Losing Control (30 page)

She was ready to go as soon as she learned that her remission state was over. She told me so on the stairs after the first appointment with Dr. Chen.

I can’t make it.

And maybe if Ian hadn't come along she would have clung longer for me, but she was ready and saw his entrance into our lives as a sign that I wouldn’t be alone.

I can’t really begrudge her that. Not when it was her suffering that would end. My pain is a selfish thing. I realize that now.

But oh my heart is empty. The sun has been snuffed out and inside me there is only vacant hallways and rooms through which the wind gusts endlessly from one barren corner to another. The frost is building up, the vortex of feeling being wiped away. And in the void, I am cold but the piercing pain is gone. And for now, that is good enough.

I remain numb throughout the parade of nurses and doctors who have come to say they are sorry. For what? Not saving her? It's with little interest that I watch Malcolm and Ian pretend to get along while arranging for my mother's interment. I am able to tell Ian that my father is buried in Flushing Cemetery. He stops bothering me about the details after the third day. I dress myself for the funeral in a black knee-length shift that Ian must have bought for me. It’s sunny out, which makes me weirdly offended—as if the clouds should be crying instead of smiling. But I’m not crying either. I can’t. I’m afraid if I start, I’ll never stop.

“I’m sorry, Victoria.” Malcolm’s mother has arrived. She looks worn out and old—far older than her fifty-some years. The skin under her eyes is dark and wrinkled. Her face is heavily lined and she smells like a tar factory. I feel nothing but pity for her.

“Thank you,” I say. It is the first of a thousand thank yous I dispense that day in return for the thousand I’m sorrys. Through it all, Ian stands by my side. He’s my spine today. Without him I wouldn’t be upright.

I wish I had something inside myself to give to him. At the end of the service and after the burial is over, I find that even with Ian beside me I cannot stand. He catches me before I collapse on the dirt. Cradling me in his arms, he carries me to the Bentley. I’m glad. I think of the Maybach and its little folded leg rests as my mother’s car, and I wouldn’t be able to ride in it today—maybe not ever.

“I can’t help you with Richard anymore.”

“Forget it. It’s unimportant.”

It’s not, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. I want to stop caring about everything right now.

T
HAT
NIGHT
, I
AN
DRAWS
ME
into his arms but makes no effort to have sex with me. I wonder if he’ll leave soon. If I conjured up my future mate, he’d be someone who drove a delivery truck like my dad. Or maybe he’d be a construction worker. Some kind of blue collar guy who didn’t make much money and spent his time watching the Mets and cursing the Jets. Someone like Malcolm, without the drug dealing and the pimping. Ordinary. And if I were asked what kind of woman Ian would end up with, I’d say rich, beautiful, smart. A lawyer or a banker. Or the daughter of some super smart investor. Not a semi-illiterate, learning disabled bike courier.

It’s not a reality I’m ready to face, so I sleep for a very long time where the painless void awaits me.

After we buried Mom, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to eat, dream, work. I especially did not want to make love to Ian. I didn’t want to be happy. The spring days of late April and May mock me with non-stop sunshine.

All around me there are advertisements for Mother’s Day so I’ve stopped leaving the apartment until that Sunday morning. Ian wants to take me out but I refuse. Instead I lock myself in the bedroom and stare at the wall. I’m empty inside. I don’t have anything to give him, not anymore.

When I hear the front door of the apartment open and then close, I get up. I pull on a pair of tennis shoes and shorts and a ratty t-shirt. Downstairs the concierge produces my bike and I get on and ride. I ride down Fifth Avenue, swerving in and out of traffic as if the cars are traffic cones and I’m taking a road test. I give a cop the finger when he honks at me but I’m able to speed away before he can catch me. His police car is stuck in Mother’s Day traffic and my bike is too nimble for him. I ride north along Harlem River Drive and up the Saw Mill River Parkway until the city falls away and there’s nothing but long stretches of pavement and forest. I cross over and head east toward North Street and then down south.

