You, Me and a Palm Tree Page 2

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I say, hearing the steel in my voice. “Charlotte Gearly came into our home with the intent of harming me so that she could have my husband.”

  “Incident,” she corrects.

  “Isn’t crime more accurate? She threatened to kill me with a knife and then pushed me down the stairs. She killed our—” I stop there as anger threatens to swallow me whole.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. — CeCe. I don’t mean to lessen the significance of what happened. We’re just trying to understand the series of events. Can we start at the beginning of the party? I assume you didn’t know that Ms. Gearly had gotten a job with the caterer?”

  “Of course, I didn’t. And I had no idea she was in our home.”

  “When did you first realize that she was?”

  “When she lured me upstairs. She apparently told one of the waitresses to tell me that my mother wanted to see me upstairs.”

  “What happened when you first walked into the bedroom?”

  “She was hiding behind the door. She slammed it shut and waved a knife at me. She threatened to stab me in the stomach with it.”

  “She knew you were pregnant?”

  “I don’t know how she knew, but she did. I had only told my husband earlier that night.”

  The detective writes on her notepad for a minute or more before looking up at me with compassion in her eyes. I can see that she wants to acknowledge the tragedy of what has happened. Her struggle to remain professionally indifferent is obvious. She clears her throat. “We’ve spoken with her father. The mother hasn’t been in her life. Her father had no idea that she was stalking your husband. She lived with him. He’s morbidly obese, and she was apparently his caretaker.”

  The words register. I try to resist their sting, but they settle around me with unwelcome awareness. A picture of Charlotte’s life forms in my mind, and I blink hard against it. I don’t want to feel sympathy for her. I don’t want to imagine the kind of life she must have had.

  I will not feel sorry for her.

  I won’t.

  “Detective, I’m really tired. Can we be done here?”

  I feel her gaze on me, but refuse to meet her eyes. I don’t want her sympathy either. I just want to be left alone.

  “I can come back later then,” she says, closing her notebook. She stands, hesitates, before adding, “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  As she walks from the room, I realize I should thank her, but I can’t force the words past my lips. I turn onto my side and curl into a tight ball. I want to sleep. That is the only time I can escape the pain. That is all I want. Escape.

  ♪

  Holden

  CECE IS DIFFERENT.

  I see it in her eyes. I feel it in the distance between us.

  Dr. Walker releases her three days after she regains consciousness. He’s done a long list of tests to make sure they haven’t missed anything. He’s signing her release forms when he asks to see me in the hall for a moment. I step outside with him, surprised that he had made the request in front of CeCe. But she doesn’t seem to notice, her gaze focused on something beyond the room window.

  “Her sadness is normal,” Dr. Walker says, once we’ve reached the end of the hall where there’s a quiet place to talk. “However, if it goes on beyond what seems expected, I’d like to suggest she see a psychiatrist.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, completely caught off guard by the suggestion.

  “Holden, your wife has been through a very traumatic experience. Not only did someone try to take her life, but she’s also lost a child. It’s hard to say what kind of long-term effects this will have on her. It’s my hope that she will move through the stages of grief and find peace again somewhere down the road.”

  “How long can that take?” I ask, hardly knowing where to start.

  “Every person is different. I would expect some symptoms of PTSD.”

  “Post traumatic stress disorder,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “What symptoms?”

  “Nightmares. Flashbacks. Negative thinking in someone who used to be a positive person.”

  “What do I do if—”

  Dr. Walker interrupts and puts a hand on my shoulder, his voice assuring when he says, “Let’s cross that bridge if we get to it. CeCe seems like a strong young woman. Hopefully, all she will need is time.”

  I want to believe him. CeCe is strong. I know that. We’ve both been through hard times, managed to put a shooting behind us. Moved on when moving on seemed impossible.

  But we’ve never lost a child.

  ♪

  CeCe

  HOLDEN AND I don’t talk throughout the act of leaving the hospital. We get checked out. I wait in a wheelchair with the nurse at the front entrance — all actions that feel way too familiar and make me think about the shooting we had managed to live through.

  I blank the memories from my mind, trying to focus on something else. The cast on my arm feels restrictive, and then I’m remembering Charlotte and the stairs and the fall and losing my baby.

  This is the thought that feels like a punch in the heart every time I let it surface. Tears well in my eyes, but I blink them back. The nurse notices, pats my arm in sympathy, no words needed. I guess she sees people like me every day.

  Holden pulls up in the Range Rover, comes around to help me in and thanks the nurse. I try to smile at her, but it breaks in half, and I look away before the tears follow.

  We’ve just gotten on the highway when Holden reaches across and takes my hand. He locks his fingers with mine, squeezing tight. I stare out the window for a few minutes, and with every mile that leads us closer to home, the air in my chest constricts, tighter and tighter, until I can’t breathe.

  I press a hand to my chest, feeling as if I’m going to suffocate.

  Holden looks at me, alarm in his eyes. “What is it, CeCe? What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t go there.”

  “Where, hon?”

  “Our house. Not yet.”

