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“What the Hell?” asked the guard.
He stood there watching her dramatic exit and Heather almost laughed from relief. When she regained her footing, she focused on the pudgy face staring back at her from the doorway. He continued to stand still, holding a fl ashlight in one hand and a two way radio in the other.
Heather wondered which one he had planned to use if there was an attack.
Heather realized, by the look on the guard’s face, that she still had blood gushing from her forehead and turned toward the mirror to see what he was looking at.
“Oh my God,” she muttered at her refl ection.
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Blood trickled down from her forehead and the bleeding had worsened throughout her time in the stall.
The sight was horrendous and reminded her of another scene from the same horror movie Thick, dark blood traveled over her eyebrows, through her eyelashes and down her nose. Streaks combined with sweat and together, they forked off from the original bloodline, creating different pathways. Heather looked as though she had been pummeled with a tire iron and quickly tried to reassure the guard who looked close to passing out.
The blonde from the front desk was in tow and she showed more balls than the hesitant guard. The small woman rushed to the sinks where she dampened several paper towels that she used to wipe the blood from Heather’s eyes. When the receptionist saw the stalls refl ected in the mirror, she noticed Jack standing atop the commode.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said gently. “Come here.”
She offered a hand but Jack ignored it. He jumped down from the toilet and walked straight over to his mother. Heather felt his hand into hers and she smiled because he was safe.
After discovering that Heather’s injuries were self-
induced, neither the guard nor the blonde gave much credence to her story of an attacker. They had no choice but to believe her version of the events since they were corroborated by a seven year old, but they chalked it up 135
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to something less menacing. They believed she had over-reacted to a man who had gotten lost.
Police weren’t notifi ed since no crime actually occurred. The intruder hadn’t done anything more dangerous than enter the ladies room and the employees were convinced Heather’s paranoia and over-reaction was the real problem. When she asked why their innocent guy disappeared, they told her he’d probably left, embarrassed after fi nding himself in the wrong bathroom.
The staff bandaged her cut and advised her to go to the hospital for stitches and then the security guard escorted them to their car. Heather had the feeling he would have led them out with the same eagerness even if they hadn’t been ready and willing to leave.
Her eyes became beacons as she shot anxious looks in every direction. She just wanted to get both of her boys safely into the car. Heather fl ipped open her cell phone and dialed Tommy’s number as she pulled out of the recreation center’s front lot. Turning fi ve sentences into one, she told him she would pick him up in a matter of seconds.
“We’re going to your dad’s,” she added quickly.
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Chapter 9
Gone Away
Damon and his brother Jeff sold the house and land their parents had left behind. Heather’s fi rst ex-husband had given her a large sum of money and she had used most of it to move the boys and herself into their dream home.
She remained grateful that Damon loved them enough to help them and thankful that her realtor, a family friend, agreed to a lease option. Heather had started believing things would be all right; at least until recent events.
She never understood why people threw away their failed relationships and she believed wholeheartedly in the power of her self-proclaimed “sliver system.” It was a concept she had worked out for herself and explained to Dr. Angel many years before. It was her rule book and her self-discipline in the shape of a pie. The slivers represented the men she placed in each slice. No slice was allowed to have more than one topping. She couldn’t cuddle her lover and she couldn’t have deep talks with the family man.
The slivers were all segregated and allowed only one task.
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Should they try to cross over or demand more toppings, they would be immediately ejected from the pie.
Her doctor didn’t believe her system to be necessarily healthy and had tried to help her integrate her slivers. He tried to tell her she didn’t have to have sex with one and then wait to cuddle the next. He told her she could have both needs met in one man. Heather had to explain she was well aware she could have it all in one. It was that she didn’t want to have it. She knew what came of it. The cheating and the abuse and the pain wasn’t worth it in the end so she kept them all at a safe distance from one another, as well as from herself.
Because of her doctor’s interference, Heather no longer had a sliver system. She had systematically shut it down as she matured and grew and learned to nurture the healthy parts of herself but Heather missed her slivers. The only one she’d held onto was the lover and he was the fi rst one she should have let go of.
Neither Joey nor Damon was meant to be her husband but she had always known they were intended to play signifi cant roles in her life. The fact they fathered her sons told her they were meant to be a part of her forever, so she kept them. She held onto her fi rst love just as tightly. If her heart were an offi ce building, each of the men would have his own wing.
If she closed her eyes and let herself imagine them as they were, she could feel the same rush of love she felt while she was with them. Because her heart was still burdened by her love for them, she allowed them all to 138
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rent the space in her heart. With each man, she carved out a different type of relationship she felt they could better handle.
