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I looked over at my grandmother. She still seemed to be in her self-imposed ‘fog’ world. It was if she was oblivious to it all. Maybe it was better for her that way.
I turned and went towards the stairs. “I’m going to bed. Merry Christmas everyone.”
I flew up the stairs to my room. I felt like a teenager that had missed curfew. Perhaps I had acted recklessly in taking off the way I did. Acting reckless was not me. It never had been.
I went into the bathroom upstairs and scrubbed the makeup off my face.
My skin had stubble burn in several places from Taz. I smoothed some face cream on to take the sting away.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t look any different than before. The important thing was that I felt differently.
I owed that to Taz. He had given me the boost I needed to understand what occurs sexually between a man and a woman.
While not experienced by a long shot, at least I knew that going into a relationship in the future I would not be the "bumbling" virgin anymore. I was at least a novice. That gave me some comfort.
I returned to my bedroom and for the second time in the last several hours, peeled my clothes off. I climbed beneath my sheets and burrowed down under feeling some sense of relief. I fell into a restful sleep.
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There was a soft tapping on my bedroom door.
“Lindsey,” my mom called out. “May I come in?”
I rolled over in bed and saw the clock on my nightstand. It was nearly 2 p.m. I scooted up in my bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
“Yeah, Mom, come in.”
She came into the room and took a seat on the edge of my bed. I looked at her waiting for her to speak.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you?” she asked softly.
I ran my fingers through my hair. It was a fair question. I just wasn’t sure how I could answer it without making her feel unnecessarily guilty, or coming across as a whiney brat.
“A lot of stuff, I guess. Maybe a lot of it has been there for a while. With Granddaddy dying, I don’t know, a lot of stuff has just come to the surface; the finality of things with him and with Daddy.”
“Lindsey, it isn’t as if your father died.”
“He might as well have, Mom. Besides, how do we even know that he is still alive?”
She didn’t say anything. She continued to watch me.
“If he is alive, I mean, how should I feel about that? He chose what he did and how he is living over me. Either way, dead or alive, I’ve lost my father, too. The difference is that we can all grieve for Granddaddy properly. Who in this house besides me even feels like grieving for the loss of my father?”
I watched as my mother absorbed what I was saying. She chewed her bottom lip a sign of worry or stress.
“Lindsey, I understand how you feel, but I can’t lie to you. You are right; I don’t feel the same way. There are so many things that I’ve never told you about your father. I’ve kept those things to myself because I wouldn’t do anything to tarnish your feelings for him. These things happened long before he deserted us.”
“I appreciate that, Mom. As difficult as it is, I’m trying to hold onto the good things that I remember about him and the life that we had together when we were a family. Now I get that during most of that time you weren’t happy. You never let that show, Mom. You only told me that when all of this stuff went down with him. I guess I have a question for you. Why? Why did you stay with him for nineteen years, when according to you, you were clearly miserable?”
“That’s a good question, Lindsey. It’s a question I’ve asked myself over and over again. There is no simple answer. I suppose for the first few years it was because I was young and dependent upon him. I didn’t know how things were supposed to be between a husband and a wife. I threw myself into raising you and trying to keep Jack happy. Later on, it just became the way of life that I had grown accustomed to. It was easier to stay and be miserable than exert the independence I had never possessed. Making life changes is no easy thing. It takes determination and energy. I guess I lacked both.”
“Mom, I need to ask you something and I hope that you won’t take it the wrong way.”
She nodded and waited.
“What if you hadn’t met and fallen in love with Slate?”
“Are you asking me if I would have stayed with your father?”
