Every Part of You: Denies Me (#4) Read online

  Molly looked at him. “He wanted a son, he said. Real bad. He wanted to take him fishing, and to baseball games, and play catch in the backyard. All things his own dad hadn’t ever done with him. ‘Mol,’ he said. ‘I’m not gonna be a fuckup like my old man. I’m gonna be a good father.’”

  Elliott grimaced, choking laughter. “Oh, please.”

  “That’s what he said.” She gave him a small smile, one that seemed more like her old self. “We’d had it pretty good up until that point. Not great, but okay. We had money; your dad kept a job. Didn’t hit the booze the way he would later. After.”

  Listening to her was like being in a natural disaster. He wanted to get away, but all he could do was let it sweep him along. Elliott got up to pace, his stomach twisting and a little sick. When he licked his mouth, he tasted salt.

  “I lost the baby, and your dad kind of lost his mind. It was my … fault.…” Molly said on a sob.

  Elliott turned. “Nothing that he ever did to you was your fault.”

  “I didn’t want the baby. I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t love it. I tried to, but all I could think about was how much work babies are, and how it would change everything, and I didn’t want it.” Tears streaked her cheeks, and she batted at the sheets with ineffective fists.

  Elliott pulled a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand and wiped her face. “Shhh.”

  “I won’t shhh. You need to hear this!” She grabbed one of his wrists with surprising force. Her fingers slipped, not quite able to grip, but he didn’t pull away. “I lost the baby, and your dad was so devastated, he lost himself in the booze and the other women.”

  “He had a son,” Elliott said coldly. “He got the son he said he wanted, and he was still an addict who talked more with his fists than anything else. So don’t blame yourself for what you couldn’t control.”

  Molly quieted. “He never loved you the way you deserved to be loved, Elliott. I’m sorry for that.”

  It wasn’t news, but it still stung to hear it. He sat on the edge of her bed, wanting to get up and walk away. To leave this room and this conversation and everything else. Her small, weak hand on his stopped him.

  “He didn’t have it in him, that’s all. Like he didn’t have it in him to love your mother enough to leave me for her. Or to love me enough not to have gone with her in the first place. Your dad’s a man with a lot of empty holes to fill, and he’s never been able to fill them.” She struggled upright, reaching for him.

  “Calm down, Molly. Do you need me to ring for Betty?” He’d seen Molly get agitated before. She could hurt herself.

  “No, no, no.” Molly shook her head. Fine tremors shook her entire body, not quite a seizure but heading in that direction.

  “I’m calling Betty.”

  Again, her hand shot out to stop him. “No!”

  “Then you have to calm down,” he told her. “You can’t let yourself get so upset.”

  “There are things you need to hear, Elliott!”

  “Fine. Ok. Let me get you some water.” He poured some into a paper cup from one of the bottles he kept stocked in the minifridge he paid extra to keep in her room. He added a straw and held it for her.

  Molly took a few greedy sips. “Be better to have a shot of vodka.”

  “You never drank vodka.” Elliott managed a laugh.

  Molly fixed him with a bleary look. “You have no idea what I was like when I was a much younger hellion.”

  He didn’t have to. He’d known her as the woman who’d taken him in when his own mother had tossed him out and his father had disappeared. He’d always only known her as that woman, and there was still the glimmer of her now.

  “You’re a lot like your father. I know you don’t want to hear that, Elliott, but you listen to me. You have more than his hair and eyes, you have a lot of him in you. Even if he wasn’t around you or there for you when you were growing up, part of him made you, and you can’t get away from that.”

  He grimaced. “Thanks. That makes me feel great, Molly. Thanks a lot.”

  “But you’re not your daddy. You know that, don’t you?” More tears shimmered in her eyes and she tried to squeeze his hand. She looked down at the uselessly curling fingers. “You think I don’t hate him for what he did to me? I do. Just the way I’m sure you hate him for never being there for you and leaving you with that woman who shouldn’t have been allowed to own a rat, much less a child. But you can’t hold on to hate.”

  “That’s what they all say.” Elliott took her hand between both of his.

  “Who’s they?” Molly demanded. “Preachers? Advice gurus?”

  “People like that.”

  “You listen to that bullshit?”

  Elliott shook his head. “No.”

  “Well, you listen to me, you hear me? You can’t hold on to hate. It will eat you up inside and leave you full of holes you can’t ever fill.” Molly sighed, closing her eyes and laying back on the pillows. “You’re a man all grown, now, and you still don’t have anyone. Nobody to love you, or for you to love.”

  “I love you, Molly. And you love me.”

  She cracked open an eye and frowned. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “What if I just got a dog?”

  “Dogs are stinking, slobbering bags of unconditional love, but they are not a substitute for a person. Damn, I miss Harry.” She shifted around again with a grimace.

  “Do you need some meds?”

  “No. I’m fine. Just tired of being in this bed. Tired of feeling this way, though I guess on the days I don’t, I’m so out of my goddamned mind I’d have no idea about it, so why should I care?” Her smile was even smaller this time, quick as a flash of light in a shadowed pond.

  They sat for a few minutes after that without saying much. She was fading, though not quite asleep. She wouldn’t let go of Elliott’s hand.

  “How do you stop hating?” he asked quietly, finally, when he thought maybe she’d at last drifted into dreams.

  She hadn’t. She didn’t open her eyes, but she did answer him. “You try really, really hard.”

  “What if you can’t?”

  “Find something to love,” she told him with a light squeeze of his fingers. “You won’t have time to do so much hating. You should find someone, Elliott.”

  He thought of Simone, of course he did. “I’m seeing someone.”

  He’d surprised her enough to open her eyes, though only for a second or so. “Since when?”

  “Since … not long. It’s not very serious.”

  Molly’s laugh turned hoarse. “The fact you even mention her at all means it’s at least a little serious, sonny. You still making your lists?”

  “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “Would she be on one?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Yes.”

  “You think you found someone to love. That’s good for you. I’m happy.”

  Simone had worked her way inside him, that was for sure. “How would I know?”

  “If it scares the shit out of you, that’s probably a good way to tell. You scared?” Molly’s breathing slowed, and her head settled harder into the pillows. Her grip loosened and, finally, fell away.

  “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  She laughed, a little, though he was certain she’d at last fallen asleep. She’d held on to at least a tiny bit of consciousness, though, because when he got up to go, her lips moved. She spoke on a whisper, but he still heard every word.

  “We might spend our whole lives dying,” Molly muttered, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth every single second.”

  * * *

  Elliott’s hands.

  His mouth.

  Oh, god, that belly. Those long, long legs. His jaw. His thighs.

  Simone was in a fever of remembering every part of his body. It felt like a fever, literally, her body temperature a few degrees above normal as she tossed and turned in her bed and tried to convince herself not to get i