Series: Snapshots of the Past
Story: Say You Love Me Too
Chapter 9
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: A familiar piece of music stirred Abbey's emotions; Abbey hid her more troubling memories as she asked Jed to have dinner with her
Summary: Lizzie begins to ask questions; Abbey's imagination gets the best of her as she is momentarily fearful for Liz's safety; Jed helps guide Abbey through their past and she allows him to, at first; A song sparks more than memories
- - -
"You can make all the sad faces you want, you're not going to win this one."
Jed's warning fell on deaf ears as Lizzie's expression remained the same. Her face stoic and unaffected, she held her stare in the mirror where he stood as he combed through his hair. His eyes wandered to the side to take notice of his daughter's reflection, but he refused to acknowledge her stubbornness.
Instead, he continued to button his shirt. "We'll try to be home soon."
"It's not fair. I always do everything you tell me to."
"Yes, you do," he admitted. "Most of the time."
"Then why won't you ever let me do what I want to do?"
"Lizzie, you're too young to stay home alone with your little sister. Ask me again in a couple of years and maybe I'll change my mind."
Instinctively, she hopped on the bed and stood on the mattress with a can of hair spray aimed at her father's head. "In a couple of years, I won't want to babysit."
"Then problem solved." He smiled at the exasperated way she dropped her hands to her side, then reached down to inspect the can. "Are you sure this stuff is okay to use on men's hair?"
"Yes. Mommy uses it on hers."
"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but she's a woman. I'm asking about men."
"Is there a difference between men's hair and a women's hair?"
Rather than answer a question he didn't actually have an answer to, he bent his knees slightly to give her a target. "Okay, spray."
A light mist of aerosol momentarily surrounded them as Liz plopped down onto the bed to sit with her feet dangling off the edge. "Can Paige take us out for ice cream?"
"I took you out for ice cream yesterday." He stopped himself as he realized the sadness in yet another sigh. "If Paige wants to take you, she can take you. But I don't want you bugging her about it."
"Okay." Finally, a smile. It was good to see, no matter how short-lived it was. "Daddy?"
"Yeah?"
Her knuckles clasped, Liz twirled her fingers around one another. "Who hurt her?"
There was no need to elaborate. Jed knew exactly what she meant.
"Your mom just had an accident, Sweetie." Of course it was a lie, but it was one she hadn't challenged before. He didn't expect that she would challenge it now.
He was wrong.
"Don't lie to me."
Stunned, Jed turned towards her and gingerly approached, sinking down to his knees in front of the bed. "We don't know what happened. That's the truth."
"When will we know?"
"I can't answer that. It's very complicated, Lizzie."
Too complicated, in fact, for even Jed to understand, let alone explain to his eleven-year-old daughter. The mystery of that night would haunt the entire family until Abbey could regain the memories that would solve the puzzle.
"You believe me?" he asked in reaction to her blank stare.
She nodded slowly at first. He ran his fingers towards her arms, tugging on them to tickle her as her girlish giggle filled the room.
"I believe you!" she screamed out in the midst of the laughter.
"Okay then. Now hurry up and help me finish. Your mom's going to be ready before I am."
Little did he know that Abbey had a similar distraction as she prepared for their dinner. Ellie sat on the counter in the bathroom and thumbed through her mother's makeup. Her experimentation was slowing Abbey's progress considerably.
"Can I wear this?"
"What did I tell you the last several times you asked?"
"No."
"What do you think I'm going to say now?"
She thought for a moment, then enthusiastically nodded her head. "Yes."
Noticeably amused, Abbey leaned forward and tweaked the little girl's nose. "I don't think so. You only want to wear make-up when Lizzie and I are wearing it."
"I wanna look like you and Lizzie."
Smart way to appeal to her mother. "All right, sit still," Abbey directed as she applied a little bit of gloss to Ellie's lips. "There you go."
It was enough to make the four-year-old's face light up when she turned to the mirror. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
The image that ran through Abbey's mind wasn't unexpected. She had seen these visions before. Visions of Lizzie helping her sift through her makeup. Visions of Ellie watching from a distance. Visions of her squirting both her daughters with perfume as the three of them prepared for an evening. These were scenes that she longed to remember. They were scenes that weren't threatening or scary. And they were never before mingled with scenes that terrified her.
But that was about to change. A knock at the door disturbed the flow of warm memories that overwhelmed her.
"I'll get it!" Liz called out as she ran from her parent's bedroom.
