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“That’s life, Cat. Nothing ever goes according to plan, and all we can do is swing at the curve balls and hope we connect.”
Unsure of how to get through to her, I stay quiet for a long moment, thinking. My own chest is uncomfortably tight with my own truth, the one that not even she knows. “My mama died when I was eighteen,” I start.
“I know.”
“Yeah. But I had lived in and out of foster care for six years before she finally up and did my brother and me the favor.”
I go back to that day often. Typically, when I’m alone at night, fighting to sleep, the memories rise and I see my mother, mouth gaping as if she was surprised by the overdose that came rushing through her veins to claim her.
“Some of the foster homes were bad, some good. Some were just fine…But there was one,” I shake my head, “that was fantastic.” I can see it in my mind as if it were yesterday. “A big yellow house with a bright green lawn out front and one of those white wraparound porches. I remember thinking that it looked like a happy house. Like the structure itself was warmed from the inside, the big bay windows, blinking eyes, the porch a wide smile. And Mr. and Mrs. Reece…They were so kind. So perfect. For weeks I kept waiting for something to go wrong, you know. Some sign that they were just as volatile as the rest of us. I was fifteen. And wicked smart. I knew all the right buttons to push.” I smile, incredulous. “But they never snapped.”
When I look at Catherine now, her head is resting on her knees, facing me. “What happened?”
My laugh is just a wheeze of air through my trapped lungs. “They gave me a sewing machine for my birthday. I think Jemma thought if they could get me interested in a hobby, I’d stop sneaking out trying to find trouble. Settle a bit.”
“And that’s when you learned to sew?”
“No.” Turning to her, I blink rapidly, trying to bank the sadness. “I pawned it for one hundred and three dollars. And I used it to take my little brother out to dinner at TGI Friday’s.” Catherine laughs suddenly, pulling a quick grin to my face. “We were kids from nothing. A hundred dollars felt like afortuneat the time. And TGI Friday’s…” I shake my head. It was a fancy meal for us back then.
“What did the Reece’s say? About the sewing machine?”
“I don’t know.” Looking her in the eye, I tell her, “I ran. And I went straight back to my mama. I lived with her another year before I finally had my Come to Jesus Moment and walked out.”
“It’s not the same,” she insists.
“No. My situation wasmuch worse,” I tease. But my chest is tight with the smothering emotion evoked by my memories. “By the time I walked out on my mother I had been dodging child protective services for so long it was a moot point. I was practically legal. The Reece’s and any of the things they would have done for me if I’d justtriedwere gone.”
Catherine cedes with a small dip of her head. Using her hands on the side of the bathtub, she pushes to a standand reaches for one of the towels draped over the rack. “I want to go to him,” she says finally. “I just…I need to figure out whatIwant after that.” Wrapping the towel around herself, she steps out of the bath. “He’s too important. When I go to him,” her breath hitches, “I don’t want it to be because I’m desperate. Or because I have nobody else to go to. When I go to him, I wanthimto know that I had a choice. And that I chose him.”
Pushing to a stand again, I start for the door, giving her the privacy to change. “Stay as long as you need then.” After listening to her, after hearing her talk about Aiden Flint, I’m not expecting her to stick around long. And I think she’s going to be okay either way.
I don’t have to understand what Catherine’s going through to know that she needs time to adjust. Relationships are hard enough for regular people, and when you start tossing in the addictive tendencies, traumatic pasts, and escorting…Well, it’s not going to be easy—for her or for Aiden.
The easy path for Catherine would be to break it off with the cop and just keep on doing what she’s been doing. In a couple of years, she could take the money and run, move to the Bahamas or Puerto Rico, retire on a beach. Hell, the easy path would have been to not let anybody into her life in the first place. This whole fiasco could have been avoided if, when the cop had looked at her and she’d felt that glimmer of attraction, she’d just smiled and walked away.
Now, walking away might not have made herhappier. And who am I to judge? I have never, not once, come close to what Catherine’s feeling.
Toni though…Toni has.
Chapter 29
Catherine
July 7, 2008
My timing sucks. Scrunching the scrawled note I’ve just written, I turn to face Suzanne as she walks in the front door of the Dressmaker carrying laden grocery bags. “There’s one more in the car,” she tells me, indicating the open door with her head.
I go to help without argument, unloading the last grocery bag and carrying it upstairs to where she’s unpacking everything into her small kitchen.
I watch in silence as Suzy works, every movement brisk and efficient. The two words sum up how she lives her life. She’s one of those people who just gets something done the moment she’s decided to do it, leaving no space for doubts or second guessing. I’ve always admired her heedless courage, and now, when everything is hanging in the balance, I find that it’s comforting to be around someone who doesn’t pause or overthink or come up with excuses.
She’s not like me. If anything, we’re opposites. Suzanne, brazen and sure. Me, confused and uncertain. Maybe that’s why we became best friends? Maybe that same theory applies to Aiden and me? There’s no logic as to why we should work—anddowork. He’s kind and gentle and brave, a man who can see the path clearly infront of him and forges ahead without hesitation. I am selfish and scared and constantly walking within the circles I’ve created. Maybe we were supposed to meet, so that he learned to stop and pause on his straight and narrow path while he rescued me from my circles.
“You look like you just saw Big Foot descend naked from heaven.”
I sputter. “What?”
“Your face just then,” Suzy grins. “Dumbfounded. Or revelationary, perhaps?” she asks as she stretches to put a box of tea away in a top cupboard.
