"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Damien says, as Misty's jaw hangs open.
"I can't tell you how happy I am to finally meet you," Caroline says to Damien. "And it's been far too long since I've seen you, young lady." She beams at me with the kind of sincere affection I've never seen in my own mother's eyes. "I had no idea you were in town."
"I didn't think to tell you," I admit. "I didn't even tell Ollie I was coming to Texas. I'm here for business. I have a meeting tomorrow and--" I cut myself off, frowning. "The truth is, I came here to see my mother. Do you know where she moved?"
Caroline shakes her head. "We didn't stay in touch once Arthur and I downsized to our condo in University Park. It's just a few miles, but it feels like the Grand Canyon. But I heard through the grapevine that she wanted a smaller place, too, and when I learned that the house was on the market, I mentioned it to Misty and her husband. That was about two months ago, wasn't it?"
Beside her, Misty nods. "We only dealt with our real estate agent, though. And the house was already vacant when we first saw it."
"Mama! Mama!" Her little boy tugs on her hand. "Car! Please! Wanna see the big car!"
"Hush, Andy." Misty's voice is as gentle as her smile, but when she looks up at me, it's confusion I see on her face. "Your mom didn't tell you she moved?"
"She's probably in one of those corporate apartments, waiting for her new place to be ready and didn't want to bother you with a temporary address." Caroline's off-the-cuff explanation comes easily, but the tension around her eyes reflects both understanding and commiseration. Because the truth is, Caroline knows more details than most about the rocky relationship between my mother and me. Not that I ever told her--and not that she ever said a word to me--but I'm certain that Ollie shared some of what I'd confessed to him. And I will be forever grateful for the times that Caroline let me stay late at her house under the guise of doing homework, or when she fed me a Hershey's bar and made me promise to keep it a secret because if word got out, all the neighborhood kids would want one.
In other words, I am certain that Caroline knows damn well that the thought of keeping me up to date never crossed my mother's mind. As far as Elizabeth Fairchild is concerned, I'm a prop, not a daughter. If she needs to use me, she'll contact me. Otherwise, out of sight is very much out of mind.
I know it shouldn't bother me. After all, I don't want that woman in my life. And yet, as I look at the tender expression on Misty's face as she kisses her little boy's forehead, I can't deny the overwhelming sense of loss that washes over me.
But how the hell can you lose what you never even had?
"We can always give Elizabeth a call for her new address," Damien says dismissively, as if we call my mother all the time. "To be honest, we came mostly for the house. I've never seen Nikki's childhood home," he adds, and I'm absurdly grateful that he didn't tell these women the truth: that it's me, not him, who's driving this train. That I want--no, need--to see the inside of the house I grew up in. A house that was never a home. And maybe, just maybe, if I walk through it one last time, I can finally, truly leave it behind.
Damien flashes Misty the kind of smile that always makes me go weak in the knees. "Since we're here, I wonder if we could go inside?" When she hesitates, he nods toward the Phantom. "While we're in there, feel free to let that little guy check out the Rolls."
"Oh!" Her eyes go wide, then she smiles and looks down at the child, who's plunked himself on the grass and is poking at the ground with a stick.
Damien squats down so that he's almost eye-level with the boy. "What do you say, Andy? Want to go take a look inside the big car?"
His eyes go wide as he looks up at his mother and then to Damien. Then he nods slowly, apparently afraid that if he shows too much enthusiasm, we'll all laugh and tell him we were just kidding.
"He's adorable," I say, then grin as Damien stands up again beside me. "And he looks like a handful."
Misty laughs. "You have no idea. Or maybe you do?" she looks between the two of us curiously. "Any kids?"
"Not yet." I flash my Social Nikki smile. "But we have a niece about his age and a nephew who's coming up on two."
Caroline rests a hand on her hip. "Well, I think you need to get busy," she says. "I'd love to be Auntie Caroline. Goodness knows Ollie's isn't making any progress toward giving me grandchildren."
"Someday we will," Damien says as he slides his arm around my waist.
