Damage Done (11 page)

"Hello Hátka," she'd say with her southern drawl,
a kind smile across her face. Dylan's smile. Hátka meant 'white' in the Kosati
language Ginny learned growing up, she'd always teased Rachel about being so
fair.

Ginny was only half Coushatta Native American, a smaller
tribe that was pushed into Louisiana by the growing white population, but she'd
lived on the reservation a few years as a child, and she'd always been
surrounded by the culture. Ginny's children were outwardly white to anyone who
didn't know their mother, but in small town Texas where race was still a
factor, everyone knew they were 'that Indian lady's kids,' which only made it
harder for them to fit in.

Dylan was always respectful of his mother's heritage, but
he'd never showed the kind of interest Ginny would have liked. Still, she'd
done her best to impart what limited knowledge she had of their history to her
three children, and whenever Rachel asked questions, Ginny's face lit up as she
shared stories of her mother and her ancestors.

"Rachel, don't encourage her," Dylan had teased
her once as he sat potting bulbs in their large green house, "Or she'll
have you weaving pine needle baskets to sell at the rodeo."

The light blue SWIM t-shirt clung to his sweaty frame,
muscles ripped from his favorite pastime. Light brown hair hung over his eyes
and he'd reached up with an elbow to push it back, then smiled and winked at
her.

He'd always been able to flood her with excitement without
any real effort, and even now as she thought back on how sexy and charming he'd
been, she felt her chest grow heavy and her panties grow wet.

***

Settled back in the office with a couple of turkey
sandwiches from the deli around the corner, she and Lauren sat on the floor
watching Sesame Street. Puking had helped, she told everyone she must have
gotten food poisoning from lunch in Houston the day before, and as soon as
Lauren's nails were painted, she'd paid and they left.

The front door creaked open and the UPS delivery girl
called out, "Hello? Package for Rachel Daniels, I need a signature,
please."

Rachel took the clipboard and signed for the envelope,
thanking the girl who left in a hurry. Sometimes it was nice when people did
their job without needing to stop and make small talk or drill her about her
personal life.

She threw the envelope on the table near her office when
Jake pushed the door open and danced a little jig across the floor, his smile
bright, his bald head brighter. He'd been devastated when his hair started to
fall out and started shaving it almost immediately, refusing to take any
hormones or pills to make it grow back.

He pulled her into his arms and started turning her around
to some music only he could hear, singing loudly about diamonds and fast cars.

"Jake, stop, I puked earlier," she protested,
making her way into the hall so as not to interrupt Elmo.

"Oh wow, preggers?"

"No asshole. You have to have sex to get pregnant."

"So that's your problem? I'm calling Kenneth. You need
to get laid before I have to ask Regina and Savannah to help plan this larger
than Texas gala we're having in nine weeks."

He pulled out his cell phone and pretended to make a call.

"Not funny! Besides, he wouldn't give a shit. It's not
like he's complained about the fact that we're not sleeping together. He's been
sleeping in the guest room since January."

Crap.

That wasn't an admission she'd been prepared to make.
Jake's eyebrows shot up dramatically, hands hit his hips and he looked at her
in mock surprise. God, he was going to make a huge deal out of this.

"Rachel," he whispered, looking over his shoulder
to see if Lauren was out of earshot, "That's not okay. What's the
problem?"

"I don't know," she sighed, walking into her
office. He followed, hands glued to his hips and stood over her as she dropped
into her chair.

"Rachel, you have to fuck your husband, you have to
talk to your husband. That's life, Honey. Why is he sleeping in the guest room?"

"Jake, you can't expect me to explain it to you when I
don't understand it myself. He just is. He was working late, Hunter was falling
asleep in our bed, he's getting too big for me to carry him to his bed, I don't
know. He just started doing it. And I never said anything. Then he never said
anything. And now it just- is."

She shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

"Honey, you have to communicate. You need to ask him
what's going on, you have to talk about your feelings. You can’t tell me that
he hasn’t tried to have sex with you since January.”

