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Silent all these years
Excuse me but can I be you for a while
Been saved again by the garbage truck
Well I love the way we communicate
Your MOTHER shows up in a nasty dress
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So for the next few mornings, I woke up, went for a jog, showered and went to work. My life began to take on a calm, routine feel, something I haven’t had for about a year and a half. Then, my parents returned from their holiday in Fiji. They arrived home on the 5th of September. I walked through the back door to find my mother and father sitting at the table in the kitchen sorting through a fairly sizable pile of mail.
“Hey Mom!” I said walking over towards them. They both just looked up at me. It’s not like I expected them to change their essential personalities and rush over to hug me. But a smile would have been nice. “Hi Daddy! How was Fiji?”
“What’d you do to your arm?” My father asked.
“Umm...” I said holding up the purple cast. “I broke it.”
“Well, obviously.” He said standing and walking over. “But, what kind of break?”
“The broken kind.”
He just rolled his eyes as he took the dirty cast into his hands and turned it over, sticking his fingers in the openings. “Not a bad casting job. Did the doctor tell you what the NAME of the break is?”
“Umm... I can’t remember.” I said.
“Did an orthopedic surgen set it or an ER doctor...”
“An ER doc...” I said.
“Did you get a copies of your X-rays?” I shook my head. “Do you at least know the name of the hospital?” I again shook my head. “Well, you’ll have to come to my office tomorrow and I’ll take new X-rays. What did you do to your knee?”
“Umm... I had to get stitches.”
“Put your leg up on the counter.” I swung my leg up on the counter and he peeled back the bandage. “Cleo!! These are infected. What did you do?”
“Well, it was an ugly episode.” I said as my father poked at the stitches. I sucked in my breath as he squeezed a particularly angry looking red bump. “Involving me, Zac Hanson, a shopping cart and a display of canned fruit...”
“How long have you had them?”
“Since August 28th.”
“Well, they’re coming out, so I can clean this leg. Stay here, I’ll go get my medical bag.” He turned and walked towards his office at the front of the house, leaving me standing with my leg up on the counter.
“Hey Mom.” I said flopping down into the chair my father had just vacated. “How are you?”
“Cleo, what did you do?” She didn’t even look up at me when she asked this question, just continued to sort through a pile of mail that rivaled the pile I had just gone through at work.
“I told you, it involved me, Zac...”
“No. Why did Diana call and ask if I knew where you were?” My mother said finally looking at me through her little half glasses perched on the end of her nose. This was a very unsettling and imperious look. I suppose it was the look she used to intimidate witnesses on the stand and juries. Hell, I’ll bet that look scared the judges.
“Cause, I came home and forgot to tell them I was leaving...”
“You forgot?” My mother cut me off.
“Well, kinda. I wanted to come home and I knew they would try to talk me out of it.” I shrugged. I had never really talked to my mother about my life, I wasn’t about to start now.
“You never could WAIT to leave, why the sudden urge to come home?” My mother asked her voice just dripping with sarcasm.
“Just some stuff came up...” My dad came back in and knelt down next to me and started cutting the stitches out, which hurt a lot more than I thought it would.
“What “stuff”?”
“Just stuff.” I said shrugging my shoulders again. I felt so guilty and I wasn’t even sure for what or why. My father began to scrub at the scar, poking and probing the ragged opening. I was gonna have a killer scar. “Ouch! That hurts!”
“Who did you sleep with?” My mother asked. My head snapped back up towards her. Her eyes were boring into mine. I returned her stare for a moment. I wasn’t going to back down and yet, I was the first to look away.
“Sarah...” My dad said quietly. My mom shot him a death glare.
“Mom...” I said shaking my head. If I thought talking about me and Taylor with Walker and Diana was bad. My mother was a professional at dragging confessions out of the guilty. I looked to my dad for support, but I knew he wouldn’t get in the middle of this. He never got into anything.
“What? If you are old enough to screw around, you are old enough to talk about it...” Those were almost the exact words Diana had used and yet, when my mom said them, I felt so dirty. “Again, I ask, who did you sleep with?”
“Mom... Please...”
“Just answer the question.”
“God, I’m not a witness!” I yelled at my mother. “Quit interrogating me!!”
“Cleo, don’t yell at your mother.” My father said as he slathered my knee with something that burned slightly and smelled horrible.
“You act so grown up and yet, you can’t even own up to your mistakes...” My mother began.
