Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Reminder

I need to go to Miller's, but I can't bring myself to leave. I pace my room, fury driving my stomping steps around the end of my bed to the window and back again.

My phone vibrates. I check the message, expecting a hateful note from Dad, only to see Susan's smiling icon staring back at me.

I call, on impulse, sink to the edge of the bed, still shaking.

She answers right away. "Riley!" She sounds happy for once. "Sorry to bug you, honey. I just wanted to check in and see how you were."

I sob in frustration, hear her soothing croon on the other end of the line, gasp an apology. "I'm fine," I finally say, wiping my nose on the back of my hand before reaching for a tissue when I realize I'm a slimy mess. "It's just Dad."

She listens as I rage about him, up and pacing all over again. By the time I'm sitting once more, my anger has dissipated somewhat, though my determination to tell him to piss off hasn't gone anywhere.

"Your father loves you," Susan says while I snort my disbelief. "He does, in his own way." Her sigh is heavy, sounds like static. "But he's wrong. You're so talented, Rye. And you need to be acting. Ian knew it. And Dwight and I know it, too. You're a natural."

At least someone approves. I correct myself, Aunt Vonda has been wonderful. My new friends. "I just wish he wasn't such a..."

Asshole seems too mild a word.

"I don't understand Rick's problem," Susan says, soft and kind. "But I know he wants what's best for you." She lets that sink in while I fume. "But you're a grown woman now, honey. And you need to do what makes you happy."

"Even if it pisses Dad off?"

Susan sighs again. "Even if," she says. "Riley, we are so proud of you. You are the most beautiful, courageous, strong young woman we know. If Ian had lived..." she goes quiet a moment, I know she's pulling herself together, "we would have been delighted to have you as our daughter-in-law. But he didn't. So we have to be satisfied in loving you as the daughter we never had."

I want to cry all over again, this time in gratitude. "Thanks, Susan," I say. "I love you both so much."

"Now," she says, sniffing softly as though trying to hide it from me. "You let us know the minute the audition is over. I want to celebrate."

She's assuming I'll get the part. A crooked grin lifts my lips and my spirits. "Will do."

We part with more I love you's. When I set down the phone, I'm calmer, ready to face whatever comes.

A soft knock on the door raises my head, Aunt Vonda's nervous face poking in.

"Are you okay, pet?" She looks so upset, I offer my hand to her. She enters immediately, sits beside me, trembling hands patting my knee. "I'm so sorry, Riley. He's such an ass sometimes. And I should have minded my own damned business instead of trying to make that stupid oaf admit he's wrong to be so hard on you."

I almost qualify her "sometimes" with "all the time", but don't bother. "It's really okay, Aunt Vonda," I say. "I'm glad you broke it to him." I am, too. Yes, the call was unpleasant. But it's over and I'm moving forward. "I'm going to do it anyway."

She smiles, tentative and anxious. "I'm so glad." One more pat to my knee and she relaxes.

"I just wish I knew why he can't love me," I say, verbalizing the question for the first time, amazing myself I even bother to ask. I've never spoken of it, told myself I didn't care. But I obviously do from the lump rising in my throat. "He treats me like I'm a mistake."

All our years alone together, after Mom's death, pile on top of me in layers, suffocating, smothering me.

Aunt Vonda shakes her head, clutches my hand in hers, pulling me loose from my own oppression, helping me breathe again. "No, pet," she says. "Not a mistake at all. I think, because you remind him so much of Marie, he has a hard time with the hurt he still carries. I know he doesn't mean to be cruel to you. But he's never gotten over your mother's loss. And in such a tragic way."

I swallow the grief rising from my chest. "If only she hadn't gotten sick," I say, remembering the night Dad came to my room. Hovered at the door. Told me Mom had a sudden illness and she was dead, just like that. His dull and lifeless voice, the first time he felt like a stranger to me. He's been a stranger ever since.

Aunt Vonda's sudden frown makes me frown, too.

"Sick?" She seems shocked, angry, so angry all of a sudden I worry her temper is aimed at me. "Who told you your mother died of an illness?"

Her words are a slap across my face. I don't answer. I don't have to. Her fury turns to denial and then to guilt tinged with bubbling rage.

"Richard Morris James." She mutters Dad's full name, hands still trembling, but two hot points of red stand out on her cheekbones, mottled pink crawling down her neck and over her chest as her unhappiness simmers. Her eyes meet mine, snapping with temper. "He told you your mother... Oh, Riley. Pet, this is my fault. I should have been there for you."

"Aunt Vonda." I'm proud of how steady my voice is, how calm I feel despite the fact I now know the explanation Dad gave me that night, to a little girl waiting for her mother, wasn't true. My aunt's reaction tells me as much. "What happened to my mother?"

Aunt Vonda shifts on the bed beside me, as though suddenly nervous, though her anger remains. "Rick fell in love with Marie from the moment they met," she says, ignoring my question, her words tumbling out of her mouth as though she's been trying to decide what to say to me for years. "I remember the first time I met her, thinking she was more alive than he was. More than any of us." Aunt Vonda's fingers tighten. "Not in an arrogant way. Just that she shone so much brighter. Everyone loved her. She was a star, even before she was a professional actress." She slumps beside me. "I loved her, too. I idolized her, Riley." That word makes me think of Bianca. "But my brother adored her and would do anything for her. He used to laugh, at least a little, when Marie was alive. When they were first together." One hand rises to wipe at her eye as a tear falls. "He had so much trouble showing his emotions. Our father wasn't the kindest man, and Rick took after him." I don't remember my grandfather, who died before I was born. "But when Marie was around, my brother was a different person."

So difficult for me to believe. And yet, not so much. I recall moments of happiness with the three of us, seeing Dad smile, though the memories are dim and warped. It's so long ago and I've pushed that part of my history under my current feelings for him. I guess I didn't want to remember.

"Marie shone and your father was happy to be in the background, cheering her on. But love, pet. Sometimes love just isn't enough." She takes my hands in hers.

Do I want to know what she's about to tell me? Panic surges, fights for the air in my lungs, for my heartbeat. I'm immobilized by it, forced to listen no matter my desires yea or nay.

"Marie was a wonderful person," Aunt Vonda says. "I don't ever want you to think otherwise. She loved you and your father. But when you're young, just starting out, things appear one way. All fresh and full of possibility. Then when we start to grow up..." she releases my hands, hers falling into the lap of her blue dress, her eyes downcast. "We can grow apart from those we used to want to spend the rest of our lives with."

My mother...

"Riley," Aunt Vonda says, "your father lied to you, maybe to protect you. Maybe to protect himself. But your mother didn't die of an illness. She died in a car accident." Her jaw jumps. "With the man she loved."

***

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