Read Online No One Needs to Know by Kevin O'Brien - Free Book Online Page B

to the sofa in the living room.
    Her dad wasn’t in the picture at all. He’d played the bass guitar in a band called Sump Pump. Apparently, they’d been a real hit in Jacksonville, Florida, in the mid-eighties. That was where he and Teri had gotten married. When the band split up, he split, too—for good. He just took off one morning. Laurie had been thirteen months old. She and her mother didn’t hear from him again. But Teri never filed for divorce.
    “Sweetie, the things you should know about your father are this,” her mother told her. “He was a very talented musician, sexy, a lot of fun—and, well, you know how some people have a severe reaction to nuts, like an allergy? They eat one nut and suddenly their throat closes up and they go into a coma or something. Well, that was Art Serrano with responsibility. He just couldn’t handle it—not even a little bit.”
    Laurie wanted to tell her mother that it took one to know one.
    Early on, she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t be anything like Teri. She would be a terrific mother to her children.
    Yet here she was, planning a sudden, furtive move to another city to get away from a pissed-off former lover. And here she was, switching off the light and ducking back under the covers—when her child had just cried out in the middle of the night.
    He’s fine, everything’s fine, Laurie told herself. She’d waited three whole minutes without another sound from him. If Joey was still awake, she’d have heard him on the monitor. And if by chance anyone had climbed in through his bedroom window, she’d have heard that, too. Besides, no one could break in that way. A few days ago, she’d sawed off part of a broom handle and vertically wedged it into the window frame for extra security.
    Laurie assured herself once again that Joey was okay, she should go back to sleep. But she lay there in the dark, staring up at the popcorn ceiling.
    It was just her and Joey, no grandparents, no relatives, no one else. It had been the same setup with her and her mother. They only had each other. Laurie wondered if Joey would spend most of his childhood and teen years resenting her the way she’d resented Teri. Yet she and her mom had been a team, nearly inseparable.
    When she’d headed off to Central Washington University, Laurie had been horribly homesick—even though she’d never really had a steady, stable home. She’d worried about Teri on her own. Her mom wasn’t as pretty as she used to be. She no longer had guys doing things for her—or a daughter to look after her. Teri lived only two hours away in Spokane. But Laurie was busy with school and waitressed most weekends, so weeks passed between visits home. Each time she made that bus trip to Spokane, she noticed her mother getting heavier and more sedentary—old before her time. Her beautiful black hair had lost its luster, and was ceding to gray; so she’d cut it short.
    When Laurie and Brian were engaged and the wedding date drew near, her mother had a meltdown trying to find a decent dress to wear to the ceremony. “I can’t fit into anything,” she lamented. “I’m so big. God, what’s happened to me?”
    Laurie tried to convince her that she was still beautiful. But Teri didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want Laurie to take her shopping at Lane Bryant. She didn’t want to hear about all the gorgeous, self-confident TV and movie personalities who were full-figured, plus-size women. Three days before her wedding, Laurie received a letter from her mother—with a check for a hundred dollars, which she could hardly afford. There was also an apology note:
     
Dear Laurie & Brian,
Please forgive me for not coming to your wedding. I just can’t let people see me looking this way. Give my best to everyone there. I’m so proud of you, Laurie & so happy you’re marrying such a wonderful man. Be happy, you two.
 
XXXX—Me
     
    The worse Teri felt about her weight, the more she stayed at home—and