That's me.
I didn't want to change, but when a quick-talking detective called to ask if I'd like to set up a day to reunite with Harold Kessler I knew there would come a time when choice no longer existed. Change was about to grip me by the neck and shake me until I consented.
I said, "No, thank you," and hung up the phone. How can you reunite with someone you were never united to in the first place?
Ella walked in the door a few minutes after I hung up the phone.
"What happened?" she said, closing the door.
"Detective called."
"A detective? For what?"
"To reunite me with my long lost father. What do they think this is? Some kind of Hallmark special?"
She reached for my hand. "Calm down. I've never seen you act like this."
There. It happened. The flaws underneath bubbled at the surface, desperate to erupt. I shoved them back inside. Smiled. Pulled her into my body and hid my face in her hair.
"Let's get married now."
"I want to do things properly, Gavin. You know that. I want the first time we sleep in this house together to be when we come back from our honeymoon. And I want our wedding to be something we remember with fondness, not something rushed because we want to turn the page."
"You are a modern Jane Austen, huh?"
"Trying to be."
"Most people are living together without getting married nowadays."
"Not interested." She pulled away from my arms and forced me to look into her eyes. Her finger pressed into my lips. "I know when these things produce real smiles. And I know when they're fake."
I sat on our new white couch. "Come here."
She sat on the opposite side of the couch and draped her feet over my legs. I rubbed her ankles and battled whether to give her the letter in my pocket. I carried all three letters with me every day. Only took them out of my pocket to wash my pants.
"Let me read the first one." I'm not sure whether I loved or hated that she read my mind. Maybe both, depending on the circumstance.
I pulled the first two letters from my pocket. Those stayed in my back left pocket, while the unopened one lived in my right pocket. Alone. Not a single tear in the seal.
"Count to three, take a deep breath, and hand it to me."
"There's something I need to tell you first."
Chapter Five
After a long and exaggerated breath, I looked at her and searched for the words to say what I felt. That didn’t always come easy to me. A lover of words and books, sometimes too many letters clamored my brain. I couldn’t piece them together into something nice. I needed to try though. For her sake. So, I opened my mouth to tell her what only half of me wanted to say.
"Ella," I said, hands sweating. "When I saw you in that coffee shop my life changed. In middle school and my first year of high school people thought I was the biggest geek ever. Around my junior year I stopped hiding behind books and paint brushes and pretended to be fun and outgoing. I didn't actually have fun and I was still shy inside. All the girls thought I was some kind of god, and occasionally I'd use them to satisfy some bruised part of my ego, but it all got old. I hated that life.
"Then I saw you. That moment changed my life. I realized that I didn't want to party and drink beer while standing on my head. I didn't want to use girls who were just as broken as I was. I wanted life.
"When you smiled at me from the table by that window, you showed me . . . I can't even find the words. All I know is I wanted to be a better man than I was. I wanted to be me. Myself. The part of me hidden inside that no one saw. And I wanted someone to love me for that person, not the person I pretended to be.”
"You know," she said. "I feel the same. Except when I saw you I went a little crazy. Because of the car accident and my lack of organization, I lost so much. So I set out to become as organized and detailed as possible. I thought it would help me find you. If I made every choice with precision everything would be perfect. I'd find you. And it would all be wonderful. Only it didn't work. You found me because everything around me fell apart. I actually had to lose the Ella I had been and resurrect the Ella that died in order for love to find me. It's almost as though I wasn't ready. When I finally let go of my obsession with finding you, you came to me."
"Well. I tend to hide a lot. Have since I was a kid. Honestly, Ella, I'm scared to death at the things buried inside of me. I know it will be liberating to get these things out, but I don't know where to start."
"Start with the letters in your hand."
"Yes. Back to that. So, I wanted to find you. I had to find you. Pop told me to do whatever it took, but I thought it was crazy and useless. So I went off to college and Matt broke up with his girlfriend at the time. For some reason, that made me think of you and how I wanted to find you. Pop's health took a turn for the worse so I went back to Lancaster to live with him. I'd visit Philly every weekend to look for you. Told everyone but Pop that I had art shows.
"Eventually he told me to move back to Philly. Matt needed a roommate and Pop knew how much I wanted to be there. I believed I'd never find you. I thought I'd end up single until I was forty or settling for less than the dream of you. Pop never thought that."
"He sounds like a modern day Jane Austen, too."
I tried to smile. "He was a lot like you."
"So, he made you come to Philly to find me and how does that lead to these letters?"
"His health got worse. I got really depressed. Didn't tell Matt. Didn't tell anyone. My grandfather was all I had. The thought of him dying scared me. I didn't know love outside of him and thought I never would. So I ignored him."
"You stopped talking to him when you found out he was dying?"
"He sent me a letter. It's the first one here." I placed it in her lap and hung my head on the back of the couch.
She opened it. Paper crinkled as I watched the chandelier cast shadows and bursts of light on the walls around us.
I read every word in my mind as I imagined her eyes scanning them.
