for most of her life.
“I’ve wanted to tell my sister how I’ve felt for a long time. I really thought that I should do that, but everyone told me not to.”
“It’s your life,” Mia advised, “not theirs.”
“I’m going to do it.” The woman smiled at Mia.
“Then that makes you heroic,” Mia said and hugged the patient, giving her strength and receiving it as well.
Twenty minutes later when the patient had gone, Dr. Grey stuck her head in before Mia’s next patient. “I was observing you with the patient today.”
Mia waited.
“You did a good job.”
“Thanks,” Mia answered, not bothering to tell her friend that she was going to take her own advice. From the look on her face, Mia knew Dr. Grey was already aware of her decision.
“By the way, Mia, I forgot to tape today’s session. I’m sorry we don’t have a record of the session.” She smiled at Mia and closed the door.
* * *
Mia had made her decision. She and Keefe both needed closure on their past. She was the only one who could give her brother what he needed so that he could have his future without having to worry about Mia.
“Hi,” she said, hugging him when he entered the apartment.
“Hey, where’s Damien?”
“He has a class tonight. I wanted us to have time to talk.”
“Anything wrong?” Keefe asked.
Mia noticed that he looked away. “Kee, don’t worry, Damien and I are very happy. I just wanted to tell you what I’m planning on doing. I also thought we needed to clear some things up.” He was frowning at her, a puzzled look on his face. “Why haven’t you asked Ashleigh to marry you?”
“What?” he sputtered.
“You heard me. You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why haven’t you asked her to marry you?”
“I don’t know. I guess the time isn’t right.”
“I’ll tell you why, because somewhere in the back of your mind you feel that you have to be there for me, that if something happens with Damien you want to make sure you don’t have a wife who can object to your running to save me.” She smiled. “Big brother, I don’t need saving anymore.”
“Mia, I didn’t—”
“Yeah, you did, maybe not consciously but we’ve both been tied to our past, as hard as we’ve tried to get away from it. I’m going to do something about it.”
Mia studied her brother for a moment. “I’ve ended my sessions with Doctor Grey.”
“When?”
“Oh, a couple of weeks ago. I don’t need them anymore, Keefe.” She smiled. “I don’t have any more ghosts. I remember everything.” She saw the worried look that came into his eyes and she smiled again. “You can stop worrying, big brother, nothing happened.”
She saw him swallow, saw the tears that came into his eyes, before he asked, “Really, Mia, nothing happened?”
“Nothing.” She smiled at him. “I was just afraid and I wanted to be with you, but nothing happened.”
Her brother gripped her in a bear hug and held her for the longest time. She felt his shudders of relief and knew she’d done the right thing. Mia still didn’t remember what had happened or had not happened to her while in foster care, but she knew her brother needed to believe that nothing had happened to her. And who knew, maybe nothing had.
When he finally let her go, the look in his eyes was what she’d waited an entire lifetime to see, joy and a duty fulfilled. She’d rid her brother of the unnecessary guilt he’d carried and she’d rid herself of her guilt for robbing him of his childhood at the same time. It might be too late for her to give him back his childhood, but it definitely wasn’t too late for her to give him what he needed to begin a real commitment with Ashleigh.
“You said you were going to do something,” Keefe said, his voice still hoarse with tears and relief.
“I am. I’m going to Phoenix.”
“Why, Mia? She’ll only hurt you again.”
“That’s because in the past I gave her the power to hurt me, Kee. I’m going to go there and face her and take it back.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, big brother, I’m going to go this one alone.”
“I don’t want her to hurt you again, Mia.”
“I’m a big girl. If I get hurt I’ll deal with it. It won’t be your fault. But I don’t think I’m going to get hurt, Keefe. She’s a sick woman. All the jokes we said about her through the years, they weren’t jokes. She does have a narcissistic personality. She won’t care about anything that I have to say to her.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Because I have to say the things I’ve held in my heart. I have to say them to her face, for me.” She smiled, “And for you. I’ve been taking out my anger at her on Damien and I’m not going to do that anymore.”
Keefe smiled. “So the new Mia pissed her husband off, huh?”
“Royally,” Mia answered, laughing. “He told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t taking my crap. He was right.”
“You know, I’m liking that husband of yours more and more.”
Mia hugged her brother again. “And he likes you, Kee.”
“Seriously, Mia, when you…you know, when you and Damien…there are no images?”
“No, big brother. When my husband makes love to me, there are only the two of us in our bed.” She saw her brother blush and she kissed his cheek. “I will always love you, Keefe Black. You were and are the best big brother that a girl could have.”
* * *
Mia sat in the taxi for a moment, surveying her mother’s home admiring the pale colors and the well-manicured lawn. It should be a nice house, Mia thought. After all, she’d gotten her brother to shell out a bundle in the last few years for its upkeep. She wondered what would happen now that the money would stop coming. For good.
“Miss, isn’t this the address that you wanted?”
Mia glanced at the driver and noted that his attention had shifted and he was staring in the direction of her mother’s home with a silly grin on his face. Immediately Mia’s head snapped toward the porch. There stood her mother dressed in short black shorts and a black halter. She was smiling broadly and moving her body seductively. Mia knew neither the moves or the smile was for her. She glanced again at the driver.
“That’s my mother,” Mia said and saw the driver’s eyes flick over her then back to her mother. “Listen, I won’t be here very long. Do you think I could buy you dinner and then give you a call when I need you to come back?” When the driver didn’t answer, Mia smiled. “I could introduce you to my mother when you return.”
But I won’t
, Mia thought to herself.
She had him. The man smiled at her and Mia handed over the money for the fare, along with money to treat the man to a meal. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I may need to pick up another fare while I’m waiting If you take too long.”
“A couple of hours should be more than enough time,” Mia replied. “I’m thinking half of that time, you’ll be eating.” Mia glanced toward her mother, knowing that the driver would look also. “It won’t be long,” she said, then exited from the cab after getting the driver’s number.
Mia walked toward her mother, shaking her head slightly at the attention her mother could still attract without trying. She almost laughed aloud at that crazy thought. What had she been thinking? Her mother tried all the time, constantly, in fact. She was beautiful and she knew it. And she used it for all it was worth.
When Mia got closer she saw something she’d never allowed herself to see before. Her mother was a middle-aged woman trying just a bit too hard to garner attention. She noticed the skin wasn’t as taut as it had been and there was a thin sheen of foundation on her mother’s face. Mia wondered if her mother had any idea how the desert heat would age her, but decided not to ask. She didn’t care.
She glanced again at the too tight, too short clothing her mother wore and felt a moment of pity. She could imagine her mother at ninety in the same outfit, still thinking she was turning heads and all she would be getting more than likely would be laughs.
“Mia, you didn’t have to bring the checks. Mailing them would have been fine.”
Mia laughed out loud. “Nice to see you too.” She then took a closer look around her mother’s home, wondering how on earth the woman managed to pay for all the things in her house. She didn’t work and there was no way either she or Keefe had shelled out all the money for the luxuries. Mia looked at the sixty-two inch plasma screen television. She didn’t even know plasma screens came in that size. She wondered what would happen to all her mother’s possessions when the money stopped. Mia shook the thought away. She didn’t care.
“I didn’t bring a check, Mom. I just came to talk.”
“Then why didn’t you use the phone? They do have those in Chicago. Right?”
“So if I had a check, you’d be happy to see me?”