Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

“Nothing’s okay,” Ron
muttered.  I could feel the slight tremors running through him and
realized he was so angry, he was shaking.  “What happened tonight, that
was just sick.”

“It’s my fault, anyway,” I
squeaked.  My voice seemed to have no force behind it, and my throat
hurt.  I must have had water in my lungs.

Ron was appalled, “Just how the
hell is this
your
fault?”

I fastened my eyes on his, wishing
I could dissolve his anger.  “You even said yourself, I shouldn’t be
hanging around with them.  I should have listened to you…to my mom…my
MOM!  Oh my god, what time is it?”  The sky was now pitch black, the
moon positioned high above us.

“It’s almost ten,” Shane informed
us, squinting down at his watch.

“It’s almost ten?!” I parroted back
in panic.  I was so horrified, I would have sprang to my feet, if the
dizziness hadn’t stopped me.  My body’s momentum carried me halfway there,
but I plunked back into Ron’s lap, awkwardly, as my vision grayed around the
edges.

He let out a rush of air as I
landed on him,  “Ooof, hey, careful there!  Don’t worry, Maura, I’ll
take you home.  There’s no need to make yourself pass out again.”

I knew I wasn’t light.  I was
tall.  He made me feel even more graceless as he struggled to get up, with
me still in his arms.  From his sitting position on the ground, even I
knew it was an impossibility.  I felt even more embarrassed—if that was
even possible—at his futile struggle to rise.

“I can walk myself,” I tried to
tell him.

He ignored me and flashed a look at
Shane, who stoically came over to lift me from Ron’s arms.  My small
attempts at struggle did me no good.  Shane’s frame was smaller than
Ron’s, but he was taller, and had a wiry kind of strength in his long
limbs.  Shane must have been Native.  His eyes were black, like his
hair, his skin a pleasant brown.  Though dark, his eyes held a
friendliness, tinged with mischievous, that was impossible to resist.  He
smiled down at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back…even though I was still
cold, half-naked and internally wounded by the cruelty inflicted upon me almost
three hours ago.

*
Three hours!
* I thought to
myself.  *I was out for a long time…* 

Ron was probably holding me the
entire duration, as he struggled to stand himself.  “Ow!  Hold on,
Shane, both my legs are asleep.”

I crossed my arms across my chest,
irrationally agitated by this entire night, and wished I could disappear from
existence.  I huffed out a sigh, unconsciously.

Ron tried to joke with me at that,
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he teased.  “Holding on to you was anything
but a burden.”

Despite the hideous events from
earlier, I couldn’t stop myself from blushing at that.  I even smiled a
bit, looking down at his shirt and playing with a button.  I liked this
boy far too much.  My mind suddenly flashed a picture of Caelyn’s face at
me.  Her expression was furious, her eyes frightening.

I jumped in Shane’s arms . “Mom is
going to kill me!  I promised I wouldn’t be late!” 

“Ok, ok, stop rushing me,” Ron
groaned and struggled to his feet.  “Here, lemme have her,” he took me
from Shane’s grasp, making me feel like a large child being passed around at a
family gathering.  I was too tired and wounded to protest, though, and
decided I’d earned the comfort I’d felt before when my head had been against
his chest.  I allowed myself to snuggle my cheek against his bare
skin.  Had he just sighed?  It was hard to tell with the steady thump
of his heart in my head.

Shane drove--it was his car we were
riding in--and Ron sat with me in the back seat.  I didn’t realize I was
crying, silently, the tears sliding effortlessly down my cheeks until my savior
reached up and wiped one away.

“I’m going to snap that Trent’s
neck for him…maybe even that snotty sister of his!”  He shook his head,
then looked away from me.

“No, don’t,” I whispered hoarsely,
“don’t fight because of me.”  I sniffled pathetically, wishing for a box
of tissues.  I certainly couldn’t wipe my nose on his shirt.

As if on cue, Shane handed a roll
of toilet paper over the back of his seat.  “Here, Maura.”

“Thanks,” I took it and tore a
piece off.  They must have brought it for camping.

