Author: Daydreamer
Posted: 29 June 2004

Safe Harbor

I'm sitting on the balcony. Naomi is coming. I've been here since Jim told me, just staring vacantly at the dusky blue sky that seems to peek out mischievously from behind the omnipresent gray clouds. A storm's coming. There's a mild breeze and I can feel my hair stir in its wind. Strands brush across my face and I struggle for a second with the decision of whether or not to tie it back. A storm's coming. God, let it pass. Naomi is coming. Jim told me. She'll be here any time now. My mind feels thick, dense, and even thinking seems too much of an effort. Remembering seems even more impossible. Naomi is coming. No -- Naomi is here. I can hear her first, her voice tinkling gaily as she laughs at her own wittiness. I can imagine the scowl on Jim's face. I smell Simon's cigar, hear Jim's growl as he says something warningly to her. Probably telling her not to hurt me. I smile despite myself. Too late, I think. Too late. The hurt's been done.

And then I smell her. Not touch, because she wouldn't touch me, not after how we left things. Not sound, because she's hesitant to speak until she gets the lay of the land. Scent first, something vaguely floral with sage overlaid and it makes me smile again for just a moment. Wonder what she was trying to cleanse this time?

But then she speaks and I tense.

"Remember when we used to talk?"

Her words are quiet and she brushes a crisp brown leaf from its resting place on the second chair, sitting down in its wake beside me. I take a deep breath, nod slowly and try to relax into the quiet of the moment. This is my mom. I love her. I tense again when she reaches out and runs her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck. My eyes sting as her touch brings tears. She's always said she loves my curls. The memory beats at me and for a moment, I feel battered and abused again. The mother I loved -- the memory I loved is so in conflict with the woman who sits beside me now. It tears at me and I find my voice, biting the words off bitterly.

"Remember when your words mattered to me? When you mattered?"

She touches me again, her hand soft on my arm and I fight to keep from looking at her. Instead, I'm staring blindly over the ocean, tears that I refuse to let fall blurring the afternoon landscape.

"They matter," she says matter-of-factly and I choke back a laugh at her confidence. "I'm important to you, Blair. I matter." Pure Naomi. Arrogant, over-confident, completely sure of herself. And ... right. Her words do matter.

"You'll always mean something to me, Naomi," I sigh tiredly, shaking off her touch. I cast a quick glance behind us, not surprised to find Jim puttering in the kitchen and, I'm sure, taking in every word. "But," I sigh again, "I'm not the one who screwed up."

My voice trails off and I blink rapidly, staring out over the street below. "You know, up until a few months ago, I was actually naïve enough to believe that you loved me as much as I love you. How stupid of me to think that nothing would ever touch us."

There's a long moment of nothingness and then, I force myself to turn to her, asking for something, needing something from her, not sure what it is and yet, positive she wouldn't be able to provide it. The sky darkened and thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Nothing touched you, honey. You were perfect."

It hits me like a sledgehammer -- waves of denial washing over me, chilling me to my core. I'm frozen, solid ice, unable to move, unable to think, unable to feel. I stare outward, unseeing, amazed as words wander from my mouth. "Nothing touched me?" I ask, my voice so small and childlike I'm not sure it was me who spoke.

Her hand drifts to my knee and, against my will, I feel myself thawing slightly beneath her fingertips. "Please, Blair -- we have to try and get through this. I know that I messed up, baby, but you have to believe me when I tell you -- I didn't know ..."

"Didn't know?" The ice melts, huge glacial streams that run from the sudden burning in my soul. A fat raindrop explodes on my arm as the storm begins. I bristle at her touch, shake her off, and feel the last semblance of understanding for my mother evaporate instantly. "Didn't know? Oh, God." I'm up, backing away from her touch and cupping a palm over my mouth to thwart the nausea that has come on without warning.

I'm backing, backing away, wanting to get away, needing to get away, fighting the overwhelming urge to flee, to run from my own home. I feel the brick of the building at my back, my stomach churns and I'm trying to keep from throwing up. I sidle right, feel glass behind me and shift left again and there, thank God! There he is. I feel his heat first, before I even touch him, but then I've backed into him, backed up to him, backed against him. I lean gratefully into the strong chest that stands there, clutch at the arms that wrap around me.

Jim.

"Breathe," he whispers in my ear and I do.

Jim's here and I can breathe now, and I risk taking my hand from my mouth.

