Love Hurts Page 8

  “And why is that?” He folded his arms across his chest. “You won’t tell me what’s going on, so how can I know?”

  “I can’t talk about it, don’t you realize that?” She shoved her back against the headboard and folded her arms, fixing her gaze on the small picture of Matthew on the dresser.

  “It’s over, it’s been a long time. When are you going to be able to talk about it?” For the first time a hint of impatience crept into his voice.

  “Maybe never. Are you going to be able to live with that?”

  “Is that a threat, Jilly?”

  “Maybe.”

  Gregg shook his head and rolled onto his back. He stacked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

  “Why does it matter so much? Why can’t you let it alone? It’s always, talk to me, tell me what happened. Why the hell do you want to know so bad? Are you writing a book?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “What, and pushing me all the time is?”

  “Is that how you see it?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly how I see it.”

  “Okay, well, listen to how I see it.” He sat up and stuffed the pillow behind his back. “I see it as I have a wife I love desperately who has never quite learned to love and trust me back. She’s haunted by something in the past and I have no idea what it is or how to fix it. She’s both the strongest and the weakest person I’ve ever met and I’m constantly on the edge because I never know what’s coming next with her.”

  Jilly tried to interrupt, but Gregg held up his hand.

  “Let me finish. I love you, but after years of this, I want some resolution. I want to know that you’re going to start trusting me one day, that you will finally start to believe I love you as much as I say I do.”

  “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “It’s all about you. You want me to trust you. You want me to believe you love me. It’s all about you.”

  “No, it’s about you. I love you and want you to be happy.”

  “You’re so noble, aren’t you?”

  “What? Why are you twisting this around to be what I didn’t mean? I’m trying to make our marriage better and you’re making me sound like an asshole.”

  “No, you’re doing a good job of that yourself.”

  Gregg threw his legs over the edge of the bed and got to his feet. He stared at Jilly.

  She backed herself into the farthest spot on the bed.

  Gregg shook his head and ran his hands through his hair until it stood straight up. “Why, why do you do this? I try to talk to you about something deeper than Matthew’s progress and you turn it into a fight.” When he moved toward the bed, Jilly jumped up and backed out the door.

  “Jilly, please.” Gregg moved to pull her into his arms, but she backed farther away and slapped at him.

  “For fuck’s sake, talk to me!” Gregg roared.

  She shoved him back and dashed down the hall and into the kitchen. She backed against the counter, waiting for Gregg to come after her, but he didn’t come. Her heart began to slow its crazy rhythm, and then shame filled her. What’s wrong with me? Gregg loves me.

  Her hands seemed to find the knife in the block of their own volition. She slumped into a corner of the kitchen, the knife clamped in her fist as though someone would try to take it away. She lifted her pajama sleeve and slid the blade across her wrist. The blood instantly began to drip off her arm.

  The room took on a dreamy quality, and Jilly let her head fall back to rest against the wall. She felt drugged, sleepy, even relaxed. Maybe I should go deeper, let it all go and never have to …

  “Holy fuck!” Gregg rushed forward and wrenched the knife away. Jilly looked at him, but his face was blurry. He looked scared, but the fear didn’t feel like it was anything to do with her. She could feel her lips lift in a smile and she tried to say, “I’m okay now,” but the words didn’t go past her lips. It was too much effort to speak. Gregg picked up the phone and yelled into it, but the words might as well have been in a different language.

  Now he wrapped her arms in towels. Why both arms? Did I slice them both? Why don’t I remember?

  Everything faded.

  There were noises and men in the kitchen and she felt herself being lifted off the floor, her head falling back. A stranger spoke to her, but her eyes were heavy and she let them close. It was too much effort. Her mind drifted away and she felt light as a whisper.

  Jilly opened her eyes to see several faces around her. Gregg sat on the left, gripping her hand, her doctor stood on the right, and a nurse was busy with something behind him. I’m in a hospital? What happened?

  The doctor spoke to Gregg about her needing to stay a few days. He said she hadn’t done permanent damage and didn’t need a transfusion, but it was close. What does that mean?

  Then she remembered and shame assaulted her once again. She remembered the fight and running for the kitchen to escape Gregg’s words. She remembered grabbing the knife and cutting her arm. Or her wrist? That’s when things got hazy. Maybe she’d sliced both wrists? I wouldn’t have done that, would I? With Matty in the house?

  Jilly fought the urge to throw up. She was in a hospital because she’d slit her wrists—she could feel the sting in both arms now—over a fight with her husband. She’d put herself first, not even thinking about her son.

  The doctor and her husband didn’t notice her wakefulness and discussed how fragile she was. She wished she could go back to sleep. When did I become such a basket case?

