A Missing Heart(20)

I don’t know what I said to make her stop crying, because God knows nothing I just said was meant for that reason, I’m just truly concerned that this probably looks like a domestic violence scene.

She runs the side of her hands across her cheeks, smudging away some of the black makeup, but at the same time, making it worse. Sniffling, she opens her eyes wider, as if she’s realizing what she’s doing and she looks around. “Tori,” I say calmly.

“What am I doing out here?”

Oh boy. Has she had these episodes before? Is that what this is? An episode?

“You told me you wanted to get out of the car, and I pulled over,” I explain with hesitance. I’m looking at her the way she’s looking at me, and there’s nothing but utter confusion between the two of us.

“I’m sorry,” she says. With her hands folding up against her chest like a battered woman, she walks past me and slides back into the passenger seat, quickly closing herself in. I watch through the window as she pulls her shoulder belt over her chest and secures it. Then she lowers the mirror and attempts to clean up her face. I don’t know who this woman is right now.

I place Gavin back in his seat and settle in behind the wheel, debating if I should say anything or if it’s safer to keep my mouth closed for the remainder of the ride. Quiet wins.



Only an hour has passed between the time I convinced Tori to get back into the car, got us all home, put Gavin down for a nap, and sat down on the couch in front of the black screen of the TV. I feel scared for what happened, and I feel more scared about asking her what happened. We can’t ignore this, though. This affects more than the two of us, so I muster my courage and broach the subject, “Tori, babe, you have to talk to me.”

In this precise moment, as if Mom has bionic telepathic senses for when things aren’t going perfectly, her face lights up my phone, which is sitting directly between Tori and me.

“She always knows when to call, huh?” Tori says, standing from the couch and leaving the room. For a moment, I’m angry at Mom, my phone, and everything that interrupted the possibility of me finding out what the hell is going on, but now I realize there will always be an interruption or an excuse. Tori doesn’t plan to tell me the truth, or she would have told me by now.

With the room empty of any hope in finding out answers, I pick up the phone and hold it up to my ear. “Everything okay, Mom?”

“AJ,” she laments. “You can’t answer the phone with a ‘Hello’?”

“Sorry,” I spit out. When do parents stop smothering? I ask myself this question all of the time, and now I realize I will smother Gavin until the day he dies, which will be long after I do. Then I’ll haunt him to make sure he’s always doing the right thing.

“Hunter told me Gavin had a high fever and you two were in the hospital all afternoon. How’s he doing now? Do you need anything?” What else did Hunter tell you? I want to ask.

“He’s sleeping now, but when I took his temperature last, about an hour ago, it was back down to one hundred at least.”

“Did you already get the prescription?” she asks.

“No, they said it would be an hour before it’s ready.”

“I’m going to go pick it up for you. I—I know Tori has been sensitive about company lately, so I’ll just leave it at your door so I don’t bother the two of you.” I’ve been allowing Tori to act like this to my family—my family who will do just about anything to help each other in a time of need. I have the most selfless family a person could ask for, and Tori would rather I push them away.

I’m the first to admit that Mom can most definitely be overbearing and put her nose where it doesn’t belong. More often than not, though, I’ve grown to see how much of her behavior is from love, and for the fact that Hunter and I have put that woman through pure hell for the past thirty-one years. She deserves a little more respect than to be pushed away when offering to help. Of course, I would never admit that to her, but I’m trying to be more understanding of her incessantly helpful ways.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Give Gavin a kiss for me.”

As the call ends, Tori passes by the living room with her purse in hand. “Are you going somewhere?” Because I don’t think you should be going anywhere after what happened today.

“I need to go see my therapist,” she says.

“I think that’s great, but does your therapist take walk-ins?” I ask.

“I called her, and she told me I could come in,” she corrects me.

“I’m glad you have someone to talk to; it’s important, but I can’t understand why you can’t talk to me? I want to be here for you and support you in any way I can. I’ve tried to make that clear, and I’m sorry if I haven’t done a good enough job at showing you.” I stand up from the couch and walk over to where she’s standing, trying my hardest to make the necessary effort here. Grabbing her hand, I hold it up to my heart. “This is killing me, T. Whatever has been going on with you or us these past couple of months, it’s hurting me a lot. I love you. I want to see you happy again, and I want us to be the way we were.”

Her voice breaks as she begins to talk. “The only ‘us’ you know is from the time we were dating until the time I got knocked up.” I hate that she still refers to the pregnancy as getting knocked up. She’s not eighteen. “I was happy.”