Heart on a Chain

  “I didn’t even get to go to her funeral,” I whisper.

  “She was a monster,” he says.

  “She was my mother.”

  He nods, trying to understand, unable to in his own bright world full of love. He hugs me close again.

  “I know, Kate.” We rock silently for a few minutes, tears still running silently down my face, throat aching with residual strain.

  “I loved her,” I whisper.

  “You have to let it go,” he says softly. I know he’s right, but I have no idea how I’m ever going to do that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Graduation day comes, and since I have passed all of the tests—and I’m not in jail—I’m being allowed to graduate with everyone else. I’m apprehensive about showing up, as the local newspapers have gotten hold of my story and have run it in not-completely-accurate-but-pretty-close sensationalism. I’m not sure of the reaction to expect of my schoolmates, most of whom I have spent the last twelve years attending school with.

  My father actually manages to stay sober once again and we ride to the school together in his car, which I have to admit I’m amazed still runs. I suppose that has much to do with the fact that he has always worked as a mechanic—though for many different companies over the years—and manages to keep it running. The inside of the car is dirty, as if it hasn’t been cleaned in years, and littered with empty bottles. I wonder how he has lived all these years without wrapping himself around a tree in a drunken haze, or kept from hurting anyone else.

  We meet Henry and his family at the auditorium where the graduation is to be held. My father goes to sit with them, while Henry and I line up in our places. I try to pretend that I don’t notice the looks and stares I’m receiving, the whispers behind hands.

  Henry’s friends come over to say hello to me, as do their girlfriends who look more uncomfortable than usual around me. Then Jessica comes up beside me, placing herself into the line right next to me, with a smile. I have to admit it still makes me nervous to have her so close, but she is still the most welcome presence of all the girls here.

  We file out, sitting in the seats and listening to the long, boring speeches that accompany graduation. Then row by row we stand and walk up toward the podium to receive our diplomas. We were instructed beforehand to walk up from opposite sides, take our diploma, shake the administrators hands as we walk to the center of the stage, then exit from the center.

  When it comes my turn, and my name is announced, there comes a smattering of applause from behind me. This very quickly rolls into a thunderous applause and I glance around to see what is causing the commotion.

  Everyone is looking at me, either grinning or with tears rolling down face, or both. Even the administration and speakers on the stage have stopped and are joining in. They’re cheering for me? I look around for Henry, but he’s on the opposite side of the floor, too far away for contact. He’s touching me anyway, his eyes intently burning into mine, a smile of love and recognition on his face.

  Jessica is standing behind me, and I reach out blindly for her—for anything real and solid in this strange world. She sees my need and steps forward to grasp my hand, giving me support in the face of this overwhelming happening. I continue up to the podium, releasing Jessica’s hand as I meet the receiving line, getting hugs instead of the traditional handshakes, even from those who aren’t supposed to be on this side of the stage coming over. Henry has come up from his side, and met me in the middle, taking my hand and kissing me on the temple, walking me down the middle set of stairs.

  It takes some time for the cheers to die down after I have returned to my seat, reluctantly letting Henry go. By this time I’m thoroughly embarrassed. I guess that it’s my sudden celebrity that has gotten such a reaction.

  Later I’m told it’s respect for my courage, and for surviving against such odds. That doesn’t sound quite right to me—what choice did I have but to survive? And I don’t consider myself courageous at all. Courage seems an honorable word, and killing your own mother is anything but honorable.

  We go to dinner with the Jamison’s to celebrate the dubious honor of making it through high school. Even my father, who’s jittery but trying really hard to be like a dad, comes. It’s a night of excitement and laughter for most, but inside I felt a deep dread, because I know that each day brings me closer to the time that I’ll have to be without Henry.

  “Do you want to come back to my house for a while?” Henry asks me later as we pull up in front of my house, my father climbing out of the SUV. I watch him go and shake my head.

  “I think I need to talk to my father. Things are weird between us, and it’s time for us talk about it.” It being the death of my mother, his wife, because of me. Henry doesn’t argue, understanding instinctively what I need most, as he always does.

  I follow my father in, watching as he stands nervously near the front window, obviously wanting to escape. I recognize that feeling very well, but for once he will have to ignore it for me, his daughter.

  “Dad, I need to talk to you.”

  He glances at me, dread in every line of his face.

  “I was gonna go out,” he says.

  “I know. But I need you now. Just for a little while.”

  “Okay,” he concedes, not happy about it. We walk into the kitchen and he sits at the table. I fill a glass of water for me and pull a soda out for him, bypassing the beer. I need him sober for a little longer.

  “Do you blame me?” I ask, as soon as I’m seated.

  He’s startled. “Blame you for what?” he asks.

  “For…mom. For…killing…her.”

  His jaw drops. This obviously isn’t what he expected.

  “No, Kate, of course not. I know what happened. You didn’t kill her, not really.”

  “I did. She’s dead because of me. She was your wife and now she’s gone because of me.”

  He reaches across the table and folds his hand over mine, an unexpectedly fatherly gesture.

