Everything looked as if he would be walking in the door any second, saying, “Amanda, let’s go track some wild animals.”
But that wasn’t going to happen, and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about anything right now. She leaned against the sink area that separated the walk-in closet from the master bath and shower. Looking in the mirror, she saw her face reflect the confusion, which she felt. What had happened to her?
The powerful scent of her father surrounded her and raised the hair on the back of her neck. She turned quickly, expecting him to be there. Emotions were rushing through her, tumbling over one another like a theater crowd escaping a blaze. She gasped, then caught her breath, placing her hand over her heart.
It took her a second to realize that the bathroom smelled of the shaving cream that he always used. That was his smell.
She realized that Jake had not followed her into the room. Wanting to scream, Amanda suppressed the urge and ran her hands through her hair, momentarily pausing as if to pull it all out. What was going on? Like some chemical reaction, the memories of her father and her came rushing back as if someone had just hit the rewind button on the DVD player, sometimes pausing, sometimes skipping along at speeds that made the images unrecognizable.
Suddenly she was sitting atop her father’s shoulders at the Faith Hill concert waving her arms in time with the music.
Skipping, blurred images…
Next she was hiking with him in the woods of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, believing they were following bear tracks along a sandy creek.
Skipping and blurring…
Now she was at the farm in Virginia, chasing the cattle that roamed freely throughout the hundred and twenty acres of Blue Ridge foothills.
Then summer camps in North Carolina.
Then trips to the Outer Banks.
The stories he would tell her at night.
Then—
“Hey, babe?” Jake called from an adjacent room. Amanda was vaguely aware of Jake’s voice, having been lost in the maze of memories springing forth like a newly tapped geyser. “Think you should probably see this.”
Her face was slick with perspiration. She pushed herself away from the sink to move out of the captivating aroma of her father. Like some invisible potion, the lingering scent of her father had spellbound her, if only for a moment. She took one step and then another, unsteadily making her way to the guest bedroom.
“Look at this,” Jake said without looking up at her.
Amanda saw that he was focused on stacks of paper neatly organized on the double bed in the center of the room and a small desk beneath the sole window, which provided a panoramic view of the backyard.
“What is it?” Her voice was weak, shaky.
“I don’t know — hey, you okay?”
Amanda began to falter, placed her hand on the bed for support, and then leaned into Jake, wrapping her arms around him. She felt Jake’s arms pull her toward him, almost lifting her up.
“It’s okay, Amanda. It’s okay.”
She buried her face into his chest and then muttered, “I’m fine. I’m okay.”
“Just say the word—”
“No, I have to do this. Something’s happening and I’m just… just confused, that’s all.”
“Okay, I’m with you.”
She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. She studied him for a moment, reappraising his handsome features. The square jaw, deep-set brown eyes and dark hair were all so perfect. He was perfect. She felt something stir inside of her chest, a fluttering of her heart perhaps. What was happening?
“Have you ever felt like you don’t know who you are?”
She watched Jake consider her question. Of course not, she figured, he was Jake Devereaux, star athlete. Everyone wanted to be him, so it was only obvious that he knew exactly who he was and where he came from.
“Sometimes, you know, I wonder how I’m so lucky to be blessed with the things I have. Athletic ability, decent grades in school, good family.” He paused. “You.”
“Jake, I’m really struggling with something here.” She crossed her arms, not really considering his comment. “I feel like half of me has been hiding. I feel like, I don’t know, I’ve been ashamed of who I am, so I just cover it all up with this shallow bitch act.”
Jake dropped his eyes and looked at the floor. “I wouldn’t love you if I felt like I should be ashamed of you.” Jake’s words were reassuring to her. She felt his hands gently cup her face.
“You’re way too good for me,” she muttered against his hand, kissing his palm with a scrunched-up lip. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Hey, what kind of talk is that? We deserve each other.” His whispered words sounded sophomoric, he knew, but they somehow seemed appropriate.
“No, Jake, I’m a shallow, manipulating bitch. You’re a good person. I mean, look at you,” she said stepping back. “You’re here with me, skipping school, so you can help me deal with my dead father’s belongings, or whatever it is we’re doing.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
Amanda stared at him for a long time.
“Maybe I would have been there, but not like this. You’re the only thing I can rely on right now, you know. That and my mom and Nina.”
Jake stuttered for a second. It was obvious he was uncomfortable, as if he wanted to say something. Finally he did.
“I think you may be missing the point here. Take a look at some of this.” He waved his hand across the stacks of paper on the bed. There were about fifteen different stacks, some higher than others. On the tops of several were small yellow pieces of note paper. The titles read: Medical Insurance Fraud, Denied Visitation, Child Support Payments, Court Cases, Attorney’s Fees, Life Insurance Payout, Visitation Expenses, Grandmother Interference, Parental Alienation, One Day.”
Amanda was speechless.
“I think this is what he wants you to see,” Jake said. “It’s proof of something. Evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Well, Amanda, all I’ve ever heard you say is that your father was a louse, you did that ‘No Dad’ poem for the school magazine and you keep saying your mother and grandmother completely raised you. I flipped through some of the Visitation Expenses files; your father spent over $52,000 just coming to see you over the past decade.”
“No way.”
“The evidence is there. Plane tickets, rental cars, hotel rooms, you name it.”
“I can’t believe this,” she said, looking at the papers and then back at Jake. She could feel herself going numb.
“Look at the ‘medical insurance fraud’ stack, the one that’s twice as high as any of the others.”
“What about it?”
“You know how you’re always going to the doctor for some reason or another?”
“I have lots of medical issues.”
“No, Amanda, you don’t.”
“Yes I do. What about my bursitis? My acne? My back pain? My—”
“Amanda—”
“Shut up! Stop it! Just shut up!” She looked away, grabbing her bottom lip with her thumb and forefinger, squeezing off and on. Amanda looked through the large window into the backyard. Perfectly green stems of grass poked upward throughout the backyard. The grass in the back, she remembered, was different than the centipede grass out front. She and her father had dug holes and placed sprigs of Saint Augustine grass, another crawler that thrived in warm climates and sandy soils.
“It’s called psychosomatic. You’re led to believe it’s true and, therefore, it becomes true. Your mind tricks your body into thinking you have a bad knee or back or whatever, and you can actually feel the pain. But it’s not real.”
“What brought this up, anyway? Big deal. What can you prove?” Amanda felt herself slipping back into shallow bitch mode. She was defending her mother and grandmother, as she had been trained. “How do we know that all of this isn’t just a bunch of my dad’s creation?”