In a matter of seconds, she swung the door open to greet Paige. In those few moments, Abbey's mind wandered slightly off-path. They were no longer actual memories taking root in her brain. These images were ones that were invented for the sole purpose of frightening her. She struggled with her inability to place them, to put them in context and discover their true meaning.
She nearly shut down at the pictures she saw. While reminiscent of the ones that raced through her when she'd accidentally remember portions of her attack, these were different. Scarier. In these images, it wasn't her being attacked. It was Elizabeth.
Before she could stop it, her temper rose rapidly. "ELIZABETH!" she yelled. "You didn't even ask who it was!"
"I knew who it was."
"No, you didn't! You just assumed it was Paige."
"It WAS Paige."
"That isn't the point!"
Responding to the shouting, Jed curiously joined his family in the living room. "What's going on?"
He was ignored as Abbey focused all her attention on Liz. "From now on, you don't open the door by yourself at night. Do you understand?" Her voice was harsh and forceful. Her question didn't garner any kind of reply, which only made her angrier. She asked again, firmer this time. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," Liz answered with pursed lips, obviously resentful at her mother's tone.
The short confrontation temporarily dashed Abbey's hopes of a maturing relationship with Liz. The tension seemed to grow one day just to disappear the next. It was an unstable, unhealthy battle that scarred the dynamic between the two and left Jed quietly watching from the sidelines, debating intervention at every turn.
- - -
"Abbey?" Jed called her name when he they were alone at the restaurant. She had been distant and quiet ever since they left home.
"I'm sorry."
"Are you thinking about Lizzie?"
"I just don't know why I reacted like that."
"You had a point. I mean, she really should be more careful."
"Yes, but that should have come from you. Not me."
"You're her mother. You have every right to correct her when she makes a mistake."
"Correct her? Is that what I did or did I just humiliate her in front of everyone?"
"It'll be okay. You'll talk things out tomorrow."
"Maybe." Her fingers circled her glass of water as she gazed at him across the table. "Tonight isn't supposed to be about the girls. It's supposed to be about us."
"That's what I was told," he replied with a grin.
"I want you to tell me about you and me. I want to know everything."
Reaching into his pocket with one hand, he held her palm with the other. "This will make things easier," he said as he slipped the chain of a necklace between her fingers.
She examined the ruby-centered silver pendant. "It's beautiful."
He flipped it around, allowing her a look at the engraving on the back. "The story of us."
"It's a locket."
"It is. I gave it to you our first Christmas together. It has pictures of us before our wedding and a few pictures after, up until Lizzie's birth."
Abbey opened the latch and turned the solid flaps as if turning the pages of a storybook, each page illustrated with a photograph that piqued her interest, and in some cases, even filled her with that recognizable feeling of familiarity.
"It's so beautiful."
"Here." Jed moved his chair to the side of the table so they could both glance at the photos. "This one right here," he started as he pointed to the first one, "that's a trip we took to Martha's Vineyard with your friends. We had been dating about six months. It's where we first said the 'L' word."
"And we first made love?" she asked, her eyes transfixed on the image.
He shook his head, fondly thinking of that weekend. "No. We started to, but we decided to wait until..." He stopped suddenly as his eyes widened. "Abbey, do you remember? Do you remember us trying to..."
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do. You do remember, don't you?"
His face beaming with emotion, Abbey couldn't say no. She relied on the hazy recollection to appease him. "I do, a little."
"Oh, thank God."
Eager to please, she allowed his prompting as they strolled through the first year of their lives together. It was easy enough. He did most of the talking, though he looked to her for an occasional nod, acknowledgment that she was onboard with his trip down memory lane.
The truth was, she only remembered bits and pieces. That was no small feat, of course, since, until now, she was practically oblivious to her life with Jed. But his encouragement was so motivating, his excitement so overpowering.
She let go of her inhibitions as she saw quick flashes of a handsome, debonair Jed at a New Year's Eve party. Their first meeting, according to his narrative. He guided her through their first Fourth of July, making up after a fight that kept them separated for five weeks, then snuggling together on a blanket as they enjoyed the fireworks above. She remembered that too.
Most of it anyway.
He reminded her that she first proposed to him. He rejected her. But it wasn't a real rejection. It was Jed's way of throwing her off-track while he sat her down and propped himself on one knee with an engagement ring ready to slip on her finger.
That was the last memory she shared with him. As he continued to talk about their courtship and their wedding, she didn't dare tell him the rest of it was shadowed in painful images she wanted to avoid. It was no longer just her life. It was her life interspersed with flashes of the night she was attacked. She didn't know why. She didn't know how. But at times, as her mind worked hard to conjure up her misplaced memories, it sandwiched them between the event that caused her to lose them in the first place.