  “Kate, you know how things were. You’re a smart girl; you saw what went on between us. She hasn’t really been my…wife for a long time now.” He glances away guiltily. “Not that I blame that on her, either. There is a lot of fault on my part. I think about it sometimes, wonder how things went so wrong.” He looks at me, eyes rife with remorse. “It’s mostly my fault, the way things were between her and me. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me, and I saw how she became, how important the drugs became. I knew, and I ignored it.” He glances at me, “I saw how she was with you.”

  “Why?” I ask, tortured. “Why was she that way with me? Was I so horrible, so unlovable? Why did she hate me?”

  He shakes his head, and sighs, a great decisive sigh, as if making a choice.

  “There’s something you should know, Kate. Something that you probably deserved to know a long time ago.” He stands. “Wait here, I have something you should see.”

  He goes up the stairs with a longing glance toward the front door. I can hear him rummaging around, and finally he returns, carrying a sheet of paper with him. He sits across from me, looking down at the paper as if deciding the virtue in showing me, but then he lays it flat and pushes it across the table to me, not meeting my eyes.

  I look down at it. Certificate of Adoption is scrawled across the top. My brows furrow in confusion. My mother was adopted? What did that have to do with me? Then I continue reading it, seeing the date of birth of the baby girl, and the names of the adoptive parents and my heart stops. I look up at my father, who’s watching me painfully.

  “I was adopted?” My voice comes out in a squeak.

  “Yes.”

  “But, I don’t understand. She was pregnant, when… I remember her being pregnant when I was young. I have a photo of it.”

  He nods sadly. “She was. That was an accident. We had tried to avoid pregnancy.”

  “Why?” I understand even less than before.

  “There is quite a history of mental illness on y
our mother’s side, and addiction problems on mine. We decided those weren’t genes we wanted to pass on. So we adopted you.”

  “That’s why she hated me? Because I wasn’t hers?”

  “No, Kate, not at all. She loved you. I know that’s hard to believe now, but you had to have seen her when we brought you home. She adored you. She spent all of her time playing with you and taking care of you.

  “Even when we first found out she was pregnant, and she talked about abortion—which she couldn’t do in the end—she still loved you. As if you were her own flesh and blood. And then she lost the baby.” He breaks off, lost in the misery of that memory.

  “Neither of us dealt with that well. I suppose we had both been looking forward to that baby more than we knew. Something happened to her then, as if some switch had been flipped. She was on pain pills from the miscarriage, followed by pills for depression when she couldn’t shake the grief.”

  He looks at me. “She had been on pills for her form of psychosis since before we were married, but as she became addicted to the others she quit taking those. I wish I had some excuse for why she did the things she did, but in the end it all came down to that. She had started taking her pills around Thanksgiving again, but then she stopped while you were gone over Christmas.

  “I’m ashamed to say that I was so bound up in myself and my own problems that I ignored hers. And yours. I didn’t want to deal with any of it. And because of that you spent years being hurt, and we have ended up here, like this.”

  I can only stare at him, shocked. My whole life has been based on lies and selfishness.

  “Around Thanksgiving?” my question is low. I can guess exactly what started her taking them again at that time—she had nearly killed me. I feel a spark of anger ignite. “Do you know why?”

  He shakes his head, watching me warily at my tone.

  “She hurt me. Badly. I was gone for almost a week while the Jamison’s nursed me back to health. Were you even aware of that, Dad?” I spit his name out sarcastically.

  “Kate—” he begins, but I cut him off.

  “You chose to adopt me,” I accuse, voice full of venom. “You had a responsibility to me. Both of you did. And your excuse is that you didn’t want to deal with it?” I stand up angrily, and he looks at the floor, misery in every line of his body. I push away any feelings of compassion in me at the sight of him.

  “You’re a worthless, self-pitying drunk, and I am not your daughter!” My voice rises in pitch, emotions and thoughts swirling in a muddied chaos in my head. I want to articulate them all, but can’t find a place to begin in the raging storm that is my mind. There seems to be only one place to begin.

  “I’m leaving!” I exclaim, making a sudden decision, the words finding their way to the surface of their own accord. But as I say them, I feel the rightness of the decision. “I’ll be gone within a few days, and you can live out the rest of your miserable, lonely life in any way you choose. I hope you spend it thinking of me, every day, and knowing that you did this. You had the power to stop it, but you didn’t want to deal. So now deal with what you have left!”

  I grab up the certificate in my fist, taking it with me as I run from the room and up the stairs. I slam the door and stand inside the room that has been both my prison and my sanctuary for so many years. I feel nothing. Nothing except a burning anger at the life that has been dealt me. I jam the chair under the door handle.

  A few minutes later I hear the front door close, and the car engine start in the driveway. I open my door, listening to the silence. I’m suddenly seized with an intense desire to be gone from this place. I go back into my room, pulling the old suitcase down from the top of my closet and angrily shoving my few possessions into it, more anger growing at how little I have to show for the years of abuse I have suffered in this house.

