The Touch of a Woman (22 page)

Jeremy was less emphatic. “So do I, but whether we like her or not isn’t the issue. It’s how you feel, Mom.”

“But it matters to me what you think. Not just of Summer but all of it. You know her a little better now. It’s not like we’re going to run off and get married or anything, but she could be around whenever you guys come over. How will you feel about her being a part of our lives?”

At the peak of their card game, with everyone having fun, she’d gotten the sudden feeling everything would fall into place. The move to Sacramento had been a family decision. Now that she was on her own, her children wanted her to live in a safe place, be financially secure, have someone to lean on. Implicit to those things was putting the trauma of the shooting behind her so she could begin a new life. They should welcome the fact that she’d fallen in love with someone decent who treated her well.

“I’m okay with it,” Jeremy finally said, this time with a little more enthusiasm.
“But you ought to ask yourself honestly if you are, because it doesn’t really look like it from where I’m sitting.”

She slumped against him, frustrated that he refused to believe she knew her own feelings.

“Seriously, Mom. I went through this, so I know how it is. If you were totally okay with it, you wouldn’t be whispering. You’d own it. You definitely wouldn’t be asking Bruno and me not to say anything in front of Allison, like it’s a big secret you’re ashamed of.”

“What’s a big secret?” Allison tossed her backpack toward the door and walked around the couch to face everyone.

A chill gripped Ellis as Jeremy jumped to his feet and nudged Bruno toward the door. “We’re going to go, Mom. Thanks for lunch. So long, Allie.”

Allison barely acknowledged him, her steely gaze fixed on Ellis. “What’s he talking about? What secret are you not telling me?”

Ellis threw her head back and sighed. “Get your things. I’ll tell you in the car.”

Maybe it was best her hand had been forced, since she hadn’t been able to get up the nerve to start the conversation on her own. And Jeremy was right. She couldn’t treat her relationship with Summer as if she were ashamed of it.

“I’m all ears, Mom,” Allison said as she buckled her seatbelt.

“Can you please just let me get out of the parking lot?” She stopped near the exit, shrugged out of her raincoat and tossed it in the back seat. The exercise gave her an extra minute to think. In fact, she dragged her feet for several more minutes until they were clear of stoplights and proceeding smoothly down Interstate 80. Davis was only a fifteen-minute drive away.

“Quit stalling, Mom. I want to know what’s going on.”

“I was planning on telling you. Not this weekend necessarily, but soon. I just wanted to be sure…and I’m not totally sure, but mostly.” The last words she blurted impulsively to give herself cover in case all hell broke loose. “Let me put it this way. I’m sure about now but not about the future.”

Allison groaned. “Just tell me.”

“I’m trying!” Trying to find the words was more like it. “It’s about Summer. She and I…we’ve started seeing each other.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw her daughter’s jaw drop.

“No fucking way.”

“Allison!”

“Oh, come on! I just found out my mother’s dating a lesbian. What did you expect me to say?”

“I expect you to be civil and treat me with respect.” She’d assumed Allison would have questions, but never had she expected this level of dismay. “Why does this upset you? You never had a problem with Jeremy being gay.”

“Jeremy’s not my mother.” She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and turned toward the window. “Christ, can’t I have just one normal parent?”

To be compared so flippantly to Bruce was like a vicious slap. At that moment, Ellis wanted nothing more than to step on the gas and get to Davis as quickly as possible so she could push her daughter out on the curb. Allison knew better than to think she could get away with talking like that. The fact that she’d intended her words to hurt made them that much harder to stomach.

“I’m going to forgive you for saying that because I love you. And I know you’re going to feel awful when you think it over and realize how ugly you just sounded.”

“Whatever.”

“Is that all I get? Whatever?”

The speedometer showed her doing nearly ninety. She had no recollection of shifting to the far left lane, and she slowed immediately and fell in with the flow of traffic. At the same time, her temper calmed and she formulated a different approach.

“Sweetheart, help me understand what the problem is. It’s obvious you like Summer. Jeremy and Bruno like her too. She’s a very nice person.”

