Vivienne's Guilt (2 page)

I squeeze her tight and give her a peck on the cheek. “I know, right? Three. Whole. Days. How did you survive without the Parker casa chaos?” I tease.

“Speaking of chaos, I’m sorry I missed my little BFF. Was she excited? Show me pictures. I know you took some, paparazzi.”

I pull out my iPhone and start scrolling through the pictures. “You should have seen her, Cass. She was so excited. Abbott got all dressed up for her and showed up with roses. If it wasn’t so damn sweet, I might’ve been a little jealous.”

“I need an Abbott. I swear he’s the only good one left. Tillie’s dating life is better than mine...and she’s dating her daddy.” She shakes her head. “I’m in such a rut, girl. My hand is tireddddd. I’m going through batteries like nobody’s business,” she divulges while waggling her eyebrows at me.

“You’re right...it
isn’t
my business. What happened to that one guy...Jared, Jacob, Jeremy...? What was his name again?” I can’t keep up with this girl anymore.

“Jason? Yeah, uh, no. He was too into himself. I can’t handle all that cockiness. If you’re more into your own body than mine...you’ve gotta go. Doesn’t he know this body is a temple just begging to be worshiped?” she teases while running her hands provocatively down her front, tracing her tiny breasts and hips.

I shake my head and laugh at her silliness. “Speaking of your body, you’re looking really thin again, Cass. Are you eating? I swear you’re withering away.” Cassie has always been a stick of a girl. At 5’9”, she dwarfs my 5’3” frame. She could best be described as a beanpole, but don’t let that fool you. Cassie is absolutely stunning with her wavy red hair and green eyes. She could be a runway model. But I hate seeing her look sickly.

“I’m eating. It’s just stress, and my thyroid’s acting up again,” she says with a shrug.
Sure it is.

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? I don’t want you making yourself sick again. I don’t want to mother you or overreact. I’m just worried.” Cassie has a bad habit of “forgetting to eat” whenever she’s lonely. She swears she doesn’t have a problem, but I lived with her long enough to notice that her stretches of not eating always occur during or immediately following a breakup.
Maybe she was more into this Jason guy than she’s letting on.
I feel myself begin to sweat, and my throat constricts. I’m apprehensive, but I have to tread carefully, or Cassie will shut down on me. I will just have to keep a closer eye on her.

“I’m fine, love. I swear it. I’ll even come over every night this week and hit up some of your good home cooking just to show you.”

“I’ll hold you to it. The boss’ll be excited to have her favorite playmate over for dinner every night,” I say as I wink at her. “Now, are you going to get this frumpy, old housewife drunk or are we going to sit here and stare at that bottle of Jose all night?”

“On it, sista!” Cassie grabs the blender from the pantry and sets up shop on the island counter.

I make myself comfortable on one of the bar stools and watch my best friend do her thing. Her tiny hips shake to the beat of some pop song blaring from her iPhone.

“So, how’s Momma Anderson? Have you spoken with her lately?” Cassie asks while chopping the stems off a handful of strawberries before adding them to the blender.

“Ugh, no. You know how she is. She’s constantly nagging me to visit her. No matter how often we go, it’s never enough. I get tired of hearing it, honestly. She will never truly forgive me for settling down here instead of going back home. If she misses us so much, she should just move here. We have nothing there but an empty house filled with memories of my father. It’s sickening. She keeps that place like a shrine to a man who
left
her for another woman. A woman ten years younger than him! It’s not like he died, Cassie. He’s out there somewhere with his new, younger wife and kids, and she’s stuck in the same old place.”

“Viv, I know she drives you crazy,” she says, “but you’re lucky to have a mother that loves you, worries about you, and
wants
you around. Don’t ever forget that.” Her face turns sad, and I’m having one of those all too frequent “foot in mouth” moments. “Some of us don’t have that. You have no idea how much I would love to have a nagging, bitching mother.”

“Oh God, I’m such a bitch. I know you’re right. You know my nagging, bitching mother loves you like her own, right?” And she does. Most of the time I’m convinced she would take Cass over me as her daughter any day. “I know it’s not the same thing, but you’re family. You have a family. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“I know it. I do,” she says as she wipes the tears just beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. “Gah, how did girls’ night turn into a pity party?” Cassie sniffs. “Get your ass up out of that chair and shake that sexy booty, Momma!”

For the next two hours, my best friend and I drink margaritas and dance until we drop. Then, we cuddle up on the couch in front of the fifty-inch flat screen to catch a few DVR’d episodes of American Idol. It’s nice to spend time with her like this. Just the two of us watching mundane TV. Just like old times.

Halfway through the second episode, I receive a text from Abbott. It’s a picture of him and Tillie at the show that he must have had someone else take. I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face at what a beautiful pair they are. She is his spitting image. Where I am unremarkable with my brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles, they are breathtakingly beautiful. I will never understand what Abbott saw in a plain Jane like me. Whatever it was, I hope he never loses sight of it.

“What are you making that shit-eating grin at over there? Is Abbott sexting you? He is, isn’t he? Gross!” Then, she runs over to check it out because the girl does not know the meaning of the word boundaries. She snatches my phone out of my hand, and she too cracks a huge smile. “Wow, Momma. They are something, aren’t they? Tillie is such a lucky girl to have a father that adores her the way Abbott does. Neither of us had that, ya know? I’m so happy our baby girl does.”

Before I have a chance to respond, the phone dings again. And, being the nosey bitch that she is, Cass reads it. “It’s lover boy again. He says I better be gone by the time they get back. They’re leaving now. Damn. And all this time I thought we were cool,” she jokes.

Thirty minutes later, as Cassie is packing up her things to head home, my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, and since it’s after nine o’clock, I get a nervous feeling in my gut as I press the phone to my ear.

