Rebecca’s Cove

Chapter 11

BJ immediately felt comfortable in the large Allen home. A long hallway led toward the back of the house; on the right was an entrance to the kitchen, and on the left was an opening into the living room, which was darkened by the shade of the tall palm trees in the front yard.

“Grandma, Grandma!” Noah cried out as soon as they entered.

“There’s my pumpkin,” Theresa Allen said. She bent down and lifted the boy up.

“Hi, Mom,” Hobie and Mack said in unison.

Mack gave his mother a hug and stepped back beside BJ. “MacArthur, you looked tired,” Theresa said. He merely shrugged and rolled his eyes.

BJ couldn’t resist. She leaned in close to Mack as Hobie greeted her mother. “MacArthur?” she whispered under her breath. “Okay, you got no room to talk about my name.”

“Very funny. How’d you like me to double the fine on that jaywalking ticket I gave ya?”

“Mom.” Hobie gave her mother a kiss on the cheek and ushered her to where BJ stood. “Mom, this is—”

“Baylor Warren. Yes, I know, dear. How is Evelyn?”

BJ’s eyebrows shot up. She looked over Theresa’s shoulder at Hobie, who shrugged, offering a guilty smile.

“Word travels like wildfire here on Ana Lia,” Hobie said. “I can see that,” BJ said sarcastically.

“Mom knows you...obviously. Baylor, this is my mother, Theresa Allen.”

BJ smiled at the older woman, and the smile that graced her features was warm and relaxed. It was honest. She took Theresa’s hand within her own. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Allen. I appreciate you having me here tonight.”

“Don’t even think twice about it. I’m glad my children had the good manners to invite you. Now if my husband would just get home, we could sit down to the table.”

Hobie and BJ exchanged uncomfortable glances, but BJ smiled graciously.

“You probably want to get off that ankle,” Hobie said. “Mom, why don’t you two go into the den and I’ll set the table?”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

Theresa led the way into a room filled with all of the things that BJ had imagined a family den might have. Two overstuffed couches and a large leather recliner circled an oak coffee table. Light wood paneling covered the walls and a piano stood in one corner. BJ examined the framed photographs that sat atop the piano, recognizing the young, freckle-faced redhead in many of the pictures as Hobie. A series of small-paned windows took up the entire length of the west wall and the slowly setting sun lit the room with a warm brilliance. The room had a relaxed atmosphere that BJ could feel soaking into her body the moment she sat on the comfortably soft sofa.

“Tell me, Baylor, how is Evelyn?” Theresa asked.

“It looks like she’s going to be fine. That’s what the doctor said, anyway. She didn’t look bad, but the doctor thinks it would be best if she stayed in the hospital instead of going home to recuperate.”

“I know that will be hard on her. I’ll go up there tomorrow and see if she needs anything.”

“Thanks, I know that would mean a lot to her. My grandmother’s not exactly the type to enjoy being cooped up in the hospital any longer than she has to.”

Hobie and Mack walked into the room, followed quickly by Noah. The boy launched himself toward Mack, who lifted him high into the air.

“Can I get you something to drink, Baylor?” Hobie asked. “No, I’m good.”

“BJ, why does Mom call you Baylor?” Noah asked.

“Did she?” Baylor hadn’t noticed. So many people had called her that over the last few days that she surmised she’d become accustomed to it. She thought it strange that it hadn’t caused her as much pain as it used to. “Baylor’s my real name. BJ is just a nickname that comes from the initials of my first and middle name.”

“Okay.” Noah ran off, apparently satisfied with her explanation.

“Mom, you think that roast is about done?” Hobie asked.

“I just have to mash the potatoes, but I don’t want everything to get cold before your father gets here.”

Hobie looked over at Mack, who raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “Um, Mom...I think Dad said he’d be late tonight. We better go ahead and start.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know...your father might still—”

BJ gently laid her hand over the older woman’s. “Mrs. Allen, excuse me for saying this, but I’m going to anyway. You don’t really think your husband is coming home, do you?”

“Why, I don’t know what you mean.” “Baylor,” Hobie said in a low warning tone.

