Personal Possessions (20 page)

“Thank you. Yes, it was
good, tasted just as good as my momma’s.” Her smile grew even
bigger in delight as she nodded her head. I went to get up from the
table so I could take my glass over to the sink.

“You remind me a lot of my
son,” She spoke softly, looking down into her lap. Grief written
all over her face. At this confession, I sat up straight and gave
her all my attention. I could see out of the corner of my eye,
Patricia beginning to draw closer to us, she must’ve overheard her
whisper.

“My son died years ago,” I
could hear the heartache in her broken tone. Sickened with
repulsion and self-loathing, anger filled me from head to toe. I
was nothing more than the bastard my father had become, for
treating her the same way he did. Looking up at Patricia standing
right behind my mother with her eyes closed. She was either pissed
off that I caused my mother to relive this kind of pain, which she
had every right to beat the shit outta me right then, or else she
was trying to hold back the tears.

“You’ll have to forgive
me, sweetie, my mind is not what it used to be. For some reason or
another I seem to have a problem remembering, his name.”

She looked behind her at
Patricia for some assistance, I was pleading inside my head that
she not continue this subject.

“Ms. McHale, it’s your
rest time darling. Come now, let’s get your situated, you don’t
want to miss your stories.”

Patricia helped her out of
the chair and walked her to the bottom of the stairs where they
both stopped. I could tell my mother was imploring her mind to
recall just one small hint of her son’s name or who he was. My
name. I watched her shake her head in defeat, and continue up the
stairs. This would end up being the last time I came here to see my
mother. I couldn’t take the pain that was inscribed all over her
face. It was so bad, she couldn’t even handle it and had lived in
another world, mentally for years now.

I got up from my seat and
headed for the stairway, I took one step at a time. I looked at the
wall of photographs that told the story of my life. Beginning in
preschool, pictures of me atop horses with my cowboy hat on was
framed in a wooden frame. Next, was my kindergarten school pic, the
inevitable snapshot with the two bottom teeth missing. Picture
after picture, my mother hung with a heart full of love and pride
for her baby boy. A baby boy, who became the man that had just sat
in front of her and she never even acknowledged him as anything
other than a stranger.

Coming to the door of my
childhood bedroom, it seemed inappropriate for me to even think
about entering this room. But I was looking for something in
particular, an item that I had a feeling no one other than myself
knew about. Walking in, I had to draw back my breath. The room
looked the same as it did the day I left, nothing had changed. From
the navy blue color and maroon paint that covered the walls, making
for the most masculine room ever, to the bath towel that hung on
the back of my desk’s chair. I know this because I hung it there
the day that I left to attend UGA.

I knew where I needed to
go, I was sick to death of walking down memory fucking lane. I
needed to get out of here. Opening the closet door, I saw that the
only thing that had changed was my mother had inherited another
closet. Evening gown after another boring glitzy evening gown lined
the closet once stuffed full of football gear, college hoodies and
sweats. Walking past all the garment bags until I got to the back
of the closet, I bent down and pulled up the loose floorboard that
was back beneath a pair of high heeled gold shoes.

There it was, right where
I left it all those years ago. The metal box that I kept everything
that meant anything to me. I flipped open the lock on the front and
pulled back the lid. Pictures of Elle and I laid there. Pulling
them back to see the hundreds of notes that at one time stated how
much she loved me. Call me stupid, I thought it would be nice to
show our children one day, so I saved every last one of them. I
left the notes there and closed the box. I wanted the photos that
was my whole reason for coming here.

With the flooring fixed
and the bedroom still intact, I walked down the stairs and out the
front door.

It took me all evening,
and way into the night to scan every one of those photos into my
computer. I wanted to make sure she had every fucking one of them.
It was crucial that she was reminded of what we were at one time.
What we would be again.

I heard my phone buzzing
beside me, I looked at the caller ID to see it was Rachel. I hit
ignore. I’m sure she had heard that I went home today and I really
wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. I picked up the glass of whisky
beside me and shot the caramel colored liquor quickly so that I
could refill the glass again, not even bothering with the ice
anymore.

Another picture, another
memory burned in my mind. I was beginning to wonder if I was doing
this to remind her, or doing it out of spite. Did I really want her
to feel the same feelings that pushed me to give up everything that
I knew as my reality, or did I want her to hurt. Beginning to truly
understand the saying, there was a fine line between love and
hate.

I grabbed my glass and
shot it back. What was in it, by this time I wasn’t being picky,
hell I couldn’t feel anything anyways. I’d say it did the trick.
That’s when I heard the beating on the door. I looked down at my
computer, and saw that it was either one-fifteen or fifteen-one in
the morning, and thought maybe it was my imagination. The banging
continued.

“Goddammit, don’t you
fuckers know what is considered too late!” I slurred as I stumbled
to the door. I just got the door unlocked when Rachel burst
in.

“What the fuck, Trevor!”
She screamed at me.

I had to catch myself from
falling, as she pushed by me entering my hotel room. Slamming the
door shut, I turned to watch Rachel stalk to the living room. I’d
had a pretty shitty day today, and I wasn’t really in the mood for
this, especially this late… or early.

“Come on in,” I joked.
Obviously, she wasn’t in the mood to joke around as she threw her
purse down on the table as her eyes came back up to meet
mine.

I slowly wiped the smirk
off of my face, sobering up under her scrutiny, “I don’t know Rach,
you tell me, what the fuck?”

Her eyes went over to the
desk, acknowledging that she saw the mostly gone bottle of Jack
sitting there.

“Is this the way you think
you’re gonna get her back?” She walked over to the desk and grabbed
the glass there and stuck it up to her nose, quickly turning her
nose away as she sniffed the pungent odor.