Heather went to Damon’s with the boys. She needed to feel safe and his place was where her car drove them.
Damon wasn’t home yet so she grabbed his extra set of keys from its hiding spot behind a bush and walked in ahead of Jack and Tommy. When they weren’t looking, she grabbed a long knife from its slot in the kitchen and headed toward the back rooms.
Pretending to go through closets in search of wrapping paper, Heather searched each room for an intruder with a southern drawl. Each time she pulled open a closed door, she pulled the blade back into attack mode. When she found no uninvited guests, she headed out to the back patio.
The back porch was enclosed and offered shade from the sun and cover from the rain. The large pool was covered by an outer screen. Heather had spent many nights on Damon’s patio over the past twenty years and had always appreciated that he shared his childhood home and his parents with her.
Damon’s parents had quickly become her own surrogate mother and father during her troubled teenage years. She had experienced confusion and angst and had found escape in their welcoming home. Their broad shoulders and patient words of advice had healed her on so many different occasions.
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Heather called them Carolyn and Mickey for two years. Then they became Granny and Grampy and became a part of her family. Heather missed them desperately but still felt they were close by.
“Hey,” Damon said from behind her.
Heather screamed and jumped. She almost smacked him in the face but recoiled in time.
When he saw her mangled eye, Damon almost screamed himself.
“What the Hell happened?” he yelled.
“You should see the other guy,” Heather said as she searched for a lie.
“I’m not kidding, Heather. What happened? Where are the boys?”
“Oh, right. Like if something had happened to them, I wouldn’t have told you by now?”
She was trying to buy time. She hadn’t heard him pull up and still didn’t know how much to tell him. If he were
to help her protect the boys, he would have to know at least some of the truth. He just stared at her angrily while he waited for her fi rst tale.
“I had an accident,” she said.
“A car accident?”
“No. More like a locker room accident,” she replied fl atly.
“If you don’t tell me within ten seconds, I’m going to fi nd the boys and let them tell me.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, exasperated, and she told him.
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She shared the story about the man who applauded Jack’s swimming tricks and then followed her into the ladies’ room. She told him about the guy who followed her through the parking garage and then disappeared into thin air. She told him about her fear for the boys and her need for Damon to help her keep them safe. Heather stopped talking only before blurting out her belief that the recent thunderstorms were a communication from God and that He was warning them all of impending danger.
Damon responded with his typical combination of skepticism and empathy. Mostly, he was worried about their safety and tried to forbid Heather to go back home.
She compromised and said she’d let the boys stay with him but that she needed to be in her own place. Heather was the target and as long as the boys were in her presence, they were in greater danger.
After ironing out plans and schedules, the ex-spouses sat back to smoke a cigarette and drink a beer together.
Heather noticed Damon was staring out into the massive fi eld behind his house and fi gured he was probably trying to freeze frame the memory before he picked up and moved out the following month.
She knew he was thinking about his parents and she wished she could make his pain go away. As angry as she became with her own parents at times, she couldn’t imagine losing either one of them. Heather sometimes felt that death was God’s biggest mistake and she silently cursed Him for allowing humanity to know such loss.
When she gave it deeper thought, she changed her mind, 141
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deciding that endless life was even more terrifying than one interrupted. During those moments, she thanked God for being insightful enough to have given them the gift of an ending.
Carolyn and Mickey both died of heart attacks only six short months apart. Heather had been in her offi ce both times when Damon’s frantic phone call sent her racing down the street at ninety miles an hour. She held him up during the rescue attempts made by paramedics.
Later, she walked with him through the funeral parlor to pick out caskets. At the funerals, she stood by his side and held his hand tightly. Damon was one of her closest friends and she knew when the time came, he would do the same for her.
“Do you ever think that maybe they’re still here?”
Heather asked.
“No,” Damon answered as he shook his head fi rmly.
He had given up his belief in God right after his mother told him she was scared and cold and fell out of her wheelchair. When he was unable to revive the pile of lifelessness lying at his feet that had once been his mom, Damon decided there was no such thing as God.
“I know you don’t,” she said. “I do, though. And I think they’re here.”
She shrugged and changed the subject before he became excited about his newfound atheism and decided to recruit her.
“Anyway,” he started by way of a subject change.
“Should we talk to the boys about what’s going on?”
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“No,” Heather answered without hesitation. “I don’t want to scare them.”
She refused to share information that would make them nervous. She had to fi nd a way to keep them safe and unaware of her concerns all at the same time.
Keeping things from Tommy had become more diffi cult than in the past. He was more intuitive and he picked up on moods the way she had as a child. Heather wondered why her kids were so determined to only inherit her burdensome traits.
