“Then what is it?”
“I need more of you.”
This silenced Philip, which was rare. “I can’t quit my job, Charley.”
“I know.” I gripped the phone tighter and fought the ache forming in my throat.
“What are you suggesting, Charley? Am I supposed to choose? You or work?”
“I’d never ask you to choose . . . I don’t know what I’m asking.” But I did. Deep down I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be all in.
“Hong Kong is next week. After that I’ll be home. For a while. I told you the first day I met you that I never break my promises. And I won’t.”
For a brief moment I felt his lips against my cheek, and I was reminded why I chose this man and why I’d said yes.
But then Hurricane Kelsie strengthened off the coast of Florida.
Philip and his promises were left to drown in the high seas and billowing winds.
I warned him the airlines were canceling flights in and out of Miami. I begged him to give himself extra time to get home. The airports were jammed with passengers, and soon ours would close. I even went as far as to suggest he stay put, the risk of him flying into bad weather far worse.
“Charley, I promise. I’ll get to you. I always do.”
I was anxious and unsure. “Stay where you are,” I decided. “It’s not safe to travel, Philip.”
Ben called to check on me, and the fear in my voice was palpable. “I’m coming over,” he said.
“No,” I argued. “Philip has people to help out. You have your restaurants and Jimmy to worry about.”
“I said I’m coming over.”
Kelsie gained traction, and the likelihood of a hit was increasing. In every model, Islamorada was within the cone. The storm was hovering at Category 2 status, and all guests to the Keys were mandated to evacuate. If Kelsie shifted to a Category 3, residents would soon follow.
Ben scoured our cabinets and took inventory of our supplies. “The windows are up to code, but I don’t like the idea of you staying here alone. You need water and canned goods, and the stores are sold out at this point. What the hell were you waiting for?”
I was embarrassed to say “Philip.”
“What the hell, Charlotte?” He shook his head, and I was sure I was the dumbest human being in the Keys. I didn’t need his scolding.
“Worst-case scenario,” he said, “you’ll stay with us.”
“I’ll go to Liberty’s,” I argued.
“Liberty volunteers at the shelter during hurricanes. The point is to not be alone.”
I stammered.
“Like I said, you’ll stay with us.”
Frantic calls to Philip went unanswered. Phone service was spotty; there were already reports of damaged lines. Every channel on the news had thrill-seeking storm chasers reporting increasing island winds. The ticker at the bottom of the screen scrolled. All flights have been canceled in and out of the Keys and Miami airports.
I reached for my phone and dialed Philip. No answer.
I dialed again. Voice mail.
Without thinking, I packed a bag with clothes and necessities, grabbed Sunny’s leash, and entered the garage. A trail of cars crept up US 1 heading out of town, though I drove in the opposite direction toward Ben’s house. The distance separating us was short, a fact I was reminded of quite often.
The air was an eerie calm. Heavy gray clouds hung low, bound to pull apart as the blustery winds picked up. In the car, Sunny panted on the seat beside me. Animals could feel the changes in barometric pressure before people, and his ears perked up as he hung out the window.
The trees that framed the road were beginning to dance in the wind, and faint splashes of rain tapped against the front window. I reached across the seat and patted Sunny on the head. “We’re almost there, buddy.”
When we pulled into Ben’s driveway, I felt a relief I hadn’t felt in hours. Maybe longer. He popped his head out the front door, his mobile pressed to his ear, and pointed toward the garage. Steering the car into the narrow space, I grabbed our belongings and entered the house through a connecting door.
That’s when my phone rang. I was sure it was Philip and immediately picked up, but it was too late when I noticed the number, the one that had haunted me for weeks.
“Hello, Charley.”
I didn’t immediately answer. I stepped inside Ben’s living room and dropped on the couch, a cold shiver snaking up my back. The house was chilly, my body shook, and I was as nervous as a seven-year-old.
“Please don’t hang up,” he said.
