Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch) - By Mary Beth Lee Page 0,62
Knew he was hurting, too.
Cass’s heart hurt at the thought. It wasn’t fair. But she’d made her choices, and she had to live with them.
“Momma got up. She ate with us,” she said focusing on the positive. On the thing he’d understand. He’d heard the stories about her mother’s depressed jags, and he’d said on more than one occasion Cass should go to Standridge for a visit.
“You did the right thing then.”
Cass wasn’t so sure she knew what the right thing was anymore.
“It’s late, so I guess I’ll let you go back to bed. Sorry I didn’t call earlier.”
“It’s okay. I told you. I love you, Cass.”
Cass swallowed the hurt that was all balled up in her throat. “I love you, too.”
She clicked the off button on her phone and buried her head in her pillow with its threadbare pillowcase. Hot tears flowed freely. She did love him. She did love him so much. He was so perfect. So wonderful. Just. So. Everything.
And she, she was just so lost.
*****
Man. Cass was totally weirded out about something. You didn’t have to live with someone year round to know that.
Anna clicked the TV off and sat in the dark living room listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner and refrigerator. Waiting.
She didn’t know what for really. Sometimes Dani woke up with soft baby cries that would grow into big baby squalls if she didn’t get there fast enough. Or Delia would need a drink or have to go potty. Or Justine’d just want to lie on the couch and let Anna brush her hair over and over until they both forgot the hell they’d lived through.
The state appointed therapist said Justine would be okay. Kids were resilient. They bounced back from trauma.
That might be true. But Justine’s bounce had been a long way off what she’d been before. Before the hospital. Before Child Protective Services.
She’d bounced straight from five to twenty-five, and she wasn’t looking backwards.
Cass didn’t know.
Somehow they’d kept the full truth from her.
Anna laughed to herself. Somehow nothing.
It was easy. Cass stayed away. And a kid getting beat half to death wasn’t the stuff for national news. Not even when that kid was the biggest hero her mother ever knew.
So Cass was clueless for the most part, and Justine was recovered for the most part. That left her where exactly?
Limbo? On the margin? Apart? Anna didn’t know.
She picked up her worn copy of A Street Car Named Desire and smiled. Ol’ Blanche didn’t know either, did she? Sometimes Anna felt a kindred spirit to the worn out women of American literature. Sometimes she just thought they were quitters. But not ol’ Blanche. She was crazy as a loon, but she was no quitter.
Anna looked at the clock. She could spare a few minutes. And then she had to go to bed and face the nightmares.
Maybe Cass being here would chase the bad dreams away. It’d be a miracle, but then miracles seemed to happen when Cass was around. God smiling on His chosen one.
She’d just keep telling herself she didn’t mind that a bit. Not one little bit.
*****
Cass woke to bright morning sunshine pouring in through yellowed curtains and the distinct smell of coffee and fruit.
She closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into the softness of a pillow she hadn’t slept on since the night she left town so long ago.
Let the past go.
God, it was so much easier to think the words, to even say them, than it was to actually do it.
She’d been trying for years, even fooled herself into believing she’d done it a few times. She’d be happily going along about her business when wham, it’d hit her in that place between her heart and diaphragm that left her breathless and wanting and hurting and knowing. Ugh. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If she could just get back the time she’d wasted on things she couldn’t change.
That mysterious fruit smell needed investigating.
She slipped her feet into her white slippers and wrapped the monogrammed terry robe around her waist then headed down the hall to see what was up.
The hall made her smile. There on the used-to-be-white walls were the photos of her life. First through twelfth, both her and Anna. And two of Justine. Kindergarten and second grade. She wondered where on earth first was. Momma never missed a picture.
On the other side, photos through the ages of Momma, Anna and Cass. Playing. Singing. Laughing. And then photos of Anna, Justine, Delia and Dani. Same thing