The sweet feelings that loomed through the air now brought with them a sinister undercurrent of images she couldn't escape. At least, not as long as she allowed her mind to delve into the past. She was desperate to swallow the anxiety that was slowly rising. And so, she put up a barrier against the memories to rid herself of the trigger.
Instead of admitting that she was freely surrendering to what she wasn't ready to face, Abbey continued the facade that made Jed so happy. Without malicious intent, she led him to believe her recovery was within reach, that their lives would soon be repaired.
- - -
After dinner, Abbey accepted Jed's hand as he helped her across a covered pedestrian bridge overlooking the Connecticut River. Sheltered under the wood carving above, they sat on the edge of the pavement between the railings of the large structure that spanned the waterway that separated the state of New Hampshire from the state of Vermont.
"So this is where you and Lizzie disappear to every Friday?"
"Pretty much. It's just a little tradition we started in Boston."
"With the ice cream?" she asked, lifting the scoop in her hand.
"The ice cream's the whole point," he laughed. "I try to get Ellie to come too. She usually doesn't."
"Why not?"
"You know how kids are. They're almost always closer to one parent than the other."
"And Ellie prefers to hang out with me," she concluded as he looked out to the water. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"When you were growing up, which parent were you closer to?"
It was questions like that that urged him to push her through this. He wanted to be patient, but any reference to something that wasn't just part of their past, but something that defined who they were today, made him crazy with frustration.
"My mom. Definitely my mom," he answered. "Listen, when do you see that shrink again?"
"She's a psychiatrist," she corrected. "Thursday. Why?"
"I was just thinking that maybe I should go with you to one of these sessions."
"Why?" she asked cautiously.
"It's been three weeks, Abbey, and you're starting to make progress, but it's still slow."
"I didn't realize there was a time limit."
"I don't want to push."
"You just want me to remember as soon as possible."
"Yeah. Not just because of me. Because of the girls and because of you. Also, I want you to be able to talk to the police about that night."
She shuddered at the mere suggestion. She wasn't even ready to admit what happened, let alone tell anyone else about it and risk having to face her attacker during the judicial process. "I don't know if that's going to happen."
"It can. I know it can. I've been doing some reading and it sounds like one of the best options with this kind of illness is hypnosis."
"It's not an illness, Jed. It's a condition." Her voice held a detectable level of hostility.
"Fine. A condition. I'm sorry. That's what I meant."
"I'm not doing hypnosis. Not now."
"When?"
"I don't know. Maybe never."
He slid closer, physically closing the gap between them as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Just let me go with you?"
She nodded silently and squirmed from his hold. One step forward. Two steps backwards.
She held the railing for support as she stood up to move towards the car. "Let's go."
With his eyes closed and his fingers rubbing his forehead, Jed took a deep breath. He couldn't allow his dominating opinions to widen the rift between them. He couldn't push her over that edge for he didn't know if he would ever get her back if he did.
- - -
After a long, quiet drive home, Jed took Abbey's hand in his just as she turned from him to head into the den. "I'm sorry. I know I upset you tonight."
"It's not your fault. I'm just overwhelmed."
"I love you, Abbey," he assured her with unambiguous sincerity. "I know you barely remember us, but I love you."
She leaned in and gently pressed her lips to his cheek. Their fingers lingered between one another for a second longer before she turned to leave him.
Opting not to sleep in the master bedroom, even though he offered to let her have it to herself, Abbey retreated to the sofabed in the den Jed used as a study. This is was what she called her room since the day she moved back in. Here, she spent most nights wide awake, contemplating her next step in getting her old life back from the person who tried to destroy it. Here, she privately cried mournful tears for the pain that had been inflicted on her family.
Here, she'd secretly play the song she heard the night of Lizzie's recital.
As everyone else slept. she lowered the hand on the small record player in the corner of the room. She expected to be enticed by the melody, just as she had been before.
She wasn't disappointed.
A brief memory of herself swaying in Jed's arms was quickly invaded with emotion. Strong sensations she couldn't deny had made their way through every roadblock she had in place. And instead of fighting them off, this time, she welcomed them. Her lips moved to the lyrics as her body finally relaxed.
Vieni su, vieni su
Come along through the years with me
Can't you see how I adore you
And how long I waited for you
Vieni su, vieni su
Won't you say you love me too
She slipped under her blanket and allowed the song to continue as she drifted off to the first peaceful sleep in three weeks.
TBC