Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

Paula didn’t say anything. She wanted to go home. She needed to go home. The truth was, she wasn’t equipped to run with her kids, to stay in some shelter, hiding from her husband. She felt a wave of relief.

“Okay, Mom,” she said. “I’ll come home in the morning.”

She heard her mother release a long, relieved breath. “We’ll come get you right now. Where are you?”

“It’s okay. I need to get some sleep, and then, first thing, I’ll load up the kids and come home. Maybe you can make an appointment with that lawyer for tomorrow afternoon?”

“Are you sure?” her mother said. “We’ll get in the car right now.”

She looked at Cameron and Claire, sleeping so peacefully. They needed to rest, and so did she. She couldn’t stand the thought of waking them up.

“I’m sure.”

She told her mother where they were staying, so that her mother could call if she wanted to, if she got worried in the night. Then she hung up, feeling better, as if everything somehow was going to be all right. She got up and checked the locks on the door. Then she placed the desk chair under the knob. She kept the light on but got under the covers and closed her eyes. For the first time in three nights, she slept, the gun in the drawer beside her.

Just when it seemed to Willow as if her life couldn’t get any worse, Mr. Ivy came to dinner. Really? Really? Was she really supposed to put up with this? Once upon a time, wouldn’t it have been socially unacceptable, morally wrong, for your mother to be dating? Widowed, divorced-why didn’t she just give up ?

And to have it sprung on her like it was nothing. Oh, Willow? Did I tell you I invited Mr. Ivy to dinner?… What? When?… Um, tonight . And then Willow noticed that her mother was wearing a dress and not her usual leggings and big sweater. That her hair was down, not up in a bun. And she was wearing makeup! Oh, my God-do you like him?… I’m not a teenager, Willow. It’s just nice to have a friend… So he’s your friend… He’s not anything right now… Then why are you wearing perfume?

And now he was sitting across from Willow. Eating. Slowly, deliberately-as of course he would. He was probably chewing everything twenty bites, just the way every mother in the world told you to do. He was that kind of guy. At least he’d lost the argyle sweater. He wore a denim shirt that was halfway cool. His hair wasn’t completely dorky. Maybe this was his date look, not his principal look. Because it was a date. They didn’t talk about Willow or how she was doing in school. The conversation wasn’t focused on her, though they had tried to include her.

But he was literally hanging on her mother’s every word, leaning forward, laughing, smiling. Oh, they were having a grand old time. Over salad she could still convince herself that this was a big nothing, that her mother was just trying to be sociable. By the time they were finished with dinner (Bethany’s special Chilean sea bass in hoisin sauce with baby bok choy, which was so good that even Willow liked it), she knew. Willow realized by the blush on her mother’s face-and an interesting smile that Willow wasn’t sure she’d ever seen before-that Bethany did in fact like Mr. Ivy. By dessert Willow wanted to be sick. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“So what time is Richard coming this weekend?” she asked. “Didn’t you say he was coming? That he might spend the night?”

Her mother looked at her with a cool smile. They knew each other so well.

“Richard’s my ex-husband, Willow’s stepfather,” Bethany said to Mr. Ivy, who had stopped chewing. “And no, he won’t be spending the night. Nor has he ever, as Willow well knows.”

Bethany and Mr. Ivy exchanged a look, a kind of knowing smile.

“It was her second marriage,” said Willow. “Did you know that?” Oh, she felt it, that dark meanness, that black hole inside her. She was chastened for a minute by the look on her mother’s face. It wasn’t anger; it was pain.

“Um,” Bethany said. Her mother looked down at her plate for a second. She had a death grip on the napkin in her hand. Willow noticed that Mr. Ivy had leaned back in his chair and looked down as well.

“My first husband,” Bethany said finally, “Willow’s father, died when she was three.”

He looked up at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “That must have been… really difficult.”

Bethany issued that little embarrassed laugh she had when things weren’t funny but she was trying to make light. “It was a long time ago.”

“Yes,” said Willow. “She’s forgotten all about him.”

When Bethany looked up again, Willow saw her awfulness reflected in her mother’s eyes. Willow knew she was a terrible girl for saying that; her mother missed her father every day. She knew that; Bethany talked about him all the time. How he had a beautiful singing voice, how he loved to clown around and make them laugh, how he could cook, how he loved to read and always believed that Bethany would be a successful writer, long before she’d finished her first novel. Willow knew all this, and she couldn’t stand to see that look on her mother’s face.

I’m sorry , she could have said. I’m sorry, Mom . And her mother would have accepted her apology and put on a good face for the rest of the meal. Then she’d come to talk about it all later. But Willow didn’t apologize. She just looked down at her plate, pushed around the bok choy she had no intention of eating. She wouldn’t put a bite of her mother’s food in her mouth, even though she liked it and was really hungry.

Outside, the rain that had been threatening for days with an on-and-off drizzle had finally committed. It was hitting the roof and windows so hard that it sounded like the pounding of feet.

“Wow, that rain is really coming down,” said Mr. Ivy. He cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead. He probably had a sinus headache.

“Isn’t it?” said Bethany. She jumped on the sentence like a drowning person looking for a lifeline. Her voice sounded tight and faint.

Willow let her silverware clank to the plate, and she pushed her chair back loudly. “Can I be excused?” she asked.

Her mother looked at her darkly. “Please, Willow, be my guest.”

She made as much noise as possible stomping from the room. She pretended to storm up the stairs, but then she snuck back down to stand in the hallway outside the door to listen.

“I’m really sorry, Henry,” said Bethany after a minute.

“No, don’t apologize. Really,” he said. “I get it.”

“It’s my fault. I did kind of spring it on her,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Maybe you were thinking we’d all have a good time,” he said. His voice was soft and comforting.

“I was hoping.”

“Should I go?”

Willow heard her mother sigh.

Yes! Yes! Go! Get out and don’t come back .

“You know, Henry, I can see why you’d want to. And probably I should tell you yes, for Willow’s sake. But I don’t really want you to go. And I’m not sure Willow should act that badly and get what she wants. I think it might be time, though I know things have been hard for her, that she grows up a little.”

There was a moment of silence. They were touching; she could feel it. Maybe they were holding hands. Or, God forbid, kissing!

“I’d like to stay,” he said. “Can I help you clear the table?”

If Willow could have shrieked with rage, she would have. Instead she went quietly back upstairs. Inside her room she flung herself on her bed and started to weep. She couldn’t even say why she was so upset. Eventually she cried herself out and lay spent on the bed, hating her mother, hating The Hollows, hating her whole miserable existence. Was there anyone on earth more miserable than she was right now? She doubted it.