Substitute for Love (17 page)

“Do I look okay?” She put a nervous hand to her hair, suddenly aware that she’d been in the same clothes for nearly twenty-four hours.

“You’re fine,” Jean assured her.

The respiration monitor greeted her with its steady pulse. She tiptoed to the edge of the bed, taking in the signs of the removal of the breathing tube and the adhesive that clung to one reddened cheek. Her mother appeared to be dozing, but it wouldn’t last for long. Painkillers were required for deeper, sustained sleep.

She sank down in the chair that was never close enough to the bed and still managed to gently lay her head near her mother’s feet. She was so tired.

It was about three o’clock in the morning, the witching hour, she mused. Utterly drained, she prayed to the compassionate god she believed in for what she needed most: strength to bear whatever she must if it gave her mother the will to endure. What were her petty problems compared to her mother’s daily agonies? So she had to associate with people who — if they really knew her — wanted her dead or invisible or brainwashed. Big deal. It was nothing compared to the pain that ebbed and flowed with every breath her mother took. She was lucky to have one outlet, to be able to find a few hours of relief and escape. Her mother’s only escape was drug-induced oblivion.

“Reyna?”

She sat up. “I’m here, Mom.”

“I’m glad.” Her voice was quite hoarse, a byproduct of the tube that had been in her throat.

“I was at the movies, you know, the Friday all-nighter.”

“What did you see? Was it fun?”

Reyna swallowed hard. After what her mother had been through tonight, she could still concern herself with Reyna’s life. “Mel Brooks movies. He has his moments.”

“All by yourself?”

“I couldn’t find anyone to go with me,” she answered, omitting that she hadn’t asked.

“What about Jake?”

“Jake’s a dork.” It was out before she could stop it, she was that depleted.

Incredibly, her mother laughed, then was shocked into silence as joints all over her body responded with needles of pain. After two deep breaths, she said, “Like Jimmy Peters?”

“Just like.” Jimmy Peters was the high-school pest who wouldn’t stop coming around no matter what Reyna said. What a fun year it had been, though, that short year of freedom. She remembered that her mother had seemed more friend than anything else. They had only grown apart when she left for college. If she’d stayed home, not run off to Berkeley for more freedom, she might have noticed her mother’s butterfly rashes that had first attracted the attention of doctors. She could have been there for support during the lengthy and troublesome diagnosis.

“You’re too good for these political puppets. Dr. Basu is very nice. He’s single.”

Reyna got up to offer water and hopefully change the subject. “I wish they hadn’t had to put the tube in.”

“Me, too.” Her mother sipped carefully from the straw.

There was a long silence and Reyna wanted to take her mother’s hand, but it would hurt more than it comforted.

“Honey?”

“What can I get you, Mom?”

“Nothing.” She turned her head slightly toward Reyna, who was struck anew by dark shadows under her mother’s eyes. “It’s just that — sweetie, I want you to be happy. Whatever makes you happy, that’s what I want for you. I wasn’t always this wise, but the pain — sometimes the clarity of thought is amazing. I used to just want you married, as if that would somehow make up for the fact that I wasn’t when you were born.”

“You know I don’t care about that.”

“Neither do I, not anymore. I made my choices. They became your realities, but you’re so strong. Honey, I just want you to be happy. Otherwise what was it all for, all the feeding when you spit out the strained peas, and making you wear a sweater when it was cold? I wanted the best for you then, and I do now. I want to see you smiling again.” Her voice grew so weak Reyna had to stoop to hear it. “Before I go. “

“Don’t talk that way.” All the blinking in the world wouldn’t hold back the tears.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere.” Her mother sighed. “I’ll cost your father a fortune, to be sure.”

“He can afford it,” Reyna said shortly. She mopped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Use the tissues, dear.”

She dutifully pulled one from the box on the bedside table. “I will try harder to be happy.”

“No more dorks. Go looking for a prince.”