  He’s silent for a moment, as if he’s not sure what to say. “Where do you want to go?” he finally says in a low, caring voice.

  I shake my head. “Anywhere. A hotel. It doesn’t matter. Just not there.”

  I sense his confusion and his desire to do what I want. I know I’m scaring him, but I’m just not ready to face our home yet.

  “I’ll ask Thomas if he and Lila can keep the dogs a couple more days,” he says. “We can stay at the Hermitage downtown. That okay?”

  “Sure,” I say, hearing the neutrality in my voice. I pull my hand from his, locking my palms in my lap and staring straight ahead.

  I feel Holden’s hurt, and I want to tell him I didn’t mean it, but I can’t find the strength to push the words past my lips, so we drive in silence.

  He calls the hotel, makes a reservation and then calls Thomas to ask about Hank Junior and Patsy staying longer.

  I want to see our dogs. Be in the place I’ve loved and felt safe.

  But I don’t know if I can ever feel safe there again.

  ♪

  THE HOTEL IS a blanket of luxury, and for twenty-four straight hours, I wrap myself up in it, blanking out the world beyond its walls. I wake up often enough to know that Holden is in the room, not sleeping, watching me. I know he’s worried, but I’m not ready to face what I have to face.

  Oblivion is the only thing capable of making my thoughts go away. And so every time I start to surface from sleep, I will it back, keeping my eyes closed, not wanting to know what time of day or night it is.

  But I hear Holden calling my name at some point. I try to resist answering. Panic begins to edge the plea with which he calls me. I can’t ignore it. I have to pull myself up and out.

  I turn over and force my eyes open, squinting against the light.

  “Babe,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and cupping my face with his hand. “You haven’t eaten in almost two days. I’ve ordered some room servic
e. Please. Try to eat something.”

  I slide up and lean against the bed’s headboard, wanting to do as he’s suggested. My body feels as if it’s been infused with lead, a concrete block on my chest.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, pushing my hand through my hair and realizing I need a shower.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” he says. “I’m just really concerned about you.”

  “I’m okay,” I insist.

  “You’re not,” he says, his eyes holding mine and refusing to let me be anything other than honest.

  “I will be,” I say.

  “What can I do, CeCe?” he asks, his voice breaking across my name. “How can I fix this?”

  I lean forward and rest my head against his shoulder, drawing in its familiar safety. “No one can fix it, Holden. It’s something we have to endure, process, accept. That’s the only way to go on, isn’t it?”

  “We have each other,” he says. “We’ll get each other through it.”

  I nod, but my heart isn’t convinced. I want it to be, but it isn’t.

  ♪

  I FEEL A LITTLE better after a shower, even though it’s not easy to manage with a cast on my arm.

  I eat the soup Holden has ordered for my lunch. Once I’m done and he has taken the tray away, I have no idea what kind it was. I do not remember the taste of it. He asks me if I liked it and I tell him yes because that’s what he needs to hear.

  My brain is wide awake now, my thoughts veering from one realization to another. A woman hated me. A woman wanted my husband. A woman caused the death of our baby. That woman is dead. How do we go on?

  ♪

  IF SLEEP CAME willingly before, it will no longer come at all. It’s the middle of the night. Holden is asleep beside me, his arm curved around my waist, as if he knows he has to hold onto me even when he’s not awake. That to let me go might mean losing me forever.

  I stare at the sliver of light stealing through the center of the hotel room curtains. It’s the only break in the darkness, and my gaze stays there.

  It’s dawn when I finally realize that I have to know who Charlotte Gearly was. How she could have done what she did to us.

  I wake Holden up and tell him.

  ♪

  Holden

  I HAVE TO BELIEVE it isn’t a good idea.

  I know it isn’t.

  But it’s the first sign CeCe has shown of fighting back against the cloud of anguish she’s been submerged beneath since the night Charlotte Gearly upended our lives. If seeing where she lived will somehow help her move forward, I have no choice but to agree.

  And so, here we are standing at the door of the apartment where Charlotte lived, according to one of the newspaper articles I read a few days ago. The story had revealed the name of the complex. A scan of the mailboxes on the first floor had shown the name Gearly on apartment 24, the second floor.

  I knock at the battered, in-need-of-paint door, insisting that CeCe stand behind me.

  A man’s voice calls out, “Come in.” This seems extremely weird, but I turn the knob and find it unlocked.

  “Who is it?” the man asks.

  “I’m Holden Ashford,” I say. “My wife and I would like to speak to you.”

  A long silence follows my request. The man finally says, “Come in,” the words resigned, as if he has been expecting us and has no choice but to agree.

  I take CeCe’s hand, and we walk inside the apartment. I close the door behind us. The place smells stale, as if it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. The curtains are drawn, the glare of the TV the only light.

  We walk into the living room and see a man sitting in a double-width chair, the television ten feet away. CeCe and I both stare at him. I’m so caught off guard that I can’t find anything to say. He is enormous. Rolls of fat form the body that fills the large chair. His head appears small in comparison. He looks beached. Like a whale that has mistakenly ended up on shore with no water to help him back out to the ocean.

