Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

request.
    Michelle was clearly wounded by this exclusion, but Mother let her go without attempting to salve her feelings. I suspected Michelle would stop halfway down the hall and tiptoe back to listen at the door.
    Mother and I were alone in the kitchen, facing each other.
    “Let’s sit down,” she said.
    All right, I thought. Now. My mouth had gone dry.
    For what seemed an endless time, we sat in silence at the little maple table where we always ate breakfast. On the far side of the kitchen water sloshed in the dishwasher. A stream of air from the baseboard vent chilled my ankles.
    “Rachel,” she said at last.
    Her long slender fingers reached toward me. I laid both my hands in my lap. For a moment she left her arm outstretched on the tabletop, then withdrew it and sat back.
    “Rachel,” she said again, her voice soft. “I’m so worried about you.”
    “Why?”
    “Well,” she said, “when I discovered you’ve been to see Theo as a patient, that you attempted hypnosis—”
    “You had no right to jump on Theo about it. Don’t you people have any ethics? Don’t you have any respect for doctor-patient confidentiality?”
    I met her gaze for a second before a jolt of alarm made me look away. I was afraid of her. I was afraid she could reach into my mind with her eyes.
    “Rachel, you’re my daughter—” 
    “I’m a grown woman and I’m entitled to my privacy.”
    A pause, then she spoke with gentle humor. “At the moment you seem more like a defensive teenager.”
    Stung, I realized she was right. I recognized the old resistance, the stubborn need to be a concrete wall to her velvet-covered battering ram.
    When I didn’t answer, she went on, “Yes, you are entitled to your privacy. I suppose I’m just a little hurt that you went to Theo for help instead of coming to me.”
    I could have screamed. I refused to let her do this. After the way she’d played with my mind, she was not going to make me feel like the ungrateful daughter, spitting in the face of her love. My hands clasped to my suddenly throbbing head, I said, “I didn’t think you’d—”
    “Do you have a headache? Let me get you some ibuprofen.”
    She started to rise.
    “I don’t want you to get me anything!”
    She sat down again. “All right. Why don’t you tell me what’s put you in such a state? What have you and Theo discussed? You know, Theo’s a good friend, but he’s not the one to give you information about our family.”
    “I didn’t think I’d ever get it from you. Anything he told me would’ve been more than you have.”
    “And what has he told you?” Her voice, her face, her body, were quiet, cool.
    My eyes filled with maddening tears. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about your family? Why did you keep them such a deep dark secret?”
    Behind Mother, Michelle appeared in the doorway. Instead of interrupting as I expected her to, she stopped and waited with me for Mother’s answer.
    Silence, for what seemed an eternity. She followed a fly’s zigzag trek across the tabletop but showed no reaction to the filthy insect’s invasion of her kitchen. When she spoke at last, her voice was hollow and remote. “What did Theo tell you about them?”
    “Not much of anything. He just said it was bad, you had a terrible family and it was amazing you survived.”
    With a flick of one hand she drove the fly from the tabletop. It zoomed past my right shoulder. “Then you must see why I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Guilt rattled its cage at the back of my mind. This time I wouldn’t turn it loose. “Mother, Michelle and I have a right to know about our grandparents, and our—our—” Aunts, uncles? I had no idea. “We have a right to know.”
    “Be grateful for being spared, Rachel. Some things are too—” She broke off and shook her head. “Just be grateful for being spared.”
    “Spared what?” I said, my voice rising. “Mother, I want to know. I want to know now.”
    She leaned toward me, anger flaring in her dark eyes. “All right, Rachel. What do you want to hear first? Do you want to hear what my father did to my mother? Breaking her arms, fracturing her skull, knocking out her teeth. Kicking her in the ribs. Do you want all the details?”
    I couldn’t speak. The chill around my ankles spread through my body.
    “You said you wanted to know.” Her voice cracked, but she forced the words out. “Maybe you’d like to hear about the way my mother killed herself—”
    “Oh my God,”