Can't Let You Go

Emily and I shared other secrets without speaking them. That happens when you live in close proximity with someone or when your daily lives end up intertwined the way ours were. The first week I met her, I saw the matching bruises on her and her mother's arms. That autumn, on a day school was closed, I saw her mother vacuuming the draperies. As I got nearer to her I was able to discern a large bruise on her jaw. She'd used makeup to cover it, probably the heavy concealer Emily had tried to shoplift, but it was still visible up close. 

I never saw marks like that on Emily's face, but she had them on her arms at times. Other than the day we met in front of my house, I never asked her about them. If Emily wanted me to know, she would tell me.

The wounds I had inflicted on me weren't the kind that leave visible marks. They might have been concealed forever if Emily had not come into my life. She bore witness to my mother's obsession with my looks and the put downs that came because I didn't meet her expectations. Emily actually became the reference point for my mother to use. Mother would coo compliments her way and make comparisons between us.

"Look how well Emily's clothes fit her."

"If you worked on your arms they would be as slender as Emily's."

"Emily, you have such good self control about your food."

"Honey, go change your outfit. Only people with long legs like Emily's can get away with wearing pants like those."

Praise from someone so beautiful and famous as my mother must have been intoxicating for Emily, even if it came at my expense. Or at least I imagine it was Try as I might, I cannot recall a time when I got to fully bask in the approval of my mother. The closest I got was when Mother would introduce her children to people at an event. At those times, I would be her "sweet daughter" or "kind daughter" or "darling daughter." Anyone who knew her well, knew those were not qualities she valued very much.

Emily got to experience something I did not - genuine compliments. For some, that could have easily turned into a sore spot between friends. For me, it was nothing new. If it wasn't Emily, it would have been someone else. A girl on the playground, a classmate spotted at a school function, an image from a magazine. Mother's words still wounded me, but it seemed like they soothed some of Emily's pain and that was a good thing in my mind.

The true nature of my relationship with my mother wasn't the only skeleton Emily saw in my family's closet. She also learned the reality behind all the relationships in my family. Late at night she would overhear some of the screaming matches my parents had. Our home was two townhouses that had been joined, but even with all that space, their voices carried between their third floor suite and the bedrooms below it on the second floor. The individual words were muffled, but their volume was evident. From a much closer range, Emily also heard the shouting that happened between my mother and I on the day she moved out.

Having mothers that left us behind was an unfortunate commonality between Emily and I. Mine left me behind to get away from her husband while Emily's left her to get married. That was one secret that Emily did voice because her mother was leaving her homeless to marry a man she met online. That was the summer before senior year. When Emily cried in my arms about the harshness of the situation she now faced, there was nothing else I could do except ask her to move into my house. My mother's response to my request was subdued and serious, but I could see the sparkle in her eyes at the prospect of having a daughter-figure as visually perfect as Emily was.

Emily's presence in our family at that time seemed to lessen the grief we felt at the loss of Quillon. He hadn't lived in the house in years, but it was almost like his ghost occupied the space after he died. Weeks before the start of my junior year, he'd dropped out of Alaris University to follow his girlfriend to the college she'd chosen. He was too late to transfer that year, but that didn't stop him from moving. At first, I wasn't worried. He'd faced much more pressure from our parents than I did. I was also expected to enter the family business, but I'd be allowed to take a position that was at least adjacent to my interest in art. My brother was expected to take it over as chairman and president, whether he was interested or not. I thought his year off was a good chance for him to take a much deserved break.