“No, he hasn’t,” she argued.

They’d had a good sex life in the beginning, she thought
anyway. Not amazing, she’d never felt the toe-curling ravenous thirst for sex
with Kenneth that she’d always read about in books. But it was decent, and it
made her feel awful that Kenneth never came on to her anymore, feeding her
insecurity and making her feel even more undesirable. She’d always been a
little uptight, but he never said it bothered him, so she’d convinced herself
he just wasn’t attracted to her anymore.

“And don’t tell me I should take the lead," she
finished, "Because I’ve tried. I’ve told him straight out that I wanted to
have sex, I’ve tried wearing slinky nightgowns, lighting candles, all of it.
There’s just no chemistry between us anymore.”

“Did he ever complain about sex?”

“Not really. I mean,” she hesitated, “He did complain
sometimes that I wasn’t present."

"Huh?"

"You know, in the moment.”

“So where were you?”

“I don’t know. In my head I guess.”

“With Dylan?” he asked seriously.

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed in annoyance.

The truth was she sometimes was with Dylan, and sometimes
she was with some dark brutal stranger who objectified her and simply wanted to
fuck her stupid, and a million other obscene things that ran through her head
but she could never say out loud. It was more humiliating than admitting she’d
sometimes thought about the grocery shopping, or whether she’d locked the
office before she left.

“Let it go, Jake,” she said coolly, “I’m not the least bit
concerned about my lack of a sex life right now.”

That was an exaggeration. She was concerned. She’d obsessed
over it since before Lauren was born, her libido growing as she’d hit her
thirties. But she’d never been able to get past the guilt she felt over her
sexuality. Virtuosity and modesty were drilled into her over and over growing
up, and when she’d finally risked letting herself enjoy her body, it had ruined
her life. It almost killed her.

So she’d retreated to the demure, respectable girl whose
sexual identity was overshadowed by the shame she’d learned from her mother.
And Savannah was right, it had kept her safe.

“What's going on with you that you're not telling me?"

He wasn't going to let up.

"Jake, I don't know really. I'm just tired. My anxiety
has been terrible, I don't know. I'm worried about Hunter doing well in school,
I don't want to screw up my kids, and you know, it's not exactly easy to live
with somebody right after they failed an attempt at saving some kid who broke his
neck on a football field," her voice rose, tears welling in her eyes.

“Don’t cry, dude,” Jake said concerned, “We’re just
talking.”

"Did you know that kid’s on life support? He might be
brain dead? And listen to this. Do you know whose kid he is?” she yelled, not
caring if Lauren could overhear, “Do you?"

"Simmer down,," Jake demanded as he walked over
and closed her door, "Whose kid is it?"

She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her face,
summoning the courage to say it out loud.

"It's Dylan's kid."

***

She was supposed to call Dr. Valentine while Jake took
Lauren to the park across the street, but she popped open a diet soda and
listened to her mother catch her up on all of her recent shopping.

"And Saks has the most beautiful fall selection,”
Savannah went on excitedly, “You really should come see these Hermès silk
scarves, Rachel, you would love them. I found a coral one that sets off my
emerald broach just perfectly, it is honestly one of the most beautiful
accessories I've ever seen."

The scarf or the broach? The woman had thousands of the
most beautiful accessories she'd ever seen sitting in two thousand square feet
of custom designed closet space, complete with Tiffany's chandelier and an
ebony chaise lounge she never sat on.

"Mother, that sounds wonderful, I could use some new
things. But I've got to get the gala off the ground. Do you have anybody new
you'd like to include on your invite list this year?"

She knew the answer already, Savannah was always making new
friends at some club she'd toured or at a tennis convention across town.

"Of course, dumplin', I'll make sure to get you a
list. Have you decided on a venue?"

"We booked it last year, remember? It's going to be at
the same place, Lowry's Summit."

She'd had to pay the $3000 up front to book it, a hard
check to write.