I keep riding until my legs feel like jelly and the sweat is soaking my shirt and shorts. The burn in my body is easing the ache in my chest so I keep going until I’m not even conscious of what my body is doing. Until I can’t see for the veil of mist or water sluicing down my face, obscuring my vision. Until I fall off my bike, crashing into the sidewalk. I collapse then puke up what little I have inside me.

I lose track of how long I lay there. Maybe it is only seconds before I feel the cool touch of his hand. Another moment and he's drawing a cloth across my face, wiping my mouth.

He pulls me into his lap and places the mouth of a bottle at my lips. I sip or he forces me to drink. It is all one and the same now. I allow him to cradle me like a baby because I’m too spent physically and emotionally to move.

We sit there on the edge of the road, a tall chain link fence at our backs and squat brick apartment buildings facing us. The sounds of our breathing—mine harsh and labored, his even but strained—is broken only by the occasional sounds of tires crunching the asphalt. Traffic is light, like the early Sunday morning it is.

“It's Mother's Day,” I say finally.

“I know.”

“How did you find me?”

“I followed you.”

I roll my head to the side and see a shiny sports car idling on the side of the road.

“No Steve today?“

“No, just me.”

Not ready to address the big issues, I continue to make small talk. “I didn't know you could drive. I can't.”

“You could learn.”

“Maybe.” Driving sounds interesting. What would it be like to handle four wheels instead of just two? Then another thought occurs to me and my brief spike of enthusiasm sputters out. “I wouldn't be able to pass a written test.”

“They probably have oral versions,” he says mildly. We sit like that for a few more minutes until I decide that our positions are too ridiculous for words. I’m not a child but when I push away, I find I have little strength.

With a sigh, I ask, “Can you help me sit up?”

He does and I realize where I am. The Flushing Cemetery. Without prompting, Ian helps me to my feet. The entrance is just around the corner. He places an arm around my waste and slowly we walk into the cemetery. Ian and I aren’t the only ones here. There are others leaving flowers for their mothers and somehow even that makes me feel a little less alone. It takes us several minutes to walk toward the back where I find the gravesite. A black granite headstone declares the dates of birth and death for both my parents. A shiver creeps up my spine. Is there room between the two of them for me? I want to lie down and pull the sod up like a blanket and just sleep forever.

But the arm around my waist is hard as iron and it is holding me back. I struggle, just slightly, but the arm doesn't move.

“You aren't alone.”

His gruff words whisk across the surface and then hover there. Will I reject them or allow them in?

“Will you let me comfort you, Tiny?”

“I’m so sad,” I say.

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“I’m just afraid that I can’t give you enough anymore.”

He presses a soft kiss against my temple. “I’ll take anything from you as long as it’s something.”

We stand there for a long time. I search the grave for signs of my mom but I don’t hear her in the wind. I rub my hand across my chest but I don’t feel her there either.

“She’s still there, even if you don’t feel her today,” he tells me. “One day you’ll realize how much of her you still carry with you.”

He’s speaking with a voice of experience and I want to trust him, to believe in everything he says because what’s the alternative? To feel empty forever?

I lay my head against his chest. “When will I be done grieving?”

“No matter how long it takes, I’ll be with you.”

T
WO
WEEKS
AFTER
M
OTHER
’
S
D
AY
,
Ian announces we are going out of the city.

“We’re going on a field trip today,” he says.

“Fine,” I answer. There’s plenty of people in the city who never learn to drive. It seems like an exotic task, and Ian is a master at it. I get a silly pleasure watching him control this big machine. “You look good behind the wheel.”

He smiles and shifts into another gear when the engine begins to rev. His large hand rests on the manual shifting mechanism, the light glinting off the hairs on the back of his hand. A feeling stirs between my legs and I shift, squeezing my thighs together. The motion causes Ian to give me a sharp look, one so full of hunger and desire I gasp.

The hollow space inside me begins to melt under that fierce glare. His hand drifts off the gear shift to my thigh. Giving me a slight squeeze, he says, “Driving will be one more thing I can teach you.”