Who the fuck did she think
she was, walking into my hotel suite and reprimanding me as if I
was a child who had just gotten caught drinking for the first
time.

“Rachel, I don’t know what
you’re doing here, but I think it would be a wise decision for you
to get your shit and get the fuck out. Now!”

“I’m not going anywhere
until you tell me what you think you are doing.”

Now I was pissed, and
totally sober, she was about to find out that this was not a good
combination this late at night when you come into my space and
start demanding shit.

“What I’m doing does not
concern you. Now, get your shit and get out.”

Suddenly, Rachel was in my
face. “I’m telling you right the fuck now, when it comes to Elle,
it does concern me. You show up after seventeen years back into
town, no one knows where you’ve been or whatcha been doin. Why now,
why come back now? You think everyone is gonna drop everything and
kiss your ass? I’m here to tell you, Trevor McHale, you ain’t shit!
You may have money to burn, have people dropping to lick your feet,
you ain’t getting none of that here! Elle has been
through-“

I grabbed the only thing I
could get my hand on which was an empty tequila bottle from the
night before and threw it across the room, smashing it into a
thousand pieces.

“You think that she’s the
only one who’s been through shit? What about
me
, Rach? Huh…what about what I’ve
been through? I fucking died that day. Died! Yet, I had no one to
turn to!”

I turned the other way and
began pacing, I didn’t want to admit why I left. Admitting, would
mean that it was reality. Something I never wanted to admit to
myself, let alone someone else.

“Why would I come back
here, Rach? I had nothing here to come back too. This wasn’t my
home anymore! Home is where your heart is, and since mine was
crushed and left for shit out on the black top of a driveway, I was
nothing but a homeless dying man.”

Rachel just stood there,
frozen. I could see the
dejection and
regret in her eyes, she didn’t need to say anything. I just stood
there staring at her. I could feel that place in my chest was empty
again. The gaping hole was completely exposed again. With what had
happened with Bear and now with my mom, what would be next? Fuck up
Elle’s life too? I was beginning to question whether I was doing
the right thing again, when Rachel nodded her head.

I saw one, just one tear
fall from her eye.

I went to her, wrapping my
arms around her. I could feel her hands grab ahold of the back of
my shirt.

“Shhhh, it’s ok, Rach.
Look, I’m an asshole. I’m drunk. I should’ve never
yelled.”

I thought maybe I could
feel her chest vibrating from crying but there was nothing, she
just left her face planted in my chest. I guess this shirt was
going in the trash, lipstick was a bitch to get out of silk. I
heard her sniff and knew that my suspicions were correct, this
shirt was trashed.

“I know you’re thinking of
her, Rach. But she’s a grown woman, this isn’t a fight that you
need to be involved in. I know what I’m doing and I won’t give up
until she’s mine. It took me seventeen years to figure out that I
need her.”

“Just promise me one
thing, Trevor.”

I looked at her
quizzically. “What’s that?”

“Bring ‘er
back.”

I didn’t know what that
meant, or even how to accomplish it but if it meant that I had
Rachel’s backing, I’d do it.

“I swear it,
Rach.”

Chapter 12

Today was the
day…

Sleep didn’t come easy for
me last night. Or should I say, this morning. After Rachel left, I
attempted to close my eyes, but my mind was too busy wondering
about the conversation I had with her. Playing her words over and
over again, the meaning just didn’t connect. Knowing Rachel and her
cryptic meanings, I tried to think of every concealed word that was
hidden in between, insinuating the true meaning. Still, I came up
with nothing.

The alarm clock buzzed on
and off telling me it was time to get my ass motivated, with the
aid of Tylenol and shit loads of caffeine of course. Besides, I was
expecting Elle to get those emails when she arrived at work, so I
decided to begin my morning with pain meds, caffeine and a phone
call to Elle.

Taking a sip of my coffee
while looking out over the entirety of Atlanta, the sky was a
myriad of color. A dark blue filled the early morning sky. The
light had hit the atmosphere just enough to enhance the deep color.
As your eyes made their way down to the sunrise, the sky became
lighter shades of blue and orange.

I missed this time of the
day. So beautiful and peaceful. It was as if God was telling us
that we had a clean slate, try not to fuck it up, even though he
knew we would.

I’m sure this view was
indescribable out on the farm. That was one thing I missed
unbelievably. The small town life. Reality hit when I heard the
morning paper being tossed at the bottom of the front
door.

I decided that I would be
going back up to Burlington tomorrow. That gave Elle twenty-four
hours to accept my offer; that would be plenty of time to have a
yes or no answer.

Checking the time on my
watch, I needed to begin my phone calls, if I was going to
accomplish all that needed to be done by our lunch this
morning.

“Listen Sarah, I don’t
give a shit what they said, you can either fix this mess that
you’ve created or find yourself as the front receptionist. It’s
your choice. You know how I feel about it.”
I called the office to check in, and found that the issues there
were nothing more than a middle school cluster fuck. I didn’t
really care who did it as long as it was fixed, but of course with
Sarah, she would always try and push it off on someone else. I
refused to give her a chance to try and bullshit me anymore. Done
listening to it, I hung up. Besides, I had a much better call to
make.

I heard the phone ring.
Once, twice.

“
Loren Stevens’ office,
this is Elleny…”

My god, her voice was like
a drug to me. It sent me to the highest of highs. Warmth rushed to
the middle of my chest, and I welcomed it. Savored every syllable
that came out of her mouth.

“Ummm, hello? This is
Elleny.”

Her words brought me back
to the conversation.

“Mrs. Barker-Jackson.” I
fucking hated her name. I despised using his last name when it came
to her. I would make sure that she knew “Jackson” would not be
rolling off of my tongue another time. I decided to keep this
conversation light, so I kept my voice soft and
alluring.