We Are Not Ourselves(166)

Sergei was pleading with her through the dark pools of his eyes. She sensed a controlled fury in him; she could imagine it erupting if anyone so much as grazed Connell with a finger.

“You’re just going to stay here with these people? That’s it?”

She wanted to say, I’ll be home later, but the words still wouldn’t come.

“You’re ignorant,” Bethany said. “You’re an ignorant kid and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t talk to my son like that,” Eileen heard herself say, and the room grew still and quiet. She rose. “He’s not ignorant. He means well. And I’m sorry if he offended you. I’m sure he’s sorry too. Yes?”

“Sure,” Connell said, evidently trying to seize the momentum. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to go home.” Before she knew it, she was paces from the door. “I’m tired. I want to thank you for everything.”

“You don’t have to let guilt rule over you like this,” Rachelle said. “You’re on the verge of a major breakthrough.”

“You’ve helped me,” she said. “You’ve made a great difference.”

“You still have a long way to go,” Rachelle said. “Don’t fool yourself.”

“I’m sure I do.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t let him influence you,” Bethany said. “He’s no better than your husband.”

Eileen got very still. “You don’t know the first thing about him.” She dug into her pocketbook for the check and extended it toward Rachelle.

“Don’t be silly.” Rachelle tried to reach for her wrist. Eileen shook her off and left the check on the table. “You’re always welcome here. Take some time to think it over.”

She must have stood there too long, because Connell was calling her over. She walked toward the door. Bethany moved to head her off, but Sergei slid in front of Bethany like a gravestone rolling into place, blocking her with his massive body as Eileen continued out to the street.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bethany called after her, but Eileen didn’t turn around. Connell raced ahead while Sergei led her down the stairs and up the stretch of the block to where the car waited. He opened the door for her in the back. Connell took the streets with the grim purposefulness of a getaway driver.

In the silence that prevailed in the car, she wondered how her son had plotted this thing, how many people knew, how he had explained it to Sergei.

They pulled into the garage and went upstairs. Sergei headed to his room. She and Connell stood in the kitchen, eyeing each other warily.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“Yes, I did.”

“I wish I could explain this to you. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses. But I was never in any kind of danger. I was in control the whole time.”

He just looked at his feet. She wondered when exactly he had gotten so big. She was having one of those moments she hadn’t had in years, where he seemed to grow before her eyes. It occurred to her that he might have seen her as being as out of control as his father was. Maybe he thought both of them were losing their minds.

“Anyway, I want to thank you for caring. I was fine, but still.”

“No problem,” he said.

“I mean it. You’re a good kid.”

“Come on. You’re my mother.”

She wanted him to hug her, but he just stood there dubious of the way she was looking at him.

“Come here.” She put her arms around him. She felt his breathing against her chest and was reminded of holding him when he was a baby, his laundered pajamas soft and fresh as he was, the whole of him fitting in her two hands, his little behind on her palm. He’d looked at her then as the source and giver of love. She hadn’t had to hide anything from him, and she hadn’t needed anything from him but his presence. And it was that way again now, for at least this day, this moment. His presence at Rachelle’s had meant everything, and his presence now in her arms meant everything too.

When they were done hugging, he looked at her strangely.

“What?”

“Maybe those crazy ladies helped you after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was the first time you ever did that.”

“Did what?”

“Hugged me first.”

She shook her head. “That’s not possible,” she said.

“In my memory, anyway.”

She shook it again. “There’s more that’s happened than what’s in your memory.”

? ? ?

When she got to the top of the stairs she ran into Sergei leaving the bathroom. He gave her a diffident wave, as though they were schoolchildren passing in the hallway during the change of classes. She stood in the antechamber to the bedroom for a while, hearing Ed’s labored breathing under the sheet.

She walked to the bed and found him lying awake in a spooky silence, looking right at her.

“Where?” he asked, sounding as if he were half dreaming. “Where were?”

“With Bethany.”

“Who?”