  I pull out the cell phone I still have from Dr. Jamison, and call information. I dial a new number to call in the favor that I expected to be something completely different when I asked for it. I’m relieved when Jessica answers.

  “This is Kate,” I tell her. “I need that favor now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I ask Jessica if I can stay with her for a few days, which she and her parents readily agree to. Like me, Jessica is an only child, and she had told her parents about me and her treatment of me over the years in a fit of regret. They were horrified and saddened by her behavior, and were glad she had tried to make it up to me, so they’re more than willing to let me come. They have a spare bedroom, which shares a bathroom with Jessica, that they let me use.

  It’s a little awkward at first, but being in close quarters creates a kind of forced intimacy, and soon Jessica and I become something like friends. Behind the façade she puts up at school is someone who is really a kind person.

  “Why?” I ask her one night as we sit on the floor in her room, looking at her old family photos—something I have never had myself, short of my one photo of the day my swing set was delivered. “Why did you hate me so much?”

  She chews on the side of her thumb for long seconds, not looking at me. Finally she shrugs.

  “It’s amazingly stupid when I think about it now.” She glances up, and I can see the shame on her face. “Remember we were friends?” I nod. “But you started to get kinda weird.” She looks down again.

  “I guess now I understand why. But I didn’t then.” She looks at me again, takes a breath and tells me.

  “Even though you got weird, and really quiet, you were so pretty. I was jealous because I wanted to be the prettiest one. I guess that’s pretty egotistical, but.…” She shrugs again.

  “Anyway, I had always thought Henry was the cutest boy in school, and somewhere along the line I decided that if he was the cutest, and I was the prettiest, we should be together. Like a power couple.

  “Once I decided that, I started to notice the way he watched you. He always went out of his way to be nice to you. Then I saw the Valentine he gave you.”

  I remember the day—and the Valentine—clearly, of course. I think I even still have it somewhere.

  “You hated me because of a Valentine?” I ask.

  “Sort of,” she qualifies. “That was only a part of it. After that, you two were always together, holding hands. Because I had decided he should be with me, I turned my anger on you. Like I said, egotistical—and petty.”

  “But he was gone by the next year.”

  Jessica cringes at my words, twisting her hands together guiltily.

  “By that time, I think hating you was almost a habit. You came to school that year prettier than ever—” I make a choked sound and she stops, looking at me with guilty pain in her eyes. She cocks her head.

  “You really don’t see yourself clearly.” Her eyes fall, and her cheeks darken. “But I guess that’s my fault, too, isn’t it? I made sure you never saw yourself the way all those boys did on the first day of school.”

  “Jess, no boys were looking at me. I was skinny and dressed in second hand clothes. They couldn’t take their eyes off you.”

  She smiles at me, grimly. “They noticed you, Kate. So I made sure that the attention you were getting quickly became negative attention.

  “You never stood up for yourself, not against me, not against anyone else. It was so easy…” she trails off, hearing her own words. When she looks at me again, she has tears in her eyes.

  “I had no idea what you were going through, Kate. That’s no excuse, but it makes what I did a hundred-thousand times worse. It’s already bad enough, that I’m capable of such cruelty, that I could make someone’s life so miserable. Then to know what you were suffering…” Suddenly she reaches out, grabbing both my hands.

  “You should despise me, Kate. I’m not worthy of anything from you but your loathing. I’m a horrible person. Even knowing that, I want you to forgive me. Please forgive me, Kate.”

  I squeeze her hands as her tears slide down her cheeks—those perfect, flawless cheeks that I’d spent
so many years jealous of.

  “You were pretty horrible,” I say, Jessica nodding in agreement. “Why did you come to me, on the night of the prom, and act so nice?”

  “I saw you when you came back to school, and I didn’t know who’d hurt you so bad, but I suddenly saw what I had been doing to you with a clarity that I hadn’t ever had before. I felt bad you’d been hurt, which was pretty foreign to me, feeling bad for you like that.

  “So I confessed to my mom—who was horrified that her daughter could be so mean. She told me the only way to make it up to you was to be your friend. I just didn’t know how to do that.” She squeezes my hands. “I know there’s no way I can ever possibly make it up to you. I’m so sorry for everything, Kate. For what your mom did to you, for what I did to you, for what others did to you because of me.”

  “Don’t be.”

  She leans back in surprise at my words.

  “I hate pity,” I tell her. “I could use a friend, though.”

  “If you’ll let me, Kate, I’ll be your friend. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”

  I laugh and she finally grins a little.

  “Sounds pretty melodramatic, huh?”

  “Like a soap opera,” I say.

  “You have Henry, too.”

  My smile falters, and I pull my hands from hers.

  “I have Henry,” I murmur, turning away.

  “I’m glad, Kate. I’m so glad you have him; that he could see what all the rest of us were too blind to see.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, “I’m glad I have him, too.”

  I don’t tell her that I won’t have him much longer, and I don’t look her way, afraid she’ll see the pain and terror the thought of losing him causes me.