Linda sits quietly for awhile, waiting for me to calm. “People have shit, Chrissie,” she says intensely. “It has nothing to do with you. We’ve just all got our own shit that we’ve got to deal with.”
“I hate my shit, Linda. I wish it would all go away.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she says in sudden alarm. “Chrissie, you’re scaring me. I don’t like the way you sound.”
I take off my Tiffany bracelet and I show her. For the love of Jesus, I don’t know why I’m doing it, why I want to share this with Linda.
She stares at my scar, shaking her head in a way that tells me I don’t need to explain. “Why the fuck would you do that, Chrissie?”
The tears come. I can’t stop them and they are dragging with them words. I just want to say it, say it to someone, and there no logical reason why Linda is the right choice for this, but I need to say it.
“It’s my fault my brother is dead.”
I start to hyperventilate and shake the moment I get it out. I’ve been hiding from the truth for so long, but when I picked up the needles in Alan’s bathroom, more fragments appeared and I could remember every part of that night, my part in Sammy’s death, from beginning to end in unmerciful clarity. I didn’t just find my brother dead. I was with him when he died. I was there in the room, I didn’t get Sammy help, and I watched my brother die…
I finally get the courage to look at Linda. She is just sitting there, staring at me, confused and steamed.
She leans back into her seat, making a taut line with her arms from body to steering wheel. Her fingers are curled tightly around it, so tightly they don’t have color.
She starts shaking her head. “Jesus Christ, Chrissie. How could you think that? What were you when your brother died? Nine? Ten? How could you possibly believe it was your fault? Whatever you think you did, you are thinking wrong and you have to cut out that burning shit.”
I can’t begin to reason why I start to tell her every part of that night, the parts that have haunted me, the parts newly remembered, and the most terrible part, my part in this, that I watched him die and never went for help.
Silence. When I can’t talk any more there is just silence.
Linda exhales heavily. “Fuck, you were just a little girl.” She puts the car in gear and starts to drive. “And you’re remembering your brother wrong. I knew your brother, Chrissie. He was brilliant, he was a fuck-up, and a hardcore addict. And he was going to die one way or another eventually because he was on the ledge every fucking minute of his life, and not you or anyone was ever going to stop it.” She downshifts the car, shaking her head. “Fuck! You have nothing to do with him dying. He lived on the ledge. He died. End of story, Chrissie.”
Shakily wiping my nose with a tissue, I turn to look out the window. “Then why does my father hate me? Ten years. Not one word from Jack about that night. He can barely talk to me. He blames me.”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Why does my father hate me?” She backs off. “And I’m sure your dad doesn’t hate you. I’m sure that’s just another thing you’ve gotten wrong.”
She practically slams to a stop in front of the farmhouse, grabs my tissue and starts to dab at my face. “Pull yourself together. We are just going to walk in, Chrissie, and then you just go upstairs to the bedroom and be away from everyone for a while.”
I nod, watching Linda climb from the driver’s seat. She slams the door and starts walking around the car to me. I feel small, shaky and disoriented, as I listen to her shoes against the gravel drive. She opens my door and gives me one of her Linda will take care of everything expressions.
We are almost to the stairs when Bianca storms from the kitchen. “Where the fuck did you go?”
Bianca has her hideously angry face within inches of mine. Linda pulls me close against her. “We went to the village,” she snaps.
“Why?”
Linda makes a face and shakes her head. “Because it was there.”
Bianca crosses her arms. “I am not cleaning up that breakfast mess. And there is no dinner.”
“Deal with it. Call for pizza or something. Just fucking deal with something on your own for change.”
The girls start arguing and I’m trapped, shaking and being supported by Linda’s steady arm, with the others between me and the stairs. The verbal free-for-all is loud enough to draw Alan and Len from wherever they were in the house, and Len is babbling on that that’s enough of the cat fight, and Alan is watching me. I start to tremble more fiercely and the tears come back.
“Shut the fuck up everyone!” Linda silences the room, puncturing the sound barrier.
Alan’s face changes and I can see exactly when he realizes I’m crying. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying, Chrissie?” I don’t answer and his temper explodes. “Goddammit, Linda, what did you do to her?”
Linda shakes her head, they lock eyes and I can see that their closeness is the type of thing where they can communicate without words. Alan’s anger vanishes and he’s only worried now.
“I’m going to take her upstairs,” Linda says in a quiet voice that somehow makes everyone back off except Bianca.
Shaking her head, she exclaims, “Oh, no you’re not. You’re going to get your ass in there and clean the breakfast mess, Linda, and the little princess is going to make dinner.”
Alan grabs Bianca’s arm. “Why don’t you just shut up for once, you miserable cunt.”
Bianca pulls away. “Because I’m sick of everyone falling all over themselves for the little princess. I’m not going to spend another evening all about not upsetting Chrissie.”
“Fine. Then I’m done. Gone. Out of here,” Alan says, taking me from Linda and picking me up.
“Oh fuck, Bianca,” Kenny Jones shouts into the chaos of the room.
Alan starts climbing the stairs and I focus of the sound of the creaks rather than the arguing downstairs. He takes me to the bathroom, undresses me and sets me in the tub.
It is antique porcelain, sitting on legs in the middle of a fifties style black and white tile bathroom. The sink is a square pedestal and the toilet is old. The windows are high in the walls, foggy glass circles that mute the light. It is a room held in another time. Like me.
Alan sinks down beside the tub, reaches for a washcloth and a bottle of bath gel that someone left in here.
“Are you OK?” he asks.
I nod.
“What happened when you were out with Linda?”
I turn until my cheek is resting on my knees. “Nothing happened. We talked. I don’t know what it is about Linda. We talked about everything.” My eyes focus on him and there are fresh tears. “Everything, Alan. I told her everything.”
He continues to wash, but his faces changes and I can see he understands what I mean by everything, and that it hurts him that I opened up to Linda.
He reaches into the tub to pick up the cloth he dropped. “I’m glad you did that, Chrissie. Maybe someday you’ll trust me enough to do the same.”
He doesn’t push, he just kisses me softly on the cheek. He knows when to let there be quiet between us, when not to push me, when to use his meanness, when to use his kindness, when to love me and when to stand back.
I watch Alan wash me. He is gentle and kind. I never expected him to be that kind of guy. Alan was right. I did think he was safe. I did think he was going to prove only to be an asshole.
I start to cry again. He always takes such good care of me, but today I realize it is important to him to take care of me, something more about him than me.
I curl into a tight ball as he washes my back. I am someone Alan loves. And that is something more about him than me.
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, I wake alone and go to the kitchen to find Alan making breakfast. I feel badly. It must be my turn and he’s cooking because I don’t know how to.