Dearest Gavin,
You know I consider you my son. I want you to know that I made a lot of mistakes in my life. I wasn't a good dad and your father's issues are because of me. It's the one regret I have in my life. Not raising him better. Not being the father I should have been. I couldn't fix your grandmother when she went to the psych ward, and I certainly couldn't fix myself either. I was a mess, my boy. And messes create more messes until someone starts cleaning. Unfortunately I didn't start cleaning until your dad left and you landed in my arms. But it was too late. He was gone.
I've tried my best, Gavin. Please know it. I've tried my best to raise you, but I've always felt like I wasn't enough. I couldn't be your father no matter how much I taught you to play hopscotch or trace constellations in the sky. I couldn't fill the void you had.
I know you try so desperately to hide the tiniest amount of pain and because of that you hide your emotions too. You're afraid to love because you think love will bring loss and you can't bear it. It's the reason you want to find this girl and never marry someone else if something happened to her. You fear losing things.
I'm dying, Gavin. They say I have a month to live, or less. Do not live your life based off of fear. If you marry this girl and stay faithful to her for life, do it out of love. Not fear. If you do it out of fear, you're a selfish coward. If you do it out of love, you're a noble hero.
I know you fear my death, but please come and see me before I die. You'll regret it if you don't.
I love you,
Your Ole Pop
I wish I could read people like Ella. I wanted to know what she was thinking, but she didn’t tell me. She read the letter, put it back in the envelope, and curled up on my chest until 1:23am. I know because I didn't sleep. I stared at her and the clock, wondering what she thought of me. I knew she loved me, but she signed up for romance, not a mess.
She left that night without saying much. I figured she expected I'd talk when I want
ed to. Or maybe she didn't know what to say.
Days later we went shopping for a wedding dress. She wanted something simple. Something resembling the 1920's. Something that would cost us no more than a hundred beans.
I loved that about her.
Not the money thing. The simplicity. The fact that she could take something old and make it beautiful. Maybe she'd do that with me.
"They say it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride's dress before they marry." She peeked through the dressing room in the back of a dingy vintage shop.
"That must mean you like it."
She stepped out. Her cheeks flushed with pink as she stood on her tippy toes and looked down. Soft, white dress from days gone by draped to her knees, hitting her curves in all the right places. "You like?"
Words, tangled up in knots, stayed in my heart and never made it to my mouth. Not like it mattered. Ella and I spoke best when we didn't use words. Our eyes could say so much more. So I used my eyes to show her how I felt. She blushed even more, then slid behind the door and laughed.
I bought the dress for her and we stepped outside. Cold city air stung our noses. I inhaled. Fumes from cars mixed with the fresh scent of snow. The grey evening welcomed us. Delicate snow flakes dusted the high buildings and slushy streets, turning every color into a world of white. I buried my nose in my scarf and pulled Ella into me. She wrapped her scarf around her head and nuzzled against my shoulder.
“Where’d we park?” I said through layers of warm fabric.
She looked up and shrugged.
I smiled. “Great.”
A rush of wind blew a newspaper quite a few blocks away. As it flipped and flopped into the frosty air, I kissed my love. Mid-kiss the nice snow flakes turned into freezing rain. She laughed. I probably looked like a frantic homeless man as I wrapped my scarf around my face, looked back and forth, and bolted toward wherever I thought I had parked.
Ella’s hand in mine, we ran through the city looking for my car. I saw it a few blocks over and across the street. She could barely keep up because of her laughter, so I picked her up and carried her in my arms as I ran full-speed across the street and, why yes, like any prince charming would, I slipped on the curb. We fell in a puddle of mud, sleet, and snow. Ella’s dress flew out of the bag and into the middle of the street. A cab swished by, splashing the dress with specks of brown and grey.
I ran and picked it up, then jogged back to Ella and slipped again, this time landing on my back because I didn’t want to ruin the dress even more.
“Stop laughing,” I said, trying not to laugh myself. “I hate the cold. I’d rather sit in a stove and burn to death than be outside in this.”
Bent over in tears and laughter, she grabbed my scarf and pulled me to her. “Kiss me, Gavin Kessler. I’ll warm you up.”
“Sounds romantic, but let’s get to the car first, turn the heat on, and then get to that part.”
She smiled. “You really don’t like the cold, huh?”
By the time she finished her sentence I already had her and her dress safe in the car. I carefully walked to my side, probably looking somewhat like a penguin because I did not want to fall again and end up with more wet, cold slop on my pants.
I turned on the car. Ella’s dress flew to the backseat. Her lips landed on mine. The local indie station played a folk song as I let her kiss warm me. Better than hot chocolate. Hands down.
She stopped kissing me. Looked at the radio. Back to me.
“Did you hear that?” she said.
“Hear what?”
“That news snippet. I think they said Mwenye.”
I tugged on her collar. “About that kiss….”
She sat in her seat, eyes turned serious. “I think they just said Mwenye is in jail for murder.”
Chapter Six
We parked around the block from Tylissa’s house. She told us to climb the fence out back so the reporters wouldn’t catch us. Last thing I wanted was to be on television with Harold Kessler roaming Pennsylvania, so I obliged. Albeit a nervous wreck. I’m an artist, not a sporty guy. I’m not ripped and I can’t throw a football to save my life. Climbing six-foot fences did not appeal to me. Especially with freezing rain blowing in my face.