"I certainly hope so." Caroline smiles fondly at both of us. "You two would make beautiful babies."
"I can't argue with that," Damien adds, as he pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my temple. "Nikki's going to make an incredible mom."
I tense, my demeanor shifting from socially friendly to icily polite. This isn't a conversation I want to have right now. Not with a stranger. Not with Caroline. Not even with Damien, and I'm frustrated that he so seamlessly slid into the role of eager father. We've talked about this over and over, and I'd thought we were on the same page. Someday, yes, I want to hold our child in my arms. But neither of us are ready for kids yet. There are too many barriers, too many challenges. And the fact that he's now speaking so cavalierly about something so important makes my insides twist up. Especially since I can hardly call him out while we're standing on a lawn in Dallas and I'm so goddamn vulnerable already.
Fuck.
I pull out of his embrace, and when I do, Damien catches my eyes. I see the apology on his face, but I'm not in the mood. I'm too off-kilter as it is, and so I just shove my hands in the pockets of my summer skirt. For a moment, I think he's going to say something else, but then he turns his attention back to Misty and tells her that the car is unlocked.
As they speak, I head toward the house with Caroline beside me. With each step, my feet feel heavier and my pulse quicker. It's silly, I know--it's not as if I'll find my mother lying in wait--but I haven't been back in this house in years, and now that I'm about to walk inside, I'm positively crackling with nerves. I want Damien beside me. I want his hand in mine. And I'm angry and hurt and pissed that just a few little words have dropped a wall between us. Angry at him. And, yes, angry at myself, too.
Behind us, I hear Misty speaking to Damien. "I'll wipe off his hands before he gets in the car. And feel free to look around as much as you want. It's kind of a maze in there, though. We haven't unpacked a thing."
Caroline and I pause, and I watch as Misty hurries off after Andy, who's running as fast as his little legs will allow toward the Rolls Royce. Damien turns but hesitates before walking toward us, his expression unreadable. Then he cocks his head just slightly, and when his brows rise in inquiry, I see everything he's not saying aloud. I'm sorry. Are we okay?
The fist around my heart loosens, and I draw a breath, wait a beat, and then extend my hand. For an instant, relief flickers in his eyes. Then his expression clears, and he joins us, locking his hand with mine.
Caroline looks between us, then smiles so brightly that I have to wonder if she's picked up on the tension. Not that I'm about to ask. Instead, we continue to the house. "How many times did I walk you home when you and Ollie were little?" Caroline asks as we step onto the porch. "Or come over here to drag Ollie back home when you two spent the day in your pool?"
"A lot," I say, letting the memories distract me. The truth is that Ollie rarely came over here. When we were allowed to play together, we both preferred his house. Only in the dead of summer did we stay here to enjoy the pool, and then only after my mother had assured herself that I was covered head-to-toe with sunscreen. God forbid the beauty queen get a sunburn or freckles.
"Go on, sweetie," Caroline says. "I'll wait for you two out here."
I nod, and when Damien squeezes my hand in silent support, I realize how clammy my palms have become. The door is already ajar, so I use my free hand to push it open. I swallow and then, before I can lose my nerve, I step over the threshold.
I hesitate, not sure what I expected. Memory-shaped ghosts drifting down from the c
eiling? My mother's face looking back at me from the hall mirror? Her voice ordering me to go to my room and rest because it's almost nine o'clock and I need my sleep before that weekend's pageant?
But there is nothing. It's just walls. Just tile and hardwood, paint and wallpaper. I feel my body relax, and when I meet Damien's eyes, the corner of his mouth curves up in a smile of understanding.
"Where was your room?" he asks as we move through the foyer to the open-style living area.
"That way." I point to the long hallway that leads off to the right. "My mom was in the master bedroom, all the way on the other side of the house. But Ashley and I were both down here."
"Show me."
"I doubt it's going to look anything like what it did when I was here," I say, but I'm already heading that way. I'm right, of course. The walls are a plain, flat white where they had once been a pale pink. I'd wanted lime green. Something funky and fun and a little bit obnoxious. A counterpoint to the so-good-they're-smarmy manners and perfectly proper clothes that had been foisted on me for my entire life.
