In the past, I would’ve left this town without a second thought. I’ve contemplated it time and time again. But then I think, ‘What if?’
Banging my feet a few times to knock the snow from the tread of my boots, I enter the house. Max tailing me. I unwrap the scarf from my neck, hanging it on the rack next to the door, and turn around.
“You really should lock your doors.”
I watch him through the reflection-obstructed window of the hardware store. He’s browsing the aisles, paying little to no attention on anything around him. I’m parked across the street in my rented car. I wasn’t one hundred percent the Nova would survive the journey from New York in this weather.
I’ve been home for two days, laying low at a motel off the highway outside of town. It certainly has a cozy, stabbed-in-the-shower-by-a-man-in-a-dress motif to it. I wanted to take time to figure out my plan of attack. But instead of my well-thought-out plans, I’m sitting here in this car like a creeper, spying on the man I abandoned. Before he finishes and has a chance to see me, I pull away and drive down Main. It isn’t long before the back of a familiar figure walking down the road catches my eye. I’d know it anywhere. I’d spent years watching every inch of him.
“Aidan!” I call.
His gait falters for a step before returning to a steady rhythm. I refuse to leave him alone until he knows everything. I drive ahead and pull over, leaving the car door open when I jump out to stand in his path.
“There’s something I need you to see. I deserve at least a chance to explain.”
“You had your chance. You had a chance every time you saw me to confess, but you didn’t. Whatever you say, you lied to me, Evie, repeatedly.”
He attempts to walk on, but I set my hands on his chest, falling into him.
I use my final weapon. Honesty.
“I won’t deny it.” This seems to get his attention. “But I promise if you get in that car, you won’t regret it.”
He shuts his eyes in contemplation whether or not getting in the car is the right choice. He opens them again, makes for the idling car, and gets in. I follow suit.
“Where are we going?” he asks, belting himself in.
“It’s a bit of a drive.”
“Then I guess we should get going.”
He sinks back into his seat, his eyes aimed straight ahead.
We’ve been on the road for two hours. I switched on the radio after the first, unable to take the silence. I pull over once to catch my breath and buy snacks and water. When we cross the state line, my stomach begins to cramp and my heart thumps irrepressibly. My teeth itch.
I can’t simply thrust him into the whirlpool of awareness. I must ease him in step by step. Where do I start?
“Why did you do it, Evie?”
“It isn’t simple.”
“I was a fool,” he mutters, his head turned toward the passenger window. “My timing has never been right with you. I loved you since we played in sandboxes, before a boy was supposed to love a girl.”
“And I loved you.”
“Why didn’t we ever tell each other? Why wasn’t I man enough to tell you I loved you when I had the opportunity? It was so easy with other girls. But with you, I could never find the courage to say what I wanted to say.”
“Aid, it’s not your fault. You have no control over the path your life takes. We think we do, but it’s an illusion of the ego. Sometimes people find us on our journey, people who shape us, our paths crossing for the briefest of moments. The roles individuals play in our life may not be leading roles, but it doesn’t mean their parts were any less important. Our moment may have been fleeting, but it left a lasting impression on me.”
“You never really forgave me for what I did to you. I wouldn’t expect you to. I wouldn’t want you to. I’d hope you have more respect for yourself than that.”
“All these years, I’ve loved you and dreamt of the moment you would call me yours. After that night, it took me years more to get over you. Though a part of me will always belong to you, Holt has changed me and inspired me in ways I’ve never considered possible. I never meant to hurt you, but you deserved to know the truth about it.”
“There are things you don’t know, things you don’t understand. When I woke up on the shore and you weren’t there, my heart shattered. I walked the two miles home in the early morning, cold and lost. I’ll never be able to describe the pathetic sadness of it.” The nearly empty country road we’re on seems endless, no houses or markers for miles. When the house comes into sight, I turn into the driveway.
“I should’ve never left you there alone. I’m a bastard.”
“There’s something you need to know.” I take his hand, clasping onto it with all my strength.
“Is it a good or bad thing?”
“It’s a defining thing.” I suck in a sharp breath. This is it.
Margo and Jim walk out of the yellow farmhouse, our three-year-old daughter clutching her tiny hand about Jim’s finger, pulling him along with eager steps. Her brunette hair up in pigtails, her enormous green eyes wide with wonder.
“Evie,” he whispers, his hand tightening around mine.
“She was seven pounds five ounces. Giving her up was the hardest thing I’ve ever done or will do.”
“She’s ours?”
“Yes, Aidan.”
“What’s her name?”
“I named her Bailey.”
He inspects her through the window, unmoving, unspeaking, and unreadable. His lips tense and his chin wobbles as tears glimmer in his eyes.
“She’s,” he chokes on his words, his Adam’s apple wavering and bobbing in his throat, “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Your mother.”
His eyes lock on mine.
“I don’t understand.”
“I went to your house my first winter back to tell you everything. She was there. You weren’t. When she realized why I’d come to see you, she told me to get rid of her and offered to pay me off.”
