Read Online Clearer in the Night by Rebecca Croteau - Free Book Online
Authors: Rebecca Croteau
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to wash my hair. I’ll be out in a bit, okay?”
“Do you have everything you need? Shampoo? Razors? Conditioner?”
“It’s fine, Mom. I’ll be downstairs as soon as I’m done. Okay?”
“Sure,” she said, but it didn’t sound like she meant it, even a little bit.
I cleaned my hair slowly, luxuriating in the warmth and the soft caress of the water. When the water started to cool, I shut it off and stepped out, toweling off. Mom hadn’t closed the door, and when I glanced into my room, I saw her sitting on the bed, staring at the pictures I’d never taken down after high school. I hadn’t talked to a single person on that bulletin board since the summer after graduation. They hadn’t even been worth the effort of taking down their pictures, but she kept staring at them, as if they held some secret that she didn’t know about me. Or maybe she was just wondering what Sophie would have put on her walls, if Dad hadn’t driven the car into the lake. Yeah, that was more likely.
I resisted the urge to rush around and cover up; if she was going to stare at me naked, that was her weirdness, and I didn’t need to freak out about it.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked me.
I tried to keep the long, deep sigh internal. I mostly succeeded. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about the truth?”
I pulled a black t-shirt over my head, and gathered my wet hair back into a ponytail. Letting it dry like this was going to give it weird waves later, but I wasn’t in the mood to have it wet and in my face. “The truth, Mom? I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember. Okay?”
“Were you drinking? On drugs?”
“God, no, you know me better than that.”
“Do I? I don’t know you anymore, Cait.”
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” She tried to melt me with her laser eye beams of guilt and misery, but I held strong. “You don’t call me any more than I call you, Mom. I’m here because I’d like that to change, but it’s not going to if we just keep on fighting like this.” The lies tasted bitter and cold on my tongue. I swallowed, but the oily feeling remained. How could I tell her? She’d just send me back to be locked up. Knowing that I’d been attacked and somehow healed was different from being able to prove it, and I knew that.
She didn’t believe me, anyway. Her jaw was tight, her lips thin and white, her eyes narrow and focused. Was she this transparent with her clients, or did she want me to know that she knew I was lying? There had been a point in time when I’d just known all this stuff, second nature. I was so used to the games and the machinations that I could navigate them effortlessly. That time was apparently in the past.
“I ordered pizza,” she said, her doubting Thomas face unchanged. “Should be here soon. Don’t be long.” She stood, and took measured, precise steps to the doorway, then shut the bedroom door behind her.
My skin was vibrating. My hands were opening and closing, clenching and releasing. There was a howling wind inside my head, and if I loosened the muscles holding my jaw closed, the screams that would pour out would deafen the entire world. My nails dug into my palms, cutting half-moons that would bleed if I dug deep enough. Maybe then, the screams could slip out without anyone hearing.
I held myself still until the quaking stopped. And then I went downstairs, for pizza, and a movie, and to pretend like nothing had ever happened.
TUESDAY, JULY 31
After an uneventful night of movies and pizza, I’d been exhausted with a suddenness that shocked me. I’d begged off halfway through Philadelphia Story , a Katharine Hepburn–Cary Grant movie with a side of Jimmy Stewart that was usually one of my favorites, and made it to bed just in time to fall into a dreamless state that was probably closer to passing out than sleeping. I didn’t remember even pulling the covers down, but at some point in the night, I must have crawled
“Do you have everything you need? Shampoo? Razors? Conditioner?”
“It’s fine, Mom. I’ll be downstairs as soon as I’m done. Okay?”
“Sure,” she said, but it didn’t sound like she meant it, even a little bit.
I cleaned my hair slowly, luxuriating in the warmth and the soft caress of the water. When the water started to cool, I shut it off and stepped out, toweling off. Mom hadn’t closed the door, and when I glanced into my room, I saw her sitting on the bed, staring at the pictures I’d never taken down after high school. I hadn’t talked to a single person on that bulletin board since the summer after graduation. They hadn’t even been worth the effort of taking down their pictures, but she kept staring at them, as if they held some secret that she didn’t know about me. Or maybe she was just wondering what Sophie would have put on her walls, if Dad hadn’t driven the car into the lake. Yeah, that was more likely.
I resisted the urge to rush around and cover up; if she was going to stare at me naked, that was her weirdness, and I didn’t need to freak out about it.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked me.
I tried to keep the long, deep sigh internal. I mostly succeeded. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about the truth?”
I pulled a black t-shirt over my head, and gathered my wet hair back into a ponytail. Letting it dry like this was going to give it weird waves later, but I wasn’t in the mood to have it wet and in my face. “The truth, Mom? I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember. Okay?”
“Were you drinking? On drugs?”
“God, no, you know me better than that.”
“Do I? I don’t know you anymore, Cait.”
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” She tried to melt me with her laser eye beams of guilt and misery, but I held strong. “You don’t call me any more than I call you, Mom. I’m here because I’d like that to change, but it’s not going to if we just keep on fighting like this.” The lies tasted bitter and cold on my tongue. I swallowed, but the oily feeling remained. How could I tell her? She’d just send me back to be locked up. Knowing that I’d been attacked and somehow healed was different from being able to prove it, and I knew that.
She didn’t believe me, anyway. Her jaw was tight, her lips thin and white, her eyes narrow and focused. Was she this transparent with her clients, or did she want me to know that she knew I was lying? There had been a point in time when I’d just known all this stuff, second nature. I was so used to the games and the machinations that I could navigate them effortlessly. That time was apparently in the past.
“I ordered pizza,” she said, her doubting Thomas face unchanged. “Should be here soon. Don’t be long.” She stood, and took measured, precise steps to the doorway, then shut the bedroom door behind her.
My skin was vibrating. My hands were opening and closing, clenching and releasing. There was a howling wind inside my head, and if I loosened the muscles holding my jaw closed, the screams that would pour out would deafen the entire world. My nails dug into my palms, cutting half-moons that would bleed if I dug deep enough. Maybe then, the screams could slip out without anyone hearing.
I held myself still until the quaking stopped. And then I went downstairs, for pizza, and a movie, and to pretend like nothing had ever happened.
TUESDAY, JULY 31
After an uneventful night of movies and pizza, I’d been exhausted with a suddenness that shocked me. I’d begged off halfway through Philadelphia Story , a Katharine Hepburn–Cary Grant movie with a side of Jimmy Stewart that was usually one of my favorites, and made it to bed just in time to fall into a dreamless state that was probably closer to passing out than sleeping. I didn’t remember even pulling the covers down, but at some point in the night, I must have crawled
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