But all for the sake of love, I did it.
We climbed over and dropped to the ground. I’m not gonna lie, my ankle seared with pain like you wouldn’t believe. I limped after Ella and followed her inside the back door.
Tylissa greeted us, face swollen, eyes red. I sat on the ground by the door, pulled one shoe off, and unlaced and slowly lifted the other off. I wiggled a toe and jerked. Okay, so I’m a wimp. I get that. Most women want the big hero with a six-pack to lift them up and carry them into a passionate embrace. Then there’s me. Wincing on the floor over what I hoped to be a sprained ankle and not a broken one.
Ella and Tylissa sat at the kitchen table completely oblivious of me. I hopped over and took a seat. Ella noticed. I motioned for her to sit down and worry about Tylissa instead. She hesitated, then tuned back in to her friend.
“I know he didn’t do it,” she said, anger hiding behind her clenched teeth. Her shoulders loosened, fell a few inches. “But he won’t say that.”
“I don’t understand,” Ella said.
“I wish I could tell you.”
“Why can’t you?”
“He won’t let me.”
Ella rubbed her chin and looked across the table toward me. I shrugged. She urged me to speak. I shrugged again, then mouthed, “What do I say?”
She shrugged. I shook my head and laughed inside.
“Tylissa,” I said. “I’ve met Mwenye a few times now. I have no doubt that he’s innocent, but why can’t you tell others? If you know why or how this happened, you need to speak up. This could mean life or death for him. On the news they said they are considering death penalty because of the gruesome nature of the crime.”
She wiped a tear from her face, and another, and another.
“I know you don’t want that for him. If you can prove his innocence then you need to.”
“I can’t.” Her sobs shook her body until she collapsed on the floor.
Almost immediately a baby cry echoed down the stairs. Ella jogged up the steps and out of sight, leaving me with the heartbroken woman curled up on the kitchen tile. I sat there, helpless, waiting for her to stop crying or for Ella to come downstairs. Didn’t know what to do.
Ella walked back into the room, babyless, and sat on her knees next to Tylissa. No words. Just rubbed her back and waited.
The baby cried again.
Ella stood. "Could you come with me a second?"
She led me upstairs to a bedroom. "Make yourself at home in this room. I'm going to sleep with the baby and get Tylissa into her bed."
"This is crazy, Ella. You do realize that this is the worst school shooting in our history? It's one thing to walk into a high school, but to kill a bunch of students in a school for disabled children is quite a few clicks worse. And it wasn't a few kids either. According to the news seventy-something kids were reported dead on the scene and 41 were seriously injured."
She nodded. "I can't believe it. Mwenye has such a sweet spirit."
"How did they get him? And why would he admit he's guilty if he's not? This isn't a game. He'll be on death row before we are married."
"I don't know. Maybe that's the media's spin on it. Let's wait until tomorrow."
I peeked out the window. Lights and cameras all over the place. Still.
Ella walked to the baby's room, then turned and came back to me. "Almost forgot." She kissed me. "Goodnight."
"Night, love."
She walked away and said over her shoulder, "Ankle okay?"
I looked down. Forgot. "I guess it was just one of those weird ankle twist things."
I helped Tylissa find an attorney as Ella made fried eggs over English muffins, topped with tomatoes, fresh basil, and balsamic vinaigrette, with a side of her amazing crispy potatoes a
nd onions. Steam hovered as she set three plates on the kitchen table and sat down with us.
"Will I be able to afford this?" Tylissa asked, switching her baby from one hip to the other and picking up her fork.
"It is expensive, but this is your husband's life," I said.
She caught a single tear in her sleeve. "But he will plead guilty." Her head shook and more tears dropped. "We were upstairs when they busted the door in. Just about to go to bed. I thought it was a robber. He pulled my face to his, kissed me, and told me to get a public defender, not an attorney, and let him do what he needed to do. I didn't even know what a public defender was. None of it made sense. Ten minutes after they took him I held the baby in the bedroom. I couldn't cry. I couldn't feel anything. I honestly had no idea what had happened until I started processing his last words to me."
"Can you explain to us what happened?" I said, taking a bite of Ella's deliciousness.
She put her pinky in her daughter's mouth and tried to catch her breath. "He made me promise I'd never tell anyone."
"But he will probably end up on death row."
"I know," she said. "I've known this for a long time."
"And you're okay with it?"
Her breathing slowed. "I promised."
Well, I couldn't have understood Tylissa if I tried, so I stopped trying and just listened, completely baffled as to why and how someone would allow their spouse to accept a guilty verdict in a terrible crime they didn't commit. Promises or not, I couldn't bear to watch someone I love die for something they didn't do. Maybe Tylissa valued faithfulness more than life. Or maybe Mwenye valued faithfulness more than his own life and that's why she couldn't break her promise to him. I wanted to understand. No matter how much my brain cells pondered various scenarios, I couldn't understand. Just couldn't.
Down from the Clouds (The Unspoken Series) Page 4