Silence.
“Charley.” His voice was foreign to me, but the nickname, I’d never forget.
“Listen. You don’t have to answer. Just please don’t hang up.” He seemed to catch his breath. He was clearly nervous, too, and I almost felt sorry for him. “I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to come right out and say it.”
I tightened my grip on the phone, having no idea what he was about to reveal. Was it the overdue apology? The I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you? This wasn’t an accident that could have been prevented. This was a deliberate move. A tear so deep and wide there was no excuse.
“It wasn’t you,” he finally said. “It wasn’t your mom. Oh, Charley . . .” I imagined him dropping his head in his hands, the remorse too much for him to take. And that’s when he blurted, “I’m gay.”
This got my attention. This got me to take note. “I was so ashamed. I was so afraid. I ran. From myself. From you. Oh, Charley, it was never you . . . I hated myself. I hated who I had become . . .”
My heart quickened. I didn’t know if it was a release or a deeper anguish. I felt the feelings climb through me. “But you left us . . .”
“. . . I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t parent you when I was confused and alone . . .” He had to be holding his head in shame, his response a distant whisper. “We were so young when we married. Twenty. I had no idea who I was . . . There’s no excuse. I thought it would be better for you . . . easier . . . without me.”
Nothing is ever as it seems. There was no younger wife for Mom and me to poke fun at. Dad needed something else. I had waited years for this conversation, and he tapped on every raw emotion. My head hurt from all the unanswered questions.
He was beginning to cry. “I was in a very dark place . . . I didn’t want to live. I wanted to save you the suffering.”
Oh, the thoughts that pulsated through my brain. All the scenarios I’d dreamed up and cast out as frivolous bullshit. I wouldn’t say it aloud, how I’d thought it numerous times—that it might have been easier if he were dead. Far more tolerable than living with knowing he chose to stay away, leaving us with the uncertainty of a return. The latter was a faded wish I tucked so deep inside I could easily pretend it wasn’t there. Until now. Until he reappeared, debunking everything I thought was true.
“Charley, you’re an adult. You, your mother, you wouldn’t have been so understanding back then.”
The wound he’d inflicted gaped open, and a mix of emotions spilled through. Anger blended with relief, sadness shadowed surprise. All that we’d lost, all that we’d missed, made for a broken history. Broken because it didn’t have to be this way. Broken because he quashed my understanding of love, teaching me that it couldn’t be trusted, that I couldn’t be trusted.
He was silent, waiting for me to speak, but I was having difficulty finding the right words. This I hadn’t expected. Letting him go, casting him off as long-forgotten, was far easier when there was blame and a biased version of events. Hearing his story turned him into someone real and dimensional; it was impossible to separate the two, and the years that had gone by without as much as a phone call were hard to reconcile.
“You’re wondering why it took me so long?”
My throaty voice was unrecognizable. “We deserved to know, to make our own decision. You made the choice for us.”
“I know how painful deceit can be, Charley. I lived for
years with my secret. It almost killed me. Time had passed, and I figured you and your mom were better off without me. I didn’t want to complicate your life. I was in a string of painful, dead-end relationships, and there was trouble with booze. Finally, I got some help. It took years to repair the damage.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
Ben entered the room and took a seat beside me on the couch. I didn’t pull away when he covered my hand with his.
“I don’t need anyone’s pity, Charley. I’ve lived with the regret for years, and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life, but I’ve also found a place of acceptance, both of myself, and of my mistakes.” He paused to let that sink in. “I know you might never forgive me, and I’ll live with that, too.”
Suddenly, all I could think about was my mother. She had died believing she wasn’t good enough. “I wish I could tell her,” I said.
“I know.”
“It wouldn’t change anything, but in some small way she’d draw some satisfaction, some comfort, knowing it wasn’t her fault. You deprived her of that.”
“I was sorry to hear about your mother, Charley. She was a good woman. She didn’t deserve this.”