“I don’t want a prince, Mom.” She wanted to say more — the truth she had never shared. She had been planning to tell her mother about Kimberly at the next break, all those years ago, but by then Kimberly had been rendered moot. It had been hard enough to pretend that leaving her beloved journalism behind for political science and governmental affairs was the happiest decision of her life. “Princes have problems.”

“So do we all.” Her mother’s eyes closed. In the half-dark Reyna could see the familiar outline of her mother’s profile. The beauty that had smoothed so much of her path in life was now stretched to the point of breaking.

“Do you want to sleep?”

“Yes. I told Jean to hold back until I’d seen you. I just wanted to say — to say what I said.”

“I love you, Mom. Don’t go dying on me, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

The kiss she pressed to her mother’s roughened cheek was as light as she could make it, and she hoped the gesture had not brought any pain with it. She was so self-absorbed, to be craving the hard pleasure of another woman when even the lightest caress caused her mother discomfort.

Jean promised to keep her informed and Reyna wandered wearily toward the parking garage. Not exactly a false alarm, because the seizure had been serious enough to require forced respiration. But not the horror she had expected, either. She would have to have a long talk with Dr. Basu about the antimalarial regimen, though. He had been so hopeful about it.

She was driving again, intending to go home, but instead went deeper into the canyon, past the Institute, winding around familiar switchbacks to the vista that of course had always been known as Lover’s Leap. The tires crunched on the gravel as she pulled off the road and coasted to a stop.

She was so numb from her internal coldness that the biting winter air on the cliff edge seemed warming. She let the wind chill her ears and nose while her mind continued to spin. “I was at the movies,” she said into the wind, but that was not where she had wanted to be. What if the seizure had been fatal, and her mother had wanted her for a few last words, but no one could find her because she was busy taking whatever she could get from any woman who would have her for a few brief hours? Her mother could have been dying while she spread herself out on yet another motel bed, holding back only her name while she took pleasure, and took as much as she could.

Self-absorbed, greedy, no impulse control — okay, she thought bitterly. Your father is a bastard. You didn’t want this life. You’re doing this because of Mom, and it’s not your fault, it’s not her fault. It’s his fault to have put a price on her life. But so what?

You want a relationship, you big fucking whiner? You don’t get one. Not everyone gets one. You’re not dying by inches, you’re not abused, you don’t wonder where your kids will get their next meal. It could be so much worse and all you do is complain. When you at least get to have sex, you complain that it’s not enough. Tough. When was the last time your mother got to lose herself in purely physical pleasure instead of pain?

But, the answering voice in her head reminded her, but… you’re losing your soul doing this work, helping these people. You’re helping them hurt not just you, but others as well. And that’s a price you pay, not your father. It’s not his conscience that is making you suffer.

Headlights swept over her suddenly, startling her out of her fugue. She turned to look at the approaching car and remembered, then, that she was never alone.

The tan sedan pulled alongside her own car, then the man inside got out.

“Miss Putnam.”

“Can’t I be alone ever?”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

She realized then that she was standing very close to the edge and that the detective had most likely misinterpreted her reason for being here. “I’m not planning on jumping.”

He nodded. “Is your mother okay?”

“That’s no concern of yours.”

He nodded again. In the starlight he was silver-haired, and his face was carved with lines that did not suggest habitual mirth. “I’ve overstepped. Please accept my apologies,” he added dryly. “The name is Ivar, Marc Ivar, if you want to report me.”

She spread her hands in a nullifying gesture and turned her back on him.

He lit a cigarette and made no move to depart. It irritated her immensely.

“May I be alone, please?”

“I’ll head around the corner, but you know I can’t leave. Not until you get to church Sunday morning. That’s me — Friday night to Sunday morning. And Wednesdays.”

“I can hardly get up to no good in the House of the

Lord,” she said sarcastically. Attendance at her father’s congregational church, a moderate denomination, was mandatory. She used the time to clear her head, and tried to take only the good that came from the pulpit. The god she believed in was a source of strength and wisdom, never punishment or hate. If she ever had a choice, she would look for a church that uplifted her spirit without turning off her mind.

“I wouldn’t know. I just have my orders, just like the guy who picks up again on Mondays when you leave work.”