The warmth of his palm seeps through my jeans and spreads down my leg and up my thigh. My fingers begin to tingle at the thought of caressing his forearm and solid biceps. Unconsciously I begin to rub that forearm, and his fingers move up higher on my thigh until they are nearly resting against the center seam between my legs.

I had forgotten how warm he was, how big his hands were, how much I
want
him. “You’ve been very patient with me,” I say softly.

“I’d wait forever for you, Tiny,” he responds. “If you don’t believe it now, you will when you’re still with me fifty years from now.”

I suck in my breath at the meaning behind that declaration. Nothing more is said between us until we arrive in Connecticut. He drives toward the Long Island Sound and stops at a long driveway that is blocked by a short gate—more for looks than security. A flick of a button and the gates begin to slowly open.

At the end of an alley of trees, a two-story white chateau-like structure with a blue roof appears.

“Fifteen thousand square feet of house. Eleven acres of land. Looks over the Sound. Has its own private beach. No boat landing though. Water’s too shallow.” Ian begins to itemize the features of the property.

“Do I want to know how many properties you own in the city?”

“This isn’t in the city.”

With that, he climbs out of the car and comes around to open the door for me. I step out and into his arms.

“You’re not the only one who is alone in this world. You’re not the only one with dreams that include falling into bed at night with someone by their side. I want a family too, but I want it with you. I can’t give you your mother back, but I can love you as fiercely. Tiny, I love you. Be my wife. Let’s start our own family.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

“This place,” he waves his hand. “I bought this because I wanted to settle down, to start a family. I saw it and knew I had to have it. When I saw you on the street that day, I was done for. Kicked in the gut. Whatever metaphor you want to use. I saw you and that was it. I had to have you.”

“This house is huge. It’s way too big for a bachelor,” I say with wonder. I’m trying to process everything, but I feel winded . . . and almost joyful.

“Do you know why I lent the money to the wig shop owner?”

“No.”

He snorts. “Her sister is a realtor. Has been my realtor for years. She came to me and asked me to do a favor. I complied, it worked out. But on the day that we saw each other, I was meeting Margaret to put an offer in on this property. When I saw you, I knew right away that you belonged here and that you had to belong to me. I’ve wanted to bring you here for weeks but figured it would be too soon and you would be frightened off. Like a scared bunny. But you aren’t anymore. Are you scared?”

“I am, a little.” I press my hand against my heart. “How did you survive this at age fifteen? All alone?”

“Because I must have known that someday I’d meet you, fall in love with you, and you would need me.”

He pulls me against him and kisses me then. Or I kiss him. We stand there, our bodies fused together and our mouths expressing all the words that are too scary and intimate to say out loud.

Breaking away, he says, “Your sorrow has weighted you down.”

“But you’re easing it. “

“This is our home. We’ll fill it with happiness.”

“What about Richard Howe?”

“Let it go,” he answers.

“Easy as that? You’ve planned for this for almost two decades.”

“Because I had nothing else, Tiny.” He draws some of my hair back away from my face, dragging his fingers down to my jaw and tipping my face upward—willing me to understand.

Alone, parentless, friendless. The things that powered Ian to go from poor person to billionaire were revenge and hate, but somewhere along the line he was able to let them go.

“It was you, Tiny. Seeing you with Richard made me realize that there were things I could hate more than Howe. Like seeing another man’s hands on you. Seeing you flirt, talk, engage with another man. I can’t have a future if I’m always looking behind. Let’s look forward together.”

“Take me home, then.”

We spend a couple of hours poking around the house. The interior furnishings are a weird mix of old world and ultra modern. “It can all go,” Ian says when I make a face at the black leather sofa situated in the middle of a sky blue reading room.

Outside, the grounds are beautifully manicured, complete with a pool and tennis court. The lawn is so big that it takes us twenty minutes to get to the beach. The waves lap lightly against the coarse sand.

“Mom would have loved it here,” I sigh.

He places an arm around me. “I know.”

On the drive home, I don’t have much to say. I’m drinking it all in. The house. Ian’s declaration of love. His ringless proposal.