I sank into Ben’s arms while the tears broke from my eyes. “I didn’t deserve this either.”
CHAPTER 26
September 2018
Once the tears began to fall, I couldn’t speak. I flung the phone and collapsed in Ben’s arms. It was too much information for me to process at once. I’d been told it wasn’t because of me that he left, but hearing it from my father’s mouth felt different. The belief had paralyzed me for years, and because of it, I’d foolishly closed myself off.
My brain was flooded with memories. Some I’d repressed, and others were too painful to conceal. Father’s Day, when Mom and I would go to a double feature. The empty space on a form that asked for my father’s occupation. I thought about the baby I had believed I was carrying, and the enormity of its loss. As far and as fast as my father ran from his parental duties, such was the longing with which I now wanted my own. The idea hitched itself to my heart. There was no denying, no more pretending. My mother gave me enough love to know I could do it. If there’s one thing my father gave me, it was the script to do it right.
Ben left me to cry. He didn’t intrude. He didn’t ask if I was okay, because he knew. He stroked my hair and wiped my tears. “I’m here.” It was two words, but it fed my soul and made the news less frightening.
I pulled back and searched his eyes. They reassured me I’d be okay. There was friendship and concern, and I forgot, for a moment, that we were in the path of a major storm. Jimmy’s footsteps neared, Sunny in tow, and I straightened, while Ben stood and headed for the kitchen. Sunny sniffed the air, sensing the changes, before parking himself by the glass door.
Jimmy carried a stack of games and plopped them on the chrome coffee table. “Are you crying, Charley?” he asked, handing me a tissue.
I nodded. “I’m missing some people in my life . . .” It covered enough. I blew my nose and opened the box on the top. Monopoly. “Get ready to have your bum kicked,” I joked, letting the anxiety seep out of me.
The conversation with my father wasn’t far from my mind during a fierce couple of games. I watched Jimmy maneuver his car around the colorful real estate, my eyes fixed on his expression, his hidden losses, his smile. Ben was planted in the kitchen preparing food, getting a head start on the anticipated power outages. CNN droned in the background with a windblown Anderson Cooper giving live updates from the Florida coast. Though there were comparisons to Irma’s path, the real issue for residents was heavy rain and flooding.
Dinner was blue cheese–encrusted hamburgers and rosemary-flavored fries, and Jimmy devoured his minus the cheese, with extra ketchup. Ben poured me a glass of Ellman’s Jemma, and we sipped quietly. The house was brightly lit, though the world outside was dark and unusually quiet. I was nervous and jittery, having never experienced the expectation of a hurricane. In Missouri, there was little time to plan for tornadoes, which made the surprise attack alarming. The hours leading up to the hit were nerve-racking. My mind wandered, jumping from my father’s confession, to Philip and Ben, to a potential natural disaster.
Claudia called, and Ben took the phone into the other room.
When he returned, he seemed preoccupied.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with his change in demeanor, so I did nothing. And after hours of games and puzzles and flipping through the channels of hurricane coverage, Jimmy stood up. “I’m going to my room.”
“Hey,” Ben said. “Come here and give your old man the proper good night.”
Jimmy sauntered over, and the pair bumped fists two times, and then Ben pulled him close. “I love you, kid. I’ll be in in a few minutes.”
The wine slipped down my throat, and I remembered Ben’s room was a few short steps from mine. And Philip was gone. Philip was far away. And my father probably never loved my mother the way she would have wanted.
“Good night, Charley,” said Jimmy. He surprised me by bending down to kiss my cheek. “I’m here if you need me,” he said, patting my shoulder with a reassuring grin. His sweetness took my heart with him as he disappeared down the hall. “Don’t be sad,” he added.
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” I said to Ben.
“Wait. Can we talk?”
He found my eyes and made it impossible for me to turn away.
“Claudia’s upset.”
“What happened?”
“She asked about love. She asked if I could ever love her.”