“You didn’t take it, did you?”
“I could never. But it did get me to thinking. Once it became clear I was in it alone, I knew I couldn’t provide her with all the things I wanted. Sure, Meredith would’ve helped me in a heartbeat. She offered it time and time again. We would live with her, three generations of women under one roof. A part of me was drawn to the idea. Another wanted more for our baby, a mother and a father, a life away from the hateful stares of Christina. I wanted her to grow up with a normal upbringing.”
“How did you give her up for adoption? Didn’t you need my consent?”
“Not if the father is unknown. I left the father’s name blank on the birth certificate.”
“My mother convinced you of this, I’m guessing.”
“Yes.”
“I always knew she could be manipulative and conniving, but this…”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“I’m a million things right now. Angry is one. But it’s not at you, Evie. I’m angry at Christina for treating you and our child like you were nothing. I’m angry at myself. If I’d been there, you wouldn’t have gone through this by yourself.”
“I had Taylor and my mother.”
“It should’ve been me.” He watches her play in the snow from behind the frosted glass of the passenger window. She’s laughing and throwing the white powder into the air. “You made the right choice, Evie.”
“You see, Aidan. Our time together may have been short, but it led to something bigger than us, something beautiful. You and I are connected always, because of our daughter. She is the love we never got to share with one another.”
He stares at Margo and Jim chasing her around the yard.
“She has your eyes.”
“She’s pieces of us.”
“How could someone I’ve never spoken to, never knew existed before now become the m
ost important person in my life in the blink of an eye?”
“It’s the only time I’ve ever believed in love at first sight. Would you like to meet her?”
“Can I?”
“They were very understanding about it. They want her to know where she came from, and that she is loved.”
“What if she hates me?”
“How could she hate you? You’re her father, Aid.”
He quickly rubs his hands up and down his thighs, blowing out a forced breath through pursed lips.
We step out of the car, and I meet him around the other side. We hold hands, using one another for support, or we might fall apart.
I lead the way on weak, shaky legs.
When Margo spots us coming, she greets us both with a welcoming yet nervous smile. “I’m glad you made it,” she says, meeting us at the gate. She opens it for us and we step inside, our eyes locked on our beautiful small child, our daughter, playing in the snow without a care.
Jim takes her hand with the gentlest of touches and walks her over to us.
“Bailey, we’d like you to meet someone very important, Aidan.” Margo kneels down to her daughter’s height. “Would you like to say hello to our guest?”
She’s half hiding behind Jim’s leg, one green eye poking out at Aidan.
“Hello,” a whisper of a voice greets him. It’s an angelic, tiny voice, one that tugs violently at the strings of my heart.
“Hello, Bailey,” he responds, kneeling down beside Margo. I rub him on the back when he extends a hand out to her and she takes refuge behind Jim.
“Baby, come here.” Bailey hesitantly comes out of her hiding spot and walks up to her mother, side-glancing Aidan suspiciously. She’s not very trusting…like me. Margo takes the beautiful child into her arms and sits her on her lap. “Do you remember what Mommy told you about her belly, how Mommy couldn’t grow a baby of her own?”
Bailey nods her head with understanding, or as much as a three-year-old could possibly understand about this subject.
“I didn’t come from Mama’s tummy.”
“Even though you’re my baby. No, you didn’t. But Mama and Dada love you so much.”
“I love you, Mama.”
“Would you like to know whose tummy you came from, Bails?”
She nods her head.
“Yes, Mommy.”
Margo points to my stomach.
Bailey’s eyes widen. She looks at me and then back at Margo for confirmation. She nods, tears shimmering in her eyes. Bailey crawls off her mother’s lap and walks over to my tummy, setting her little head against it, as if she were trying to hear the ocean. When she pulls away, her curious eyes are watching my face.
“Are you my mommy, too?” she asks. Frozen, I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. How do I answer this?
“Yes, baby. Evie’s your mommy, too.”
My eyes find Margo’s, both filled with tears of joy and fear. When mine meet my baby’s again, she has an enormous, baby-teethed grin on her face.
“I knowed it,” she says, jumping at me and clinging her tiny arms to my neck. I wrap my arms about her small body, bringing her as close to my heart as I can bring her.
As we’re driving back home, quietly contemplating everything, endless white passing the frosted car windows, he says, “I realized something just now.” His face turned away from mine, I’m unable to see the expression plaguing it.
“What?”
“We have a child together,” he states, his head still turned from me.
“Yeah,” I confirm, but he isn’t seeking validation.
“And our parents have—”
“Yeah.”
A pause rests in the air before we erupt into laughter.
“That’s awful,” he chuckles.
“It really is.”
What else can I say? It’s awkward, but a part of me feels at peace in some small way. Everything is out in the open. No more secrets and lies. Now, to mend the rest of my wounds. I know my mother and I will find a way back to each other. She’s human. She falters like everyone else. Even if she was having an affair with Charles during my parents’ marriage, it was my father’s decision to give up on me. She never has. And I can’t give up on her.
