Remember Tomorrow Page 20

  He walked toward her and she froze, unable to run away, though she wanted to. He grabbed her by her arm and pushed her out into the hall. “You are not supposed to be in here,” his voice boomed. The skin around her bicep began to sting. She began to cry, but before she could tell him she had not been inside, the door slammed in her face.

  Arie jumped, let her breath out in a gasp, and reached for her right arm. She held it tightly against herself, trying to Þ nd comfort. That small, debilitated old man in the bed had been her father. Her father. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-two years old. Arie covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. The slow, steady throb began at the base of her neck, and she felt nauseous. She forced herself to stand. Her hair was damp from the rain and she was cold, but she didn’t have the energy to Þ nd dry clothes, let alone pull back the comforter on the bed. She lay across the bed wondering what Cees was doing, if she had found her note, and if she would ever be able to forgive her.

  The migraine struck with the force of a sledgehammer. She put her hand over the top of her head and curled into herself.

  But neither her hand nor her body could prevent the painful daggers of memory as they sliced her apart with the cruelty she had dished out to Cees. No, no, no, she thought, but the memories kept coming. Relentless, spiteful, tearing her apart with clarity and truth until Þ nally they left her Þ lled with utter hopelessness.

  v

  Cees turned onto her back and opened her eyes. She smiled as she remembered the evening with Arie and then blushed as she remembered how bold her hands had become in the dim light of

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  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  the club. It had felt good to hold her and it had felt good to get things out into the open, even if she had hurt Arie by admitting to sleeping with Miranda.

  Cees sat up and reached for her watch. Her hand stopped in midair. The house was too quiet. Cees struggled out of the bed, opened the door, and walked into the living room. She half expected to Þ nd Arie asleep on the couch in a misguided effort not to wake her, but the throw blanket that Momma Nguyen had bought her as a housewarming gift was still on the back of the couch and the house was quiet with the exception of the sound of heavy rain hitting the roof and windows.

  “Arie?” Cees called, but didn’t wait for a response. She walked into her second room, the one she had been using since Arie had come to stay with her, but found it empty. She quickly left the bedroom and looked for a note. When she spotted it next to the phone, dread swept over her even before she had taken a step toward the piece of paper. She picked it up as if afraid to get her Þ ngerprints on incriminating evidence.

  Cees, I think it might help me to remember if I spend time by myself. I’ll call you. Please don’t worry.

  Love, Arie.

  Cees reread the note twice. Why wouldn’t you talk to me Þ rst, Arie?

  “Love, Arie,” Cees said out loud. First she felt disconcerted, and then she felt angry. How could she just leave without talking to me Þ rst? How could she… Cees closed her eyes. What had she expected? Lilly and Momma were right. She was stupid, as dumb as they came. She had lain on the ground like a doormat and now she was shocked that Arie had wiped her feet on her for the second time. Cees sat down, felt the bile rise up in her stomach, and forced it down again. She would not cry, she would not…

  The phone rang and Cees rushed toward it.

  “Hello,” she said, desperately hoping it was Arie, despite her anger of a few moments before.

  “Hey, so when is Arie going to call Chuck?”

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  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  “Lilly, I can’t talk right now. I need…” She couldn’t think of anything to tell Lilly, so she fell silent.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Nothing, I’m just tired. I was up all night thanks to you and Chuck.”

  “You two Þ ghting?” Cees bit her bottom lip to keep from telling Lilly to buzz the hell off. “Well, put her on the phone. I’ll straighten her—”

  Cees dropped the phone softly back in the cradle. Lilly had her on speed dial, so the phone began ringing again almost instantly. She sat down with the note in her hands. She read it once, then read it again, then balled it up and threw it at the stereo. The phone rang several more times before it stopped. Her tears started a few minutes after. She told herself she was crying because she was tired, and then she told herself the truth. She was crying because she felt like a fool. Despite all her intentions, despite Lilly’s warnings, despite everything. If Arie would have come to her instead of leaving, she would have gladly made love to her. She would have opened herself even more for another assault on her heart.

  Headlights passed in front of the living room window. A car door opened and closed. Shit. Cees jumped up and ran into the bathroom to throw water on her face. She should have known Lilly would come over when she didn’t answer the phone. She should have just talked to her.

  Cees grabbed a towel, dried her face and hands, and hurried toward the door when she heard the doorbell ring. What was she going to tell her? That Arie and she had had a Þ ght? That she had Þ nally gotten some sense and told Arie that she couldn’t handle it? Or the truth: that she had offered herself to Arie and Arie had not only refused, but had moved out while she was sleeping. Cees closed her eyes, counted to three, and yanked the door open.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Cees hated how thick her words sounded, how her stomach twisted at the sight of Arie’s pained, shell-shocked eyes. Cees dropped her arm

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  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  from the door. Arie’s hair was plastered to her head as if she had been walking for hours. She had no coat, nothing in her hands.

  “Arie, what happened to you? Why—”

  “Cees, I know what happened,” she said, her voice raspy from crying.

