“And you can keep your big mouth shut,” Zinnea snaps, slapping my shoulder.
I cough over my mouthful, spraying the table. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Zinnea finishes getting her stocking on and her bra into place before perfecting her makeup in the mirror at the table with us. And I watch her, fascinated, as she smiles her way through her task. How easy she finds it to smile. How hard I do.
“Done,” she says, smacking her painted lips. “Now I must dress.” Standing from the table, she clasps the side of her kimono and breezes out of the room. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she says, pausing at the door and holding the frame as she looks back. She’s still smiling, but this one has a hint of something I’m wary of. “Your father called.”
I return to my wine immediately, sensing the suddenly thick atmosphere. I say nothing, looking up when I feel Dexter’s eyes on me. I sip my wine, giving him a what? look.
“He would love to see you,” Zinnea goes on, clearly cautious. “He’s been trying to call you.”
I close my eyes and breathe out slowly. Yes, I know. I’ve been purposely ignoring him. “I can’t be around him and that child he calls a girlfriend,” I say, braving facing Zinnea again. “Nothing’s changed for me.”
“Time has changed, my darling.” She smiles mildly, desperate for me to make amends with him. “And maybe with it, your father has. He called me, for God’s sake. Your father! He even asked how I was.”
I hate the elation she’s so obviously feeling. Like me, Zinnea shouldn’t be giving him the time of day. I don’t understand her motives. Or maybe I do. Live and let live, she says. Shake out the negativity. “He must want something,” I mutter.
“Yes, your forgiveness.”
My forgiveness? He’ll never get that. He can continue trying to find redemption in charity work and being the consummate businessman, but he’ll never get freedom from my contempt. I finish my wine and drag myself up, heading past Zinnea to the front door. I stop and kiss her cheek. “I’m going to see Mom.”
She pulls me back when I break away, giving me a hug. “Send my love.”
“I will.”
She releases me, and I head for the door. “Beau, my darling?”
I look back, and she smiles lightly. “Let it be, I beg you. Just let it be. The upset with your father, my darling. It’s the last demon you need to be rid of.”
I say nothing, just return her smile and close the front door behind me. Zinnea and Dexter have worked so hard to stabilize me. I can’t let on that I feel far from stable. Can’t let them know of the demons that still haunt me. And my father is undisputedly one of them.
I wrestle with the dilapidated iron gate, wincing when the metal scrapes along the concrete beneath it. How it hasn’t fallen off its hinges yet, I don’t know. The pathway isn’t much better, the slabs uneven, every single one broken, weeds bursting up from between the cracks. I tread carefully, avoiding the stinging nettles. “It’s like dicing with death coming to see you, Mom,” I say to myself, making it to her relatively unscathed.
I settle on the overgrown grass and put the bunch of tulips down beside me. “Hi.” I inhale, my heart turning in my chest, as I stare at her headstone.
JASMINE (JAZ) HAYLEY
1965-2019
GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “But Aunt Zinnea is definitely getting soft in her old age. She sends her love, by the way.” I get to my knees and pull the stone vase free of the holder, plucking out the limp roses and emptying the old water. I take the bottle of Evian from my bag and top up the vase, arranging the tulips just so. They’re Mom’s favorite. Mine too. She always said they were a sign of brighter, sunnier, longer days. Nothing is bright and sunny anymore. And longer days are crueler days. “Perfect,” I say, placing the vase back and tweaking the stems. Then I get myself comfortable, lying on the grass beside her grave, watching the clouds roll through the sky.
Aunt Zinnea taught me how to control my thoughts. How to channel my anger. How to shake out the negativity. How to find peace amid tragedy. It’s something I never really got the hang of. A lesson I struggle to remember each day. Life is unpredictable, and death even more so. The only guarantee is that it will happen. Sometimes too soon, sometimes too late, but it will happen. “I’m thinking about buying my own place,” I say, pulling at the blades of grass beside me. “Aunt Zinnea would never say, but I’m sure she must think I’ve long outstayed my welcome.” I point to the sky. “Oh, look, the Eiffel Tower.” I watch as the tall, tapering cloud drifts over us, losing its shape as it goes. “I said it was for a month.” I drop my head to the side. “That was nearly two years ago.” I’m thirty. I have the money. I even have the desire. But there’s that tiny part of me that’s scared to leave Zinnea’s sanctuary. A tiny part that knows it would be stupid. And seeing my father? No. That’s a sure-fire way to send me spiraling further. I can’t come to terms with the fact he’s still living and my mom’s not. I haven’t even got my head around the fact that I am still here.
Fear. It’s one of the things Aunt Zinnea has worked so hard to push out of me. I haven’t the heart to tell her it hasn’t worked. I don’t fear death anymore, but I fear life. I fear I’ll never be rid of this bitterness. Never be rid of the pain. Never be able to keep my mind clean. Never be able to look in the mirror and like what I see. It’s such an effort, an everyday struggle. And the answer to my problems is always haunting me. Everywhere I look, I see a way out.
Zinnea is my crutch.
I can’t bring myself to leave my crutch. She was Mom’s crutch too. And the object of my father’s scorn.
I breathe out and return my eyes to the clouds, feeling around on the grass beside me when I hear my cell. I look up at the screen, rolling my eyes at the strange number that I’ve become familiar with today. “Isn’t the sex party doing it for you?”
“You mentioned you paint,” he says, seeming to completely miss my quip.
My smile is hesitant. “I did.”
“I’m looking for a painter.”
He doesn’t sound too sure about that. In fact, he sounds agitated. “What do you want painted?”
“My bedroom.”
“Is it worn out from all the sex parties?”
“How much?”
This is getting plain weird. “I’d need to take a look in order to quote.”
“Tonight?”
Tonight? “I’m visiting my mother.”
There’s a long silence, and once again I’m checking to see if he’s still on the line. He is. “Tomorrow night?” he eventually says.
I nibble my lip, wondering how to approach this. Work is sparse. I’m not concerned, it’s not like I need the money. Just the distraction. The calm I find in painting. The closeness to my mom. “I’m a bit busy at the moment.” I’m being instinctively wary, naturally. This is all quite odd. His calls. The conversation. I should hang up.
“Is that a no?”