I only hope Holt forgives me and understands my leaving had nothing to do with him. He didn’t deserve it, especially after he poured his heart out to me.
“Stupidly, I knew,” Aid says, interrupting my mental road trip.
“About Bailey?”
“No,” he murmurs, his face turning away from mine. “I had no idea about her. If I had, you bet things would’ve been different.” He regards me again. “I meant about you and him.”
“Ah.” I keep my eyes on the icy road ahead. I’d like to say it’s for safety reasons, but I’m uncomfortable talking about Holt. “What gave us away?”
“I first suspected you were attracted to him at the Fourth of July barbeque.” He doesn’t say it with disdain or grief. It’s more like a mundane fact. “You kept sneaking glances at him. He kept doing the same thing. He would watch you. Even when he caught me observing him do it, he wouldn’t keep his eyes off you.”
“He watched me?” I mutter, mostly to myself. But Aidan nods in response.
“Anyway,” he continues, “after you disappeared during the fireworks, I searched for you in the crowd. When I found you coming out of the woods, I thought it was strange. As we were rejoining the rest of the crowd, I glanced back from where you’d emerged and—” He pauses, as if he’s weighing out whether or not he should tell me.
“And?”
“I saw him standing at the edge of the trees, watching us with that expression.”
“What expression?”
“Like I’d stolen you away from him.”
He did care.
“What confirmed your suspicions about us?”
“Besides you telling me?” He chuckles. I’m glad he can still be my friend, even now. “That night I stopped by your house uninvited. You were vibrant. It was an aura about you I hadn’t seen in years. Before your father left. There was a flush on your cheeks and a light in your eyes. And I knew it wasn’t me who made you that way.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It wasn’t my business. I didn’t have a claim on you, Evie. You were allowed to see whoever you wanted. I—I wanted my chance, too.”
“Aidan,” I whisper, my chest tightening. We need a change of topic. “How are our parents?”
“My father left my mother. He’s been living with Meredith, and my mom moved out of town.” He laughs to himself and shakes his head. “I actually felt guilty for my dad cheating on her, angry at him for betraying her. All that time, she knew. And then she lied to me about you and Bailey. I’ll never forgive her for this. She isn’t deserving.”
“She was protecting you,” I’m seriously sticking up for this woman, “in her own twisted way.”
“She was protecting herself, her image, her money, her ego. She never once thought of anyone else but herself.” He turns to me. “Your mom misses you.”
“How do you know?”
“My dad told me.” This is weird. It’s clearly written on his face. If our parents decide to marry, that would make us step-siblings. Imagine the family holidays. “Are you planning to see her while you’re in town?”
“Yes, eventually.”
“I’ll come with you if you want me to.”
“No, this is something I need to do on my own.”
I swear Aidan to secrecy about my being in town and lay low at the motel for a couple days while I figure out the best way to tackle Holt and my mother, only emerging from the four walls of my room to grab a bite, usually in the next town over to keep from anyone recognizing me. It’s a bitch to drive twenty minutes away to eat, but easier than dealing with anyone and their questions.
When I’m finally ready, I go to see Meredith first. Driving up the narrow dirt driveway through the woods, my stomach tie
s into knots and my heart lands in my butt. I make sure Holt’s truck isn’t around. It’s not. But my mother’s car is. I enter the house without a knock or calling out to her. There’s movement coming from her room. I walk up the stairs and notice the door is open. I’m praying I don’t walk in on anything since Charles moved in. I’m about to announce my presence when Meredith calls out for him, “Is that you, darling?” I step up to the doorway. She’s packing a bag on the bed with her back to me.
“Charles?”
“It isn’t Charles,” I mutter.
Her spine stiffens into a pole.
“Evie,” she whisper-cries before facing me slowly, her hand balled against her chest. She drops back onto the bed, watching me through tearful eyes.
“Mom.” My voice mirrors hers.
Before I see Holt, I hear him, his feet stomping on the porch beyond the front door. He steps into the warmth of the small cottage, his boots caked with snow, his jacket covered in the tiny white flakes. He doesn’t see me as he unwraps the scarf from his neck and hangs it on the rack.
Suddenly rendered incapable of a deeper thought, “You really should lock your doors,” I mumble, the words stammering from my mouth like an antique Model A sputtering down a bumpy road.
He stares at me, his eyes widening then narrowing into a scowl. “After all these months, those are the first words out of your mouth? Take you awhile to think of that, did it?”
“I wasn’t sure what I’d say. I honestly wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” I lie. I knew he’d be here. I also mulled over our encounter in my head repeatedly like a record playing on a loop. But when it came down to it, nothing ever seemed good enough.
“Well, I am. Now what?” he asks, shouldering off his black wool coat and flinging it across one of the many comfy chairs in the living room of the cottage he resurrected with his own two hands. The same ones that resurrected me, gave me tenderness, pleasure, love.
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