  Cees knew instantly what Arie was referring to.

  “You remember?” she asked, so afraid of Arie’s answer that she had to brace herself against the open door in order to hear it.

  Arie was staring at her as if she had never seen her before, and fear tugged at Cees. “Arie?”

  “I remember,” Arie said and she sounded so lost, so hopeless, that Cees wanted to take her into her arms. But that thought faded as she realized that it meant Arie remembered everything—the reason she had left, the way Cees had begged her not to.

  “I was so cruel.” Arie’s voice was emotionless. She had to be freezing standing in her wet clothes, but her body was rigid, and she seemed incapable of taking her eyes off Cees. She’s in shock. Cees realized.

  “You need to come inside. Get out of those clothes.”

  “I need to tell you everything.”

  “Okay, but you have to come inside to do that.” Cees moved out of the doorway to allow her in. Arie walked by, Þ nally breaking eye contact. Cees saw the tremor that went through Arie as she stepped into the warm house.

  “How did you get so wet?” Cees went to the closet to get a towel.

  “The phone at the apartment was disconnected so I had to walk a couple of blocks to a main street to get a cab.” Arie took the towel, held it in both hands, but didn’t dry off.

  “I was raised by my grandfather.”

  Cees handed Arie a towel. “You told me he passed away shortly before you moved to Portland.”

  Arie looked at the towel in her hands. “He did. I went to his funeral but…we were never close. His idea of raising me was sending me to boarding schools. I managed to get kicked out of

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  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  so many that he decided to allow me to go to public schools just to avoid the embarrassment. I spent most of my teen years doing things that would piss him off.”

  Arie swayed and Cees put her hand out to steady her. “Here, sit down.”

  Arie looked like she was going to protest but must have changed her mind because she Þ nally sat down. Arie fr
owned.

  “Why would you take this couch? I’d rather sit on the ß oor.”

  Cees momentarily blanked on the answer. “Lilly’s idea; she said it would piss you off.”

  If Arie found fault with the explanation she didn’t voice it out loud. “I had been avoiding my grandfather’s lawyers for almost a year when you and I met. I didn’t want anything to do with his money. The only reason I Þ nally agreed to meet with them was because they said they had a letter from my father.”

  “Your father? I thought he died just after you were born.”

  “I always thought he did, too. After I read his letter, I remembered something that happened to me when I was young.

  There was a commotion coming from the side of the house that I wasn’t supposed to go to. The door was open, so I looked inside.

  I saw him. He looked—I thought he was an old man. Older than my grandfather. He was curled in a fetal position. He looked so small. I was too young to think much of it, and then, as I got older, I guess I forgot.” She smiled wanly at Cees. “I seem to be adept at forgetting things I don’t want to deal with.”

  Cees wanted to pull Arie into her arms, to tell her she didn’t need to go through this now. But she couldn’t do it. Not yet.

  Arie wasn’t the only one who needed answers. “Why would your grandfather hide this from you?”

  “Have you ever heard of Evander Simons?”

  “The software guy?”

  “My grandfather. He ran his family like a business. The things he didn’t understand he tried to control. Unfortunately, he didn’t understand me at all. When I was young I’d rebel in small ways. I did things like get a navel ring and announce to his dinner

  • 203 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  guests that I was a lesbian. Once I became an adult, I realized that if I wanted a life of my own, I would have to make sure he wasn’t a part of it. I hadn’t seen him in years when I got word that he had passed away. I avoided his lawyers, moved to Portland, met you, and tried to forget. When I heard about the letter from my father, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

  “Those two days I couldn’t get a hold of you?”

  Arie nodded. “I was catatonic in a hotel in Seattle.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  A muscle in Arie’s jaw twitched and she pulled two envelopes out of her pocket and looked at them. “The sealed one is for you.

  I wrote it when I thought I would never see you again. I wanted you to know…I wanted you to know that I lied. I never stopped loving you.”

  There they were. The words she had wanted to hear since the day Arie had pushed her out of her life. She should feel happy, triumphant even. Instead, all she felt was anger at being robbed of precious time.

  “The other is the letter from my father. It says a lot of things, the most important of which was that my father knew he was dying of Huntington’s disease and that my grandmother died of the same disease. She was only forty-eight years old. My father was thirty-two.”

  Cees sat down next to Arie, took her hands, and rubbed them between her own because they were ice cold. “Huntington’s disease.” Cees’s hands stilled. “What does that mean?” Cees’s body grew as cold as Arie’s hands. Somewhere she must have read or heard about the disease, because the moment Arie named it, the word incurable blasted her mind.

  “It’s a hereditary disease. It affects the brain—cognitive skills, motor skills, everything. Some of the symptoms are irritability, trouble walking, forgetfulness.” Arie recited the information as if she were reading it.

  A sinking feeling started in the back of Cees’s mind and settled in her chest. She tried to shirk from it, but the feeling

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  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  persisted. “Your grandfather never told you? Why would he hide something so important?”