“Hello.”

“Hi, is this the wife of Abbott Parker?”

“Yes, this is she. Who’s this? Did something happen?”
Oh my God. Oh my God. Please let them be okay.

“This is Officer Thomas. There’s been an accident...”

Vivienne

“. . . Mrs. Parker, your husband, and I’m assuming your daughter, have been taken to Memorial. Do you have someone who can drive you to the hospital?” he asks. He sounds so calm, like this is just a routine phone call, while I feel like my insides are on the floor. Calm is good, right? Surely, it can’t be too bad. If things were really bad, he would be more upset. He wouldn’t sound like someone calling to sell me a magazine subscription.

“I...um. Yes. I do. Are they okay? Oh my God! My baby. Is she okay? Is Abbott all right? Can you tell me how serious it is?” I feel like I’m in a fog. Like this can’t possibly be happening to me. No matter how badly I want to convince myself that it’s not anything too serious, cops don’t call for fender-benders. They don’t ask you to have someone else drive you if everything is fine.

Cassie walks up to me and grabs the phone from my hand as I sink to the floor. I don’t hear what she’s saying. I just know that she’s talking to the officer one moment and then helping me up and into her car the next. She talks to me in soothing tones the whole way to Memorial, but I don’t hear a word she says. I must be in shock. I feel like I’m under water. My sight is blurry and sounds are jumbled. I don’t know how I get from one place to the next, but my body must be cooperating because the next thing I know Cassie is rushing us through the emergency room doors. At that point, I come to enough to ask for my baby.

I run over to the registration desk and introduce myself. “I’m Vivienne Parker. My husband, Abbott Parker and my...my daughter, Matilda Parker, were just brought in I guess thirty or forty minutes ago. I need to see them. Are they all right? Where’s my baby?”

“Try to calm down and I’ll see what I can find out for you, okay?” she says as she walks off through a set of double doors.

Cassie is rubbing my back and repeatedly telling me not to freak out until I know what’s going on, but I can feel it. I know it’s bad. I know that whatever news this woman brings back is going to rip my world to shreds. Because no one has it this good. No one gets to have it all and keep it. Eventually, something comes along to tip the scales. And the better you have it, it seems, the heavier the load.

Then suddenly I recognize a squeaky little voice and nothing has ever sounded better to my ears. I leave Cassie with instructions to come for me when the receptionist returns and follow the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard. I arrive at a curtained off triage room and peek my head inside. There on the hospital bed is my heart, and I finally feel like I can breathe again. She’s talking the ears off a male nurse, and neither has noticed my arrival.

“And then, Cinderelly comed out and her singed like this.” Tillie gives her rendition of whatever song Cinderella sang and jumps right back into her story. “And Prince Abbott putted his fingers in his ears because him is a crazy Daddy! And then Cinderelly skaped around in circles.” She demonstrates with her pointer and middle finger, pretending they are the legs and moves them around in circles. When she asks where her daddy is and if he can take her to him, I finally remember why I am here.

I rush through the curtain over to my sweet girl and swing her around in my arms. I cannot control the tears of relief that are flooding from my eyes. I kiss every inch of her little face and run my hands over her to assess for any damage.

“She’s just fine, Miss. She may have a few bumps and bruises, but she appears to be just fine. Such a sweet girl you have here. I’ve enjoyed chatting with her about her date. Sounds like she had a great time,” the nurse says.

“Mommy. Mommy, don’t cry. Why are you crying, Mommy?” Tillie’s eyes well up at the sight of my tears, and I try for all I am worth to suck it up and be brave for my sweet girl.

“Mommy is just
so
happy to see you, baby girl. So, so happy! I was very scared.”

“I’m just fine Mommy, see? Don’t cry. Big guhs don’t cry, like the song. Like my Daddy says, right, Mommy?”

“Right, baby girl. That’s right.”

“Mommy, my Daddy was bleeding a lot. I didn’t see him when I gotted here. I think they’re getting him Band-Aids. Can we find my Daddy? I want to kiss him better.”

I look over to the nurse to make sure that it is okay for me to leave with her and he assures me that she is good to go. He hands me some discharge papers and information on concussions that I should be on the lookout for and wishes us well.

I make my way back to registration with my heart literally in my hands. Cassie is pacing with a worried look on her face, which she does her best to cover when she sees us. “Hi, Bossyrella, I heard you had a hot date tonight. You look absolutely beautiful in that dress, my girl.”

“Auntie Cass!” Tillie reaches over for Cassie, but I can’t bring myself to let her go.

Cassie comes over and wraps her arms around us both and kisses Tillie’s cheeks. “Hold on to Mommy for a little longer, Boss Lady. She had quite a scare. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay, Auntie, I can do that. I’m a big guh, you know that? I’m gonna be free years old tomorrow!” She holds up four stubby little fingers to show Cassie. “Auntie, did you saw my daddy. Me and Mommy are going to find him and kiss his boo-boos. They taked him in another car. I don’t know where he is.”

“No, baby. I don’t know where he is yet. We’re waiting for someone to come tell us.”

I walk around the waiting room for what feels like hours—but is probably no more than minutes—mindlessly reading the public service announcements and medical pamphlets on the walls. The sterile smell is making me nauseous, or maybe that’s fear. I’m so terrified. What could possibly be taking so long? It’s close to midnight, and surprisingly, the waiting room is empty. I’m grateful for that fact when a doctor comes out of those double doors and calls my name. I pass Tillie off to Cassie and walk over alone. The mother in me knows to protect her innocent ears from the news I am about to receive. It’s that same part of me that manages to hold myself upright and not fall through that white speckled tile when Dr. Mullins’ first words are, “I’m sorry.”