by Pamela Crane
Sitting on the front porch in the dark, the chirp of crickets reminded me how alone I was. I glanced down at the black screen of my phone. Every hour of silence as Lane ignored my calls and texts terrified me – I felt him slipping from my grasp. Harper and his mother hadn’t heard from him either. Unless they were lying to me, which was more likely. I wondered where he would have gone, and if he was ever coming back.
It was hard work learning to love someone the way they needed to be loved. Lane needed honesty. I needed forgiveness. Separately, they were two simple things. Together, they were impossible. We had too much clutter between us, a skyscraper of barriers. His undying servitude to his sister, the demons chasing me from my past, the secrets we both tucked in our back pockets. I knew Lane had secrets, just like I did. I read it in the earnest way he touched me and his quick, nervous glances. Lane was a dog-eared book; I had read and scribbled notes on every page of him. I knew him better than he thought. Maybe even better than Harper did. I also knew Harper was the reason why everything was falling apart in my life.
I understood why she clung to Lane. She needed him, just like I did. No one loved selflessly. We all had expectations and demands from a relationship, whether it be from a lover, friends, or family. None of us were so pure-hearted that we gave of ourselves endlessly. The heart could only beat so much for someone else before it wanted something in return. Harper needed affirmation; I needed adoration. Lane only had so much to give.
A car passed by, its headlights skipping over me. I sat up, hoping and praying Lane had returned home. As the vehicle continued on down the road, I exhaled, unaware I had been holding my breath. Damn, I missed him, and it had only been a day. When had I fallen so far for him? I thought back to the day we met, a day that wouldn’t stand out to me until much later. He had left only a small imprint on my life back then, but now he was the mold I wanted to fit my life into.
When I decided he was The One, I had already given my heart away, so I lent him mine to borrow; I didn’t expect him to keep it. It had been too easy to fall for each other. We both had empty gaps that needed to be filled, so he picked a needy, jaded woman and I picked an easy target. But it became real somewhere along the way, despite the secrets.
The mug of tea on the bistro table in front of me had turned cold and bitter. Like my heart had become, thanks to Noah. Then I found a second chance. But now I’d lost it. Now everything felt wrong and nothing felt right and all my anger and pain and regret and loss swirled inside my skull like a tornado. The iron frame of the bistro chair dug into my lower back. I needed sleep. I cupped my tummy and felt a swish inside me. Was that the baby kicking back at me? A fighter – she got that from me. The baby needed sleep. But I needed Lane more.
I counted my mistakes along with the stars and held my breath while waiting for a sign that everything would be okay. I was a rear-window hostage, crying in the back seat while watching home dwindle into the background. Lane was home. It was my fault that I lost in love, wasn’t it? Every mistake was a noose that I wrapped around my own neck. I held the end of the rope. I kicked the chair out from under me. I squeezed until I died, then squeezed until I brought myself back to life, only to repeat the process.
My grandmother once told me that heartbreak makes the heart stronger, if you play your cards right. But I had never been good at poker, at pretending I was strong. I gave too much and loved too deeply. I got overinvolved. It was a bad habit of mine, letting love control me.
Closing my eyes, I remembered my second-grade crush, Damian. It was the first day of school, and he smiled at me and said he liked my dress. The dress came from a secondhand store, but in that moment, I felt like a princess. I told my mom about my feelings for Damian as she tucked me into bed that night.
‘Mommy, I’m in love!’
She had laughed it off, like she did every time I had fallen for a new boy since kindergarten. ‘Your heart is like a bottle floating in the sea, letting the tide of emotions take it where it wills,’ she told me. We were sitting in my bedroom on my rainbow, tiger-print bedspread. I was always crushing on someone new, but Damian felt special. By the fourth day of school I’d discover he wasn’t. ‘You fall too easily,’ she added. ‘You can’t give boys control over your heart. That’s yours to keep, darling.’
Words of wisdom, Mom. Sitting up, I decided I wouldn’t let Lane do this to me, make me wait for him, pine for him. I didn’t need him, I might not have ever really wanted him. He was a convenience, that’s all.