  “I can only guess that he thought it best that I not know.”

  “Why would he think that? You had every right to know how your father and grandmother died.”

  “I left my grandfather’s house two days before my eighteenth birthday because I was tired of him making every decision for me. I wanted to live my own life. Maybe…maybe he thought by not telling me he was giving me that chance. I’m not saying he was right, but once I found out…I felt like my life was over. My father’s letter suggests that my grandfather didn’t tell him until he was already exhibiting symptoms. My father was afraid the same thing would happen to me. If I had gotten that letter on my eighteenth birthday as my father had intended…”

  “You would have never entered into a relationship with me,”

  Cees said.

  “How could I have?” A tear dropped down Arie’s cheek, and Cees wanted to reach out and hug her to take away the sadness, but she didn’t because she needed to hear it all.

  Cees couldn’t answer her question. She didn’t want to think about a life without Arie, even with the pain that was threatening to become a permanent part of her life. “The thing I’m still having a hard time with is that you broke things off before you made sure.”

  “I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. I just…I just wanted you to know why I thought what I did was the right thing at the time. You’d told me about your father. About how you had to watch him die and how he didn’t remember. I still remember how devastated you looked when you told me he didn’t remember your name.”

  Anger ß ared so hot that it was all Cees could do to keep from shaking Arie. “Do you realize that you did to me exactly what you accused your grandfather of doing to you? You took away my ability to make my own decision, Arie.”

  “It wasn’t just your decision, damn it. I had every right not

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  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  to want to put you through that. I didn’t want you to have to watch me die. I didn’t want you to…” The sob racked Arie’s body so hard that Cees’s hands went up to steady her, but she stopped short of touching her. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing I had forgotten you. Can you understand that?”

  “You forgot me anyway.” It was a cruel thing to say. Cees knew it even before she saw Arie’s face pale, but she said it anyway. “What you’ve been doing for the last year and a half isn’t living. So explain it to me so that I understand. Explain it so that I can stop being so damn angry with you for wasting time that we could have spent together. Why couldn’t you have had the test with me still in your life? Why did you have to end things?”

  “I was working up the nerve to get the test done, but things just kept moving so fast, and I could feel myself falling deeper every minute we stayed together and I just…I just needed a moment to take a breath. I was trying to put on the brakes, and you were pedaling faster and I was so damn scared.”

  Some of the fear that Arie must have struggled against began to pierce the wall of anger Cees was using to keep herself from ß ying apart.

  “When you asked me if I would carry the child and—”

  “Arie? Oh my God, Arie, I was just talking. I wouldn’t have insisted that we have children if you didn’t want them.”

  “You don’t understand. I wanted a family with you, Cees. I wanted it more than you’ll ever know. But all I could think about was how my grandfather had to watch his wife, then his son die.

  I kept remembering how you had to take care of your father when he was…”

  Cees inhaled and turned away from Arie. “He was my father.

  I loved him. I was honored to take care of him for a few years. He took care of me for twenty.”

  “But it just about killed you.”

  “No, it didn’t. It made me stronger. I won’t lie to you and say that a piece of me wasn’t buried with him, and I won’t lie to you and say that it didn’t hurt when I Þ nally had to admit that my dad

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  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  really had no idea who I was toward the end. But, Arie, I don’t regret one minute of being
there for him.”

  “I don’t want to do that to you again. I don’t want to put our family through what my grandfather must have had to go through. I don’t want you to hurt.”

  “So you think I’m better off if you leave my life?” Anger ß ared and was quickly doused by the tortured look in Arie’s eyes.

  “Why not just have the test? Why put us through this if you don’t know for sure?”

  “I’m Þ fty percent likely to have this disease.”

  “Then you’re also Þ fty percent likely not to have it.”

  “If I had told you, would you have changed your mind about starting a family with me?” Arie asked, despite the fact that she had to have known the answer.

  “Of course not.”

  “Why would you do something like that?” Arie’s voice broke from stress. “Why would you risk the possibility of raising a child alone?”

  “Because I loved you.”

  Arie held her gaze for a long moment. Some of the turmoil in her eyes quieted. “I loved you too. I…never stopped. I thought I was doing the right thing. I know it’s hard for you to believe that, but it’s the truth. I just needed time to get the test. If the test came back negative, I intended on coming back to you and throwing myself at your mercy.”

  “And if you weren’t, you were just going to sit in that cold-ass apartment and die a martyr? It’s been over a year and a half, Arie. You still haven’t had the test.”

  Arie closed her eyes. “Lilly came to see me a few months after we broke up. She…told me that you had moved on and that you were over me and that…she said so many things. I had already lost everything. What was the point of having the test?”

  “Lilly had no right.”

  “She was trying to protect you.”

  “By keeping you out of my life?” Cees could feel her voice

  • 207 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  rising to hysterical levels. She wasn’t angry at Lilly; she was angry at the universe and Arie’s grandfather and whoever else was responsible for putting them through this.