I pinched the bridge of my nose. “She loves her teacher.”
“Just think about it,” Josh said, then he rose to his feet. “I’m sorry but I have to get going. Are we still on for dinner Saturday night?”
I stood up as well and said, “I think so,” as I escorted him to the door.
He stopped and turned. “You think so? Don’t jump up and down with excitement or anything.”
I reached into my pocket for a tissue and wiped my nose. “I’m sorry, Josh. I’m just not feeling the best.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Is there something wrong? You’ve seemed distracted lately.”
“Have I?”
I felt as if he was scrutinizing my expression and was contemplating the logistics of dragging me downtown for a lie detector test.
“Yeah,” he said. “Ever since you came back from Canada. You’re different.”
Again, he focused steadily on my eyes, and I had to look away. “Everything’s fine,” I told him. “It’s just been a difficult time. First we thought Seth was dead; then he wasn’t; then he was…”
There was much more to it than that, of course, but I didn’t want to say anything because I still didn’t have my feelings sorted out.
Josh nodded, but I suspected he didn’t really believe me.
He kissed me on the cheek and pointed at the bag he’d set on the kitchen counter. “Have some soup. I’ll call you later.”
As soon as I shut the door and locked it behind him, my cell phone beeped to let me know a text had come in. I moved to the coffee table and picked it up. It was from Kaleigh.
Mom, he was nice. I’m really sad.
My heart split in two, straight down the middle.
I know, honey. We’ll talk when you get home.
Chapter Sixty
“I knew it was wrong,” Kaleigh told me, lying on her side in bed, curled up in a ball and squeezing her pillow under her cheek, “but I knew he wouldn’t see me if he knew how old I was. Now he won’t even answer my texts.”
I was at least impressed that the kid had the good sense not to.
“I know it’s hard,” I said, “but it’s better that he found out now, before things went too far.”
“What do you mean by things?” she angrily asked. “You mean before we had sex?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
“We weren’t doing that,” she insisted. “All we ever did was walk around the neighborhood and talk about all kinds of cool things like books and movies. I told him about the books I read that Aaron recommended—you know, about near-death experiences. A few days ago we played guitar in the park after school. Mom, really, he was the nicest person I ever met, and he’s had a rough life. He doesn’t have a dad either. Except now he has a stepdad who gets drunk all the time, and Malcolm hates that kind of stuff. He’s really smart.”
“But you don’t know him very well,” I said.
“Yes, I do!” she cried, sitting up and wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re the one who doesn’t know him. You think he’s a pot head or something, just because of the way he dresses.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Yes, you do. I saw the way you looked at him, but he’s not a pot head. He’s a great guitar player.”
“And he lives in a rough neighborhood,” I said.
“I know that, but how do you know that, and what does that have to do with anything? Did Josh look him up? Even if he did, I don’t care what he told you—but how can you be so heartless?”
“I’m not heartless,” I replied. “I do feel badly for him. Honest. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to see him the way you want to see him. You’re too young.”
“I’m not too young,” she argued. “I’ll be fourteen in ten months.”
“And he’ll be eighteen by then. You should be with boys your own age, honey.”
She shook her head at me and lay down again. “You don’t get it. You don’t understand anything.”
“I do understand,” I replied, “and when I was your age I fought with my mom, too, every time she wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. It comes with the territory, Kaleigh, but please have some perspective. You won’t be thirteen forever, and with every year, I’ll relax the rules and eventually you’ll have all kinds of freedoms you don’t have now. And it’s not that far off. Just be patient and let me be a good mom, okay?”
She let out a huff and turned over the other way with her back to me. “I want to be alone,” she said. “No offense.”
For a moment I sat on the edge of her bed wondering what I could possibly say to ease the rift between us, but I knew there wasn’t anything that could fix it. At least not today. This would take time, and I hoped she’d get over Malcolm Watson sooner rather than later.
o0o
Friday morning, while I was in the bathroom putting on my makeup for work, Kaleigh burst through the door with her cell phone.
“He texted me!” she exclaimed in disbelief.
“Who did?” I asked with dread as I lowered my mascara and turned to face her.
“Malcolm. He finally replied. He said he’d be willing to talk to me after practice tonight, but only if you say it’s okay. He said we could meet at the Starbucks across the street from the music school. Can I go, Mom? Please? I just want to tell him I’m sorry. I want us to be friends, that’s all. I told him that, and that’s why he said yes. You can even park outside and watch us from the car if you want. Just don’t say no.”
Oh, Lord. Maybe I should have been a tougher parent for the past thirteen years. Josh had recommended that I increase the rules and set tighter boundaries, but all my instincts as a mother were telling me to give her this space. To trust her to handle this in a mature and responsible manner.
Maybe that wasn’t possible for a hormonal thirteen-year-old, and maybe I would live to regret my decision, but in the end I said yes—with every intention of sitting in my car and staking out the coffee shop.
