Damage Done (22 page)

"Dylan!"

"What? You don't like
that one?" he laughed.

She had liked it, she'd
just been too naive to understand it was normal to like it. She'd been too shy,
and Savannah always insisted that if she'd allowed him, Dylan would have ruined
her.

She'd been raised in small town Texas, where sex education
consisted of lectures on abstinence and bawdy stories told in locker rooms. Her
dad was ancient, her mother a prude, and Rachel had always been ashamed of her
body. It had taken Dylan four years to help make her feel comfortable in her
own skin. But he'd never made her feel bad for being so inexperienced, or
bashful. While other kids at school pressured their girlfriends to have sex,
Dylan had waited patiently until Rachel knew she was ready.

He'd been everything her mother told her never existed in
a man. It had taken him years, but he'd proved it to her over and over again.

He drove her home
reluctantly that night and it was well after dark when his tires hit the
gravel. Savannah had come straight out to the porch, a tight smile on her lips,
her eyes cold and angry, but she'd waved pleasantly enough as Rachel stepped
out of the truck.

"Call me later, I love
you," she'd said softly where Savannah wouldn't hear, her face hot,
blushing heavily.

"I love you,
Rachel," Dylan yelled deliberately for Savannah's sake.

Then he'd put his truck into gear and slowly pulled out of
the driveway, and her mother called, "Bye, Dylan," her voice dripping
with honey as she waved.

He smiled and waved back, oblivious to her sarcasm. Rachel
never told him the things Savannah said once he'd been out of earshot.

"Rachel, really,"
she'd begun annoyed, "You cannot just disappear with that boy, what will
people think if you're driving around town in that pickup truck with a dirty
oil-rigger's son? And staying out this late?"

"Mother!" she'd
hissed, whipping around to face her, "You can live your life thinking
you're better than everyone else, but I don't care if his dad is just an
oil-rigger. God! I'm eighteen years old, Daddy doesn't care that I'm going out
with Dylan."

"Well, your daddy only
cares about himself, that's why."

"You're just miserable
because Daddy is cheating on you! Stay out of it, it's none of your business!"

"Dumplin', I only want
what's best for you," Savannah said, "Of course it's your life, just
know that everything you do reflects on your father and me. Your father works
very hard to give you everything he never had. And I've lived long enough, I
don't think that boy will turn out to be the man you want him to be. They never
do, dumplin'. I just don't want to see you settle when you deserve so much
more."

Rachel only wanted to get
to her room where she could think about Dylan and his hands against her skin,
to feel the happiness she'd felt only moments before, "I understand you
want what's best for me, Mother. Dylan is a good person, he does well in school
and he doesn't do drugs or whatever else you're worried about. I just wish you would
see him the way I see him. I'm going to read in my room."

"Of course,
Rachel," she'd said, "We can talk about it another time when you're
not so upset. Would you like to run over to Bartlett's tomorrow and see their
new handbags?"

Savannah had always found ways to deflect and make Rachel
feel as if she'd overreacted, and instead of going to her room and reliving her
afternoon with the boy she'd loved, she'd gone to her room and felt guilty for
being so nasty to her mother.

***

Kenneth's jeep was already
in the driveway when they pulled in, he was normally the last home. Hunter and
Lauren raced inside yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" and Rachel took her time
gathering their bags and lunch boxes, a large sheet of drawing paper covered
with paint from Lauren's little hands, Hunter's homemade puppet crafted from a
paper grocery bag and dry beans. She wasn't in a hurry to go inside and face
him.

"Rachel, what the
hell, where have you been?" Kenneth yelled as soon as she shuffled through
the kitchen door with all of the kid's stuff, "Why haven't you answered
your goddamn cell phone all day?"

She forgot she'd turned it
off at Dylan's. This wasn't exactly how she'd hoped this conversation would go.
She needed more time to prepare, more time to plan, to find the least hurtful
way to tell him she'd never really loved him and she was leaving him for
another man. In the flash of annoyance over his yelling, she forgot she'd
promised herself not to be drawn into any petty arguments between now and then,
that she'd walk away from conflict where he was concerned until she ready to
drop the bomb. She used her elbow to slide some toys out of the way and place
the kid's backpacks on the crowded counter. She didn't realize until after she
started that she was yelling back at him.

"Kenneth, why are you
cursing at me? Didn't I just listen to you tell me a few days ago that if you
don't answer your phone it's because you're busy?"

"Don't give me that
shit, Rachel, you know it's different because you can call me at the station.
You weren't at your office, your cell was turned off and I was worried, Jake
didn't know where you were, I had no way of getting in touch with you."

"Oh, don't be so
dramatic, Kenneth, you haven't called me in six months. And if you called me
six months ago it was probably to tell me I needed to meet the plumber because
you were too busy, so I'm sorry my phone was turned off, what did you
need?"

She needed to make dinner and the kids were probably
listening from the other room, and she already regretted allowing herself to
get pulled into an argument.

"Your mother has been
blowing up my phone all day, she called the chief demanding that he get me on
the phone," he went on, his words still raging despite his softened tone,
a half-assed attempt at civility, "She said you had a meeting for the gala
and you never showed. I came home to look for you, and called the daycare. They
said you just left with Lauren."

Crap. The meeting with
Neil Neil the Achille's Heel.

"Well, here I am, safe
and sound. No need to turn this into a bigger deal than it has to be."

She'd heard that before, something her father always said
to her mother when they'd argued.

"I don't need Savannah
calling my boss and trying to throw her weight around, Rachel. I told her you
picked up the kids and were on your way home, you need to call her. And don't
dismiss the fact that I was worried."