The penny in my hip pocket dug into my thigh. I was outgrowing all my clothes lately, and loving it. I pulled it out and stared at its brassy polish. There was a wishing well in the town I grew up in, a forlorn wooden well that needed a paint job and some TLC. When things were hard – harder than usual – Mom would take me to the well, hand me a penny, and tell me to make a wish. I wished for all sorts of things: a pony, Mom and Dad to stop fighting, for my current crush to like me back. I now realized true love was like throwing a penny in a wishing well and believing it would make a difference, a fantasy.
I had been blinded by the beauty of make-believe, but I wouldn’t toss my penny in again. It was mine now, and it would stay in my pocket. I was finished with fairy tales. I had thought our love stood a chance when Lane reached out to me, a needy woman who wounded with words and ceramic plates. I was heavy in his arms, and he had held me anyways. But the reality was there was no ‘till death do us part’. I would always be one mistake away from losing him, and I had only myself to blame.
It was the fastest slow-fall from grace.
Another flutter of movement inside my tummy startled me. My eyes opened as I pressed my fingers against the quickening. The baby was moving, swimming inside me. Shifting uncomfortably on the tiny cushion, I propped my feet up on the bistro chair cattycorner to me and relished the tremble of tiny arms and legs stirring within. Then the utter stillness of the street, the call of crickets, and the Sherpa blanket draped over me lulled me into sleep …
***
With $500 and a mishmash of clothing stuffed in the duffel bag at my feet, I watched my derelict small town in rural Pennsylvania blur into wheat fields and rugged hills outside the Greyhound bus window. My breath left a moist patch on the glass, and in it I drew a heart. Love – that was my goal. All I needed was already buried within me, inside my womb.
This time I wouldn’t fall in love. I would choose carefully, a man I could control. I didn’t want another Noah, who mirrored my darkest fears, then reflected an illusion of love back at me. That’s how he got me in the first place – all tricks and smoke and mirrors.
As the window heart evaporated, my cell phone buzzed from deep in the bag. After wrestling with some garments to free the phone, I pulled it out and swiped to read the text:
Where are you? And where’s my fucking money, bitch?
If only Noah knew I wasn’t coming back. I’d need to get a new phone and new number along with my new life if there was any chance of escaping my past. Everything I had was tied to Noah. My phone, my life, my baby. The only way to cut the chains was to get as far away as possible, become someone new, someone better.
I opened my web browser and searched ‘Best places to raise a family’ and clicked on the first article that popped up. I scrolled through the list, weeding out anything west of the Mississippi. I only had $500 to get me to where I was going, so it had to be affordable to get there and live there and survive there. Then I saw it:
Durham, North Carolina: Affordable living, growing community, job opportunities, decent schools. The perfect destination for young families and settling retirees. Idyllic. It sounded perfect. I now had a destination. All I needed was a plan.
***
It was the time of night when the moon sleepwalked across the sky, slowly intensifying, creeping up on the sun. I woke to a stiff neck and moonbeams crisscrossing through the tree branches, landing on my face. Lane still hadn’t come home, and I had an unsettling feeling that when he did, it would be the e
nd of us.
I headed upstairs to bed, careful to avoid the creaky steps. I reached the top of the landing and turned the corner toward my room. The hallway was windowless and dark, lined with closed doors. I paused at the sound of scraping floorboards, and searched a moving shadow at the end of the hall. A tiny silhouette stood by my doorway.
I jumped back. ‘What the heck?’ I yelped.
I flicked on the hall light switch, pouring white light on Jackson’s ghostly form. No squinting. No blinking, just a bored, disconnected gaze.
‘Jackson?’ I was afraid to say his name, and I didn’t know why. I was certain I was stuck in a horror film.
He didn’t answer, didn’t flinch.
I reached for the doorknob to Harper’s room, cracked the door open, and peered inside. ‘Harper,’ I whispered harshly. She didn’t move. I took a step past the threshold. ‘Harper!’ I called louder. Still nothing. A deep sleeper like Lane, apparently.