BJ ignored Hobie and continued in a sad, soothing tone. “My father died when I was nineteen, Mrs. Allen. My mother never could accept his death. For the longest time, she acted as if he were still alive.”

Theresa looked frightened but couldn’t turn away from BJ. “I really don’t see how that is the same, dear. My husband—”

“Was your whole world, wasn’t he? At least that’s the way it was for my mother. She woke him in the morning, fixed his meals, and cleaned his clothes. She kept his house and looked after him day and night for twenty-five years. She never knew what it was like to do anything for herself. She had no idea what her purpose in life was, if it wasn’t taking care of him. After he died, I suppose she thought she had no purpose. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs. Allen?”

BJ understood how her invasive questions would make the other woman feel. She realized that if Theresa acknowledged her questions, she would have to accept the truth of it all.

After several moments of silence, Theresa slowly nodded. Mack glanced over at Hobie, and they exchanged worried glances, but neither appeared to know what to do.

“When your husband died, you wanted to lie down and do the same, didn’t you? That’s what my mother finally did. She went to bed one day and she never got up again. That’s what you probably wanted to do, too. You couldn’t, though, could you? You had children who depended on you. There was no curling into a ball and giving up. I bet you never had time to grieve. You just had to keep going until it seemed as if it never even happened.”

“Yes.” Theresa’s eyes teared up and she nodded, then lowered her head.

BJ squeezed Theresa’s hand. “I think it’s time for you to admit that your husband is dead and that he’s not coming back, Mrs. Allen.”

“Get out,” Hobie hissed. “I want you to leave. Leave right now.”

BJ looked up with a sad expression and nodded. “I will if that’s what you want.” She turned back to the woman seated beside her. “But let me ask you this, Mrs. Allen. Is that what you want? Do you want me to leave?”

Theresa looked into soft gray eyes filled with compassion. BJ knew what she was thinking. She could see it in her eyes. Theresa realized that there was finally someone who knew exactly how she felt. At last, someone who understood what had gone on and how she had let it all snowball to this point.

BJ and Theresa looked over to where Mack and Hobie stood. Hobie was outraged, that was apparent. Mack shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.

BJ glanced again at Hobie. Hobie’s arms hung rigidly at her side, her hands balled into fists. Had BJ guessed Hobie’s thoughts at that moment, her own demise would probably have been high on the list.

BJ saw something then that she previously thought only existed in the prose she wrote. As she watched Theresa’s face, it appeared as though a veil lifted from her eyes.

Theresa looked between her two children, then turned to BJ.

“No,” she said so softly it was barely a whisper. Her voice grew stronger. “No, I don’t want you to leave. Hobie Lynn, where are your manners?”

“But I-I—” Hobie stammered.

“I think my behavior has gone on long enough. I thank both of you children, but I never meant to put you through this—”

“No, Mom, it’s okay.” Mack quickly moved to kneel before his mother.

“It’s not, but you’re sweet to say so. I can’t believe I’ve carried on for this long. Hobie—”

Hobie spun around and rushed from the room. Seconds later, the screen door to the back porch slammed.

“I’ll go get her, Mom,” Mack spoke up.

“No, Mack. I think I’m the one she’s upset with. Let me go,” BJ said.

“I’m sure not gonna fight you for it.”

BJ rose on her crutches, but before she could move away, Theresa reached out to her.

“Thank you, Baylor. It took courage for you to reveal that piece of yourself to me...to all of us. It’s amazing, really, after all these years that your words should be the thing to make me see. I don’t understand that. Maybe if you do the same thing with Hobie Lynn, she’ll be forgiving. She’s a very good daughter.”

BJ smiled and nodded, giving the older woman a wink before she walked away. “I know that, and I’ll try to take your advice.”

She looked through the screen door and saw Hobie pacing across the yard as Noah ran around trying to catch firebugs. He was oblivious to the emotional turmoil around him.

Taking a deep breath, BJ pushed open the door and walked onto the porch. The look of hurt and anger on Hobie’s face when she looked at BJ took any thoughts of fight from BJ’s mind. She simply deflated as she sat heavily on the porch swing.

Hobie turned toward the ocean and stood silently before stalking across the lawn. BJ prepared herself for one of their now infamous confrontations.