"Kenneth, I'm sorry my
mother harassed your boss, I knew you couldn't have been so angry just because
you weren't able to get ahold of me," she sneered.

"What the hell does
that mean?"

"It means you couldn't
care less about what's going on with me, you act like you're the only person
who has important stuff going on in their life, you don't care, that's what it
means."

"Of course I care,
Rachel, you're my wife!" he yelled, walking from the kitchen towards the
den where the kids played video games, his lingering animosity still shouting
at her as his boots stomped heavily on the floor.

***

She made her way to the
large porch with her glass of wine, grateful the house was finally quiet and
she could be alone. Looking out over the driveway that ran through the front
yard, she remembered watching as the laborers first poured the mixture of
crushed white seashells on the yard. Savannah stood inside yelling at her dad,
angry that he'd ordered cheap crushed seashells instead of the fancier crushed
stone.

"Do you ever consider
what I want before you do things like this? Don't I have any say in decisions about
my own house?" she'd screamed.

"Of course, Savannah,
don't be so angry. Rachel will hear you. We can order the crushed stone next
time, I thought you'd like the white seashells, you complimented the Morgan's
on theirs when we went over for dinner," he'd said.

Frank never did stop trying to rationalize with his wife,
even after she'd divorced him years later and taken everything.

"I made a mistake," he said, "It can be
fixed. Let's not turn this into a bigger deal than it has to be."

"You're a selfish,
stupid man!" her mother had screamed, "Of course I complimented them
on it, I was trying to make them feel better about not being able to afford the
better materials! We can afford it and you
’re
always finding reasons to be cheap, don't try to manipulate me into thinking
you did it to be nice!"

That wasn't true. Frank
never wanted much for himself, but he'd never denied Savannah anything she'd
asked for, though he
’d sometimes tried to
reason with her over some of the more frivolous big money items.

"But honey," he'd said one Christmas, "What
does a beautiful woman in South Texas need with another twenty thousand dollar
fur coat?"

"You never want me to
have nice things, Frank! Maybe I should just find a husband who loves me and
wants me to look beautiful!"

After blow ups like that,
Savannah would make her way into Rachel's room where she lay on her bed, trying
not to overhear. She'd sit closely and wrap her arms around her daughter, something
she'd never been able to pull herself to do during times when Rachel had
genuinely needed it.

"Oh Rachel,"
Savannah would croon, "I'm so sorry your father doesn't want us to spend
money on nice clothes or things you need to feel pretty. He's just selfish
sometimes, dumplin'. Maybe tomorrow we'll sneak off and buy you some new boots,
something nice to wear in the tournament this weekend? Hmmm? I've got some
money tucked away that I've been saving for just that occasion, so you can be
dressed as prettily as all your little friends."

Looking back, Rachel
understood now that Savannah cared more about what people would think of her if
her daughter hadn't shown up to an event and commanded the attention and
admiration of the crowd with her expensive black silk riding gear and little
gold accessories.

As she recalled all the moments when Savannah came to her
for that sick kind of camaraderie, the revulsion that began with Dylan's
revelation that morning continued to grow in Rachel's gut. She was repulsed.
How would she ever find the words or the nerve to confront her? Had her mother
ever been genuine, ever loved anyone other than herself? What else had she lied
about?

Jake was waiting inside the office and jumped down her throat
the second she walked through the door.

"Holy shit, Rachel!
Where were you yesterday? Do you know Kenneth called me looking for you? You
were supposed to meet your mom and the dopehead, Savannah called me, I had to
race off and meet them because she didn't know what we wanted. What in the hell
were you doing?"

He paused for air and
Rachel's hand rose to halt the onslaught as she barreled past him towards her
office.

"Jake. Seriously. This
is not the time."

"Rachel Kay, don't
'this is not the time' me, honey!" he shot back, "I had to spend over
an hour with that junkie bastard
and
your mother. You're the one who
disappeared twenty four hours after your ex-boyfriend turned our office into
the royal gardens at Versailles. If you need some kind of break from reality, clue
your partner in on it so we don't blow the only event of the year that brings
in any real revenue for this organization!"

She threw her stuff on the
desk, sat in her chair, sighed and looked up at the only friend she'd ever had
who she could talk to without feeling nervous, without fretting over what he
would think or say.

Dylan had been that friend once. Maybe he'd be that friend
again, she didn’t know. Too much had happened between then and now, she was
married, she had to protect Hunter and Lauren. And he was dealing with losing
Michael. It would take some time for them to get back to that place, and until
they did, if they did, Jake was still her only real sounding board.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I just forgot about it.”

"Right. Okay, well, now
that we’ve covered that, tell me where the hell you were yesterday. Let's get
back to that, asshole. And don't tell me you don't want to talk about it."

Rachel glared at him and
reached defiantly into her chocolate drawer, pulling out a handful of Hershey's
kisses.

"I went and met Dylan
for coffee. My mother told him I had an abortion and never wanted to see him
again. He thought I left him to be with Brent and he ran off and joined the
Army. Then he hooked up with Michael's mom and adopted Michael," she said,
popping a chocolate in her mouth nonchalantly, "Well, I take that back. I
don't know if he adopted him or not, we never got around to that. But from what
I gathered, he's been the only father Michael has ever known."

Jake's face was blank, he
sat upright, hands on his knees. He was so rarely speechless, Rachel thought
she'd finish quickly before he stroked out,
“So
then we had sex. And it was amazing. And he wants me to leave Kenneth and for
us to spend our lives together."

Silence.

She shoved the chocolate
wrappers in the tacky orange vase, taking her time to suck down the last of it.