Ron looked back at me and his
expression was pained.  “Please don’t cry.”  He reached up to smooth
a hand over my still-damp hair.  Ironically, it made me cry harder.

He pulled me against his chest
again, and we rode the rest of the way to my house in silence.

My mother was named Caelyn, which
ironically means “loved forever.”  Something she definitely was not. 
I knew she’d never gotten over my father.  It seemed no one was ever good
enough after she’d had a taste of what love was like with him.  She was
devastatingly beautiful, something
I
definitely was not.  I’d
always wished I’d inherited more of my looks from her, but she seemed to always
be the one who, painfully enough, kept reminding me of how much I looked like
the missing piece to our lives.  Her jet black hair curled effortlessly in
perfect waves halfway down her back, a dark complement to her large,
emerald-colored eyes.  She was tall, but not lanky like me, and had far
more curvaceous-ness to her figure than I could ever hope for. 

One thing was a constant. 
Even though I knew my mother loved me beyond anything else in her life, there
was an ever-present aura of sadness that clung to her, no matter where we were
or what we were doing.  I could sense it, almost as if it permeated up
through the pores of her smooth, olive-toned skin, and it never seemed to ever,
completely evaporate.

There were nights I could hear her
call out his name, even from my bedroom down the hall.  Her voice filled
with a longing I couldn’t understand, her sleeping self, caught in the embrace
of a deep dream.  I hadn’t dared to ask her about him during her waking
hours for a few years.  My curiosity was put off by the doubled misery
that permeated the very air around us, when she had to call up any memory
strong enough to have to put into words.  I wanted desperately to know
more about him, but I couldn’t wound her like that.  I’d decided a little
while ago that my own selfish curiosity wasn’t worth my mother’s unavoidable
pain, excepting one brief evening, when I thought she might have been immune.

I’d cheated really.  She’d had
some girls from work over for an informal meeting that turned into more of a
girls’ night out.  I had to admit that when I’d suggested margaritas, I’d
been hoping it would open her up after everyone left, enough to just reveal a
few details.  Not asking about him was just so
hard
. 

She’d had a good time for a while,
joking and laughing with the rest of the women, until someone made the mistake
of broaching the taboo subject.

“So Caelyn, are you seeing anyone
these days?” a girl who had just joined the firm asked, innocent in her
unknowing.  The receptionist, who had worked with my mom for years, shook
her head at the new girl threateningly, too late. I was observing this through
the open glass-sliding door, pretending to watch TV in the living room.  I
winced as soon as the words were spoken.

My mother’s light mood slipped back
into the almost-never-waning, dark recesses of her mind.  “No,” her tone
was flat and lifeless. 

*Ack!  I’d never get anything
out of her now*, I thought, scolding myself a moment later for being so
callous. 

“Oh boy,” I muttered rising to go
back to the blender, “time for some more damage control.”

I doubled the tequila in this
batch.  It would be far better if Caelyn could forget this night.  I
took a large sip from my mother’s drink, but not before peeking to make sure no
one was watching.  I was a good girl, but I had my limits.  I carried
the tray out onto the patio.

“Here ya go, ladies,” I said
cheerfully, setting the drinks down in front of them quickly, before anyone had
time to protest.

“What a perfect hostess you are,
Maura,” the receptionist, Betty, remarked.  “Caelyn, that daughter of
yours is growing up into some kind of beautiful.”   I giggled
dutifully.

Caelyn must have been getting
sloshed.  “She is isn’t she?  Looks just like her father.”  She
bit her lip in regret when that slipped out.

I changed the
subject…expediently…”So are you guys going to be able to survive without my mom
after she transfers to the Vancouver office?”

The accounting officer answered
after emitting a deep sigh, “Honey, your mother is irreplaceable.”

“Oh I know that.”  I’d
wandered to Caelyn’s side and handed off her margarita.  I’d reached down
to squeeze her other hand in a gesture I hoped she found comforting.  She
did look up and smile weakly, before taking a long draw from her drink.

“Mmm that’s good, Maura.”  The
words were a bit slurred.

The marketing manager, a perky,
little blonde thing, spoke up, perhaps in response to my mother’s
incoherency.  “It’s getting late, girls.  We’d better get going…after
we finish our drinks, of course.”

