A Mother's Love, page 12
A second chance, he thought again. Yes.
CHAPTER SIX
LEILA FELT FOR ALL the world as if she were alone with Mark, although they weren’t the only diners in the restaurant. It might be the effect of the lighting or of the placement of tables that kept other voices to no more than a background murmur.
Or maybe the real problem was she had to admit that they were on a date. The real thing. And, darn it, she couldn’t even pretend she hadn’t wanted to spend more time with him.
Watching her with hooded eyes, he lifted his wineglass to her in a wordless toast. Hiding her panic, she touched hers to his with a tiny crystalline clink. She hid her twitchiness in a sip.
“So you survived the week,” he said. “What’s the verdict on the guy?”
She relaxed a little at the question, which kept them in familiar territory. After that first meeting, Leila had gone sightseeing with her mother and Robert on Sunday, then had dinner with them a couple more times. Robert was flying home to San Diego tomorrow, and Leila couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t been invited to spend this evening with them.
“He’s…not what I expected,” she admitted. “It’s hard not to like him.”
Mark’s brows rose at that. “You’re still trying, then?”
“No, I didn’t mean that.” She struggled to articulate her unhappiness. When words finally burst from her, they sounded childish. “He’s nothing like Dad!”
“Did you expect him to be?”
“I guess I’d expect her to have picked the same type. You know?”
“From what you told me, she was running from Robert. Maybe she went for the opposite type.”
“You mean, on the rebound?” Had her father, the man Leila worshipped, only ended up married to her mother by a sort of accident, because he’d been in the right place at the right time? Or, worse yet, because he’d been so different from the man who’d broken her mother’s heart? It was a horrible thought.
“They did look a little alike,” Mark said thoughtfully.
“Well…they both have brown hair and brown eyes. And they’re tall. Otherwise…I don’t know. I’m not sure we’re so much attracted to a physical type as we are to more intangible qualities, anyway,” Leila replied.
“Yeah? What’s your type?”
Why not be honest? She shrugged. “Nerds, probably. You know, smart, sometimes vague, completely lacking in temper, faithful, kind, easygoing.”
They stared at each other. “So that’s what’s wrong with me,” he observed at last mildly.
“I guess, um, you aren’t my usual type.” More like the opposite. Oh, heavens, what did that say about her previous relationships or this inexplicable attraction to a man she had been convinced was so wrong for her?
What was his type? Did she remind him of other women he’d dated? The thought bothered her more than it should. Ask, she thought but lost the moment when the waiter brought their dinners to replace the salads.
Instead Mark persuaded her to talk more about her father, and she fondly described the man who had always managed to look just a little rumpled even when he dressed up for special occasions, who’d come without being asked to clean the gutters on her house or replace the washer on the dripping kitchen sink or mow her lawn when she’d had an especially busy week. She found herself smiling as she told him how literal her father’s mind had been.
“He hardly ever got jokes. You could see him puzzling them out, bewildered when everyone else laughed.”
Mark seemed to really want to know who her father was and why she’d loved him so dearly. How could she say, Because he was there? Not, at least, without telling him about Cody and about her seven-year-old self’s shocked realization that her mommy wasn’t there for her surviving children. And she wasn’t quite ready for that.
“What about your mother?” she asked. “Did she ever remarry?”
He shook his head. “Never even dated, as far as I know. I think she was worn-out. Shoring up Dad’s mood all those years must have been hard. And pretending for our sakes—and for his, too, I suppose. She has friends, but she seems very happy to be living alone.”
“I can understand that, I suppose.” After all, Leila was happy living alone, wasn’t she? Although perhaps not in the same way. She’d always assumed this was a preamble, that sooner or later she’d meet the right man and would then have a family like the one in which she’d grown up. Although perhaps that family hadn’t been quite as happy as she’d believed.
Leila kept Mark talking. “You don’t sound as if you’re very close to your mother.
“My sister is more so,” he said. “Rachel’s six years younger than I am and she was less traumatized by Dad’s suicide. For one thing, she didn’t see his body.”
Horrified, Leila asked, “You mean, you found him?”
“Yes.”
“That…must have been very hard.”
“It was.” He kept eating, as though they were talking about the Mariners’ chances of making the play-offs, but somehow Leila doubted he was tasting a bite of his food.
A bit tentatively, Leila forged on. “You said he’d been a baseball player. What did he do for a living?”
Mark met her gaze, his eyes bleak. “Guess.”
“Guess?” She set down her fork, pondering. Then her eyes widened. “Not—oh, no! He wasn’t a police officer!”
“Yep. Killed himself with his service revolver.”
“Is that why…” Of course it was. Even though his father was no longer there to cheer him on, what else could that stunned boy do but follow in his footsteps, even into adulthood? She stared at him in consternation.
“I look like him.” He sounded almost casual but also…dark. “I can’t seem to get any answers from my mother on whether Dad was always depressed or whether it hit in his twenties, his thirties… That leaves me wondering, of course. How much like him am I?”
Leila was shocked to her core. “Are you depressed?”
