Chapter 32

Jade and I decided to go to the clinic while we waited for Mom to return home. I wanted all the crinkled and torn cards on the table that night. Jade went to her room to change. Jesse gave us space and his patience. I loved him more for it, although I still wasn’t sure where we were headed. Mom and Jade took precedence, and whatever happened between us and the women in the Palace of Misfits could bind Jesse and me or destroy us as a couple. I wanted off the roller coaster for good. I might eventually escape my father, but I would never be able to escape myself ever again. And I didn’t want to, but truth set me free.

Jade entered my bedroom, dressed in a dark purple T-shirt and denim shorts over the palest legs I’d ever seen. She wore a newish pair of purple flip-flops. Only her hair remained black and she still wore her nose ring. I was stunned at how much we looked alike absent all her Goth plaster.

“Who are you and what’ve you done with my sister?” My eyebrows hiked north.

She shrugged. “Goth was Ax’s thing.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She spun her beaded wrist bands around her wrist, a motion so like Jesse’s, my breath hitched. “’Cause I look like you?” Her eyes narrowed, and I grinned. “Thanks. Guess I can’t cover up the tattoos.”

“Did Ax make you get them?”

“No. I’ll talk you into marring your perfect royal skin.” She pressed a finger into the small of my back. “A dragon wrapped around a sword.”

“No friggin’ way.” The idea intrigued me, though. I’d always wear my dragon to protect me and bring me good luck. Mom would just die if I got a tattoo, if she managed to live beyond that day.

We set off to the women’s clinic, a light teasing banter calming our nerves inside my SUV.

“What did Dad say after you got your tattoos? He would’ve skinned me alive.”

“He never saw them. Mom told me to keep them covered up or he’d kill me. I used to wear fingerless gloves when he was home.”

“Aha.” I play-punched her arm. “I knew we’d find common Dad ground.”

One fine thread weaved us together beyond our blood. Hope existed in that thin fiber. If Mom didn’t kill us all in a raging house fire.

The clinic, in a commercial area on the outskirts of downtown San Jose, flipped our reality upside down. Girls and women of all ages and states of pregnancy or non-pregnancy waited in the dim reception room. The sunny yellow trim bordering buttery walls extended an invitation to life and change. Teenagers glanced at us curiously, ammunition for their rumor mills. Jade whispered her name at the reception desk. The room didn’t resemble the toy-scattered pediatrician’s offices I was used to visiting. This was serious business. In a moment of brilliance, I wrote my name on the intake sheet for birth control pills. I didn’t know where my relationship with Jesse was traveling, but it wouldn’t end up in an accidental pregnancy, at least not by my fault. The point-zero-one percent margin of error was out of my control.

Two hours later, Jade and I drove away from the clinic, my pill stash in my purse and Jade’s confirmation in her belly. By best guess, she was six weeks along. Pregnant before Dad had died. I truly believed all things happened for a reason, as clichéd as that sounded.

Jade called Jesse to give him the news and sat contemplating her choices while I steered the car toward home and confrontations.

“Abortion, adoption, or keep the baby,” I said, the words bumping off my tongue.

“I can’t do the abortion. But I don’t want to be a teenage mother either. I want to go to art school after high school.” She began to cry again, a fountain of tears that never ran out of juice.

“For a degree in creating voodoo dolls?” I teased to splatter the tension.

“I already know how to do that.” A smile tugged at her lips. “For computer art.”

“Really? I didn’t think you liked computers.”

“Because you don’t know me.” She pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and dug for her lighter.

“Touché. That ends now.” I plucked the cigarette out of her mouth and tossed the death stick out the window. “That ends now too.”

“You going to college to be a princess and a cigarette warden?”

“I already know how to be a princess.” We laughed and it seemed to lighten our moods. “Financial planning. I have a knack for money. I won’t end up like my mom, not knowing how to pay a bill.” I navigated the subject to her little bundle. “What if we talked my mom into agreeing to mother,” I did one-handed air quotes, “the baby. Would you keep it then?” If Mom didn’t end up someone’s prison bitch in an orange jumpsuit.

She wiped her nose on an old natty napkin from my glove box. “Maybe. I just can’t see myself as a mom.”

“There’s always adoption. The nurse said there aren’t enough babies for people to adopt. There’s the private adoption where you’re allowed to interview the couples. She said the waiting list’s a million miles long.”

“Supply versus demand. I’ve become the hot Christmas toy everyone wants.” She flung her head back on the headrest. “I can’t go through nine months of torture only to give the baby up.” Paling, she held her hand on her stomach.

I touched her left hand, which was gripping the armrest. “The nurse said you have a few weeks to think about the abortion option. Don’t make yourself sick over it.”

Home was a beacon in the eye of the storm. We entered the house through the garage. Mom’s voice floated to us from the formal living room. The most useless room ever. Hmmm… good place for a nursery.

“You ever been in the living room?” I asked.

“Ax and I had sex on the couch once.”

“Ah, crap. I need ear bleach.” And antibacterial spray.

“Ivy?” Mom spied me turning the corner to the long front hallway that opened to all the rooms downstairs. “I’m in the living room.”

Jade came abreast of me and we took slow, tiny steps toward a new chapter of life. I texted Jesse to meet us there. Mom sat alone, her cell gripped in her hands.

“What’s up?” I swung my pendants on the chain. Jade crowded me, needing my physical support to walk the green mile to the bright, sunny living room of mauves, corals, and gold, Lynwood palace colors. Jesse’s footsteps joined us from behind.

Mom swept her arm at Jade and me. “Two days ago you wanted to kill each other. Now you’re standing together.” She ushered us into the room, her arms windmilling. “Jade, you look so cute without all the black. I hardly recognized you.”

