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.
***