His mouth twisted. “No. Just…uh, living with the possibility that the time will come.”
Suddenly outraged, she said sharply, “And you dared to nag me to talk to my mother! Call her. Tomorrow. Demand to know his medical history. You’re entitled! Unless you like living in suspense.”
He blinked. “No, I can’t say as I do. I have asked before, you know. She’s…evasive.”
“But…why would she be?”
Mark shook his head. “I can’t be sure, but I suspect she feels culpable. Could she have said something different, noticed something, done something? Wouldn’t you believe, in her circumstances, that it had to be partly your fault?”
“Then shouldn’t it comfort her to understand that he was clinically depressed and that she couldn’t have prevented his death any more than if he’d had cancer?”
“Is it ever that straightforward? If she’d been home that day, maybe he wouldn’t have done it.”
“Not then.”
His shoulders moved. “If he’d had to survive that day, would he have felt as low the next one? Or the next? I think, looking back, he’d spent years somehow managing to convince himself to go on another day. So maybe she could have made a difference.”
“That’s not the same as being at fault.” She frowned. “You’re still angry at her, aren’t you?”
Mark gave her a wry smile. “Not because she wasn’t home that day. It’s the pretense I resent. What if he had died of cancer and Rachel and I hadn’t known he’d been having chemotherapy for the past two years? The effect is the same.”
“That’s not fair,” Leila said slowly. “People used to think of any kind of mental illness as shameful. If your mother grew up believing it was… Anyway, how do you know he isn’t the one who wanted it hidden?”
She’d startled him again. His face went very still, and he seemed to be looking inward. “You know, that never occurred to me.”
Leila thought she’d pressed enough, and he certainly looked thoughtful. They talked of lighter subjects then.
Thank goodness, she thought during the drive home. Chitchat about nothing in particular was much easier to sustain for someone whose heart had begun to flutter with anticipation and old-fashioned nerves.
Mark parked in front of her house, walked her to the door and waited while she unlocked it and turned to face him.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said, hearing how stiff she sounded. At her age, she really ought to have more poise than this!
“You’re welcome.” He stepped a little closer, lifted her chin with one hand and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her lips in an astonishingly sensual caress, then bent his head and kissed her.
Just like the last time, her knees weakened; once again, she reached out and grabbed hold of him. His breath rasped—or maybe it was hers. The slow, aching way he was exploring her mouth changed, became urgent, needy.
But then she felt his fingers dig briefly into her upper arms, and he lifted his head. They stared at each other, with Leila wondering wildly what he saw. His face was taut, drawn, his eyes so dark she couldn’t have guessed the color even in the porch light, his breath coming hard and fast.
“Good night,” he said. “Lock up.”
She bit her lip and backed inside, stumbling over the half step. “Yes, sir,” she managed, the mock snap in her voice wavering only a little.
Holding to her the sight of his smile, she closed the door and flipped the dead bolt. Her heart was racing now, as if she’d escaped some peril she couldn’t even name.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MARK FROWNED AT THE Mariners game on TV. He held a beer in one hand and the telephone, loosely, in the other. Truth was, he couldn’t have said who’d just gotten the base hit. Instead he bounced the phone in his hand and thought, Okay, big guy. At the sound of a gunshot and a woman’s scream, you’ll break down a door and go in without hesitation, but you don’t have the guts to ask your own mother a straight question.
He’d asked before. She wouldn’t be any more open this time.
Yeah, but had he ever said, Mom, this is important to me?
Crap. He set down the beer, grabbed the TV remote control and muted the game, then dialed.
“Mark!” she exclaimed in pleasure. “How nice to hear your voice!”
Now he felt guilty to have an agenda. He couldn’t call his own mother just to chat? Maybe he should put off asking about Dad….
Coward.
Yeah, so?
She chatted about the cruise she was thinking of taking that winter with a group of other women from work. He made appropriate noises and waited for his chance.
When it came, he said bluntly, “Mom, I actually called to ask you about Dad’s depression.”
“Oh, Mark! Let’s not talk about ancient history. For goodness’ sake, what difference does it make now?” It was as if he’d asked a question about whether Jimmy had really pushed him down the time he skinned his knee in second grade. As if the subject of his father’s life and death was also trivial.
Mark thought about the fear curled tight in his belly, like a tumor that could swell silently at any time, and said, “Mental illness can be hereditary. Rachel and I should know what kind of problem we might be carrying.”
“She’s never worried.”
“Yeah? You ever ask her?”
“Why would I? You’re the one who’s obsessed with your father. I doubt she’s thought of him in years.”
“She and I talk about him. We know you don’t like to and usually we respect that.”
Her wounded silence was one of her principal weapons. He’d never been able to take it. Damn it, she was a fellow victim of the tragedy, not a perpetrator. He invariably felt cruel dredging up the painful times. This time, although it was hard, he sat silent, too.
She spoke at last in a brittle voice. “What is it that you want to know?”
So easy? he marveled. Had he simply never asked firmly enough? Did that place the onus for the not knowing on his own shoulders, not hers?
He swallowed. “I keep wondering when depression might hit me. When did he start having trouble?”