She caught herself before she screamed at him to leave, then slowly turned to face him. “Why are you telling me this?”

“What?” He made no attempt to appear confused. She stared until he finally shrugged. “Me and my big mouth. Consider it a gift.”

“A gift or a trap? You tell me I’m not watched from Sunday at ten until Monday after work — why would I believe you?”

“You probably shouldn’t.” The laconic smile was back.

She stalked to her car and had to fuss with the lock. The car was fairly new, recently delivered from the leasing company. Just when she got used to a Buick they brought a Ford. Or was this a Lincoln? She didn’t care. Her dignified exit was ruined by dropping her keys.

He finished his cigarette and ground it underfoot. “Think of me as a safe escort.”

She wanted to say “Fuck you” again but didn’t. She did spin out on the gravel and hoped even a small piece caught him. They were parasites, all of them. She didn’t know what Ivar’s game was, but she wasn’t playing.

The condo was cold and unwelcoming, as always, decorated by a firm hired by Grip’s administrative assistant. She rarely spent any time anywhere in it except the office and bedroom. It was to the bedroom she went, where she had sheets and blankets that she had chosen. She wrapped herself tight against the chill and cried, mostly because she had been badly frightened by the trip to the hospital and was too tired to stop the tears. Though she had promised herself she would put self-pity behind her, she couldn’t help it, not in the cold before dawn and feeling, above all, utterly alone.

Audra set the first heavy photo album in front of Holly. “I knew that Zinnia would destroy them if she had them, so I took them like a thief in the night. It was after she took you, but before they cleared out the house.” After a pause to dab her nose with a tissue, she opened to the first photograph.

It was too much, too fast. Holly looked at the tiny infant in the photograph and felt no connection. How could that be her? She had no memory of seeing this picture before. The child had a frown that seemed to stretch from head to toe.

“You hated the flashbulb. I think you figured out early on that cameras meant purple spots in your eyes. You’ve always been camera-shy.” With a sigh, Audra turned to the next page.

Her mother looked younger than Holly ever remembered. The studio portrait answered all of Holly’s questions save one. Facing her mother was Audra, and between them she was nestled as something they shared.

Aunt Zinnia would never have let Holly see this picture. It was too honest and, as was often true of unvarnished honesty, inflammatory. White and black, two women, a baby — a formula that too many people, even twenty-six years later, rejected in every permutation.

But it was the truth of her start in life, a constant she had only lately understood she was missing. She took another tissue from the box Audra had brought near. “You were always a part of me.”

“Always.” Audra’s voice was low and even, though she drew the occasional ragged breath. “I cut the cord.”

She looked at Audra, curious about the story of her birth, but there were more pressing needs. “I don’t know how—” She had to begin again. “Why don’t I remember you very well? Why—” She watched helplessly as Audra wrapped her long arms across her stomach and rocked, letting the tears fall. “I’m sorry…”

“My fault, child, all my fault. I had help down the road, but I chose the path. You can’t understand, not after all this time.”

“Try me,” Holly said gently. “Tell me.”

“It’s not the world you live in. I look back, and my choices don’t make any sense.” She sighed. “When you were six we were shopping. You were always so serious about things being correct. You sorted your Halloween candy, and laid out doll clothes in functional groups.” A laugh broke the tears and Audra seemed to let go of some of the painful past. “When you were four you lined up all your toys in order of height so they could all see your puppet show. You were always exceptional, and we knew it.”

She let Audra talk, hearing the occasional soft consonant that spoke of a southern birthplace. The lilt of it seemed familiar to her, just as the erect way Audra carried herself was.

“We were shopping, you see, and you were bored while Lily paid the clerk. Up and down, you wanted me to hold you, to carry you, to hang you upside down, up and down. The clerk was a nice woman, I’m sure she meant nothing by it. All she said was that you were wearing out your — and then she had to stop, because you had called Lily Mama.” She set her cocoa-washed hand next to Holly’s pale one. “You were obviously not my daughter, so she didn’t know what noun to use. So she asked you who it was you were climbing all over.”