I mashed my purse to my middle. Jade’s face screwed up and she pressed on her stomach, face green and looking ready to spew chunks. Jesse and Jade sat in the easy chairs placed around the couch in the center of the large room. Hello, intervention of all palace creatures.

“What’s going on with you kids? You’re up to something. Honey, are you okay? Sit.” Mom waved her hand toward the Queen Anne chair. I obeyed before my noodle legs gave way and slid me down Alice’s rabbit hole. “What happened to break the wall between you and Jade?”

I scanned her up and down, hardly recognizing her happy glow, her restored youth, her hair in waves framing her smooth tanned face, how much she’d changed for the better since she’d… killed Dad. Acid dripped into my gut and I contemplated spewing chunks too.

All eyes bounced to me, as if expecting me to shatter into a million fragments of glass and spray the room in stinging agony.

“Jade and I had an epiphany,” I said. “We get each other now. Right, Jade?”

She did a bobblehead Chihuahua imitation.

“What kind of epiphany?” Mom asked.

“That sisters need to stick together, no matter what asshole fathered us,” I retorted. Jade and Jesse flinched.

“Ivy,” Mom admonished. “There’s no need for name calling.”

“Why not?” I shot daggers from my eyes and my sudden anger helped rid my stomach of the acid. “I’ve plugged in and realized how he stunted my life, how I missed having a boyfriend or girlfriends.” I glanced at Jesse then Jade. While I sank into a shell of emptiness. “Until he died and gave me freedom, a freedom bought with a king’s ransom.” He gave me a new sister and the forbidden love of my short life.

Mom took my hand. “I’m plugged in now, honey, truly. Tell me what’s going on.”

I glanced from Jesse to Jade. A warmth I’d not known in a long time filled me with the knowledge that I was no longer that lonely, solitary figure who’d bottled everything up. I welcomed their solidarity, their comforting presence as I embarked on another life-altering conversation.

My palms sweated a fountain, and I wiped them on my shorts. I set my cell on the coffee table, all the evidence I needed.

“Did you set the sailboat on fire?”

Mom’s mouth opened in a large O. “What? Why would I kill your father?”

“He was a brute to us. He had multiple affairs. You refused to leave him, so I thought—”

She held up her hand, palm facing me. “I suffered in silence. I tried to do my best, you know I did. I loved your father too. There was good in him once.” She looked from Jesse to Jade. “They knew what a good man he was when he was around. I figured there could be good in him again once he was settled in his career. He was a great provider. I would never hurt him or Jillian Jerome. I didn’t even know about her.”

“But I have evidence… I know you didn’t go to the canasta party. What about your text messages to someone named N? He said to meet you at the marina at eight. The canasta party was the next day, not that night.” She tried to interrupt, and I gave her the palm. I told her about all my suspicions. Drained, I sank back in the chair and waited for her to confess.

She rummaged on the table in a stack of opened mail. “Detective Santiago mailed me the police report. They ruled the fire an accident. It started from a leaking gas tank and they suspect burning candles. Read it for yourself.”

I took the report and read the affirmation. “What about the rest? It adds up.”

“Oh, Ivy. I wished you’d come to me sooner. I’m so sorry I’ve burdened you with so much.” She hugged my wrecked body. I didn’t reciprocate. I wasn’t ready, not that I had energy to lift my over-burdened arms. She released me. “The hoodie belongs to the gardeners. They left it behind and I hid it from your father to return to them later. You know how he demanded everything in its place in the garage. As for the checking account, I’ve been stashing away a little money here and there for years. I got sick of your father doling it out as if I was a child on an allowance. So I socked away every leftover dime to use whenever, even sent some to Kristen when he wouldn’t increase her allowance.”

“Oh, Mom… I thought—” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I won’t make further excuses. I take full responsibility.” She squeezed my hand and continued. “Your father thought due to his new VP status he needed more insurance. He asked me to put the papers in a safe place. You found my safe place.” She chuckled wryly. “Not very safe, was it?”

“Maybe to others.” I uttered a grim laugh. “What about N and the marina?”

“My therapist’s name is Neal. I was seeing him for therapy before the accident. I needed to wake up and smell the coffee, as you’ve pointed out numerous times. He holds a group meeting every Friday at Marina’s restaurant downtown.”

“Were you seeing him before… before Dad died?” Are you as much of a hypocrite as Dad? And me?

“Only on a professional basis. Nothing developed between us until afterwards. I respected my marriage, and Neal’s professionalism didn’t allow him to consort with clients.”

“But you’re consorting with him now?” My eyebrows hiked north.

She blushed a healthy shade of pink. “Only because he released me as his client and Anita referred me to someone else.”

I needed a Spitini to rinse the taste of foot out of my mouth. “I overheard you tell him about making plans with the insurance money. What plans?”

“To launch a home and party decorating business. I was hoping you’d help with the finances. It’s something we could do as a team. Maybe even involve Jade, and possibly expand to catering.”

My relief slid the last of the wet mountain of sand off my shoulders, and I drooped against the chair arm, limp and dazed. “Oh. I’m such an idiot.”

“No you’re not.” Jesse smiled my smile, sending my pulse into the stratosphere.

“Maybe a little.” Jade laughed.

My two best friends. Friends I believed I’d never draw into my world of one. Our lives and relationships wouldn’t be perfect by any stretch. I mean, Jade would turn into a pregnant dragon girl, and we’d all laugh about it. In eighteen years. But I didn’t want to live without them in my life.

Jesse read the police report, Jade hanging over his arm to read it too.

“I remember that leaking tank the last time I was on the boat,” he said. “I told Dad he needed to repair it.”

I rose and leaned over his shoulder to scan the report. The tank had exploded. Dad and Ms. Jerome never had a chance. There was no evidence that they were stoned or drunk. Another mountain of relief slid off my back.