Part 6:

 

My Life Isn’t What It Seems

 

Nick’s mother had beaten him often in his twenty-three years, more times then he cared to remember.  He always told himself that once he was older, he would be able to fight back, to put her in her place with one swift punch to the face that would rock her back on her heels and onto her ass.  A punch so fierce she would look up at him with tears in her eyes and swear to God that she would never lay a hand on him again.

 

But that day had never come.  He could never bring himself to do that to the woman who had given birth to him, at least not in this lifetime.  So, for almost two decades, he’d taken the beatings through clenched teeth and closed eyes, one of the most severe being the one last year before his solo album had hit the stores.

 

Jane was angry over his refusal to pay her mortgage on the ridiculous home she and Bob had purchased in Malibu with Nick’s money.  She’d called Nick stupid and lazy before knocking him, closed-fisted, three times against the jaw, her diamond rings digging into his flesh.  When he turned to leave, she came at him strong, hitting him in the back of the head twice with a large marble statue of a bird, the one he’d given her for her birthday.

 

The pain had been excruciating, leveling him to the ground as blood seeped slowly from his ears and mouth.  As his sight faded in and out and his body began to shake, Nick cried out to his mother, begging her to call an ambulance, but she refused, instead covering him with a blanket as he lay on the floor and offering him a few aspirin and a sip of her Vodka before he finally passed out from the pain.

 

It had taken a week for the bruises along his jawline to began to fade, but the headaches from the blow to his head had just begun.

 

Was that single incident the cause of the fate he was now doomed to?  He couldn’t be sure… but he knew one thing for certain:  it had not helped.

 

***

 

“Turn here,” Kara said, patting his hand.  He looked up to the hand-painted sign on the wooden post proclaiming it to be “THE END OF THE ROAD” and turned left, heading up the long gravel road.

 

It sat perched on a slight rise at the top of a hill, the most incredible farmhouse Nick had ever seen.  It was painted a pale yellow with crisp, white trim and framed by thick, green-leafed trees that were perfect for climbing.  As they drew nearer to the magnificent home, Nick could see that it boasted a wonderful wraparound porch with scattered pieces of wicker furniture here and there and buckets of richly colored flowers that tumbled over the sides like waterfalls.

 

“You grew up here?” Nick asked Kara in amazement, as he pulled the car around the front of the house and slid the gear into park.

 

“Yes, I lived here until I was ten.  It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she answered, just as her grandmother came through the creaky wooden screen door onto the porch, one hand up to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sun, the other hand tucked neatly in the pocket of her frilly white apron.

 

Nick smiled at Kara’s grandmother, overwhelmed by a warm feeling of happiness, as if her grandmother was standing there waiting just for him.  He had visions of himself as a young boy running up the steps to wrap his arms around the woman’s waist as she enveloped him in a big bear hug ruffling his hair.

 

The vision made him smile.

 

“This is like a dream,” he said, climbing from the car as Kara walked around to meet him.

 

“Isn’t life just one big dream anyway?” she said, hooking an arm around his waist as they walked towards the porch.

 

Nick glanced down at Kara, wondering what she meant when she said, “Isn’t life just one big dream, anyway?”  But he didn’t have time to think about it, as her grandmother caught him up in a big hug, reaching up to rub his spiky hair.

 

“Welcome home, Nicky,” she said with a light in her eyes.

 

And for once in his life, he felt like he was home.

 

***

 

The three sat on the wicker furniture on the porch, laughing as dinner cooked on the stove inside.  After awhile, Kara’s grandfather joined them, all rosy cheeks and dancing eyes, telling them wonderful stories that had them all doubled over with laughter.

 

“Do you wanna know the line that I used to pick up your grandmother when I first met her?”  Kara’s grandfather placed a warm, loving hand on his wife’s shoulder.  Both Nick and Kara nodded like two small children.  “I said, if you come back to my house, I’ll show you the world’s biggest grapefruit.”

 

Both Kara and Nick paused for a second before bursting out in fits of laughter at the crazy pickup line that obviously must have worked, since the couple had been married almost fifty years.

 

 “Wow, that’s a pretty corny line.  I always try to come up with some over-the-top, clever line to hook them,” Nick said, reaching for the glass of lemonade at his feet.

 

“Do you have a girlfriend now?” her grandfather asked Nick.

 

“Nah, not right now.  But I’ve had my fair share of ladies in the past.”

