by Shay Savage
“The big question is, how do I get the information to Nate without putting myself right in the middle of everything? Is that even possible?”
I rub my eyes and blow my nose.
“I told him I wanted honesty, but I’m not even being honest with myself.” I reach over and tilt the pot in the sink, letting the water drain from the bottom. “Do you think he’s changed at all? Do you think he’s better now that he’s getting help? Will he keep getting help as long as he needs it, or will he get tired of it and stop? Will the idea of being a father make it better or worse?”
I bite down on my lip. Family is very important to Nate. I’m almost positive he will consider the idea of a baby as a good thing.
I want to see him.
“I have to text him back,” I whisper.
I close my eyes for a moment and then hurriedly grab the phone. I swallow hard as my fingers fly over the keys.
We should talk soon.
I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
“Pull off the bandage, Cherry,” I say aloud. “You can’t leave him in the dark. Best to get it over with.”
The phone vibrates just a moment later.
Nate O.: Yes, please. Anytime. I can call you right now if you want. I’m so, so glad you replied.
I should have realized he’d reply immediately. Though pulling off the bandage fast is always my preferred method for a healing cut, I’m not sure if I’m ready to tell him about the baby right this second.
“Maybe that’s the wrong approach. We have a lot of other things to talk about.”
I steel myself again and type out another message.
Give me about fifteen minutes, then call.
Nate O: Gladly, though it may be the longest 15 min of my life
For the next fifteen minutes, all I do is stare at the phone and wait for it to ring. I’d wanted to get my thoughts together, but suddenly, the time is up. The phone vibrates, and a picture of Nate and me at the Maple Syrup Festival appears on the screen. I reach out and tentatively tap the answer icon.
“Hello.” I barely get the word out.
“Hello, Cherry.” After a brief pause, Nate continues. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
I have to stop myself from automatically echoing the sentiment.
“There’s so much I want to say to you,” he says, “but I want to give you a chance to speak first. I know I…I put you through a lot, and…well, you deserve to be heard first.”
“I appreciate that,” I reply. Just hearing his voice is making my eyes tear up, but I don’t know what to say. As the silence deepens, Nate speaks up again.
“Would you prefer that I go first?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you read my texts? I’ve been getting help—professional help.”
“I read them.”
“It’s been hard, but I think I’ve made a lot of progress. I know I can never apologize to you enough, but I hope you’ll give me the opportunity.”
“You hurt me,” I blurt out.
“I know I did. If I could take it all back, I would. I wasn’t sleeping at all. I didn’t even realize it, but I hadn’t had a decent night of sleep since…well, since Pops died.”
“But you didn’t realize he was dead, did you?”
“No.” I hear him let out a long breath. “I couldn’t let myself believe it, and I guess the circumstances were just right, and I had a bit of a…a breakdown.”
“A bit of a breakdown?”
“Well, all right, I had a major breakdown. It’s hard for me to acknowledge, even now, but that’s what it was. I like to focus on the physical—the fact that the lack of sleep was causing it—but that doesn’t change much.”
“Will you tell me more about your father?” I ask.
“He’s been the topic of a lot of my therapy. What do you want to know?”
“Nora said you didn’t have the best relationship.”
“No, we did not.” Nate lets out a humorless laugh. “All I ever wanted was to earn his approval, but he never gave it to me. I never did anything right, or at least not the way he wanted me to. Micha tried to help and often even took the blame for my screwups, but Pops…well, he never had a kind word to say to anyone, but especially not to me.”
“That sounds painful,” I say quietly. I recall the portrait of the man in Nate’s office, and I can picture him clearly. He didn’t even look like someone who was kind to others.
“He was…he was…” Nate stops and takes a big breath, and I find myself wishing I were there to hold his hand. “He was awful to me. All the time. Nothing I did was ever good enough. It was never enough for him. I was never enough for him. He had Micha; he didn’t need me.”
“And then Micha was gone.”
“Yeah.” I can hear Nate trying to control his breathing before going on. “Once Pops knew I was going to be the head of the family, he got even worse. Any suggestion I made was wrong, and he laid into me about it. He said I was incompetent. He even threatened to disown me and give the family business to Antony.”
“Not to Nora?”
“Pops didn’t exactly value women,” Nate says grimly. “Maybe I shouldn’t bitch too much about him. At least he acknowledged my existence. He barely spoke to Nora. He never even visited her in the hospital after she was kidnapped and raped.”
“Wow.” All this time, I’d been wishing I’d grown up with a father in my life, but now I’m not so sure. I wonder if Roland Ramsay was anything like Carlo Orso. “Would he really have given everything to Antony?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. I think he was ultimately too proud to do something so denigrating to the family’s public appearance. He’d be admitting his son was a fuckup, and that wouldn’t fly with him.”
“Was he always like that?” I ask.
“Oh yes, even when I was a kid. You know how people go on about corporal punishment being wrong and that you shouldn’t spank your kids and shit like that?”