“Ben . . . I don’t think I can offer you advice on love.”
“She said it, and I didn’t say it back.”
“Oh. That’s not good,” I said.
“I couldn’t say it back,” he said, “because I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
I waved him off and headed toward the bar, as though those words didn’t bury themselves deep beneath my skin. He caught up to me and grabbed me by the arm. “I said I love you.”
Everything about him weakened everything inside of me. His honesty, his fingers touching me. I couldn’t fight it much longer.
“You don’t love me, Ben. You can’t love me.”
“I want to,” he said. “I want to love you.”
His hair was thick and messy, and the buttons at the top of his shirt revealed his smooth chest, and I had to stop myself from looking, from imagining what it would feel like to run my fingers up and down his skin.
Reaching for the bottle of cabernet, I whispered, “We can’t, Ben.”
“We’re alone all the time . . . He practically pushes us together . . . What kind of life is this for any of us?”
“Ben, stop.”
“I can’t stop, Charlotte. Fuck . . . Philip . . . I just wish he was here . . . I would’ve never let this happen.”
The wine opener slipped through my fingers, and he caught hold of it. Philip being gone ruined both of us.
“I don’t need to be drunk to tell you how I feel,” he said. He was beautiful to look at. I felt my eyes pool with tears. I didn’t know how to say no to him.
“Just tell me how you feel. We’ve shared everything else. Be honest with yourself and tell me.”
There was nothing honest about the way I felt for him. Nothing. I’d been fighting it for some time now. Illogical and wrong, the ultimate betrayal. Philip didn’t deserve this, and I wasn’t searching for it. I’d analyzed it over and over again. Was this our Endless Love? Was this merely another case of wanting what we couldn’t have? Or had Philip and I run our course? Two people bound by a lack of togetherness, a separateness that made us stick? I didn’t know.
Ben was breaking me down. Chiseling away at the heart I’d trusted to someone else.
I loved Philip. I promised everything to him. I didn’t love Ben. I couldn’t love Ben.
“Tell me you don’t think about this . . . about us . .
.”
“I think about you every single day, Ben.”
“Then why are you fighting me?”
“Because it’s wrong. We’re wrong.”
“You feel it, too,” he said. “I know I’m right.”
I opened my mouth in protest, and he covered it with his finger. “Listen to me, Charlotte. I want you. All of you. I never thought I’d have another chance. Never thought I’d feel anything like this again. I’ll be here for you. I’ll give you that family you want. I’ll fill you up with so many babies, you’ll never be alone.”
I was breaking apart, piece by piece, falling in love with every word, every breath, every sound. “Don’t do this,” I said, a lone tear sliding down my cheek.
“I’m doing it. You can’t stop me. You know why?” He took a breath. “Because you want the same things,” he said. “I see it. I see it right there in your eyes.”
“We can’t. What we’re doing . . . What we’re feeling . . . We’re all Philip has. He trusts us. You’re his best friend!”
His shoulders slumped from the force of those truths.
“This is an unforgivable betrayal.”
His hands buried themselves deep in his pockets. When he spoke, his voice was solemn and broken. “I know.”
But then he went on. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to feel something again? How I convinced myself I’d be alone the rest of my life? That my heart was buried in the ground . . . with her . . .”
Tears burned in the back of my eyes.
“. . . you, Charlotte, you made me feel again.” His voice cracked. “After Sari, I didn’t think it was possible. Love doesn’t give us many chances. It’s fate and we have to take it while we can. Let’s go to Philip. Let’s tell him what we already know.”
How easy it would have been to collapse in his arms and say yes. To give in to the temptation and feelings. To let him wrap around me until I couldn’t breathe. To hold me until I felt whole again. But the idea was fleeting, a momentary lapse. Philip would return, and our feelings would hurt him, hurt all of us.
Whether it would be the biggest mistake of my life or not, I told him no. “I can’t.”
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