“That was before I found out she hits on women who aren’t gay. That shit’s creepy as hell.” An unusually vicious tone.

“Why? Because she’s a woman?” It offended her to realize she was being judged. “Would you think it was creepy if a man were hitting on me instead? What if I didn’t like it? Because I’ll have you know I get that too sometimes, and I’ve got to tell you—those are the people who creep me out, not Summer. She’s never been anything but respectful. And you should give me enough credit to know when I appreciate someone’s attention and when I don’t.”

“But you’re not gay, Mom. I have lots of lesbian friends who know better than to hit on me.”

Ellis moved over again, this time into the slowest lane. Between watching the road and trying to see her daughter’s face, she had no business going so fast.

“Honey, what makes you so sure it was her hitting on me and not the other way around? I happen to find her attractive. I don’t know why that is, but it is. I’ve never felt that way about another woman before. It’s because it’s her.”

“That’s fucking absurd. Just get me back to my dorm. I don’t care how fast you drive. I don’t even care if we get in a wreck.”

She’d seen this kind of anger and pessimism directed at Bruce after the shooting, but had never been on the receiving end. “Please get a grip on yourself. Whatever you think of me right now, it’s not worth all this hostility.”

Allison answered with brooding silence until they pulled onto the street next to her dorm. As the car slowed, she snatched her backpack from the back seat and readied for her escape. “Just do whatever you want, Mom. You’re going to anyway. It’s obvious you went to Jeremy and got his seal of approval, but you didn’t bother to ask me what I thought. You just dumped it on me like you’d made up your mind already. It’s always Jeremy. I bet he’s loving this. Are you doing it so you can be gay just like him? Wait till Jon hears about this. He’s going to go ballistic.”

In a surge of anger, Ellis hit the brakes harder than she had to, slinging both of them forward. It was one thing for her daughter to grouse about her own persecution complex, but quite another to threaten to tell her brother the news. “It’s not your place to say anything to Jonathan. I will talk to him when I’m ready. I don’t want you disrupting his studies.”

“Like you just disrupted mine? Seriously, Mom. Wasn’t it enough that Dad fucked up my senior year and got me knocked out of Stanford? Now I’m finally getting my shit together, and you dump this on me. Just forget about the car, okay? I’ll probably end up flunking out anyway. I’ll just get a waitress job and a bus pass. Or was that your plan all along? You couldn’t make anything of yourself so you don’t want me to either.” She bolted from the car and slammed the door behind her.

Ellis sat stunned as she watched Allison stomp toward the dorm. She’d never seen her daughter so unhinged—not even when her father had murdered seven people.

* * *

Summer divided the contents of her crockpot into five small containers. Chicken and wild rice soup, one of her favorites. And now it would be lunch for the next week, because Ellis had declined her invitation to share it.

That something was amiss was obvious from her sullen voice and her cool response to an invitation to come over for the evening. It was a far cry from her cheery mood earlier when she’d whispered goodbye at the door and added a hint about getting together later—minus the distractions.

Summer wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever had happened in the meantime likely had something to do with her. Especially since Ellis was willing to see her, but only in her own apartment. It didn’t take a genius to know she intended to avoid a repeat of Friday night.

When Ellis met her at the door, Summer knew instantly her suspicions were correct. A scowl had replaced the smile that was there earlier, and her reluctant shuffle in her house slippers gave the impression she was marching to the gallows.

“I don’t know what happened, but it can’t possibly be as bad as you think it is.”

“My daughter hates me and wants to drop out of school and possibly kill herself in a car wreck.” She looked over her shoulder at the clock above the kitchen bar.
“And by now, Jonathan probably does too.”

She’d scrubbed her face of makeup and changed into knit pants and an oversized, worn T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a tie, though some of it didn’t quite reach and fell loosely around her cheeks. If Summer had to guess, it was a deliberate effort not to look attractive. A wasted effort.

“You told her about us?”

“Not intentionally. She overheard me talking with Jeremy and Bruno.” Ellis plopped on the couch and let out a dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I thought she
might
be a little skeptical, but I never expected her to fly into a rage. You wouldn’t believe the hateful words that came out of her mouth.”