“Yes.”
“I would have taken a spanking. Wouldn’t have batted an eye. When Pops got pissed, he didn’t smack my ass—he belted me in the face. Broke my nose once.”
I gasp, but Nate just keep going.
“Not that he didn’t do the same to Micha—he did—but I got the brunt of it. I was the one always screwing up.”
“You mean, according to your father,” I say. “Maybe you weren’t screwing anything up at all.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. When Micha died—when he was murdered, that is—it was clear that Pops blamed me. I should have been there to protect him, and I wasn’t. With Micha gone, Pops was left with me as the only male of his bloodline to take over the business, and I was the one person he didn’t want in that chair. I thought maybe if I worked hard enough, he would eventually start to trust me, but then…”
“You didn’t get the chance.”
“No, I didn’t.” Nat’s voice cracks a little. “But I did. At least, I thought I did…or thought I was…fuck!” I hear a thud through the phone, but I’m not sure what it is. “No matter how many times I talk about this, it doesn’t get any better. I could have sworn to anyone that he was right there. He was there at…at the funeral, but it was his own funeral. I couldn’t understand…”
“You needed him,” I say softly. “You needed him to be there, and he suddenly wasn’t. It’s no shock that you saw him when you needed to.”
“I was a nut,” Nate says, “a certified lunatic.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“It’s hard to reconcile what I was seeing without bringing up insanity. How could I not be? I thought he was right there—in that office—giving me advice. I should have realized none of it was true because he was too kind. If that isn’t delusional, I don’t know what is.”
“You understand now, right? You know he’s dead.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Do you still see him?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since…since the night y
ou left.” Nate pauses for a moment. “He could come back.”
“Do you think he will?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get inside your head, Nate. How does it feel when you think about it?”
“Terrifying.”
“Terrifying that you will see him again or that you won’t?”
There is another long pause before he answers.
“Both.”
“I think that might give you your answer.” I stare at the phone, wishing I could see Nate’s expression. “He didn’t just praise your actions. He also gave you a lot of bad advice.”
“I know,” Nate mutters.
“He told you not to trust me.”
“He did.”
“But it wasn’t him, was it? It was you telling yourself not to trust me. You told yourself to interrogate me. You hurt me, Nate—mentally and physically.”
“I know I did,” he whispers. “I’m not sure if I can ever forgive myself for that, but I hope you can.”
“I’m just trying to understand right now.” I know what he wants me to say, but I’m not there—not yet. “Talking about it helps.”
“I’m so glad you’re willing to talk to me again,” Nate says softly. “I’ve wanted to tell you all of this for so long. I know I kept texting you, and I’m sorry for that, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to tell you. I kept talking to Nora, but every time she said something, I kept wondering what you would have said instead.”
“She’s very supportive of you,” I reply.
“She is. It isn’t always what I need.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I can’t always trust those around me to give me the truth. Sometimes they just tell me what they think I want to hear.”
“That doesn’t sound like Nora.”
“She’s better than the others, but she’s also very good at avoidance. When we disagree, she just throws something at me and walks out.”
“That’s not so helpful.”
“No, it isn’t, but it’s how we’ve always been. It’s difficult trying to…to change myself when everyone around me remains the same.” Nate sighs. “I wanted to tell you because I think you’ll be straight with me but also do it in a…a nice way. Does that make sense?”
“We’re back to my kindness curse.”
“Full circle,” Nate says with a chuckle. “I remember when you told me about that. It’s not a behavior I had thought about before you, but once you brought it up, I realized it happens all the time.”
“I’m sure it does.” I lick my lips and pace the living room. “How is your family?”
We spend a few minutes just chatting, and I finally start to relax a little with the surprisingly easy conversation. The whole reason for my call is temporarily forgotten as I begin to regret not being there to meet Antony’s daughter when she visited or to see the new sports car Twos bought.
Eventually, we seem to run out of general updates and small talk, and an awkward silence looms between us before Nate finally speaks.
“I miss you so fucking much.”
“I miss you too.” Tears start to roll down my cheeks.
“Can I come and see you, Cherry? I feel like this conversation would be so much better in person.”
“I…I don’t know.” I bite my lip—hard. I want him to come. It would certainly be better to tell him about the baby face-to-face rather than on the phone, but really, I just desperately want to see him. I’m also terrified by the very idea.
“It could be a quick visit, just a day or two… Fuck! I’m pressuring you. I didn’t want to pressure you, but I want to see you so bad. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”
“It’s okay,” I say automatically.
“There you go again.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sigh and wipe my checks with the back of my hand. “I’ve been in a fog since I got back here, and I think you have probably done a much better job of dealing with what happened than what I’ve been doing.”
“Are you…are you all right, Cherry? I should have asked that in the very beginning. I mean, I’m sure it’s been hard, but…”
“No, Nate. I’m not all right.” I break down in choking sobs.
