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She runs a hand over my head. "I am very glad you did. You got all the best parts of us."
Chapter 36
We sit in the living room, the mood grim and foreboding, like fog settling on the lake in early winter.
I keep tugging on my long sleeve, hiding the bruise Diane gave me from view. I had to show Randy earlier and it was hard to watch his face flash with a string of emotions: pain, shock, disbelief, resignation. His voice faltered when he confirmed she's been forgetting things. Not just where she left her keys, but where home is, who she works for, who he is.
Randy wrapped me in a gentle hug and told me repeatedly that he was sorry for what she had done. That he didn't realize how serious this was. That he's been in denial.
It hurt my heart more than I cared to admit. She had betrayed him in the cruelest way possible five years ago. Even if he knew, I'm almost certain he wouldn’t leave her. His love for her is steady and unbending.
We ate pizza for dinner like everything was fine, normal, simple. Everyone over the age of 21 had a beer before congregating on couches and recliners and loveseats in our family room.
Diane didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t look at me. Wouldn’t come within five feet of me. Kyle stayed close by, a silent protector keeping watch. He even sat beside me at dinner. Matt was lost in his own world, texting on his phone with a lop-sided grin plastered all over his face. He and Audra hooked up at the beach house. Twice. We all had to hear about it on the plane ride home as he begged her to take him back. She didn’t give him an answer one way or the other. She's treading dangerous waters if you ask me.
But nobody asked me.
After we cleaned everything up, and I tossed my uneaten slice of pizza in the trash, we made our way to the living room, where the intervention is taking place. I sit beside Mom on the love seat. Dad is stretched out in his recliner on the other side of me. Matt, Diane and Randy are on the couch.
“What’s this about, Lainey?” Diane gets right down to business, her impressive lawyer face a mask of indifference and force.
Mom raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “We’re worried about you, Diane. You’re doing things that are just not...you.”
Diane’s long, strawberry-blond hair falls over her shoulder as she leans forward and eyes me suspiciously. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“Mom,” Kyle exhales from across the room. Her eyes briefly dart to her eldest son before settling back on me with abhorrence.
“I’m fine,” she shakes her head mechanically. “So what? I forgot that Kyle's in Boulder. I have a lot on my plate right now. You can ask Randy.”
“What do you mean you forgot he was in Boulder?” Matt’s forehead furrows and he looks genuinely concerned seated beside his mother. “He’s lived there for the last three years. That’d be like me forgetting I drive a yellow Jeep.”
Randy reaches over and places a solid hand on his wife’s trembling one. “Diane, we need to get you some help, honey. You’ve been forgetting and you’ve been doing things that are out of character for you lately."
Diane wrenches her hand free from his grasp and stands. “Lainey, is this about her arm? I didn’t mean to hurt her. She’s using him and he has too much at stake to be taken advantage of. I wanted to make sure she knows I'm on to her.”
“She has a bruise on her arm.” Mom offers Diane a sympathetic frown, but I can see the resentment festering beneath it. “Your handprint, more specifically.”
“They were having sex in the hot tub!” Diane screeches and I flinch at her words.
Mom shakes her head gently. “That doesn't give you a right to hurt her.”
“What would you have done?” Diane starts panicking and pulling at the roots of her hair, pacing back and forth erratically.
"Who was?" Matt rises from the couch, confused. "Who was having sex in the hot tub?"
I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
I've never had an out-of-body experience before. The kind where you feel like you're floating above the space you're in, not quite sure anyone can see or hear you. My ears are ringing and I'm trying to tether myself back to the ground, but I don't know how to.
I gasp for air as several pairs of eyes look in my direction. Matt's, Diane's, Randy's and Dad's.
Say it, Jenny. Just say it. Get it over with. Put everyone out of their misery.
Tell the truth.
Be honest.
"Kyle and I were," I somehow find the strength to say.