My mother, of course, had vetoed that plan, because little girls who win pageants are the kind of girls who love pink. Girls who follow the rules. Who don't make a fuss or cause trouble.
Girls who don't have opinions of their own.
At least that's what every word out of my mother's mouth seemed to imply. I've learned better since, and I know several women I respect who've done the pageant circuit. But back then, I had my mother in my head. And every time I won a pageant, I had to wonder what that said about me. Was I truly that boring and empty-headed? Was that really all I was good for?
I remember going to Ashley, curling up among the pile of pillows on my big sister's bed and whispering that I hated our mother. That I hated pink. That Mother was mean and I wanted my walls to be my walls and it wasn't fair and why couldn't I ever do anything I wanted, and on and on and on.
"Do you know what she did?" I ask Damien, after I've told him all of that. "She came home from school the next day with a tiny jar of lime green paint she'd swiped from the high school art department." I blink back the tears that have gathered with the memory. "She told me I needed some green, and so we painted a tiny green square right behind my bedside table, and then we took a pencil eraser and wrote our initials in the paint. It would have been right about here," I say, leading him to the far side of the room and pointing to a pile of boxes.
He bends, moves a couple of the boxes aside, and then crooks his finger for me to join him. I do, then suck in a breath when I see what he's found. It's been covered, but I can still clearly see the hint of a green square beneath the flat white. And in the middle--more texture than image--are the initials NF and AF.
My knees go weak, and I let myself slump to the ground, Damien's arms going around me to cushion my fall.
"Thank goodness you're here," I murmur, my back to his chest.
"I'll never be anywhere else."
I nod, acknowledging the simple truth that is the shining miracle of my life as I lean back against him, grateful for his warmth and strength.
"I don't want to remember," I admit. "And yet just being here--it's all coming back. Good. Bad. It's crashing over me like waves. All these memories, and I don't have the strength to stop them coming."
"Then don't," he says. "Let go, baby. Let the tide take you. I'll be your tether. I'll always pull you back home."
I squeeze my eyes shut, lost in the magic of his words. In the promise that he will always protect me. That he'll always love me.
A shiver cuts through me. Not from a chill. Not from fear. But from the simple realization that I should have known that kind of all-encompassing, unrelenting love from my mother. But I'd had to find it in my sister. In my friends.
In Damien.
"My mother didn't have a clue," I whisper. "Not even an inkling of how to be a mother."
The tears flow freely now as I recall the day I got the phone call that Ashley was dead. My mother's flat voice that she'd killed herself. And not flat with regret or mourning, but with disapproval. As if Ashley hadn't lived up to expectations.
The irony, of course, was that it was expectations and insecurities that had killed my sister. Her deep-seated certainty that she had no clue how to be a wife. That when her husband left her for another woman, it was proof that she was a failure--just like my mother had always said.
She'd killed herself because she'd believed she was nothing. But to me, Ashley had been everything.
"We were sitting here when she told me she was going to get married. On the floor beside my bed. And she said she was going to have a good life and be a better mom than ours."
My words tumble out as fast as my tears. I love Ronnie and Jeffery, my niece and nephew, but Ashley's child should have come first. I wanted so badly to be Aunt Nikki. To be the very best aunt ever, just like Ashley had said. "She never got the chance."
Suddenly, the loss of my sister is like a physical pain in my chest. I turn in Damien's arms, bury my face against his chest, and sob.
I'd come to this house wanting to exorcise my demons, but now it seems like the ghosts are everywhere.
I gulp in air, then try to force words out past my tear-clogged throat. "Please," I beg. "Please, can we just get out of here?"
"We're already gone." He kisses me gently, then takes my elbow to lead me out of the room. But I just stand there beside him for a moment, hating how weak and fragile I feel. I try to gather myself, determined to get out of this house without Caroline or Misty seeing any evidence of pain on my face.
And yet I can't manage. My knees are weak. My skin clammy. I start to take a step to the door, but the world seems to turn inside out, and me along with it.