"I can't do this! I can't look at you and know what you did, Naomi. It sickens me, don't you get it?" I make a brief attempt at stoicism and fail, my voice breaking up into wavering, breathless clips. "I've been... doing a lot of thinking since you ... since," I wave my hand vaguely in the air, knowing it explains all and yet explains nothing. "I've... I've decided I don't want to see you again."

"Blair!"

I'm taken aback by the astonished expression on her face. Has she really not understood, until now, just how badly she's wounded me? The realization infuriates me and bolsters my decision.

"I appreciate the fact that you came all the way back here to talk to me, but the truth is, a short delay on your way to somewhere else and a quick apology aren't enough to wipe away what you did!"

I'm shaking, buffeted by emotion. The rain begins in earnest and we all move into the kitchen in a macabre dance. Jim, his arm still around me. Me, moving backward, trembling from the storm of feelings. Naomi, scurrying to avoid the rain. Pain, fear, anger devour me. Anger leaps to the forefront, fury consumes me. "This is my safe harbor, Naomi. You aren't -- safe -- for me. You didn't keep me safe when I was a child and now, well, now, my emotions, my *feelings* aren't safe around you. I want to be away from you for awhile, not to be confronted by you and your trite attempts at remorse! You almost destroyed me. Anything we had as mother and child, you've ruined it with your selfishness. Everything we had -- everything that I thought was worth something! You took my life and ripped it to shreds because of your own lack of integrity and that's not something I can live with." I drop my voice, hearing the hollow emptiness in it. "I won't have a relationship with someone who has so little respect for me."

Naomi's eyes dart wildly from me to Jim, then behind to Simon, I assume, then back to me. She seems panicked, standing now, too, and her eyes implore me to reconsider. They seem haunted, as if maybe she really is just now realizing how serious this is. There's fear there as well, and I wonder briefly if she's honestly afraid she's losing me.

Then she opens her mouth and those filial emotions are, once again, trampled.

"Honey, I can understand you needing space -- but not to see me again? Do we have to be that -- final?" She's distraught, frantic. "You're so important to me, Blair. I tell people all the time, how important you are to me. I -- I need you."

Her eyes fill with tears, and I am suddenly so sorry, so wrong. How can I do this to her? How can I shut her out like this? How can I make her suffer like this? She realizes now, she understands, she *knows.* I was important to her -- I mattered. I open my mouth to tell her, to say 'I'm sorry, Mom. It's okay, Mom. We'll work it out, Mom. I need you, too, Mom. I need to talk about this, about what happened, about -- everything.'

And then she says it.

"How could you do this to me?"

And my throat constricts. All the feelings, all the thoughts, all the words just bottle up and lodge in my throat and I wonder if one can really choke on one's words. I am suddenly lightheaded, weak in the knees and it takes Jim's murmured reminder, "Breathe," to chase the gray away.

Her lips are drawn up in a pouty little moue and for an insane moment, I want to find a tissue and capture a kiss -- something real that I can hold onto. She seems to be waiting for something -- for me, I realize. Waiting for my reaction. A strand of auburn falls across her face, and she brushes it back then cuts her eyes away.

"Don't do this to you?" I spit the words out, spilling tears that blur my vision and make my sinuses ache. "How the hell can you be so incredibly self-absorbed? I didn't abandon you, Mom! I didn't leave you alone to be fucked when you were a child. I didn't look the other way when you were being beaten! And I sure as hell didn't ask you to pretend it never happened!"

Embarrassed, enraged, in pain, I sniff loudly and drag an arm across my face, smearing snot on both sleeve and cheek. Jim hugs me, never speaking, but his eyes never seem to leave Naomi either and I can feel the spring-tight tension he encompasses. He reaches back then hands me a tissue. For a fleeting moment, I have that wild urge to capture another paper kiss and I wonder if Naomi would think me mad if I walk over to her and press the fragile paper to her lips. I hear a laugh, short, but tinged with hysteria and then Jim's arms tighten around me again.

"Blow," he says quietly, so I do, but then the tears begin to fall.

Outside, the storm rages.

"Who was it, Naomi? Who?"

"What?" Naomi's thrown and she steps back, grabbing the kitchen counter for balance. "What are you talking about?"

"Who was it that you had to leave me for? Was it a man? Who, Naomi? Was he tall? Was he rich? Was he ..." I'm sobbing so hard that it hurts to breathe. "Was he worth it?"

She stares at me, aghast. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish and suddenly, there isn't anything very pretty or fetching about my mother at all. Something inside me snaps.

