CHAPTER 22
Cate
“Mom, please, please come with us,” I pleaded under my breath as we stood by the front door.
“I can’t, honey,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Yes, you can, Mom,” I said, doing my best to stay calm. “He’s going to hurt you.”
“No…I can smooth this over,” she said.
I shifted my gaze to Joe and could see his shock, along with fear. It was something I’d never seen on his face. Joe was never afraid. Of anything.
“Jan—I know it’s none of my business—” he said, his voice low but strong.
It was what people always said, and it wasn’t true.
“Yes, it is our business,” I said, cutting him off. “We need to get her out of here. Now.”
“Oh, Catie,” she said in her Stepford Wife voice. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“No, Mom,” I said, feeling increasingly frantic. “It’s time. It’s way past time. Please. Let us help you. Go get in the car.”
Before she could reply, Chip was charging down the stairs. “What the hell are you all whispering about?”
I fought against my ingrained instinct to cower, finding the courage to reach out for my mom’s hand. “She’s coming with us,” I said, staring Chip dead in the eye. “That’s what we’re whispering about.”
“The hell she is!” Chip said, grabbing my mom’s other wrist and yanking her as hard as he could, like she was the rope in a game of tug-of-war.
Joe put his hands in the air, palms out, his shoulders squared to Chip. “Whoa! C’mon, man! Let her go! Calm down!”
Chip’s eyes narrowed as he dropped my mom’s arm and took a slow, dramatic step toward Joe. “You. Pompous. Prick,” Chip said. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do.”
“C’mon, man. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just—I just want everyone to calm down.”
“Get the hell out of my house!” Chip said. “And take your little gold-digging tramp with you.”
I held my breath in horror and humiliation as Joe squinted at Chip. “What did you just say?” he said.
“Did I stutter?” Chip asked.
“Apologize,” Joe said, the two men nose to nose. “Right now. Or—”
“Or what?” Chip said.
“Or else…you’re going to have a real problem on your hands!” Joe said.
Chip shrugged with a smirk. “If that’s what you want. Let’s go, pretty boy.” He shoved his way past my mom and me, then walked out the door, taking a few strides onto the front lawn before turning to face the house. “I’m waiting!” he taunted, his arms crossed.
Joe took a step toward the door, but I blocked his path with my body, and said, “Don’t, Joe. He’s not worth it.”
Joe shook his head. “I’m not going to let him talk about you like that, Cate! No way!”
“And I’m not going to let you fight him,” I said, picturing a scene on the front lawn, along with tomorrow’s headlines. I turned to my mom for one last-ditch, frantic effort. “And, Mom, I’m begging you…. If you ever cared about me, if you love me at all, you’ll go get in the car and leave that man, once and for all.”
She stared back at me like a wounded, disoriented animal, then whispered, “I can’t.” Her eyes looked blank. “And you both need to go.”
In that second, something died inside me, and I gave up, once and for all. “Okay, Mom,” I said, disgust drowning out every other emotion. “Have it your way…. Goodbye and good luck. Let’s go, Joe.”
I turned and walked out the door, past Chip, and straight to the car. To my relief, Joe followed me, even as Chip continued to taunt him: “That’s what I thought, pretty boy!”
Joe started to open my car door, but I told him that I could do it myself, and a second later, he was sitting beside me, starting the engine. As he pulled away from the curb, his headlights illuminated the little house that had once been my mother’s dream. And in that second, I silently vowed that I would never return to this place again, so help me God.
—
Joe held my hand the whole way home, but we both said very little. I could tell he was in shock, and maybe I was, too. Obviously, I’d seen Chip abuse my mom a thousand times, but watching it unfold with a witness—with Joe—was a new kind of trauma for me. Or maybe it was the same trauma, just a different level of shame. None of my usual mechanisms of denial were going to work this time. Joe had seen where I came from, and there was no taking it back.
He took me to his place without even asking. I was glad, as I might have told him I wanted to be alone but realized I did not. When we got inside his dark apartment, he turned on a few lights, greeted Thursday, then pulled me to him, giving me a long hug. When we finally separated, I braced myself for a line of questioning and felt relieved when he said only, “Why don’t you go take a shower while I walk the dog?”
“Okay,” I said.
He kissed my forehead before I turned and walked to his bedroom, then his bathroom, closing the door before slowly removing my clothes. I started to look in the mirror, then stopped, embarrassed by my own reflection. I told myself that I’d done nothing wrong, but I still felt a wave of intense guilt and shame as I stepped into the shower. It was the best place to cry, but that night, no tears came.
About twenty minutes later, I finally got out of the shower, toweled myself off, and wrapped myself in Joe’s chenille robe. I walked out to the living room and found him sitting on the sofa in his favorite green-and-blue plaid pajama bottoms. On the coffee table were two mugs of tea, the bags still steeping, along with a plate of buttered toast cut on the diagonal.
“I put a little honey in your tea,” he said with a small smile.
When I didn’t smile back, he said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say….”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Should we call and check on your mother?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Okay. Just come sit with me?” He patted the sofa beside him.
I sat beside him as he handed me my warm mug, steam still rising from it. I brought it to my lips without taking a sip, then turned my eyes to him and said, “Do you think we could pretend this didn’t happen?”
He looked surprised, his eyebrows raised. “I don’t know, Cate….”
“Please?”
He sighed, ran his hand through his hair, then nodded. “For tonight, yes…we can pretend. But not forever.”
I took what I could get, the two of us drinking our tea in silence.
“You should eat something,” he said at one point, gesturing toward the toast.
I shook my head and said I wasn’t hungry, remembering why I had been so thin in high school.
After a while, my eyelids grew heavy, the chamomile working its magic. The next thing I knew, Joe was gently shaking me awake. “C’mon, honey,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s go to bed.”