“Do you realize what you could have done?” Hobie asked in a tightly restrained voice.

“Yes, and I’m sorry, but I felt that I had to.”

“I asked you not to say anything. I specifically asked you not to interfere.”

“Yes, I know.”

“What is it with you? Do you always go around doing exactly what you want without any thought to the consequences for others?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Up to this point, anyway.” “That makes you incredibly selfish!”

“I know.”

“You’re impossible!” “I know that, too.”

Hobie abruptly stopped her tirade. She looked tired, as if it had been a great effort to hold on to her anger. She took a few more steps toward BJ. “How can I yell at you if you’re going to agree with every damn thing I say?” She folded her arms across her chest.

BJ attempted to look contrite. She wasn’t accustomed to answering for her behavior; rather, she was used to letting loose with her form of brutal honesty. Dispensing a truth tempered with compassion was something new to her.

“Would it make you feel better if you could sock me one? Go ahead. Just let me have it.” BJ closed her eyes, scrunched her face up, and prepared for a blow.

“Stop that.”

“No, really. I’m serious. Nail me a good one. I guarantee it will make you feel lots better.”

Hobie shook her bangs from her eyes and sat beside BJ. “You are so strange,” she finally said in exasperation, to which BJ grinned.

After a moment of comfortable silence, Hobie spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said, then blew a breath of air upward to push her bangs from her forehead. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, especially at you. I mean, look what you’ve done for my mom. In just a few minutes, you’ve changed our lives.”

“For the better, I hope.” “I think so.”

“Why did you get so mad then?”

Tears filled Hobie’s eyes, and BJ didn’t think she was ready for this. A month earlier, she had dumped a girlfriend and never thought twice about the jilted woman’s tears. Now sitting beside the tearful Hobie, she had the inexplicable urge to hold her in her arms. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she wanted to protect Hobie, wanted to keep anything bad from happening to her. The enormity of that desire hit BJ like a punch in the stomach. It was even stronger than on the day when Hobie had begun to cry after the Jaguar had a flat.

“Hey, it’s not worth crying over. I’m pretty tough. It’d take more than you yelling at me to hurt my feelings,” BJ said in an attempt to comfort Hobie.

Hobie wiped at her eyes. “I got so mad at you because I guess I wanted someone to take it out on.”

“Take what out on?”

“The fact that I suck as a daughter.”

BJ laughed aloud before she could stop herself. “What do you mean? Hobie Lynn Allen, you are a mother’s dream come true.”

“I’m not, though.” Hobie shook her head. “I’m angry at myself, Baylor. Don’t you see?” She looked into BJ’s eyes until BJ wondered if she was going to continue.

“I should have been the one. I should have been that honest with my mother. I should have had the strength to be that honest with her. I should have loved her enough to tell her the truth.”

“Should, should, should...that word can get you into so much trouble. Take it from me, I grew up as the should queen,” BJ said. “Hobie, if you wanted to tell your mom, why didn’t you? Were you just afraid?” She quickly continued, “Because I completely understand that. It’s much harder when it’s your own family.”

Hobie shook her head once more. “No, I think I could almost forgive myself if it was a matter of fear. What I did...” She looked over at BJ again. “I think that I stayed quiet out of selfishness. I’m selfish, plain and simple.”

“You are about the least selfish person I have ever met,” BJ said. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.” Hobie took a deep breath and waited in silence for a moment. “I think a part of me enjoyed the fact that my mother lived in that little fantasy world where Dad was still alive and nothing about our lives had changed. It was like...” She lowered her head and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Almost like he was still here, you know?”

There it was, out in the open. BJ couldn’t empathize at all with Hobie’s love for her father, but she was envious.

“It was almost easy to believe that he wasn’t really gone when Mom would keep a plate of food warming in the oven for him or take his suits to the cleaner’s. I guess I didn’t want him to be gone, either, so I let Mom carry on. I was selfish. I should have been stronger.”

“There’s that ‘should’word again.” BJ reached out to Hobie. It felt awkward. Physical affection wasn’t something that BJ displayed easily. Sex was one thing, but a compassionate and tender touch merely offered out of friendship was something entirely different.

