50.
~ "How come you don't live here?" Norma asked. They were both laying on their backs outside, her head resting on Alex's stomach. The movie had ended and they had grown too comfortable on the blankets to bother getting up. Instead they'd chosen to lounge like patrons at a music festival. Alex enjoyed the luxury of Norma running her soft fingers over his hands as they talked. It had grown too cold for Norma in her thin blue dress, Alex wordlessly giving her his jacket to keep warm.
"It's easier to live in town." Alex tried to explain. "Closer to work, and less maintenance. It's an old farm house and I'd have to make a lot of repairs."
"It's so pretty here." Norma argued. "And it's not that far away."
"I didn't have the happy childhood you're thinking of, Norma." Alex admitted.
"I didn't say it was perfect." she said apologetically. "I mean, if it never felt like home-"
"It never felt like home." he said quickly.
Alex didn't want to talk about it, but he sensed the she was willing to listen. That she needed him to explain more.
"My mother, she had issues." he said carefully. "I told you about them, that day on the boat?"
"Yes." Norma said gently. Alex met her gaze and saw her eyes were like the deep blue sea. A beautiful, elemental force without end.
"Sometimes, she would have these bad spells." he admitted carefully. "I was younger and I didn't understand them. Didn't understand why she acted like she did. Why she was so sad all the time and why she just couldn't be happy. Or be like the other moms I saw."
He saw Norma's eyes flash in worry over the child he no longer was.
"Sometimes, she would stay in bed for days. Never take a bath or make sure I was taken care of. She just crawled up inside herself." he sighed.
He felt her grip tighten on his hand as she patiently listened.
"Then, there were times when she was happy. When it was okay to be around her. She would sew a lot on this machine my dad got her. She was really good at sewing." he said. "She made these yellow curtains and hung them in every room."
"Yellow?" Norma questioned with a smile.
"It was the seventies."
"Ah."
"When she was happy, she would cook for us and everything was really good. Then it was like something horrible took her away from us. I could always sense it coming for her to." Alex explained sadly. "We didn't really know about depression or anything like that back then. My dad thought crazy was crazy. There was a lot of shame attached to the idea my mother might be mentally ill. That she needed to help and he was too stubborn to get it for her. He told her to just get over it. To be normal again."
He felt Norma's fingers tracing up his arm. Her skin causing his own flesh to feel electric.
"One day, I came home from school and found her in the bathroom. She had left the door open knowing I would see. See what she was doing. She had cut herself up with a flat shaving razor. She wanted me to see her hurting herself. See her bleeding." he said. A pain, deep and ugly, rippled through his body. Like he had betrayed his mother by saying out loud what he'd always suspected.
"Oh, Alex." Norma breathed.
"I panicked. I was still a little kid. I called Sybil and she told me to call an ambulance. Next thing I know, people my dad knows and works with are here at the house. My mother's crying and Sybil is holding me. My dad comes barging in and grabs me by the collar. He starts yelling at me because I let the family secret out. The whole town would know about her because of me. Everyone would know that my mother was crazy, and it was all my fault." he said darkly.
"Your dad is a shit head." Norma said bluntly. Her voice curt and unapologetic.
Alex felt a bubble of laughter rise up. He instantly felt better at the notion Norma wasn't afraid to tell the truth about the Old Bear.
"If you ever met him, I'd love it if you told him that." he laughed.
"I will." Norma said hotly. "Don't think I won't."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"Okay."
"I might kick his ass to."
"I believe you could."
"Watch out."
"I will."
"So what happened then? Did your mom get help?" she asked. Her voice calmer now that she'd expressed herself.
Alex shrugged. The demons of his childhood didn't bite as hard now. It was like they had been scared away by Norma's tenaciousness and were in hiding. He liked the idea of Norma roaring like a tiger against the bad things in his youth. A tiger that might be fearless enough to stand up to Old Bear.
"She was in and out of treatment places." Alex told her carelessly. "My dad called them mental institutions." The memories of his mother's suffering weren't as painful anymore. Not with the tiger so close by. "For years, she was in and out of them."
"What about you?" Norma asked. "Where were you when she was in those places?"
"I stayed with Sybil a lot." Alex explained. "Her family was always good to me. I also stayed with friends."
"Did she get better? At least for a while?" Norma asked.
"Medication helped." Alex said slowly. "I think the problem was she kept having to come home to my dad."
He watched her expression and saw it was unchanged. She was still ready to hear everything. Good or bad.
"You know better than anyone how it feels to be with a man who treats you like you're worthless." he explained sadly.
"Yes." she said whispered. Her eyes were like the deep end of the ocean again. "You start to believe you really are worthless."
"My mother believed it." Alex told her frankly. "I came here, seven years ago this past summer, went into her bedroom and found her dead. She had taken pills. She knew I would be here in the morning to take her to church and she knew…she knew I would be the one to find her."