“How would I know? He certainly wasn’t honest with me!”
Wasn’t honest with her?
“You mean, it started before you met?”
She made a sound he identified after a startled moment as a laugh—the angriest one he’d ever heard. “At the funeral… Can you believe it? I’m burying my husband, and one of his best friends from back home tells me that he’d tried to kill himself in high school.”
“Dad tried to commit suicide when he was a teenager?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“I thought…maybe the friend…” Mark swore and shoved his fingers through his hair. “How…?”
“He drove his car into a tree at high speed. Apparently it was pure luck that he survived. Either he panicked and tried to turn the wheel at the last second or just misaimed, because he caught a fender and spun.” She stopped. “They thought it was an accident—teenagers so often don’t wear seat belts—but while he was in the hospital, your grandma found a note he’d left on his desk.”
“My God.” Mark took it in. If his father had succeeded then, he’d never have met Mark’s mother and neither Mark nor Rachel would have been born. “And you had no idea.”
“I was so furious I was shaking. Everyone thought it was grief. Right at that moment, I hated him so passionately…. Him and your grandparents. They never told me.”
The floodgates were open. She told Mark more—about what she’d thought of as her husband’s moodiness, which came and went, about the times it became darker, more frightening. She’d left him once but come back in fear that he’d kill himself if she truly did leave him.
“Didn’t you ever worry about the fact that he carried a gun?” Mark asked.
“Never. He took such pride in wearing that uniform,” she said, sounding sad, and because Mark, too, remembered that pride, he knew what she was really saying. The job had sustained his father in a way neither his wife nor children had been able to do.
She talked some more, filling in the years when Mark had been too young to understand his dad’s problems.
“Why didn’t I know how depressed he was?” Mark asked. “I remember Dad withdrawing but not crying or threatening suicide.”
There was a little silence that felt different from the earlier one. Mark sensed his mother was gathering herself. When she did speak, her voice had softened, grief and a terrible sadness taking the place of anger.
“He was so ashamed of his weakness. He never wanted you to know.”
So Leila was right. All these years his mother had continued to protect the man who’d abandoned her in the most horrific of all possible ways. How odd, he marveled, for that to be a comfort.
So, there had been love.
“Thank you for talking to me,” he said. “I really did worry.”
“I had no idea.” She sniffled, and Mark realized belatedly that she was crying. “If I’d known…”
“It’s okay,” he said helplessly.
They talked longer, healing some wounds, easing at the end into trivial subjects that served as first layers of new skin over the raw emotions they’d bared. By the time he hit End on the phone, Mark felt closer to his mother than he had in years.
And he wanted, badly, to talk to Leila. To tell her everything his mother had said, everything he’d remembered and felt. He’d never had this need before. Several years back, when he’d become involved enough with Christina that marriage did enter his mind, he’d realized that he hadn’t warned her about the depression that ran in his family. That’s how he’d thought about it: Gee, maybe I should red-flag this piece of my medical history. They’d been mostly living together for eight or ten months at that point—she kept her apartment but was at his more often than not—and all the while he’d let her assume his father had died on the job. That was his mother’s favorite excuse, although she never outright lied. She just vaguely alluded. Which is what she’d done when Christina and she chatted over the Thanksgiving dinner table that year. He’d let it go and only grunted in acknowledgment when later Christina made some admiring reference to his father’s sacrifice.
What he didn’t ever recall thinking was, If I love this woman, I should want to bare my darkest secrets to her. Thank God he’d had the sense before going down on one knee to realize he didn’t love her. Mark had known something was missing. She’d finally come straight out and asked if he saw them having a future, and when he admitted he didn’t, she moved out.
With Leila, it had been different from the beginning. Or at least from that night at the Green Lantern. On the job, he was used to dealing with people who blinded themselves to their own motivations and responsibilities. He’d been stunned by Leila’s determination to seek the emotional truths that made her who she was. He’d never have confronted his mother if he hadn’t been galvanized by Leila. He was a typical guy who rarely examined his most private fears.
Call her. Why not? he asked himself.
He dialed without letting himself reconsider.
“Mark,” she said immediately, her voice concerned. “Are you all right? You sound odd.”
“I just talked to my mother.”
“You did it? Was she willing to answer your questions?”
“Not happy about it, but she did. You were right. Dad was ashamed of himself. He didn’t want us kids to know about his illness. Plus, he’d have lost his job if anyone at the department had known how depressed he was. Some of the secrecy came from that.”
“And I suppose it gets to be habit.”
“Yeah.” He breathed out, his chest easing. “Here’s the kicker—Dad didn’t tell Mom before he married her that he’d already tried to commit suicide once. Maybe he thought he’d conquered the depression. I don’t know. She found out at his funeral. She’s been furious ever since.”
“Oh, no! Oh, Mark. How awful for her.”
He kept talking, she kept listening. At first it seemed easier to open up over the telephone, as if he sat in the dim, private confines of a confessional booth, but he began to wish she were here. He wanted to see the emotions animating her face, not have to listen hungrily for them in the timbre of her voice.