She laid the palm of her hand gently against Hobie’s back. “You might want to cut yourself a little slack here, too. How old did you say you were when your dad died?”

“Thirteen.”

“Geez, Hobie, you were still a kid. Look, it may not help, but it’s natural that you felt the way you did, so quit beating yourself up.”

“Thanks.” Hobie smiled and looked relieved. “It does help. Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I could argue with you if it’d make you feel better. The truth is, I knew how mad you’d be if I laid out the truth to your mom. It’s just that...I had to.”

BJ ran her fingers through her hair, leaving her bangs spiked. “Why did you feel you had to?”

BJ paused before speaking. She temporarily lost her train of thought as she breathed in Hobie’s perfume. It was a spicy scent that she couldn’t place, but it somehow smelled familiar. She wasn’t sure what it reminded her of, only that it was a good memory.

“Everything I told your mother was true.” BJ’s expression grew somber. “My mother went through the same thing. I just wish someone had come along to talk to her, to tell her the truth. I didn’t see what was happening to her until it was too late. I was so caught up in my own feelings surrounding my father’s death that I couldn’t see that my mother wasn’t getting any better. I was so angry with my father for dying before I had the chance to really tell him how I felt about him. I guess the truth is that I was angry at my mother for thinking he was her whole world.”

“Did she eventually come to grips with it?”

BJ shook her head and looked out toward the water. “No, she didn’t...ever. One day, she decided to take a bottle of pills and go to bed. She never woke up.”

“Oh, Baylor, I’m so sorry. To lose your mother and father. You must miss them terribly.”

BJ shrugged. “My mother...I mostly miss the idea of my mother. There were some times, though...” She turned so she could see Hobie and reclined against the side of the porch swing. “We weren’t a very close family. When she was available to me, it was good, but most of the time, my father’s needs consumed her whole life. The best thing my mom ever did was to convince my dad that it was okay for me to spend time with Tanti. My old man, though...I hope that son of a bitch is burning in hell.”

Hobie didn’t reply immediately. “I know it’s none of my business, but that seems a little harsh, even from you.”

BJ gave her a bitter smile. “So it might seem from the outside looking in.”

“Sometimes it helps to work through things by saying them out loud. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” BJ shook her head. She paused and couldn’t help the tears that filled her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

It had been a long time since BJ had cried over her past. She had vowed never to fall into the self-pity trap, no matter how tempting the prospect. It was impossible to prevent the tears this time, even though Hobie was the last person BJ wanted to break down in front of.

She wiped her eyes and gave a short, ironic laugh. “I don’t do well with feelings, as you can see.”

“Are you kidding? You’re an expert, and I should know. Seems to me that you’ve spent a lifetime holding them in.”

“Maybe, but it’s what gets me by.”

“Baylor...your father. Did he do something to you?”

“Yeah, he did all right, but it wasn’t what you’re thinking.” BJ wiped her eyes again and brushed her hand through her hair. She pinched the bridge of her nose and wondered once more why she was doing this, why she was opening up to this woman.

“It may not have been sexual, but it was still abuse. My father was an overbearing, controlling madman, to put it succinctly. He made it a habit of telling me, pretty much from the day I was born, what a disappointment I was. I think one day I just decided to live up to his warped expectations of me. I figured if he thought I was out drinking and fooling around, that’s exactly what I’d do. When I was fourteen, I got caught in bed with one of our housekeepers.” BJ raised her head and smiled sheepishly. “Okay, so I got a little wild, I’ll admit.”

Hobie smiled back and reached out to squeeze her hand.

BJ wondered if Hobie could imagine her as an unruly and rebellious teen.

“Caught by your father, I presume?”

“Of course,” BJ said. “Is there any other way for shit to happen other than in great big piles?” She cleared her throat and grew serious. “To say that my father freaked would be a major understatement. He lost it. Full-on completely lost it. He wasn’t the only one. I pretty much snapped, too. To this day, I don’t even remember what we screamed at each other. I took off in his BMW. He had me arrested and charged with stealing his car.”

“Your own father had you arrested?”