“Oh, Cherry, baby…”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry,” he says softly. “I wish I was there to hug you. Is there anyone there you can talk to?”
“Not really. Not about this.”
“Can I come see you?” he whispers. “Please, Cherry. Please let me be there for you.”
And there it is, the question I’ve been dreading, the question I’ve been yearning for too. What do I tell him? Has he suffered enough? Now that I know about his father, does he deserve to suffer at all? Do I need to prolong this agony, either his or mine? Do I love him enough to hear him out?
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank you God.” Nate let’s out a shuddering breath. “I’ll get Reid’s buddy to fly me. Is there an airport nearby?”
“Well, yes, a small one. You’re going to fly?”
“I couldn’t possibly wait as long as it would take to drive there. In a plane, I can be there by early afternoon. Can you pick me up?”
“Yes.” I can’t believe this is happening. “I can be there.”
I quickly look up the airport information and relay it to him.
“I’ll text you with an ETA as soon as we’re ready for takeoff.”
*****
I sit in the car as the temperature starts to drop, heart pounding and palms sweating despite the cold. A small plane has just landed at the county airport, and I can only assume it’s Nate’s. It travels down the small runway and stops. A man I don’t recognize jumps out of the left side of the cockpit, and I wonder if it isn’t Nate’s plane after all.
Then I see him.
He comes around from the other side of the plane, an overnight bag gripped in his hand, and looks around until he sees my car. He says something to the pilot and starts to walk towards me quickly.
Without hesitation, I open the car door and rush to him. He drops his bag and his arms close around me. I press my cheek to his chest and absorb his warmth as he tightens his grip around me, his lips pressed to the top of my head. It feels so right. So perfect.
“I missed you so much,” he says. “I’ve been a wreck just thinking about you.”
“I’m sorry,” I reply, not loosening my grip at all.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “I’m the idiot.”
“I shouldn’t have just ignored you.”
“I deserved it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, allowing myself to just feel him around me again and wondering why I waited so long to talk to him. Fear? Stubbornness? It doesn’t matter anymore. I take a deep breath and relax my hold on him.
“Don’t pull away.” Nate speaks softly, but I can hear the emotion in his voice. “Please don’t pull away from me.”
“I didn’t mean to…” I shake my head. “I didn’t expect to be so…overcome.”
It’s the hormones.
“I knew I would be,” he says. “I’m glad you made the first move. I was trying to figure out how I was going to restrain myself.” He runs his thumb over my cheek and leans in slightly, stopping just short of our lips meeting.
I grab the back of his head and press my lips to his. I feel his tongue in my mouth as he groans, wrapping his arms back around my waist and holding me tightly. I finally break away, breathless.
We stand there, staring into each other’s eyes as a few flurries swirl around us. Nate runs his hand over my cheek again and shivers.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Nate says. “Maybe we should at least get in the car? Maybe go get something to eat?”
“Um…” I glance at Nate and then back at the car. I am a little hungry for the first time all day, but the last thing I want to do is take him to a restaurant where everyone will know me and ask about him.
“
What’s wrong?”
“Let’s get in the car.”
“All right.” He gives me a look but then gets in the car after placing his bag in the trunk. “How far is it to your house?”
“Half an hour.”
“So, are you hungry or not?”
“Let’s just find something at my place.” I start the car and pull out onto the main road to head back to Accident.
“What is it?” Nate asks. “You don’t want to be seen with me?”
“Um…well, it’s not exactly that.” I let out a long sigh. “I’m just not ready for people’s questions.”
“Would you know people at the restaurants around here?”
“I pretty much know everyone who lives in Accident.”
“Really? How many people live here?”
“Um, a little more than three hundred, I think.”
“Wow. I thought Cascade Falls was a small town.”
“Cascade Falls is a thriving, gangster-run metropolis,” I reply, and Nate laughs briefly, then glances at me nervously.
“I guess I shouldn’t laugh,” he says. “I’m not really sure how you feel about all of that.”
“It’s not like I was shocked to hear it from you,” I say. “I’d already figured out some of it. That stuff with your father though…that was a bit much.”
“I’m not even sure what to say,” Nate whispers. “Even knowing what caused it, I feel like an idiot—a crazy idiot. I think…I think I always knew he was gone, but I just couldn’t quite accept it. I wasn’t ready to lead this family. I’m still not ready.”
“Everyone else seems to think you are.”
“They don’t have a lot of choice.”
“Really? Are you sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” Nate asks.
“Do you really think your sister would let you run the family if she thought you weren’t capable of it? I hardly see Nora as someone who would just sit back and let you screw everything up.”
“No, she really wouldn’t.”
“Then maybe you aren’t giving yourself enough credit.”
“Maybe.” Nate sighs and looks at me intently. “Do you think less of me now, Cherry? Do you hate me for what I do, what my family does?”
“No. Maybe if you did those other things—drugs and whatever.” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d feel about that. I don’t know if I could live with that.”