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She’s still looking directly into me, and I know she’s giving me a peek into her history. Not a pretty history if those are the songs of her childhood.
Chapter 9
~~ Lorelai ~~
I’m stunned at my confession. This is the second time I’ve slipped up in front of this man.
He’s been consistently caring. Although I was surprised when he turned down my offer earlier, I shouldn’t have been. I could read the desire in his eyes even before I saw his obvious physical reaction, but he’s been careful about showing respect for boundaries even when he was very much inside my personal space. He is exactly contrary to the totality of my experience with men.
I take a moment while our eyes read into each other’s depths to examine that. I feel... Safe.
I know it’s false. There are so many different ways people hurt each other without intention, but there it is. That’s the name of this unfamiliar feeling.
Safe.
There’s a recognition in the dark chocolate of his eyes as he processes the images I can imagine are going through his head, but I don’t find pity. I find empathy and... Pride? That’s a surprise. Pride in what? That I survived?
I’m not proud. I became a liar and a thief at a young age. It’s only been the past few years I’ve been able to let go of some of those old habits.
I rest with the admission and wait for James to ask questions.
But he doesn’t.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, still holding eye contact.
His sincerity is almost tangible, like I could reach out and touch it with a finger. It feels soft. And warm. As if I could pet it like the stray cat, I once convinced to trust me, and it would rumble a rough purr beneath its course fur.
Or maybe that’s me. I’m the cat and his sadness for that little girl smooths over me like a caress. A slight vibration starts in my being, a longing I haven’t felt in so long I almost don’t recognize it.
“I...” I stop and take a deep breath. He’s shared so much of his life with me. I can’t just blow this off like I usually would. So I start talking.
“My older brother taught me a few things. He skipped school a lot, and he showed me how to use the stove and the washer.” The words spill out, tripping over each other in the speed at which they fall.
“He got the school to force my father to enroll me in preschool when it was time. He made me promise to go every day, to learn to read, and do math. Even when he didn’t go, he made sure I caught the bus. Every day, until the day he stopped coming home. By then, I could read and write, so I figured things out.
I checked out books from the school library and taught myself to cook when I got tired of peanut butter sandwiches. I learned when to stay out of my father’s way, and when I could remind him to pay the light bill. I kept that promise to my brother and never dropped out of school, even when I wanted to.”
James slides a hand across the table and brushes my fingertips. When I don’t move my hand, his large one settles on top of mine with a slight squeeze. His eyes are sad, and I don’t want to tell him any more sadness.
Instead, I tell him about the school social worker who snuck me a candy bar now and then, and how I pretended not to need her advice on how to keep the house clean enough to avoid being sent to foster care.
I tell him about the church ladies I wouldn’t let in the door, but how I’d sneak out and bring in the bag of canned goods and baking staples they left after making sure they were far enough down the street. How there was occasionally a bag of used clothes around my size.
I leave out the times my father screamed that I looked like my mother, and he didn’t want to see me. Or how often I tried to dodge his drunken swings.
I don’t tell him about the time I got off at the wrong bus stop and a couple of rough looking men chased me until I found an off-duty officer and asked for a ride home.
I don’t tell him about the times my father locked me out of the house at night before I finally stole his keys and made a copy at the hardware store with cash I took from his wallet.
I leave out the times I left my too-small shoes on the discount store shelf in place of the new ones I walked out of the store with. I don’t tell him about pulling a jacket from a clothesline a few streets over when the weather started to turn cold.
I leave out the few times my brother came stumbling back and I tried to nurse him through withdrawal until he would disappear again.
But I see James reading between the lines. He picks at his salad while I talk, making it last. I run out of stories I want to tell right about the time my throat starts to get sore. I take a bite of the salad. The chicken is cold now, and the stirred memories made my appetite disappear, but eating food every time it’s available is not a habit I’ve been able to break yet.
As a distraction, I let James catch me slipping Rusty a few pieces of chicken where he lies under the table on top of my feet. Out of the corner of my eye I watch James’s lips turn up and spread and let it warm me. Making this man smile should be someone’s full time job.
Talking about my childhood makes me feel... Dirty. I remember standing on the edge of the street, looking out across the river, how the burn of the cold had chased every dreadful thing away. “How was the storm when you went out?” I ask James.
