More like dinner with the flight attendants on the transatlantic flight coming home. I’d specifically planned my return for Christmas day. I hated the holiday. It was a day for family, and I had none. The day I’d been attacked was the day I severed all ties with them. They hadn’t come to the ER to check on me, to sit with me as I spoke to the detectives. A few weeks later, they’d bailed Cam out of jail. Supporting him—no, trying to save him—when he’d been caught by undercover police selling drugs. I’d been dramatic and attention seeking. As if.
That had been it for me. I’d not once reached out to them, but that hadn’t stopped them from contacting me, solely for selfish reasons.
I should be thankful for my friends, who were kind to include me, but it wasn’t the same as family. It never would be, so I’d found ways to make Christmas just disappear. And while my research trip to England had been planned for the school winter break, I’d made sure I wasn’t at home, anywhere really, for the actual holiday.
“We’ll see,” I replied. “What are you wearing to the party?”
My question redirected her as I’d hoped, and I listened as she spoke of the new top she bought that required new shoes to go with it.
“I have those chandelier earrings you can borrow.” My phone rang from beneath the papers.
Sarah rolled her eyes and gave me a wave as I dug it out then answered.
“Harper Lane.”
“Your brother is reaching out to you, Harper.”
God.
I couldn’t look at Sarah, so I just gave her a vague wave in return and spun my chair around to face the wall. It may have been a little rude, but I wouldn’t let my friend see my face. Not now. Seven words from my mother, and I was destroyed. I stared blindly at the large cork board filled with photos I’d taken of various cathedrals across Europe as well as paintings I lectured on. Close ups of mosaic tiles and examples of pristine stained glass.
I saw none of it. My lunch became unsettled. All because of her.
“Yes, I’ve heard from him,” I replied. My voice was monotone. I had nothing to give to my mother, no emotion. Nothing. After what she’d done, I was a dry well. It had been six months since she called me last, when Cam had been hurt in a fight in the prison yard. Why she’d called me to tell me about it, I had no idea. She called now because Cam had tried yesterday and failed to get me to engage.
“He’s in jail. The least you can do is be responsive.”
I pulled the phone away from my head, stared at it. “He gave me to drug dealers as payment, Mother.” The fact I had to remind her of this made it instantly clear she was not calling for reconciliation. “I have nothing to say to him.” Or you.
“That… incident is not why he is in jail—therefore, you should empathize with his plight.”
He’d gotten away with my assault since the men who?
?d attacked me were never found. And, my parents’ lawyer had done a great job of ripping me apart to the D.A. to save Cam. Even so, he’d done something else stupid—which, like she said, had nothing to do with me—and ended up in jail anyway.
I let my head fall forward, closed my eyes. “What do you want?”
“He will be released on the twenty-third. A wonderful Christmas present. We are having a little party with his friends. Seven-thirty. You will come and—”
“No.” The single word was like a bullet. “I will not come. I will not talk with him. I will not talk with you. Goodbye.”
Spinning around, I slammed the phone down just as I hit my knee on the inside of my desk.
“Fuck,” I breathed, wincing and taking deep breaths to ease the pain, rubbing at the abused bone.
Slowly, my knee felt better, but my heart didn’t. What the fuck was wrong with my family? Why couldn’t they just be normal, nice people instead of sociopaths? I wanted to throw up. I wanted to swipe all the papers off my desk. I wanted to scream.
I couldn’t do any of that. Not here, not now. Looking up at the clock on the wall, I had a full afternoon of exams. I could run this off. Later. Or fuck it all away. Yeah, that would be good. The connection with someone else, even for a little bit. An orgasm was like a hit of some hard drug.
The alarm on my cell went off, a daily reminder of my first afternoon class. Fuck. I took a deep breath. Another. Thought of the wall my therapist had told me to visualize. To build it brick by brick around my anger and frustration at my family, at what happened to me, until it was completely walled off. The concept was great, but it didn’t really work. Still, I tried.
I had students waiting to take their semester final on triptych paintings and clerestory windows. Teaching was soothing although exam time was a little hectic. The familiarity of my subject matter was almost comforting. Seven-hundred-year-old cathedrals didn’t talk back, didn’t fuck up your life. They were consistent, enduring. They were always there. The same, familiar, no matter what shit came your way.
6
REED
“Word on the street, you’re going down,” Gray said. He leaned back in his desk chair, fingers steepled in front of him. He was in jeans and t-shirt with the gym logo on the chest. His Stetson was in its usual spot on the hook behind his desk. He wore the serious expression of a guy in ruthless control but would much rather beat the shit out of something. Or someone. In this case, I knew who it was.