  Jilly moved her arm and gasped at the pain.

  “Jilly?” Gregg asked. “How are you feeling?”

  She opened her eyes, keeping them on her husband. He looked terrified. She closed her eyes again, unable to handle the results of her actions. I need help.

  Chapter 10

  Gregg sat close to Jilly’s bed and held her hand tightly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you so much,” Gregg said. He reached to pat her arm, hesitated and then dropped his hand back in his lap.

  “It’s my fault. I did the very thing I accused Anna of doing the other day.” She stared off into the corner of the hospital room. It was a nice room as far as hospitals go. The walls were painted a soft peach, the floor tiles a faded grey. There were a couple of paintings on the wall, nothing special, just a flowerpot full of nondescript blooms in one and a field scene in the other, but they brought a little extra warmth to the institutional room. Jilly figured it helped the patients in the psych ward feel less like they were in a hospital and more like home. My home looks nothing like this.

  “What did you accuse Anna of?”

  The door flew open and the person in question rushed in, her eyes wild.

  “Anna!” Gregg said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  She didn’t even look at him. She looked Jilly over like she had to make sure there weren’t any parts missing. “Are you okay?” She sounded like she’d run all the way from home.

  Jilly held out a bandaged arm. “I’m fine. I’m sorry I put you guys through this.” Her voice sounded watery.

  Anna slumped onto the edge of the bed and cupped Jilly’s face. “Are you sure?” She looked deep into Jilly’s eyes, seeming to hope she would find the truth there.

  Jilly stared back, hoping her sincerity would show. “Yes. I really am. It was a moment of madness.”

  “That’s not funny.” Anna sounded mad now that the initial worry had dissipated.

  “Sorry.” Jilly picked at the blanket with her other hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you guys.”

  “What the hell kind of reaction did you think you would get?” Anna demanded.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Gregg whispered and slipped out the door.

  “I wasn’t exactly thinking, okay, Anna?” Jilly shot back.

  “That much is obvious.” Anna started pacing the small room.

  Jilly watched her sister, surprised at her vehemence. Anna di
dn’t usually get angry like this. Worry, yes, anger no. She usually kept her emotion under strict control, like she feared it. Jilly kind of liked it. Maybe because didn’t have to feel like the only emotional person in the family, but also because anger wasn’t as suffocating as worry. Anna’s anger kind of made Jilly feel responsible for what she’d done. It didn’t make her feel as defensive.

  “Why?” Anna turned and pinned Jilly to the bed with a glare. “Were you trying to kill yourself again?”

  Jilly opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “Well, were you?”

  Jilly sucked air into her lungs with a quick gasp. “No. I haven’t done that since …” she trailed off unable to either continue or face the memory of that time so long ago.

  “Good.” Anna came back to the bed and sat down, her face now calm. She took Jilly’s hand in both of hers and squeezed them. “What can I do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What can I do to help you? I’m ready to talk.”

  “Talk about what?” Jilly’s hands started to shake.

  “She’s ruled our lives far too long, Jilly, and it’s time we talked about it.”

  “I’m sorry I got so angry at you. It wasn’t fair.”

  Anna shook her head, her dark hair swinging around her face and partially obscuring her features. “You don’t get out of it that easily, my girl.”

  “Really, Anna, what’s the point?”

  Anna held up both of Jilly’s gauze-wrapped arms. “This is the point. A very serious point, if you ask me.”

  “I won’t do it again, Anna, I promise. You know I haven’t done it for a long time.”

  “Do I?”

  Jilly dropped her head and pulled her hands back. She wrapped them around her stomach, refusing to meet her sister’s gaze.

  Anna leaned back and propped her feet up on the chair Gregg had vacated. “Okay. If you don’t want to talk, I won’t try to force you. I just thought that’s what you wanted. But I’m through being a coward, Jill.”

  Jilly’s head snapped up and fire flashed in her eyes. “Is that what you think I am?”

  Anna laughed. A hollow, aching sound. “No. It’s the last thing I would call you. I’m the coward.”

  “What? No you’re not. I only did it because I was afraid. If I put my faults at your door, then I didn’t have to deal with them.”

  “Well, then I guess we’re both guilty of that. So, where do we go from here?”

  Jilly reached for Anna’s hand and held it so tightly that her bones ground together. “We do whatever we have to do together. That’s what we do.”

  Anna looked at her sister through a film of tears. “That’s right. That’s what we do. We stop fighting against each other and we work it out as sisters.”

  They sat quietly for a while, and then Anna patted Jilly’s bandaged arm. “Does it hurt?”