He felt Norma's fingers gliding over his palm. He had never described the exact circumstances to anyone after the day it happened. Never trusted anyone with that horror.
"You're angry at her." Norma said.
Tears stung Alex's eyes.
"I don't want be." he said. "She was hurting. She was in pain. It's not her fault."
"You feel like she purposely hurt you." Norma said. "Because she wanted you to see it. She wanted you to be the one to find her."
"Yes." Alex whispered.
"It's because she knew you were the only person who loved her. That's why she wanted you to see that she'd done those things to herself. Because anyone else wouldn't grieve for her like you would. No one else would miss her like you would." Norma explained slowly.
"Would you ever do that?" Alex asked suddenly. He had to know if the tiger was capable of letting the darkness take her. Of letting the demons tear her apart.
"We all have bad thoughts, Alex." she whispered. "I've fought too hard to stay alive. My father almost killed me, my brother…" she let out a long sigh. "Sam trying to beat me to death in front of my kids, that asshole who hit my car and pushed us into the bay. No, I don't care how bad it gets, I've worked to stay in this life, I've earned it. Besides, I'm sure it pisses off certain people that this girl's still standing."
Alex was watching her as she gave her little speech. Her energy was breathtaking. It was like a natural disaster that couldn't be contained or stopped. A hurricane that, although destructive, was beautiful in it's own way.
"Sorry." Norma sighed. "Didn't mean to upset you."
"You're not." he assured her.
"I'm sorry you went through that." she said. "Is that why you don't want to live here? Because you remember too many bad things?"
"Maybe." he said.
"You know, I didn't grow up in a house of our own at all. We were always traveling. Always on the move and living in other people's homes. It's easier for me to forget the past, I guess. I don't have the roots you do." she sighed. "Memories can hurt a lot if we let them."
"Yes they can."
"So lets not them." she smiled.
She nodded at the Christmas lights and home made movie screen. The picture perfect setting they were both in.
"This was a very good memory for us, Alex." she whispered. "Thank you."
She met his gaze and her eyes were that same color blue that made him feel the ocean wasn't as fathomless as he thought. That maybe all the storms had blown out and it would be nothing but peaceful sailing from now on.
"I'm glad." he said. There was a feeling of serenity in this moment. Like nothing bad could happen to them in this place.
"Can we do this again? The movie and the outdoors? Just us?" she asked hopefully. Her smile was bright like a child asking to go to a carnival.
"Of course." he chuckled. "I'm not sure how long the weather will hold. It's supposed to get cold soon."
"We can cuddle in Lucy and watch the movie." she offered. "Have our very own drive in."
"We can make out during the boring parts, right?" he asked.
She giggled.
"Maybe." she admitted. "You know, using that car and a homemade drive inn to get a girl to make out with you is pretty sneaky. What would Sybil say?"
She was teasing him again and Alex didn't back down.
"She'd probably say, 'Way to go, Little Bear'." he said dryly.
"No, she wouldn't!" Norma laughed.
"You don't know Sybil like I do. She's still pretty wild. She was always causing trouble when she was younger. Or so I've heard."
"Oh yeah?" Norma asked.
"Her father used to the Mayor." he said incidentally. "During the depression and the second world war. No one living knows more about this town than she does."
"You know that she wants me to help her at this halloween party next week." Norma said.
"Yeah, the charity thing for the children's hospital." he sighed.
"She needs a helper with all the kids that will be there. It sounds like fun." she said innocently.
"Norma, I'm not good at those things. I hate costumes and I'm not good around kids." he said knowing what she was asking.
"You're good around my kids."
"Your kids know how to behave!" he argued. "You're kids are normal. Some of these brats are no better than heathens. Besides, it's halloween, I'll have to work. You have no idea how much trouble this holiday causes."
"I know." she agreed. "It would have been nice to see you in costume, or something."
"Oh yeah?" he smiled. "What kind of costume?"
"I was thinking like Zoro or something." she said with little thought.
"That's… that's terrible." he said with a laugh.
"It'd be pretty sexy."
"No, it wouldn't."
Norma was grinning at him, but her lovely face fell as if she'd been giving heart breaking news.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Alex asked.
"This is heaven." she said sadly. "Today. Right here. With you."
"That makes you sad?"
"We're in this bubble." she whispered. "It won't last."
Alex smiled at her ran a hand over the exposed skin around her neck. His fingers slipping beneath the fabric.
"I think we both know I can make it last." he teased.
She blushed and her smile lit up her face.
"Alex!" she cried.
"I'm serious." he said calmly.
"That's not what I meant!" she giggled.
"I can prove it." he said.
Her laughter was ringing out in a place with no more demons.