  “What do you want?” he asks, the question low and weary, almost void of life force but with resentment at its edges.

  “We want to ask about your daughter,” CeCe says.

  “You know she’s dead,” he says. “What could you possibly want to ask?”

  I feel CeCe flinch at the harshness of his words. “Did you know she was stalking us?” I ask, not bothering to soften the question.

  He doesn’t answer for a bit, and when he does, the resentment seems to be gone from his voice. “Not fully,” he says. “I knew she wasn’t making wise choices.”

  This seems the height of irony, coming from him. How could he expect that his daughter would have listened to anything he said regarding choices? “Was she seeing a counselor or a psychiatrist?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “But what difference could it possibly make now either way?”

  “It makes a difference to us,” CeCe says.

  He looks directly at her, something in his wide face now revealing his own grief. “I wish I had words to express how sorry I am for what Charlotte did. I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking. I’m just sorry for your loss.”

  Tears well in CeCe’s eyes, and she shakes her head a little, as if she has no idea what to say. “I just don’t understand why it had to happen,” she says. “Why someone didn’t realize that Charlotte needed help.”

  “I guess I should have,” he says, not meeting CeCe’s tortured gaze. “The truth is Charlotte spent her time taking care of me and not the other way around. Maybe because her life here was so bad, she tried to make up a far better one. Lived in a fantasy world, I mean.”

  I’m not sure what CeCe hoped to gain in coming here, but I can see that she’s torn between anger and pity.

  “She could have gone to live with her mother when we divorced,” he says. “But she was afraid there wouldn’t be anyone to take care of me, so she stayed. That was a mistake. I can see that now. She needed to have a life.”

  “What are you going to do, Mr. Gearly?” CeCe asks softly.

  “What I should have done a long time ago,” he says in a self-deprecating voice. “Get back to taking care of myself.”

  “We should be going, CeCe,” I say, reaching for her hand and feeling as if I need to pull her back from the edge of something I can’t yet identify.

  “Was there a funeral for Charlotte?” she asks.

  Mr. Gearly looks down at his hands, shame etching his voice when he says, “No. I couldn’t get there, and there really wasn’t anyone else to go. Her mother — we haven’t heard from her in years.”

  Shock flashes across CeCe’s face, and I know what she’s thinking. It’s nearly impossible to believe that Charlotte’s life could have been that barren of friendship or love. As difficult as it is to let pity in, I feel the sting of it in my heart. And I can see that CeCe does as well.

  ♪

  I HOLD THE DOOR of the Range Rover open, and CeCe slides inside, her face a neutral mask. But as soon as I climb in and start the engine, her control dissolves, and she begins to sob.

  I reach for her, wrapping my arms around her as tightly as I dare, wanting to absorb into myself every bit of the anguish she is feeling.

  “It’s just so horrible,” she says, crying against me. “Her life—”

  “I know. But you can’t let yourself think about it.”

  “There was no one to go to her funeral. How can that be?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.

  “None of this makes sense,” she says, trying to stop crying, but the tears only flow faster. “How can I feel sorry for her?”

  I pull back and put my hand against her face. “Because that’s the kind of heart you have. And that’s why I love you so much.”

  I hold her for a long time, until her sobbing has stopped. She feels weak against me, and I realize that whatever fight had brought her here to see Charlotte’s father today is now gone again.

  “Where to from here, babe?”
I ask. “Can we go home?”

  She doesn’t answer for a bit, so I wait, letting her make the decision. Finally, she says, “Yes. Please take me home.”

  ♪

  CeCe

  MAMA GREETS US AT the door when we get to the house. Her face is a flickering mix of worry, sadness and hope. “Come here, sweetheart,” she says, pulling me into her arms and hugging me tight.

  I hug her back, remembering anew how safe I feel in her arms. How her comfort fills me with the realization that her love is always here. No matter what. Today is no different. Fresh tears well up and spill out. With Mama, I don’t have to try to hide my anguish.

  She puts one arm around my shoulders, and from the other side, Holden puts his around me too. And they both walk me up the stairs to our bedroom, the stairs I had fallen down and lost our baby.

  All the way up, I focus on the fact that I’m safe between these two people I love most in the world. And I’m just grateful for their love. More grateful than I could ever express.

  ♪

  HOLDEN LEAVES US alone in the bedroom, giving me a kiss before saying he’ll be back as soon as he picks up Hank Junior and Patsy from Thomas and Lila’s house.

  Once the door closes behind him, Mama sits down on the bed next to me, taking my hand in hers. “You’re going to get through this, honey.”

  I nod once, wanting to relieve her worry by showing her that I’m strong, but I don’t feel strong right now. “We went to see Charlotte’s father,” I say.

  Alarm crosses Mama’s face. “Why?” she asks.

  “I wanted to know what kind of life she had. What would make her do what she did.”

  “Did you get answers?” she asks, and I can tell she doesn’t think there will be any.

  “She lived a pitiful life,” I say. “Her father didn’t even have a funeral for her.”

  Mama’s gaze reflects surprise. “Why?”

  “He said she didn’t have friends or family who would have come.”