I glanced over my shoulder to look for Jackson, but he was gone. Disappeared. I imagined him slinking back into his hollow. Way too creepy. I shut Harper’s door, turned off the hall light, and ran into my bedroom, my back pressed against the closed door while my nerves settled.
I was disappointed to find the bed still empty, in the same rumpled mess I had left it in from the night before. This was bad, maybe even unreconcilable. Lane was angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him. It was in that solitary moment when I realized what I stood to lose. My home. My medical benefits. My future I had so carefully planned out. Damn Harper and her big mouth! Everything was unraveling, and the thought of birthing the baby on my own, becoming a single mom, finding a place to live, securing a job … it was all just too much. Worst of all, I didn’t know how to win Lane back, if it was even possible.
I stood in front of my dresser mirror, hands propped on the edge, staring at a sad reflection. Who was I? What purpose did I have? Empty blue eyes looked back at me, examining me and finding nothing but a picture of disheveled hair and deepening frown lines. I didn’t deserve Lane, and I didn’t deserve a happily ever after. Love, family, hope – they were flimsy dreams that scattered on the wind like scraps of paper.
My scars told my past and my future. A jagged line ran up my forearm where Noah had cut me during a fight. The first fight. I hadn’t learned how to fight back until after I left. Although the score in my flesh had faded into a pale slash, it served as a permanent reminder of where I had been and where I would never go again. The blemish was my journey from death to life, from pain to promise. But then I went and screwed up my second chance, my third chance … When would I learn? Maybe my father was right all along. I didn’t deserve happiness, or love, or anything good. I was born of misery and would die in misery. Suffering was my birthright.
A pair of scissors rested on the corner of the dresser, and I picked them up. Held the cold metal in my palms. Slipping my fingers through the handle holes, I opened and closed the blades, the slice of the edges cutting through the air in a soft whoosh. Grabbing a handful of hair, I held the blade up to it and cut through, watching the black tendrils fall to the floor. Another handful, another slice, and again, a blue-black puddle of hair and tears collecting at my feet.
With each whoosh I self-destructed, cutting my hair with Noah’s words: Bitch. Whore. Useless. Worthless. I would wallow in my sadness, sink in nice and deep until it swallowed me whole. Glancing at the tragedy I had made of my hair, I saw my running mascara as my war paint, as a figure approached behind me in the mirror.
‘What are you doing?’ I jumped at the sound of Lane’s voice as he rushed toward me, hugging me while pulling the scissors from my grip. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’
There was nothing I could say. No future to hope for. No past to redeem. Any courage I had left was somewhere back in Pennsylvania.
‘Why not? I don’t deserve you,’ I answered, the sobs coming suddenly. ‘I don’t deserve anyone.’ My proclamation hung in the air. I was afraid to look at him; I couldn’t seem to find a place to rest my eyes.
He lifted my chin with the crook of his finger, then handed me a humble bouquet of flowers. Fragrant daylilies, one of my favorites.
‘I’m sorry it’s not nicer, but finding a quality flower arrangement at this hour is harder than you might expect. It was either these, or gas station carnations.’
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and sniffled, choking on flowers and self-loathing. I set the flowers beside the scissors on my dresser.
‘You chose well.’ I felt my dry lips peel apart in a smile. ‘Can I ask where you’ve been?’
‘No, you don’t get to ask me questions.’
‘Then why did you come back? Other than because it’s your house and all.’
His pause seemed to guard thoughts he didn’t want to utter.
‘Because after a day of missing you, I realized I love you more than I hate what you’d done.’
‘You … you forgive me for lying to you about the baby?’
He glanced behind me before answering. ‘I’m not quite there yet. But I understand why you did it. I’ll need time—’
‘I’ll give you all the time in the world if it means there’s a chance we’ll stay together.’
‘I admit, Candace, I’m not sure how to feel. Everyone thinks I should leave you, that you’re bad for me. But I’ve never felt so good as when I’m with you. I don’t know what to do with that.’