Chapter Sixty-one
Kaleigh
It was hard to concentrate on school that day. All I could think of was Malcolm, and my heart nearly beat out of my chest later when he walked into the music room in his black leather jacket with his guitar case slung over his shoulder.
He saw me from across the room and nodded, then took a seat next to someone else on the other side of the circle.
Afterward, as we were packing up, I approached him.
He barely looked at me. “I’ll meet you over there.”
Feeling disappointed, not even sure if he would actually show up, I walked over by myself and ordered a hot chocolate.
When he arrived ten minutes later, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey,” he said as he sat down across from me with a coffee. “Do you know your mom’s sitting out there watching us?”
“I know,” I replied. “It was the only way she’d let me come.”
He tapped his finger on the cardboard sleeve and glanced around impatiently. “What do you want, Kaleigh?”
“Just to tell you I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t have lied to me in the first place,” he said.
“I know, but you never even looked at me or spoke to me until I pretended I was older—it was like I was invisible in class every week—and then I wanted to tell you the truth, but I was afraid you’d be mad.”
He shifted uncomfortably on the seat. “We can’t be friends, you know.”
“Why not? I said I was sorry. Can’t you forgive me?”
“It’s not that,” he replied. “Even if I do forgive you, it would be weird. I’m not hanging around with a thirteen-year-old.”
I looked down at my hot chocolate. “But I like talking to you.”
I glanced up and caught him staring at me, but he quickly looked away. “I liked talking to you too, but this is stupid. You shouldn’t be texting me.”
“Malcolm—”<
br />
“Was everything else a lie?” he asked. “Did you lie about the books you read, or that lady you know who had a heart transplant and dreamed about her donor, or your father being dead?”
The fact that we both had dead fathers was what had struck a bond between us the first day we talked after class, and I hated that he thought it wasn’t true.
“No,” I replied. “I didn’t lie about any of those things.”
We sat for a little while, saying nothing. He removed the plastic lid on his cup to let it cool.
“How did your father die?” I asked. “You never said.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. When I was young, my mom used to tell me he died in a car accident, but his name isn’t on my birth certificate, so I’m not even sure he is dead. He’s probably some loser she didn’t want me to meet, or she doesn’t even know who it is. Last year, she told me he died in a plane crash, but she always says stupid stuff when she’s drunk. She’s a compulsive liar.”
“Really?” I said with a strange little lurch in my belly. “What plane crash?”
“I don’t know. It was on the news. They never found out what happened to the plane, which is why I think she said that. I don’t believe her, though. I never believe anything she says.”
In that moment, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was mesmerized by the familiar way he held his coffee cup, the way he spoke, and the way his blue eyes seemed to reveal so much about what he was thinking and feeling.
“I should go,” I said, reaching for my guitar case and glancing out the window at my mom who was still sitting outside in her car waiting for me. “But are we okay?” I asked as I stood up. “Can we be friends now?”
He considered it a moment. “Sure, I guess. But I don’t want to hang out or anything.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I’ll see you in class next week?”
He stood up as well. “Yeah, whatever.”
I let him leave first, then I walked out of the coffee shop to go talk to Mom.
Chapter Sixty-two
“Do you think it’s possible?” I asked as we pulled away from the curb. “Did Aaron ever tell you if he had a kid?”
Mom was disconcertingly quiet, then she shook her head. “He never mentioned that, but he did tell me about a woman he was involved with a number of years ago who left him, and she later had substance abuse problems.”
“Are you serious?” I said, turning in my seat to face her. “How long ago was that?”
“He said about eighteen years.”
“Then this makes total sense! Malcolm could be Aaron’s kid, and he doesn’t even know it.”
“Hold your horses,” Mom replied, waving a hand to settle me down. “We have no idea if that’s true or not, and we can’t go poking into other people’s lives.”
“But what if it is true? Poor Malcolm never had a dad and he had a horrible childhood. He hates his stepdad and his mom is drunk all the time. If you were Aaron, wouldn’t you want to know?”
Mom thought about it as she flicked the blinker and turned left into our neighborhood. “Yes, I definitely would.”
o0o
As soon as we walked through our apartment door, after a tense ride up the elevator, Mom went into the kitchen and filled the kettle at the sink. “I don’t know what to do,” she said when I locked the door behind us.
I set down my guitar case and followed her into the kitchen where she was reaching for a mug and a box of tea in the cupboard. I moved to the fridge to get some orange juice.
Mom leaned against the counter and chewed on her thumbnail, thinking intently while she waited for the kettle to boil.
Then she looked up. “Could you text Malcolm and ask him to ask his mother about it again? Don’t tell him why. Or maybe just tell him that you knew someone from that crash and you’re curious about it.”
“I’ll have to tell him the truth,” I said, “that it was my dad on the plane.” Suddenly I felt my forehead furrow with concern. “Wait a second, you don’t think Dad could be…?”