"I was nothing to you!" I shriek, lunging forward.

Jim catches me, pulling me against him, enfolding me. His head is down, his lips at my ear as he whispers, over and over, "You're mine, you're safe, you're mine. I love you."

I pull away from him, dart into the kitchen, grab a knife. My hands seem to move of their own accord. A black nothingness has overcome me and I can't think, can't feel, can't ... I just can't. I don't want to be here anymore.

"I didn't matter, Jim," I say shakily. "She's my mother and I didn't matter. Even now, I don't matter." I press the knife against my belly, shocked to actually feel something as the point presses in and blood wells up. "I'm nothing!" I scream again and, for the moment, it seems true.

I'm watching Naomi, waiting for her to say something, to do something, but it's Jim who reacts. He reaches out to me. I step back, step away, and push the knife harder, staring at Naomi.

"You matter. You matter to me!" Jim cries. "And you are something. You are! You're the sole reason for my existence on this piece of shit planet!" His voice cracks and becomes almost maniacal as he struggles to fight back a scream being born in his throat. "Damn it, Blair, please ..."

Naomi doesn't move as I push again, fascinated that I can feel the pain, feel the warm blood spill out of me.

"Give me the knife, Blair," Jim begs. "Don't do this."

I pull my eyes from my mother and look at Jim. His face is twisted in agony, his arms reach out but he seems afraid to touch me.

I'm not actually trying to kill myself, am I?

"I'm sorry... I'm a fuck-up," Jim pleads. "I shouldn't have done this, shouldn't have made her come. Blair, baby, give me the knife. I'm too selfish, too greedy to give you up! Please, baby, please -- I love you. I need you..."

Jim loves me.

Jim wants me.

Jim needs me.

I look at Naomi, see the sick fear on her face and hate myself for wondering if it's real. Jim's touching me now, pulling the knife out of my hand. I can hear Simon and Jim talking, not really everything they say, just bits and pieces.

"... not too deep ..."

"... 911?"

"... bandage it myself ..."

"Don't move."

I jump at that one then realize it had been directed at Naomi, not me. That seems to be all I can take, that she has to be told to stay, and I break down and give reign to the emotions pulsing through my veins, sobbing, finally, with abandon. My shoulders rise and fall in a jerky rhythm, and I give up on all hope of composure and pour my soul into the palms of my hands.

Jim pulls me to the couch, pulls me into his lap as I cry. Simon has a towel, and he kneels before us, lifting my shirt to press it to my wound. I continue to weep.

Naomi stands there, shaken, watching me with a mixture of compassion and fear that seems to signal a devastating battle inside her head. She's still standing there when I finally regain some control, looking at me with her melancholy eyes and red lips pushed out in a childlike pout. I push up from Jim, away from safety and reach out for her arm, my fingers closing around her wrist. She squeezes her eyes shut, chills running up the length of her arm and I can see the memories of our life together flashing behind her closed lids like a slide-show sans narration.

Her eyes snap open and she studies my face, her own fraught with pain and regret. "Blair," she whispers. Just, "Blair."

I don't want it to, but it touches me. "Okay," I hear myself say. "I need some time away from you, but then, later, we can talk."

Relief washes over her features, and she brings my hand to her lips, gently kissing the palm.

"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you."

I'm not sure what just happened.

I slip my wrist out of her grasp and fold my arms across my chest. "Don't thank me yet," I say coldly, having reached my limits. "I haven't done anything but stalled what might be inevitable."

She nods understandingly, then casts a look of what can only be called triumph at Simon. "When?" she dares to ask. "When can we talk?"

"I don't know." I look down at the towel that Jim still holds to my belly. I don't fight as he gently tugs me back to the couch. "I don't know anything right now except that I want you to leave."

"Okay, baby."

Jim is next to me, murmuring wordlessly. I lay my hand over his, helping hold the towel to the wound. It really is shallow, not serious at all and still, I am bewildered that I have done it. I who am so not into pain, I've held a knife to my gut and cut. I shake my head, bemused at my mother's power over me and not understanding it at all.

Simon stands with Naomi at the door.

"Will you two be okay?" he asks gruffly and Jim nods, releasing him with the movement.

"Good-bye, Blair," Naomi says and I nod, lifting a hand to wave. But am I waving farewell, or waving her away?

The door shuts.

"I love you," Jim says, and I cling to him.

The rain stops, the storm is over, but it doesn't matter.

I've found safe harbor.