It was everything I wanted to hear, except not. His family hated me – hell, I hated me – and yet he still chose me. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
‘Why do you still want me? I’m nothing special. You could have anyone you wanted, but you pick me, a messed-up woman who’s pregnant with her ex’s baby. Why?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. But when I’m with you, you’re beauty and perfection and belly laughs, and shattered plates and insanity and passion. And I love it all. I guess I feel alive with you.’
I scoffed. ‘You’re so full of it, Lane. You can smell the trailer park on me a mile away. I’m no good for you, no good for my baby, no good for myself.’
‘Hey,’ he soothed, placing his hand on my shoulder. ‘That’s not true. Clearly you’ll do anything for your baby …’ His palm slid up my neck and his fingers intertwined in my hair. ‘And by the way, hacking away your hair won’t fix things. What were you thinking?’
My reflection showed the horror I had made of it. Half flowed down one shoulder, the other half hung in uneven chunks. ‘If I can’t look beautiful for you, I don’t want to be beautiful for anyone else.’ I didn’t know how to explain it, my self-destructive tendencies. It was as though I wanted to punish myself for failing.
‘Well, you’re out of luck because I still find you breathtaking. And I think we should try again.’
‘Try what again?’
‘Try finding out who we are together with all of the secrets out of the way.’
His words dripped into my ear. Slowly, it started to fill up my brain … then my heart. More than anything, I wanted to find us again, rebrand our love, our own version of it. Fights were a marital rite of passage. So we cry and throw plates and cut our hair, vowing never to make the same mistakes again. Then we make up, and it brings us back to life. In the end, the misery of the low was worth the high.
The thing was, I had never intended to love him, only to use him to fill me back up. Then I found myself liking him, adoring the way he pulled out his sparse gray strands of hair in order to cling to his youth. And the way he screamed music lyrics while mowing the lawn. I knew it was love when I watched him clean up the piles of toenail clippings I left on the coffee table. No nagging. Just consistent kindness. I looked forward to the moments he snuck into my shower for a quickie. I hated him with all of my soul because I loved him with all my soul.
‘Yes.’ With that one word I became honest and vulnerable and terrified. ‘I want to try again too.’
Trailing his fingers down my arm, his touch
sparked goose bumps in its wake. With the other hand, he fiddled with his phone, then set it down on the dresser while the Gin Blossoms’ ‘Til I Hear It from You’ began to play. Old-school and before my time. And perfect.
He kissed my forehead, holding me against him while we moved in unison to the music.
‘I’ve had a chance to think, and I know you’ve been through a lot. It wasn’t right for you to lie to me, but I understand why you did.’ I felt his words sink into me, then grow inside me.
‘You do?’ I looked up at him with an unspoken plea that this was real.
‘Maybe you were scared I wouldn’t accept you or the baby. Maybe you found out you were pregnant after we were already together. I don’t know the details of what exactly happened, and I’m not sure I want to. All I know is that I love you, Candace, and I want a family with you. On one condition.’
‘Of course. Anything.’
We continued drifting back and forth, feet touching, arms enfolding each other. ‘You never lie to me again. About anything. I want the truth going forward. If you lie to me again, it’s over. Can you promise me total honesty going forward?’
I wanted so desperately to say yes, to make that promise. But it would be yet another lie. Telling the truth, though? No, I couldn’t do that because it was unforgivable. The ‘yes’ tasted sour, but I swallowed it anyway. Then with every ounce of conviction I could muster, I lied.
‘I promise. No more secrets.’ The song ended but our dancing resumed. ‘Can I ask something of you?’
Lane kissed me, and as his lips drifted away, his eyes hooked on mine. ‘Of course. Anything.’ He winked, and I realized what he was doing. Imitating me. I owned him again. I bet I could ask for the moon and he’d give it to me.
‘I want to start putting the nursery together. For our baby.’
He didn’t reply at first, then he chewed his lower lip. ‘Okay. Let’s do it. I will ask Harper to leave. I think you’re right, that we need time together, alone. It’s been one problem after another since she arrived; I think we’ve earned a break. I’ll talk to her about it in the morning.’