“No, not a chance,” Mom said. “Eighteen years ago, your father was still living in Australia. He didn’t move here until the year before you were born.”
I nodded with relief and pulled out my phone.
o0o
Fifteen minutes later, my phone beeped.
I picked it up and saw that it was a text from Malcolm. Swinging around to turn my back on Mom, I tapped the icon and read his message.
I asked her and she said it was a guy she lived with once. But it doesn’t matter because he’s dead anyway.
I turned and showed the message to Mom.
“They don’t know he was rescued,” Mom said. “Don’t his parents watch the news?”
“He says they drink all the time.”
Mom gave me a look of impatience that was directed at them, not me. Then she began to pace around the kitchen. “Can you text him back and get him to ask her what the man’s name was?”
I quickly keyed in the question.
A few seconds later I received a reply. I can’t because my stepdad just went ballistic and kicked me out.
I showed the message to mom.
“Oh, Dear Lord,” she said. “Text him back and ask if he’s okay.”
A few seconds later another reply came in. I held the phone up.
I’m fine. I’m at the park. Just walking around.
I held the phone up. Mom read the text and immediately scooped her keys up off the counter.
“Grab your jacket,” she said. “We’re going to pick him up right now.”
Chapter Sixty-three
Carla
My heart pounded like a hammer when I sat down at the computer to send an email to Aaron. We hadn’t spoken in a few months, not since the day we said good-bye at the hospital in Newfoundland. Other than that, our only exchange had been through email when he sent the promised list of books to Kaleigh.
She’d borrowed them from the library, blew through them in a couple of weeks, and sent him a personal thank you note, also via email. That was the end of our correspondence, though he was never far from my thoughts.
And now, here I sat, possibly with his biological son sleeping on my sofa, my fingers poised on the computer keyboard, feeling both excited and terrified about communicating with him again.
Carefully I composed a message, then went ahead and pressed send, and stared intently at the computer screen.
o0o
Five minutes later, a reply came in.
Hi Carla. So nice to hear from you. Yes, I am well, thanks for asking, and I’d love to talk with you. Is now too late? I’m still awake if you want to chat. Here’s my number: 555—–
Without hesitation, I reached for the phone and dialed.
Chapter Sixty-four
Like a sling shot, my telephone conversation with Aaron sent me straight back to exactly how I’d felt during those intense hours we spent together in the northern hospital.
He was surprised and pleased to hear from me, of course, and I allowed us a few moments to catch up before I brought up the subject of Malcolm.
I told him about Kaleigh doing well in school and thanked him for transcribing Seth’s journal entries for Gladys. We all appreciated it very much, I told him. Then I apologized for not keeping in touch.
“No need to apologize,” Aaron said. “I understand.” We left it at that.
Aaron then told me he’d used a generous private settlement he’d received from George Atherton to buy a house in Claremont, New Hampshire—a small town with a population of about 13,000, where he’d already joined a small medical practice and was working part-time.
“I decided I didn’t want to live in the city anymore,” he explained. “It was too noisy. I thought maybe I’d wallow in it after the silence on the island, but that’s not how it turned out. I do like going to the supermarket, though,” he added with a smile in his voice. “That, I definitely wallow in.”
“I’m glad to hear all tha
t,” I replied, finding myself wallowing in the simple cadence of his voice. Before I knew it, a half hour had passed and I still hadn’t mentioned the seventeen-year-old who was sleeping on my sofa.
I wasn’t sure how to introduce the subject, so I decided to begin with this: “You must be wondering why I’m calling.”
Aaron was quiet for few seconds. “I am a little curious, yes.”
I inhaled deeply and gazed up at the ceiling. “This is going to seem like a strange question, but do you know a woman named Meg Watson? She lives here in Boston.”
Again, Aaron was quiet. “Yeah. She’s the woman I told you about. The one I lived with after college. I haven’t seen her in years, though. Why?”
“When, exactly, did you live with her?” I asked. “I know you told me, but I just want to check again. How long ago was it?”
He paused to think about it. “Eighteen, nineteen years ago. Why, Carla? What’s this about? Is she okay?”
I sat up and slowly answered, “Yes, she’s fine, but…” I paused. “Aaron, she has a son.”
My heart thumped against my ribcage.
“I knew she had a child…” he replied, trailing off. “But what are you saying?”
I sat back in my chair and gazed up at the ceiling. “Maybe I should just tell you about him. His name is Malcolm and he’s seventeen years old. Kaleigh met him at guitar class.” I hesitated briefly before continuing. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, Aaron—it seems I’m always delivering difficult news to you—but I think there’s a chance you might be Malcolm’s father.”
o0o
After about twenty minutes of disbelief, anger, sorrow and happiness—and a continuous discussion about what this could mean for Aaron and Malcolm’s future—I insisted on driving Malcolm up to Claremont the following morning.
“He’s sleeping on my couch right now,” I said, “and he’d like to meet you.”
The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) Page 17