BJ let out a short bark of laughter. “That’s not the half of it. When I went to court, no one listened to me about dear old Dad. It was the seventies. Remember? Kids didn’t have things like rights then. My father used his lawyer and the services of a judge that his money elected. The old man brought up every mistake and stupid thing I ever did, like he’d recorded them in a notebook my whole life for just that purpose. They gave me two choices. One, I could do three to five in a juvenile lockup for grand theft auto.

Two, I could spend a short amount of time in a rehab facility.” “Which one did you go for?” Hobie asked when BJ paused. “I figured time in rehab wouldn’t be near as bad as prison. I mean, I heard all the stories from other kids. Juvenile detention was prison, plain and simple. I still couldn’t believe it was happening to me, ya know? It’s like it wasn’t real, like it was happening to someone else. So I took rehab.” She shook her head. “Turns out my old man wasn’t sending me to a traditional rehab center for drug or alcohol detox. I was there for a behavior adjustment. I ended up in a place that was determined to cure me of all my social ills, including homosexuality.”

“Oh, God.”

“God definitely wasn’t in this place. It was the Griffin-Ward Institute.”

BJ paused and Hobie frowned. “In Wisconsin?” “You’ve heard of it?”

Hobie nodded. “In med school. Griffin-Ward was a textbook case of the damage that power, money, and the misguided notions of some fanatical therapists could do to teenagers. Every resident who did a psych rotation heard about the Institute.”

“Whatever you heard or read wasn’t the half of it. I got beaten on a daily basis as a form of aversion therapy. There were kids, boys and girls, who were raped, shot up with drugs, even lobotomized. You name it and they tested the treatment out on us. The rich parents got their kids back just the way they wanted them. They were afraid of their own shadows, but hey, at least they didn’t party anymore. The nuts that ran the joint called it ‘alternative treatment.’Any prisoner of war would tell you it was ordinary torture.”

Tears fell from BJ’s eyes, but she was barely aware of them. She’d learned to block the emotions out, to think of that time as though it had happened to one of the characters in her novels. She never personalized it anymore. She was afraid of what would happen if she did.

“I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I bribed one of the orderlies and he mailed a letter to my grandmother for me. I’ll never forget the day Tanti broke into the place.” She laughed, and this time, the laughter was easier, less bitter. “She and Aimee brought along some reporters, and to this day, I have no ideawhere she got those big thugs with baseball bats that came in with her.”

“How long had you been there when Evelyn came?” “Six months.”

“I applaud you, Baylor.” BJ looked up in surprise.

“Really,” Hobie continued. “I don’t know if I could have even held it together, let alone turn out to be a normal functioning member of society after an experience like that.”

No one had said that to BJ before. Then again, she’d never told anyone about this small part of what had happened to her. Juliana knew the basics, but she had never been privy to BJ’s thoughts about those six months. “You would have been fine.”

“No. No, I wouldn’t have,” Hobie said. “We are who we are. If I had been as strong a person as you, I wouldn’t have given up on medicine like I did.”

“What did happen to make you change directions like that?” Hobie gave the same smile that BJ wore earlier, tinged with regret and pain. “Maybe another time, huh?”

“Sure. It’s been kind of an emotional day, hasn’t it?” “You could say that.”

“Personally, I try not to have more than one breakdown on an empty stomach,” BJ added with a smile. “Do you forgive me for talking to your mom that way?”

“How could I not? You followed your heart and I don’t think that’s ever a bad thing. Besides, I’ve got the strangest feeling that you never do what you’re told anyway.”

“You’re on to me.” BJ grinned. “Hey, speaking of empty stomachs, could I ask a big favor?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think you could feed me? I’m really starving.” Hobie laughed aloud and BJ realized that she was coming to adore that sound.

“Hey, Mom, Baylor, look what I can do!” Noah stood on the lawn and turned around in a circle. After spinning like a top at least ten times, he took a step forward and promptly fell to the ground.

The two women sat and listened to the youngster’s giggles. “That’s great, sweetheart,” Hobie called out. She hid her face

behind her hand and peeked out at BJ. “Would you believe me if I told you that he’s really a prodigy in disguise?”

BJ looked out at the boy who was lying in the grass and laughing at his own ingenuity. “How proud you must be.”

The two women continued to laugh as they entered the house.