There’s almost too much awed understanding in Peace’s silence.
Fuck, this feels like some weird confessional, those hands kneading me in prayer.
“Andrea was mad about us toward the end, yeah,” I try again. “Pissed that I was breaking our family up ’cause Abby and I just weren’t seeing each other no more. I married a woman too much like my ma, and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. Then she went and had a freak fucking brain aneurysm, swift and sudden.”
Peace gasps. Her eyebrows knit together in this sad puppy dog sympathy I don’t fucking need.
“That’s not the point. Think I’m just worried deep down she hates me because I pushed her ma away and drove her body to fail her.”
“But you didn’t!” Peace says it with the same gentle firmness she works in my flesh. “You didn’t do that, Blake. You tried to make a decision that was best for Andrea, for your family, because things weren’t happy…and then nature or chance or something else stepped in and did things that were totally not your fault.” Her thumbs sweep inward, just barely touching the deepest ridge of my scar.
I hiss, digging my teeth into my lip so hard I taste a smidge of blood.
“And I don’t think Andrea hates you for it. She’s just young. Her feelings are in and out, confusing her all the time. Especially her feelings toward the man she values most. I’m sure she craves your approval as much as she needs to break your authority, so…” She giggles softly. “Andrea’s going to be a little rage-bucket at you pretty often. I know that’s how I was.”
I let out a breathless laugh. I hurt, and not all of it’s the pressure turning my flesh into warm putty.
My chest hurts, too.
Fuck.
I’ve never told anybody these deep dark secrets. It’s like they cut me inside on the way out of my mouth.
“You’re not old enough to have a teenage daughter,” I tease, trying to deflect. “How do you know all this?”
“Because I used to be that girl who loved and hated her old man,” she answers. The wistfulness in her voice hovers around her. “And then he was gone on deployment, and then just gone, and I was left with my mother. She buried herself in work. I just needed to feel like something stable would stay, just for once. My father didn’t.” She sighs. “So I got angry and ran away from missing him, and wound up not staying anywhere at all.”
I’m struck by the sudden urge to hug her.
It’s irrational as hell. Even if she’s working on me and I don’t want to interrupt this quiet stillness building between us with her hands.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “You’re allowed to be pissed at your folks for leaving you without any closure, even if they couldn’t help it. Same thing you told me earlier. No crime in being human.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Well.” Damn, she’s just hitting all the pain points today, physical and psychic. “My ma died last year. She wasn’t good to me, or to…” I almost mention Holt, but something about the thought of him pulls me up short. “…my family. But I left, and I never got to say a lotta things to her, y’know? Things I needed her to hear. And now that chance is gone, and my family’s still a mess.”
“Maybe not.” Her grip shifts and the heel of her palm kneads the knot of my scar.
It actually doesn’t hurt. There’s a searing heat instead, like that stuff inside a stress ball moving under my skin, and it ain’t half bad.
I sure as hell feel it creeping up, spreading higher and higher, toward my hips—tension everywhere else getting lighter. That’s ’cause it’s all flowing toward one specific place.
“Sometimes we just need to be heard,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter by who. I’m not your mother, but I can listen to what you need to say.”
Any other time, I might’ve actually taken her up on the offer.
It’s kind, genuine in a way I’m not really used to when most people just fall back on pity and useless platitudes. Anything to get out of this kind of conversation ASAP.
I can’t believe I’ve been telling her all this shit.
Just like that.
Shit I won’t say to people I’ve known my whole life.
This strange little spitfire pulls it out of me.
I don’t dare tell her that.
Not today when I’ve done enough spilling.
Not when I can’t think about my ma and what those soft hands are doing to me on the same frigging wavelength.
I got a lotta fucked up shit going on in my head, but not that fucked up.
So I just give her an uneasy laugh, trying to take my mind off both things nagging at me. My mother, and the fact that Peace Rabe’s hands are doing terrible things.