Mirrored (Follow Your Bliss series Book 4) (6 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning, Alex remarked that even if the
photographers followed them to Glasgow proper, he wouldn’t hide or be fearful
in his own city.

The pair strolled hand in hand down the sidewalk, still damp
from the rain the night before. “I think we may see some sun today.” They
passed shops and cafes and then turned down another street. “Remember when we
were visiting the Hearst Castle and you asked, ‘Where do you live?’ What I
think you meant to ask was where I call home. That was last summer’s quest,
right?”

Brighton nodded.

“I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’m not into narrowly
defining things. Most things anyway. I can’t live in a black and white world
when it comes to who I am or defining home for that matter. It has variances
and texture, sounds and smells, and is a place to sleep deeply or hunch over,
in the midnight glow of a lamp, because the words won’t stop flowing, and I
can’t get them down quickly enough. But it’s also people and music and the road
between here and there.”

They’d stopped on the sidewalk in front of a café bordered by
bistro tables and customers with small dogs. Brighton looked at Alex intently
as if he was about to reveal the secrets of alchemy, turning dust to gold in
words that radiated H-O-M-E.

“This café, I wrote the better part of our first album in
there. See that teapot? Track three. A part of me dwelled at table nine for a
time. Then down here, is the flat where Graham and I lived, Finn and Albert too
most nights. We had to piss in the sink or bathtub because the plumbing was
faulty.”

Brighton looked alarmed.

“Don’t ask. But that was home for a time. And then down that
road there,” he said, pointing, “we played dozens of shows at the various
clubs. All of these places helped shape who I am, but almost more so the
atmosphere, the hanging clouds, the scowling commuters, the endless pots of
coffee and tea. And beer. And…friends and family. My dad’s house, the music
room. And you. It’s all home, a place to spring from and a place to return.”

They’d reached an iron and stone fence outlining a park.
Strolling hand in hand, they went in, the trees muting the city noises and
whirring traffic.

Brighton cleared her throat. “For so long I was trying to
make one place home; prerequisite it be a building with four walls, but I
understand what you mean. Home is a place and a feeling. I see now it’s also
something that I help shape, investing my energy, whether creative or dull,
inspired or tired, into building it for myself.” She hesitated and then added,
“For us.”

Alex grinned, not only glad that she understood, but that she’d
unfolded his words, cut out the ones that worked for her and pasted them back
together, adding her own sensibility. And that
he
fit into her meaning
of home. “I love you Brighton,” he said, pulling her in for a kiss while the
warblers, sparrows, and swallows sung in the trees above.

“Bollocks,” Alex said, blinking open his eyes to see a dark
lens across the path. “Come on.” He took Brighton by the hand and led her out
of the park.

 “It’s eerie. I preferred the fans. At least their intentions
were clear,” Brighton said, scowling.

“Yeah,” Alex answered shortly. He’d figured out why Finn was
bent on jealousy, but couldn’t pinpoint how the photographers, and possibly
Suzie, figured into it. “I have an idea,” Alex said, abruptly turning around on
the sidewalk. The paparazzi following them scattered. “Let’s pay someone a
visit, have dinner, and then get back. I feel like crowding my head with music
tonight.”

Minutes later, Alex banged loudly on a metal door. “It’s me,”
he hollered. There was no answer. “Wish I still had some of that spray paint,”
he muttered, scanning the ground. He grabbed a piece of rubble from
construction work on the corner. “Can I have your hair tie?”

Brighton tugged it out of her long hair.

“Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

She tore the back off a magazine and proffered a sharpie from
her bag. Her look of suspicion cut with impishness.

Alex scrawled,
Last chance Finn. Talk to me or bite it.

He chucked the rock through a second floor window. On the
opposite side of the street, a passerby looked at him disapprovingly,

Brighton asked, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Walking away, Alex considered how to explain, but her phone
rang.

“I totally forgot, today she gets the results,” Brighton said,
fumbling around in her bag.

“Hi,” she said, breathless with anticipation.

She stopped on the sidewalk by a row of newspaper boxes. Her
face lit up. “Benign,” she said. Her eyes filled with relief. Then her
expression fell.

“You can’t do that. Forget that it’s a precaution. That’s horrible.
Mom, no.”

Alex watched her face sink deeper into itself in layers of
disapproval and disappointment. It showed the kind of devastation that happens
when finding out something that’s better left a mystery. The mask came off;
identities and entire worlds were revealed in the greens of her eyes. “When?”
she said after listening for a time. “I’ll be back then. Okay. Uh, huh. Love
you too.”

Brighton leaned against Alex. He struggled under a veneer of
consolation, but irritated that someone, from a dark window or around a corner
was capturing that moment on film. He sped her along the sidewalk, ushering her
into one of his favorite restaurants.

The hostess seated them in a private corner. Brighton
declined a beer.

“The biopsy came back fine. No cancer,” she said, exhaling.

“What a relief.”

“But she’s having a double mastectomy because she’s at such a
high risk for future malignancies.” Brighton swallowed hard.

“How’d she sound?”

“Fine. Like it doesn’t matter. She said they were getting too
saggy anyway.”

Alex tried to suppress a smile, but Brighton caught it. Her
frown turned thin, and then as Alex tried not to laugh, she let out a chuckle,
a valve released for all the tension she’d carried.

“I’m relieved, but I shouldn’t be laughing.”

