“Can you hear somethin’?” she asks, holding one hand up. She pulls the same vacant face she did a moment ago. “Sounds like someone laughin’ upstairs, child. A woman. You got someone up there?”
I did a pretty good sweep of the upstairs floor when I got up just to make sure Coralie wasn’t in my mother’s room or something, but she wasn’t. And even if she was up there somewhere, I doubt very much that she would be laughing to herself right now. “I promise you, I’m alone here. Or at least I thought I was before I came down and found you here. And for the record, I can’t hear a thing.”
Friday purses her lips. “They say people done lose they hearin’ as they get older. Seems to me that I hear more and more.” She spoons another load of cereal into her mouth, grunting. “I came by to see if you got her to go into that house yet,” she mumbles.
“Next door? No. How could I? How can I get her to do anything? You saw her last night. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Friday points her spoon at me, arching one eyebrow into a savage curve. “Don’t you be churlish with me, boy. I saw her hurryin’ on outta here this morning before sun up. I know you saw her after you were arguing like children at my place.”
“And yet you still thought I had another woman upstairs?”
She shakes her head a little. “Ain’t none of my business what people get up to. An’ these days, you New York folk...the good lord knows whatever goes on in the big city. What’s unacceptable here might be just fine over there.”
Debating twenty first century morals with a woman in possession of an eighteenth century mindset is a pointless and exhausting task. I brace myself against the back of the chair opposite Friday and give her a stern look. “Why would I persuade Coralie to go next door, Friday? There’s no reason for her to do it. No reason to make herself feel worse than she already does, just by being back here.”
“It’s important,” she replies. “She’s got to face what happened there, child, otherwise it’ll hang over her head like a sword for the rest o’ her days. She’ll never move forward.” More spoon pointing.
“Maybe you should talk to her then. Go with her. I doubt very much that she’d want me with her.”
Friday gives me a look that implies my IQ is somewhat lacking. “Be smart, boy. What good would I be, facing her demons with her? He wasn’t my father. It wasn’t my relationship.” She pauses. It looks like she’s measuring her words, trying to decide what to say next. Eventually, she says, “And it wasn’t my child either now, was it?”
I’ve never been electrocuted before, but I imagine it would feel pretty similar to this. Every single nerve ending I posses, even the ones I didn’t know I possessed, snap and fire at once in the most painful way. I’m literally winded by her words. “I—I didn’t think anyone knew about that. I didn’t think she’d said anything,” I whisper.
Friday pushes her bowl aside and stands from the table. She makes her way to me, slowly, grimacing a little, as though the movement hurts her. Given her increasing size and age, it probably does. She stops in front of me, reaching up so she can place her weathered hands high on my bare shoulders. “Coralie never kept nothin’ from me, Callan. Not in all the years I helped raised her. But she never did tell me ‘bout that.”
“Then, how—”
“There’s only so many things that can hurt a person so deeply in this life, boy. I witnessed that girl lose her mother. I witnessed her suffer at her daddy’s hands. But when she left Port Royal, it was like her soul had been ripped clean outta her body. For Coralie, it was the ultimate hurt. And only losing a baby can do that.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CORALIE
Life
THEN
“Does Jo know I’m here?”
During the six months I’ve been sneaking into the Cross household after dark, it’s never occurred to me that Callan’s mother might not know about it.
“Mmm,” Callan says, pressing his lips against my hair. “Your stealth mode setting is impressive. But yeah. She knows. I told her. Hope you don’t mind.”
While most teenaged boys are doing anything and everything in their power to hide things from their parents, Callan and his mother have a unique relationship. Watching them together is pretty special. Their dynamic is more that of a close friend than your average mother/son deal. The first time I ever met Jo, I’d been scared. Nervous. But when I walked into their kitchen, hands clasped in front of me, fingernails digging into my own skin, she’d cupped my face in her hands and said, “Beautiful girl, you look just like your mother. What a gift. What a wonderful thing to have happened,” and I knew I was going to love her almost as much as my boyfriend.