I have only enough time to look up at Damien--to see the worry etched on his face--before the grayness takes over, and I collapse into my husband's arms.
3
"Nikki!"
Damien's voice--tense, afraid--seems to wrap around me. Something tangible that, maybe, I can cling to. That I can use to pull myself back.
"Sweetheart? Baby? Come on. That's it. You can do it."
I feel the warmth of his body surrounding me. Cradling me. His words are soft with encouragement, but the gentleness only hides an undercurrent of fear. I imagine his face in front of me, coming in and out of shadows.
Then I realize that it's not my imagination. Instead, my eyelids are fluttering open, my body trying to return to normal even though my mind is still lost in this odd netherworld where time seems so painfully slow and Damien's arms so deliciously warm.
"That's it, baby. You're going to be fine." I see the worry that tightens the lines around his mouth. That sharpens the amber of one eye and transforms the onyx depths of the other into a hopeless abyss. Then he turns to speak to someone else, his voice low and strained. "Where the hell is the damned ambulance?"
"On its way. I think I can hear the siren." Caroline stands behind him. Her brow is furrowed, and she's twisting her hands. Farther back, Misty clings to her little boy, her expression pinched, and I wonder if she is concerned about me or about what her new neighbors will think.
I hear the approach of sirens, too, and despite the summer heat, my skin prickles from the ice water that suddenly floods my veins, the chill pushing me all the way into consciousness. With a vague sense of wonder, I realize we're back on the front lawn. But I have no idea how we got here.
"What happened?" My voice is raspy, but it's enough to send relief washing over the three faces around me.
Carolyn steps forward, and though she puts her hand on Damien's shoulder, her eyes are on me. "Nikki, sweetie, it's going to be okay. It's probably just the heat. Nothing to worry about at all."
I try to push myself more upright. It's harder than it should be--I'm light-headed and unsteady--and when I see fresh worry on Damien's face, I stop trying and simply let him hold me. "I fainted?" Of course, I did, but the thought is so startling that I can't help but state the obvious a
s a question.
"You scared the crap out of me," he says.
"I'm okay now." I speak firmly, as if saying the words will make them true. Then I try to shift to my knees so that I can push myself all the way up to standing, but Damien holds me down.
"No, you don't." He holds me firmly in place. "Sit and rest until the ambulance gets here."
I grimace at the thought of being examined here on Misty's landscaped front lawn. "Honestly, it's not like I got bit by a rattlesnake or suddenly came down with Ebola. I just got light-headed. It's no big deal."
"It is to me," he says, and with those simple words, my argument dies on my tongue. I'm fine--I know that I'm fine--but Damien needs the reassurance, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fully erase the fear from his eyes.
Unfortunately, after being poked and prodded and monitored by two efficient paramedics, we don't have a definitive explanation for my fainting spell, and worry still lines Damien's face.
The only upside is that they don't insist that I go to the hospital, but they do want me to see my own doctor soon, as my blood pressure is low enough for concern.
Damien thanks them, then starts to type something out on his phone as I watch them pack up and return to the ambulance. They pass Misty, who has moved to the driveway and is talking with three curious neighbors and, probably, cursing the moment Damien and I darkened her doorstep.
"Do you want some juice?" Caroline asks. "I bet Misty has a cooler of juice boxes. Or I can run to the market."
"No, really, it's fine. But thank you. I think you're right. I'm not used to the heat anymore." This time when I start to get up, Damien helps me, his phone now back in his pocket. "I'll go see my doctor when we get home just to be sure," I add, certain that Damien just sent a text to his assistant, asking that she schedule that very appointment for the second we return to LA.
"Actually, we're going now," Damien says. "There's a walk-in clinic just a few miles from here."
I, however, am done being Invalid Nikki. "The hell we are. I'm standing. I'm walking. See?" I circle him to prove my point as Caroline graciously moves toward Misty, obviously wanting to avoid getting caught up in a marital power struggle. "I probably just need food and air conditioning. So let's go get some lunch and then head back to the hotel so I can work on tomorrow's presentation."