Her mother talked about linens and chair covers, something
about her abhorrence of white table linens at evening events and how Rachel
needn't torture her with an invite if she weren't going to use black this year.
She shuffled through the mail and threw in an "mmm hmm," or
"sounds beautiful," every now and then. Savannah never really knew if
she was listening, she was too busy concentrating on the sound of her own
voice, making sure the early white trash years weren't audible.

"Just a moment, Mother, I've got to call you right
back," Rachel interrupted, unable to fake interest any longer.

She'd never been able to tell Savannah how she felt
outright, or tell her she made her feel suffocated and annoyed and inferior. It
wasn’t Savannah’s fault Rachel wasn’t interested in the same things, and Rachel
never wanted to hurt her mother’s feelings. But it had taken Rachel years of
therapy to find a place in her life where she didn't loathe Savannah, or
fantasize about her driving off some cliff in a convertible. Then she'd had
Lauren, and she remembered something Ginny told her once when she'd complained
that Savannah was driving her insane.

"You'll understand when you have a daughter,
Hátka," she'd said, "Having daughters teaches us to understand our
mothers."

She'd always loved Savannah anyway, she was her mother
after all, but when Rachel imagined herself wrapping the new coral Hermès scarf
a little too tightly around Savannah's neck, she knew it was time to hang up.

She glanced at the envelope the UPS girl delivered earlier,
still sitting on the small table near the door. She'd forgotten all about it
when Jake decided to play therapist, lecturing her for an hour about talking to
her shrink and talking to her husband and eating more fruit and taking
supplements because she was getting old and her body no longer worked the way
it had when she was young.

She sat down with the envelope and fought the vomit rising
to her throat.

Taylor, Billings &
Easton

In a flash, she understood. It was too good of an offer to
have come out of nowhere. They'd said their partner wanted them to write her a
check, that he'd shown them the article from the Courier. Dylan asked them to.

Why?

Rachel sat silently, staring at the unopened envelope,
stunned.

Creeeaak.

Lauren ran in yelling, "I have to go pee pee!"

Jake walked into her office, "Hey, you feel better
yet?"

She shook her head and handed him the envelope. Without
considering the return label, he ripped it open and pulled out the check. There
it was, fifty thousand dollars on a slip of paper. He slid it towards her on
the desk and unfolded the enclosed note typed out on expensive stationary and
read it out loud.

"From the Law Office of Nancy Taylor, Edward Billings
and Dylan Easton," and then looking to Rachel he mouthed, "Wow."

She shook her head.

"Just wow," he said out loud this time.

"Is he trying to mess with me? What is the deal?"

"I don't know, Honey, but I'd give him a call or shoot
him an email to find out. Or not. I don't know. We can always return the money
and you can tell him to get fucked."

"I need to process."

"Yeah. You process, I'm going to find a protein
bar."

He set the letter on her desk and started to walk out,
turning back to say, "Wait. Rachel, maybe this is his way of apologizing.
Or thanking Kenneth for what he did on the football field."

It had been less than an hour since she'd given him the
rundown on what she'd learned in the nail salon, Dylan being Michael's father,
or stepfather, she still didn’t understand it. She told Jake how she'd seen him
holding the woman back while they waited for the ambulance to arrive, how she’d
seen him in Crane's yesterday, the Gossip Squad saying he'd been to see the
school.

Maybe that was it. The article came out Sunday, she’d
gotten the call from the firm Monday morning, they’d had lunch on Wednesday and
now here it was exactly one week after she’d first seen him at the game and she
already had a check in her hand. Maybe this was about Michael. Maybe this
wasn't about her after all.

The feeling in her chest was indistinguishable. Relief or
fury. It was hard to tell.

***

Kenneth had no idea what she was talking about. He studied
her quietly, probably diagnosing her in his head as she waited for his
response. She asked if he'd been approached by Michael's father, if there had
been any correspondence between them after the accident.

"No, I considered calling, but I thought it was best
if I waited until we knew for sure they weren't going to file a malpractice
suit."