“Okay, you want to know what happened?” I asked standing up as my father wrapped gauze around my knee. “I fucked Taylor... I got him drunk as a lord and then I fucked his eyes out. I was so busy plotting the seduction of Taylor that I totally ignored ALL of Zac’s symptoms and his appendix burst!! But unfortunately, I am such a good lay that now Taylor thinks he’s in love with me. So, I had to leave.”
“Cleo, there’s no need to be vulgar.”
“There isn’t?” I said flinching as my father stuck a needle in my leg. “Ow! Dad!!”
“Just some antibiotics.” He said smiling at me.
“Cleo, you don’t need to use such harsh language.” My mother said standing up and walking over to the refrigerator. She reached in and pulled out a bottle wine. “I just thought it was a bad idea from the start. You traveling alone with the boys...”
“What didn’t you think I could control myself?” I asked totally amazed at her lack of faith in me.
“You’ve never....” She stopped and pursed her lips together. She poured herself an enormous glass of wine. “Obviously not.”
“In my whole life, did I ever ONCE show any interest in any of them?” I asked as she drained the glass dry in one long gulp. “What have I ever done to make you have so little faith in me? You know what Mom? I’m sorry Thad died and I lived. I’m sorry that I’m such a disappointment to you.”
“Cleo, don’t...” She began.
“Don’t what?” I demanded. “I wish I was more like Thad. I would give anything to be more like him. But I’m not! I never was. I wanted to be social, but I wasn’t. I was just smart.”
“Cleo, your mother and I have never, ever said that we wish you were more like Thad...” My dad started. He stepped in close to me and tried to put his arm around me.
“Don’t.” I said backing up a step. “Please, don’t try to be my dad now.”
“Cleo, I’ve always been your dad.” He looked at me with such sad eyes.
“No, you’re my father, not my dad.” I said sadly. He flinched as I said that. He looked as though he was going to cry, he hadn’t even cried at Thad’s funeral. “You’ve always just been this dark shadowy presence that I look like... Not an actual living breathing part of my life.”
“Baby, I am so sorry.” He said putting his hands in his pockets. “I never...”
“Dad, it wasn’t your fault.” I said. “I suppose, I didn’t need you until Thad died and by then, it was too late...”
“Cleo, you know all this drama and pathos is really, really affecting...” My mother said pouring herself another glass of wine. “But that doesn’t change the fact you put not only your job, but our lifelong friendship with Diana and Walker on the line here. Did you think about how many lives you would be effecting?”
“No, mom, I was mostly hoping I didn’t get pregnant!” I said turning and stomping out of the room.
“Cleo, come back...” My father called after me.
“Greg, let her go.” I heard my mother say as I slammed the door to my room closed.
I fell back on my bed and
just laid there in a patch of late afternoon sunlight. The warm golden
sun pouring in through the west facing windows. I was seething.
I wanted to scream, to vent my frustration, but instead I just laid on
my bed, my hands wrapped in my comforter. I rolled over onto my stomach
and slid my hand around just under the edge of my bed until my hand came
in contact with my phone. I unplugged it and hit the directory button.
I scrolled through until the window showed the name “Little Boy Blue,”
but for some reason, I couldn’t hit dial. I needed him more than
I ever needed anyone right now, and yet... I needed to be brave,
needed to not worry about what people thought of me, needed to realize
asking for help was not a sign of weakness. I hit talk and put the
phone up to my ear to check for a dial tone. Instead, I heard soft
steady
breathing. “Hello?”
“Cleo?” I heard Taylor say on the other end. “I didn’t hear the phone ring...”
“It didn’t.” I said a smile spreading across my face. “I had just picked up to call you!”
“Really? I was sitting here and my nose started itching, so I thought I should call you.”
“Oh, that would be me and my parents talking about you.” I said laying back and rolling over. My eyes traveled across all the pictures of us, all of us. My mother was right if things didn’t work out between me and Taylor, there were going to be a lot of lives affected. “And really, the talk with your parents went much, much smoother...”
“Ugh, I thought it was horrible. Truly embarrassing.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t involve screaming, swearing and recriminations.”