She smiled at Tommy through the window and he waved back. He was sitting on the couch watching television dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt ensemble.
By the way he laughed, she guessed he was watching Family Guy.
When he felt them looking at him, Tommy stood up and walked outside. He towered over Heather as she sat in her chair and it made her laugh. She still denied it out loud but Tommy had grown past her a good year before. When she yelled at him or tried to discipline him, she often felt foolish looking up into his eyes instead of downwards like she used to.
A warm and familiar rush of love spread through her and she silently agreed that her friends were right. He really was identical to a young Jim Morrison. Tommy sat down beside his father and he met their eyes.
“What’s up?” Heather asked him.
“Nothing, I just thought I’d hang out with you guys.”
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She knew it was a lie. The real reason for his company was that he was picking up on trouble.
“Everything’s okay,” she said too soon.
“Yeah, I can tell,” he said, staring at her facial injuries.
“Your eyebrow’s bleeding again, by the way.”
Tommy’s sarcasm was usually fun but not at the moment. She couldn’t fault him though. He came by his sense of humor naturally.
Heather thought that if her children were a representation of her, they spoke well of her character.
One needed only to observe the empathy and humor of her older son and the kindness and depth of her little one to know she was more equipped to parent than she gave herself credit for.
Through both her achievements and her mistakes, she had raised them to be happy, well-adjusted and loving kids. She had no doubt they would be remarkable men, supportive husbands and protective fathers and she often told them so.
Heather stood up and walked over to Tommy’s chair.
He looked up as a blast of thunder marked the moment.
She pulled him out of his chair and put her head on his chest as she hugged him.
“When did you get taller than me?” she asked.
His hair fell over his right eye and he fl ung his head to the side to brush it away. “About a year ago,” he answered.
“What happened” Jack asked, running out the back door. He had come to ask his brother a video game 144
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question when he noticed the embrace. His little arms enclosed his mom and brother as he joined them. Only Heather’s children could touch her on a level so deep.
“I was just telling Tommy how much I love you guys,” she answered. She didn’t want to make him worry and knew he would easily believe she had simply been professing her love.
He rested his head on her hip and Heather wondered if there was a better feeling in the entire universe.
Later that evening, before she headed for home, Heather went into the room Jack slept in and stared at him for awhile. He was sprawled out across his bed in red pajama bottoms and Spiderman top. Jack often dressed backwards like his mother, and never seemed to notice when his outfi ts were mismatched or inside out.
He looked comfortable and she hoped he was having good dreams. Heather focused on his face, remembering the fi rst time she’d ever seen it. His big brown eyes, the dark curls and the rosy cheeks were still the same.
He had fallen asleep less than an hour before and his sleepiness had left him helpless to resist conversation about himself. He didn’t brush off her questions and he didn’t insist to his mother that she “get out of his mind”
as he usually did.
“How was your day?” she had asked as she climbed into bed beside him.
She had pulled the comforter over them as her intermittent giggles hinted at either a playful mood or a delirious state of mind.
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“Fine, but I’m worried,” he answered frowning.
&
nbsp; “About what, honey?” she asked as she wrapped a runaway curl around his ear. She wondered what a seven year old could worry about that would prevent sleep.
“I’m afraid for my face to be old,” he fi nished.
Heather didn’t know where the statement had come from and her brain sent out thousands of messages in search of a decent response. She still felt good that her decision to stay quiet and listen for awhile was the right one. The act armed her with the knowledge she needed so she could continue making sense to such an intricate little mind.
As the talk progressed, Heather discovered her son’s real fear was that he would look into the mirror one day and discover he had aged overnight. Looking back at a newly wrinkled and decrepit old man had apparently become his worst fear
Heather tried to describe the gradual aging process and to convince Jack that time would never be so sudden.
It took some work but he seemed to understand what she was saying.
She was no stranger to diffi cult childhood questions.
Both wise beyond their years, her sons had challenged her to many desperate dictionary searches and hours of theological research.
“I’m afraid to be different, mom,” he said.
She pulled him into her arms and held him without speaking for a minute. After a quick succession of kisses on the top of his head, she fi nally responded.
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“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I want to be the same as everyone else. I don’t want to be different,” he insisted.
She could almost see his aura darken and she had to tell herself it was just a play of lights. Her immediate reaction was to tell him that being different was a good thing but she knew he was more stubborn than that and that she needed to be careful. If she presented it the wrong way, he’d take the opposite stance just for the sake of a good argument.
“I always liked being different,” she said simply.
Heather punctuated her statement with a quick shrug that she hoped would exacerbate the nonchalance she was trying to pull off.
Jack scrunched his nose and offered a dimpled smile that turned him into a clone of his father.