“Claire would so want you to be laughing right now,” Alex
said, assuring her. The woman who’d married El Holmes was not an innocent
flower. She may have preferred the finer things in life, but she was tough, had
a sense of humor, and wouldn’t let a precautionary procedure stop her from
living life vibrantly.

“You’re right. She said I have to take her bra shopping for
her new boobs. She said she was tired of simple, nude, padded bras. Too much
info.” Brighton made a gagging face.

“But she’s going to be fine.”

“And so will I,” Brighton said, her eyes glittering with
tears of relief.

Chapter Fifteen

 The next day Alex and Brighton kept to the house, listening
to Chaz’s endless well of stories, looking over memorabilia collected from
years on the road, concerts, fan art, and world travel. But mostly they spent
time in the studio, fooling around on guitars and experimenting with sound.

“You were lucky,” Brighton said.

“I am lucky,” he corrected, leaning in for a snog.

“I mean as a kid, I imagine your dad never told you to keep
it down, be quiet, or stop making such a racket.”

“No one said that to you either.”

“Just the neighbors.

“My gran sure did,” Alex said. His thoughts collided into
Finn. He hadn’t heard from him, even after the smashed window.

“I’ve been thinking about you and your mother,” Brighton
said.

He stopped strumming the acoustic guitar in his lap.

“Especially after coming so close to losing mine. Or at least
grappling with that notion. You should find her, your mother I mean.”

“Funny ya should say that,” Chaz said, appearing in the
doorway. “I’ve been thinking about that myself. Claire called before you guys
got here, filled me in. I reckon she’ll be okay. She warned me not to let
Brighton near any sharp or blunt objects,” Chaz said with a laugh and an
eyebrow raised in her direction. “Or fast cars, loud guitars…though I s’pose
there’s not much I can do about that.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Alex said with a snarl in response
to the mention of his own mother

“I know we have, lad. And you know I don’t like that woman at
all. I don’t expect you will either. But she is your mother. And she is,” Chaz
cleared his throat, “sick.”

“How do you know?”

“Gran knows everything. I moved her out to Bearsden, but she
still has a line on the old neighborhood. You could probably ask her about any
resident of this city, and she’d grub up some dirt on ‘em.”

Alex rolled his eyes.

“Naw, I don’t expect much of it, but hell, it might make her
soul rest a little easier if ya see ‘er.”

“How do you know she wants to see me?”

“Gran,” Chaz said, sighing, “said she asked after ye.”

Alex fought against the soft parts, in the center of his
chest, which bowled against his rough exterior.

“I’d do it today or tomorrow at the latest. I’ve already said
goodbye to her. She had a tough life, that one. Maybe it’ll be sweeter on the
other side.” Chaz set a scrap of paper on top of the piano by the door and
exited.

“I’ll be with you. I’ll help keep you between the ditches,”
Brighton said, handing him the paper with the address to the hospital.

That evening, they set out into the city in one of Chaz’s
cars. The lights smudged around the edges and glared off the perpetually damp
cement.

“What do I have to say to her?” Alex said as he parked the
car.

Brighton was quiet a beat. “You could tell her how much she hurt
you. But maybe she didn’t make the wrong decision. Maybe she would have been a
worse mother had she stayed. It’s possible you were better off with your dad
and the family band.”

Alex tried to shake the already-sprouted seeds of doubt from
his head.

A nurse led them to a non-descript room in a quiet part of
the hospital. “She’s been asleep awhile,” she said before squeaking down the
hall.

Alex gazed through the double-glassed window. A strange,
unfamiliar woman lay still, in the bed, with a sheet tucked snuggly under her
arms.

“I’ve only seen a couple photos of her. She looks old.”

Brighton took his hand and led him closer. “You have her
lips,” she whispered.

Alex hoped that was all. Her frail body looked foreign and
helpless. The little boy in him, who was rarely quiet, hushed and wanted her to
hold him, promising her love, and never to let him go. But that never was and
never would be. Maybe Brighton was right, perhaps he’d been better off without
her. But if that was true, where did he put all the agony and anger at not
having a mother? What about the resentment and rebellion? What did Suzie and
all the girls he’d cheated on her with mean if he was just supposed to be a boy
with only a dad. He couldn’t close the loop with an answer.

Brighton took his mother’s hand, patting it gently. His
girlfriend exhaled. She was a jellybean, all right, with a tough
break-your-tooth exterior and a squishy, melt-your-heart, compassionate center,
like him. She leaned over and kissed his mother's forehead.

“Thank you for giving us your boy. You’ll be happy to know
how deeply he’s loved and cared for.” She turned and left the two of them
alone.

He didn’t know what to say. He’d spent nights, hours of
recording tape, years, filling notebooks with angry scrawl, channeling his
anger toward that woman. He’d rehearsed things he’d say, and shout, if he ran
into her on the street or if she’d contacted him. But his mind was quiet except
for Brighton’s words,
Thank you for giving us your boy
.

For giving.

Forgiving
.

How could he forgive her?

Then his heart whispered something else,
How could he not?

He stood there, studying the placid lines in her face, the
rise and fall of her breath, and how she was otherwise impossibly still. He
thought about Brighton and his relationship, second chances, and how everything
leading up to the moment he’d told her he loved her had been, in all its pain
and glory, perfect. And that moment then, with Bri waiting for him and his
whole life before him, was because of the woman that lay there dying.

Tears pierced Alex’s eyes as the weight of his burdens swept
away leaving him feather light and buoyant. He leaned over, kissed her forehead
as Brighton had and whispered, “I forgive you.”