 

“Okay, Slick, give me one of your over-the-top clever lines.”  Her grandfather wiped at his brow with a red handkerchief, egging Nick on.

 

“Okay, you want my best line?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Cracking his knuckles, Nick sat up straight, all eyes on him.

 

“Okay, here it goes… Hey, baby-”  Kara started giggling as Nick began.  “Wait, wait, she’s screwing me up,” he said, as Kara’s grandfather motioned for her to be silent.

 

“Give the boy a minute; I’d really like to hear this.”  They were all laughing at Nick, and he knew it, but it didn’t make him mad the way it usually did when he could tell people were laughing at him because he knew that these people didn’t mean him any harm.

 

“Okay, here it goes… Hey, baby, you know I’ve only got twenty four hours to live, and my last wish is to spend every minute of it with you.”

 

Kara’s jaw dropped at the insanely stupid line that Nick delivered in a fake, deep voice.  “Oh my Lord!” she gasped.  “And women actually fall for that crap?  They must be blondes, right?”

 

“Hey.”  He pointed at his spiky, blonde-tipped hair.  “We blondes take offense to that remark.”

 

Rising from his seat, Kara’s grandfather shook his head, a smirk on his heavily-lined face.  “All I can say, son, is with lines like that, it’s no wonder you’re still single!”

 

***

 

“Okay, kids.”  Kara’s grandmother looked up to the darkening sky as the incredible smells of dinner drifted through the open porch screen door.  “It’s time to eat.”

 

Nick stood up, following Kara’s grandmother and grandfather into the house, with Kara bringing up the rear.

 

Walking into the house for the first time since the afternoon of her parents’ funeral, Kara suddenly felt her pace quicken and her breathing become shallow, as the memories of her mother and father came flooding back to her.

 

Putting a hand up to her throat, she felt as if she were suffocating as she backed out the front hall and onto the porch, unnoticed by Nick and her grandparents.

 

She could smell her mother’s perfume.

 

She could hear her father’s laughter echoing from the fields.

 

She could hear them both calling her to come to dinner.

 

She could feel her sanity slipping away from her, and it was painful.

 

Her grandmother came through the door and onto the porch, letting the screen shut behind her.

 

“Kara, sweetheart, what is it, what’s the matter?” she asked, as Kara sat down on one of the wicker chairs, dropping her head between her legs, trying to breathe.

 

“I feel them, Grandma,” she said, between shallow breaths.

 

Nick poked his head through the screen door, his stomach growling loudly with hunger.

 

“Is everything okay?” he asked, realizing quickly that it wasn’t.

 

“Nick, sweetheart, will you sit with Kara while I go and get her some water?”  Kara’s grandmother stood up and walked quickly back in the house, as Nick ventured outside, kneeling down on the porch beside Kara.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked, running a hand down her cold and clammy arm.  She shook her head.

 

“I thought I was,” she said, gasping for air.  “I really thought I was, but I can’t do this.  I can’t.”  Standing on wobbly legs, she made her way down the steps and across the lawn.

 

“Kara.”  Her grandmother had returned to the porch, a glass of water in her hands, as she called out to her youngest granddaughter.

 

“What’s the matter with her?” Nick asked, watching Kara weave across the lawn into the orchards to the west.

 

“She’s suffering, sweetheart.”  Kara’s grandmother stroked a hand over Nick’s slumped shoulder, a tear in her eye.  “She’s suffering, and she won’t let anybody help her.”

 

***

 

Kara made her way through the orchard, feeling the eyes of Nick and her grandmother on her as she tried to find a place to hide.  She had been working so hard to stay strong, to keep her feelings hidden away.  And she thought that she was doing an okay job of it. She guessed that she should have realized that quitting her job and buying a plane ticket for Europe on a whim was the first sign that she wasn’t okay.  Drinking herself into a stupor and sleeping with Roy must have been the second sign.  And she now knew that this feeling of sheer terror and loneliness that rattled around in her now was the third sign.

 

Dropping to her knees, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

 

“I’m here, Kara.”  Nick knelt beside her, rubbing a hand along the small of her back in comforting circles. 

 

“You don’t understand, Nick.  My life isn’t what it seems,” she said, lowering herself to the ground, her face pressed into the cold dirt.

 

“I understand more then you know,” he replied, lying beside her as the sunset ebbed and then faded below the horizon.

 

***

 

 

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