Noting Ellis’s body language—folded arms with her legs crossed in an almost-lotus pose—Summer didn’t think it a good idea to sit close. She positioned herself at the far end of the couch and listened as Ellis recounted the ride back to Davis. It was difficult to reconcile the friendly young woman from this afternoon with the one she now described.

“I have no idea what’s driving this. I’ve never known her to be so judgmental…and she hasn’t gone off on me like that since she was fourteen. That got her grounded for a month, but I can’t exactly do that now, can I? This makes no sense at all.”

Summer didn’t dare offer her true opinion, as it likely would be difficult for Ellis to hear. Allison needed professional help to deal with what her father had done. The trauma of coping for so long had left her fragile, unable to handle any more disruption in her life. “She probably just needs some time. I remember when I started coming out to people. Mama and Daddy were like, no big deal. In fact, they both said they already knew. But my best friend from high school freaked out, and so did her parents. That was it for us. It’s a shock for some people. Most of them come around though. I bet Jeremy went through that with his friends too.”

Ellis was staring blankly across the room, but she turned and nodded at the mention of her son. “She also accused me of having a favorite child—Jeremy. Trust me, no mother wants to hear something like that. My whole life has been a balancing act for those kids. You could add up their Christmas presents every year—all three of them would be within a dollar of each other.”

Summer was reasonably sure Allison had insulted her during her tirade, but she could handle it. She was more worried about Ellis having to listen to that sort of vile contempt from her own daughter. “Don’t take it to heart. People say things they don’t mean when they’re upset.”

“But why does this bother her so much? That’s what I can’t understand.”

“Because it’s different. And maybe because her whole life’s been turned upside down, and now she’s just trying to find some stability. This threatens that.” She took a chance and scooted close enough to pull Ellis’s hand into her lap. “Who knows? She might have reacted the same way if you’d told her you were seeing a man.”

“I asked her that.” Ellis sighed loudly and shook her head. “It was definitely about you being a woman. She said it was creepy. Her word, not mine. She even asked me if I was doing this so I could be like Jeremy. That’s just crazy.”

Summer was in no position to offer advice. She didn’t know a thing about kids, nor the Rowanbury family dynamic. All she could do was offer support. “If you want my two cents, you did the right thing being honest with her. A lot of people have been conditioned to feel ashamed, so they expect to be bashed when they finally tell the people close to them. Allison will respect you for insisting on your own dignity. Maybe not now, but someday.”

Ellis frowned and nibbled at her lower lip. “I kicked myself all the way home for not being more careful when I was talking to Jeremy and Bruno. She might have been okay if we’d kept it to ourselves for a while. But right now…this is a horrible time for her to have to deal with this. I can’t blame her for feeling like everything’s gone off the rails.”

It was understandable she was being protective of Allison, but Summer was picking up more—the beginnings of regret.

“Look, sweetheart. Everybody pushes back against news they don’t want to hear. It’s only natural. She’s been through so many changes…her father, losing her high school friends, college. It wouldn’t matter who you were seeing. As far as she’s concerned, it’s just one more change. You know she’ll adapt.”

“Maybe, but what worries me is what she’ll do in the meantime. She’s so smart—probably the smartest of my three—but she came close to not even graduating from high school because of what Bruce did. She shuts down. No, it’s worse than that. She screws up on purpose, like she’s punishing herself and everyone else. I was so glad when she got to college and finally shook it off. I don’t want her to fall apart again.”

From her self-destructive behavior, the girl was deeply troubled. But Summer’s heart broke most for Ellis, who clearly was crushed by the rift. Her despair over Allison was but a narrow window into what she must have suffered from her husband’s savage act.

“I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. What can I do?”

It scared her to realize Ellis couldn’t look at her as she answered. “I’m her mother. I’m supposed to protect her. In her mind, this is as bad as what her father did.” She held up her hands to ward off the protest already on Summer’s lips. “Not that us seeing each other is wrong. But it’s having the same effect on her.”