“Now, that sounds fun!” He said. His voice was so soft and unhurried, not the sad anxious voice from the phone call in the cemetery. “And with your mother’s lawyer skills, I’ll be she can wield a powerful argument.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t very fun.” I said reaching out and taking a framed picture off my nightstand. In the picture, we were all laying on our back in the grass, our heads together. I remember the hot afternoon when that picture was taken. The Hansons had hired a professional photographer to take pictures of the boys to send in with their demo tapes. Thad, Jarrod and I had been watching and making fun of them. Finally, the photographer tired of us distracting them, made all of us lay on our backs. Mine and Thad’s dark hair mixed in with their blonde and of course, Jarrod shiny bald head. Light, dark, light, dark, light dark. We looked so happy, so young, so untouched by reality. “So, why were you calling?”
“Because, the doctor just
told us that there doesn’t appear to be any real damage to Zac’s heart,
he said he is a very, very lucky boy.” He said, I could here talking
and laughing in the background. I recognized one of the voices to
be Zac talking in his Matt Foley voice. “He says that Zac will be
weak for a while, but with rehab, that’ll he’ll be back to his annoying
self in no
time...”
“Oh, that is so good to hear.” I said as tears of joy flooded my eyes. I clutched the picture to my chest. This news was so good.
“Zac got to eat real food tonight...” He stopped and I could hear talking in the background. “Zac, Jello is real food, not really solid food, but food nonetheless...”
“Jello?” I asked. “He’s got to be loving that...”
“Yeah, let me tell you he is back to his truly annoying self.” Taylor said. I heard Zac in the background yelling something about him not being annoying. “Zac, what did you say when you saw yourself in the mirror? Yeah, that’s right...”
“What did he say?” I asked as the sound of the room faded a little.
“He said that he wished he had just died, cause now he looks like me...” Taylor paused. “Zac, there is nothing wrong with being thin... I am not anorexic. God Zac, you are such an enormous asshole...”
“Tay, quit fighting with him.” I said. “Did you get the voicemails I forwarded to you?”
“Yeah, I did. Zac hasn’t listened to his yet, but Ike and I did.” He said. Again, I could hear a voice in the background. Sometimes talking to Taylor was a lot like talking to the whole family. He had almost no privacy and was rarely if ever alone. “Hey, my mom was wondering if you could run out to our house and get Zoë’s Zubbie?”
“Zoë doesn’t have her Zubbie?” Zoë’s Zubbie was a blanket with a stuffed animal head sewn in the middle. She dragged that thing all over. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been asked to go out to their house sooner.
“No and this week has been hellish.” He said sighing. “My mom is sick of fighting with her about it...”
“Yeah, I’ll go.” I said sitting up in my bed. “In fact, I’m leaving right now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, so I’d better say goodbye...” I hurried and shoved my shoes on and grabbed my purse. “Is there anything else?”
“No.” He said, then his voice dropped to a whisper. “Cleo, I love you and I miss you.”
“I love you too.”
“I miss seeing you...” His voice was so soft and intimate. I felt butterflies in my stomach just thinking of him being back in Tulsa, close enough for me to touch and to be touched. “All I can think about is kissing you, holding you, being with you, touching you...”
“Taylor, I think I’m gonna barf!” Zac crowed in the background.
“Fuck you Zac!” He snapped.
“Jordan Taylor Hanson! You better not have said what I think you just said!!” Diana said sternly.
“Tay bud, you’re in trouble.” Zac laughed.
“Zachary Walker Hanson, you just shut your mouth.” Diana said, I could tell she had moved over near Taylor because her voice was suddenly very close. “Say goodbye, young man.”
“Uhh... Cleo, I have to go...” He said. I closed my eyes and could see his face flushing a bright pink. He always seemed to glow when he was in trouble. “I love you...”
“Oh man, you got “young man.” I don’t envy you and the trouble you’re about to get into...” I said.
“I know...” He sighed.
“Taylor, I love you.” I whispered. “And just wait for your homecoming... It’ll be worth the price of admission...”
“Really?” He asked hope in his voice.
“Store up your energy...” I said, hoping my voice sounded sexy.
“Taylor, off the phone. Now!” Diana said.
“I know, you really, really have to go...” I sighed. “Bye Taylor, I love you.” And with that, the phone went dead. I grabbed a sweatshirt off the floor and opened the door of my room. I took a deep breath and stood at the top of the stairs. I ran down the stairs two at a time and slammed out the back door... I didn’t stop to tell my parents where I was going. I didn’t stop to answer the question my father called after me. I didn’t stop until I was in my car. As I backed out of the driveway, I saw my father standing on the porch watching me...