I turned to go back into the house,
several echoes of, “Thanks, Maura,” at my back.

Less than a half hour later, they
meandered into the hallway to collect their shoes and coats.  I got up,
reluctantly, from the episode of
Inu-Yasha
I’d been watching and went to
say my goodbyes.  Everyone had drunk a bit too much, and so the four of
them were sharing a cab to their various destinations.  Betty almost fell
when she was attempting to slide her foot back into one of her shoes.  All
of them erupted into hysterical giggles.  I couldn’t help but notice that
Caelyn didn’t join them.  She leaned against the wall, a morose expression
making her features heavier.

I knew she was thinking about my
father, the look in her eyes was very familiar.  I instantly regretted the
margarita idea, reminding myself too late that alcohol was a depressant.

I helped Molly, the new girl, who’d
made the unknown faux-pas about Caelyn’s relationship status, into her black,
wool coat.  She fell back against me when she settled into it and laughed
a, “Whoops, Sorry!”  I chuckled edgily, still regretting the part I’d
played in my mother’s current mood.

After they were all out the door
and I’d seen them safely into the waiting cab, I went back into the house,
footsteps dragging, to clean up the mess I’d made.   Caelyn was still
frozen in place.  I catalogued through our movie collection in my head,
trying to find something light.  I couldn’t think of much that didn’t have
romance in it.  Maybe she would watch one of my more violent animes with
me?

“Mom…” I started, meekly.

“Come here, Maura, I want to talk
to you.”  Her words were no longer slurred.  Had it just been an act
to get rid of the other women?  She’d finished every drink I’d brought
her—well, half-finished the last one.  I followed her to the couch, wincing
already at the imagined things she might say to me.

She turned off the TV and patted
the couch cushion.  I sat close to her so I could take her hand
again.  “Are you okay, Mom?”  My voice came out a hushed creation,
not quite a whisper.

“Maura, I know you wonder about
your father,” she began.

“Mom, you don’t have to talk about
him,” I ached for her  not to listen to me, but above all, I couldn’t
watch her fall apart.

Tears swam in her eyes.  She
swayed a bit unsteadily as she sat there, and I knew her words would be at
least slightly alcohol induced.  She was brave enough to speak them,
numbed as she was at this moment.

“No.  I’ve known for a long
time that you deserved to hear more about him.  I’m sorry, very sorry, I
could never give you that.”

“Mom, it’s ok…”  I didn’t put
very much force behind my words, though.  I felt inextricably guilty to
hunger so for the words that would tear her heart apart.  At the same
time, I was desperate for her to continue.

“Maura, your father, he wasn’t a
bad person.  He isn’t with us for very good reasons…”

I interrupted, “What reasons, Mom?”

She looked uncomfortable when I
said that.  She didn’t answer my question.  Instead she explained,
“When I met him, Maura, you know I was very young.  He didn’t realize how
young.  I was only fifteen that summer…younger than you are now.  Of
course he would have never touched me if he’d known that.  I lied and told
him I was twenty.  I looked it, too.  I matured faster than any of
the girls at my high school, and when I went out, I could always get away with
pretending to be older than I really was.”

I gaped at her in silent awe. 
I’d always wondered why any man would leave a girl, so young, alone with a
child.  Still even if he had thought she was twenty…there were so many
things I wanted to know.  Everything about my beginning was enshrouded in
mystery.

“I know,” she took in my astonished
expression, “it was very wrong of me to lie to him.  At the time, I
couldn’t know how wrong.  All I knew was that he was much older than me,
and I didn’t want to him to lose interest and think of me as a child.”  A
tear broke free and ran away down her smooth cheek.  My mother still
looked like she was in her twenties.  We were always being mistaken for
siblings.  It was ironic that she could look older when she was younger,
and now that she’d reached her thirties, she’d stayed in that same youthful
place she’d created for herself.

I didn’t want to say anything at
this point that might stop her from talking, so I let her continue.