  Jilly searched Anna’s eyes, but found no threat in the question. “No.” She sighed and squeezed Anna’s hand again. “I’m sorry I put you through hell. Not much different than when we were kids, huh?”

  “I don’t want you worrying about that, okay. You were right. We’re both screwed up, but I couldn’t admit that. I didn’t want it to be true, so I figured that if I didn’t admit it, it couldn’t be. What’s more messed up than that?”

  Jilly smiled. “Yeah, I guess that’s a little weird. But what good did it do for me to shove it in your face or get angry all the time? It didn’t stop me from cutting myself, did it?”

  “Have you been doing it long, honey?”

  “No, actually, I just started again after the night of the gala.”

  “The gala.” Anna got to her feet and paced across the room. She turned to look at Jilly. “We going to talk about that?”

  “I think we need to.”

  “Why do you think she did it?” Anna asked.

  Jilly pressed her head back into the soft pillow and closed her eyes. She knew they needed to deal with why Mamma sent the painting, but the thought of it made her so tired.

  “Jilly? Do you think she wants to make things right with us? Have us back in her life?”

  Jilly could sense Anna moving closer to her bed. She couldn’t reply. Tears leaked out the side of her eyes and rolled down her face. What if that’s true? Would she finally love me?

  “Jill?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. She never tried when we were young. We were like little ghosts in her house. She didn’t even take us to therapy after …” Her voice choked off. “She’s not a good mother, Anna. She doesn’t care.”

  “Are you sure?” Anna’s voice seemed to float on the air, soft, airy, even hopeful.

  That hope caused pain to lance through Jilly’s chest. She understood it.

  The door opened and a nurse bustled in, a clipboard in her hand. “What? You’re still here? Visiting hours ended a long time ago.”

  Anna got up off the bed, ready to rush out of the room.

  Jilly grabbed her arm. “No. I need you to stay with me.”

  The nurse puckered up her lips, looking very nunnish, and Jilly said, “I need my sister here. You don’t want a repeat, do you?”

  The nurse’s baggy eyes widened and she looked down at her clipboard. Her brows clenched and her mouth drew up tight as a drawstring as she scribbled something on the chart, looking as though what she wrote offended every sensibility. She shook her head and moved to the bed, thermometer magically appearing in her hand. She didn’t speak a word to Jilly while she checked her vitals and scribbled the results on the chart. When she finished, she turned on her heel and stomped out, as much as her soft shoes would allow.

  “I could have gone, but do you really need me here?”

  Jilly reached a hand for her sister and Anna sat close, taking it between her own again. “Yes, yes I do need you. I’m feeling rather shaky at the moment. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. I’m willing to just sit quietly, though, if you need to rest.”

  “Maybe, but I kind of want to talk first.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want to know what brought this on?”

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “Gregg and I had a fight.”

  Anna couldn’t help but be surprised. She never saw Gregg and Jilly fight, though she knew fighting was normal for a married couple. They just seemed like two halves of the same whole.

  “He wanted me to talk about what has been bothering me and I wouldn’t. We ended up fighting and then this time he wouldn’t back off. I ran out of the room and before I even knew what was happening, I sat in a corner of the kitchen with a knife in my hands. I don’t even remember picking it up.”

  “Oh, Jilly,” Anna said softly.

  “Gregg found me like that and called an ambulance.”

  “Does Gregg know about Mamma? Have you ever talked about her?”

  “No. Gregg doesn’t know anything about her. It’s like I just sprang from the ground, fully raised, and there were no parents involved as far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t even know my father was some artist Mamma had a one-night stand with. I’ve always been too ashamed to tell him. He’s always wondered about my past, of course, but from my reaction every time he brought it up, he decided to let it go, I guess. Until last night.”

  “Because of the exhibition? Of course that would make him curious.”

  “Yes, but he knows me well enough not to come right out and ask. Last night he finally got tired of me not talking and he started asking.”

  “Well, you really can’t blame him, can you?”

  “No, and that’s the thing. I’ve been trying to blame him and you and anyone else in my life rather than looking to the source. I even accused you of doing that, when here I was doing the same. God, I was so self-righteous. You must have hated me.”

  “No. It made me look at myself for the first time in a very long time, maybe the first time ever.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.
” Anna pulled her hand away and ran both through her uncombed hair.

  “What conclusions did you come to?” Jilly asked. “What are you going to do about Rob?”

  “What about him?”

  “Oh, come on, we all know how he treats you.” Jilly stopped, wondering if she should take it all the way. Then the words seemed to spring from her lips fully formed. “All the women he parades around town?” At the look on Anna’s face, Jilly wished she could take the words back.