“I was working in my parents’
restaurant that summer, since school had let out.  He came in one night
and sat in a back corner, alone.  He was so dark and brooding.  I
went to wait on him, and I think I fell in love as soon as he looked up at me
with those black eyes of his.  There was something soft and pleading in
them, despite their darkness. And, of course, he was exceptionally good-looking.” 
Caelyn smiled, but it was full of sadness.  She picked up a strand falling
across the front of my blouse.  “His hair was
just
this
color.”  More tears.  From both of us now.

“Mom, you don’t have to…”  It
was a ragged whisper that broke as it escaped my lips.

“Maura, please stop saying
that.  I should have told you a long time ago.  I just have missed
him so…”  Her sentence ended in a sob, but she took in a deep breath and
composed herself so that she could speak again.  “Just let me finish
okay?”

“Okay.  Thank you, Mom.”

That seemed to give her a bit of
courage to continue.  She played with the strand of hair she’d lifted,
unconsciously.  “I remember, I brought him a glass of Merlot.  He
never even touched it.  I kept going back unnecessarily to check on
him.  He seemed to be so sad about something.  Every minute I stood
in front of him I wanted to reach out to him, wanted to touch his face and
chase away whatever was troubling him.  At first, he seemed to resist
talking to me.  But once, he looked up and stared into my eyes.  He
must have liked something he saw there, because he started to ask
me
questions, instead of the other way around. I told him I was twenty, because he
looked to be at least twenty-five himself, and I knew there would be no way a
twenty-five year old guy would ever be interested in a fifteen year old. 
I must have lied convincingly, because he never questioned it.  He came
back the next night, too.   I lingered at his table as much as I
could, but I didn’t want to draw my parents’ attention and have them spoil my
little deception.”

I had to ask, “What did he talk to
you about?”

“Books, music, art.  But
books, mostly.  Lucky for me, I was such a good student.  I was in an
advanced literature class at the college, so I could keep up with him
reasonably well.  But, he seemed to know everything about any book ever
written.  I was amazed that he could recite
entire
poems from
memory, or remember the most obscure details in books I’d read that I’d seemed
to overlook entirely.  Of course he gave those details a whole new
significance I’d never considered before.  His mind amazed me and drew me
in.”

Ah, my bookworm status was earned
genetically on both sides.  That explained that…and also the fact that I’d
never seen Caelyn touch one of the many books in our house.  Reading must
be one of the things too saturated with his memory to be bearable for her
anymore.

“I met him after work that night
and that started the most unforgettable summer I’ve ever had.”  She looked
so heartbroken as the memories were flashing through her mind.  Her
expression told me that I could never know the sacrifice she made in recalling
them.  I knew I probably wouldn’t get any more detail than that one
sentence, and I was right.  She skipped all the way to October. 

“By the time my birthday came I was
pregnant.  I think he knew, though I hadn’t told him.  He became
extremely protective.  His hand would linger on my stomach when he would
touch me.  But then…”  She looked down and I knew this was where her
fairy tale had ended.

“He came to pick me up on
Halloween.”  Funny how Caelyn didn’t say ‘my birthday;’ she chose the
darker option, though maybe that perception of mine was totally wrong. 
“He came to get me at the college from my Lit class.  I always had him
pick me up there on the days I had that class, because it kept up the illusion
that I was taking all of my classes there.  One of my friends from class
had given me a present right before I got into his car, and I was so excited
that I ripped open the card right in front of him.  Those eyes of his
missed nothing, so of course the big, yellow ‘Sweet 16’ on the front of the
card had his attention immediately.  He was so angry he didn’t speak to me
for an hour.  He just drove and drove, looking at nothing but the trees
passing along the side of the road.”  Her words were weighted with
melancholy and I wondered how much longer she could tell the story without
lapsing into crying.

“At first I pleaded with him. 
I said I was sorry over and over and tried to justify my dishonesty by telling
him how much I’d wanted him from the very moment I saw him.  When he
didn’t seem to hear anything at all I was saying to him, I just sat there in
the car seat crying until he decided to speak to me again.  I was
terrified.  Afraid he’d tell me he never wanted to see me again. 
Terrified that both of us were going to lose him.”