After a moment and then two, Victoria speaks slowly in a low voice that barely contains her rage. “Are you that stupid Callum? Are you truly that fucking stupid?”
She repeats herself and he knows she is just trying to hurt him.
He doesn’t bother answering, just swirls his knife, creating a beautiful night sky, only he can see.
“You need to go Callum. Now. We are through.” She says it low and quiet, but clear and sure. He can see she is trying hard to restrain her volume.
“No.” He says simply.
“No?” she asks like she is talking to a poorly behaved three year old. “Did you just say no to me?”
“I’m not leaving. I made a promise to George and I won’t break it.” Callum almost smiles at the thought of George’s theatrics, but now is not a time for smiling.
“You have Daddy issues Callum. That is on you, don’t put it on us. I can take care of my own father. I’m sorry your father died, but I don’t really give a flying fuck right now. Get the hell out.”
She might be right, Daddy issues are a possibility, but he loves her. He knows he is impulsive and immature and vain, but he fucking loves her. He isn’t going to Osprey Island. He isn’t moving downtown. He is staying right here and fighting for her.
He takes her hand and looks into her eyes. Amazingly, she lets him, probably more out of shock than conciliation. “I did say no. What I did may have been wrong, but I did it for all the right reasons and I think you will come to see that one day. Look Victoria, I may have Daddy issues, but you have pretty severe commitment issues. I’ll fight for you Victoria. I’m not going to England to face my ex. I’m not going to have a reunion with Jeremy. That part of my life is over. My life is here now with you and Marina and your father. You all are my life now. Love me or don’t. I’m here to stay.”
He gets up to join the others by the TV. She can work through her anger on the dishes.
After the house is quiet, Victoria tiptoes across the hall to her childhood bedroom for the first time since her arrival back in Asheville. She ignores the sliver of light under Callum’s door. With her hand on the door knob she decides to make this quick. Just get in, get what she needs and get out. No drama. No laying across the bed soaking her pillow with tears. She doesn’t have time for that nonsense.
The checkered lilac quilt immediately takes her back to lying on the bed with her Momma reading her goodnight stories, even years after she could read on her own. She closes her eyes to remember the smell of her mother’s red hair and the feel of her smooth check lying close to Victoria’s own. Her eyes grow wet despite her intentions. She almost changes her mind about this and takes a few steps, backing up to close the door. But she doesn’t. She walks across the room and slides the closet open, reaching up high on the top shelf in the back for a metal lockbox. Without a look back, she closes the door behind her silently.
The floor is cold under her feet when she taps on Callum’s door quietly. He doesn’t answer with words, just opens the door enough to see what she wants. The fire cracks behind him. His beard has filled in and he keeps it trimmed neat. He has been working out and looks beautiful and strong. For a moment, she ignores his commitment to her father and daughter. This is just about the two of them. His eyes hold her gaze waiting silently for her to speak. All he wants is her love. Of course he has it, but she can’t rely on it. This is a man she could spend her life with, but how long will that commitment last for Callum?
“Talk?” she asks.
“Are you throwing me out again?” he asks back.
“We’ll see.”
“Fair enough,” He opens the door wide and she sits on the bed with legs crossed under her. She holds the box in her lap with her hands flat on top. A burning log shifts in the fire spreading orange sparks.
“Why did Christopher come here, to my damn house? What did you do Callum?”
“I left my wallet on the table at Early Girl. I knew he’d come,” he starts.
“You said you were going to work out with them, not be drinking beers and hanging out. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“You weren’t ready to change your opinion of him. You weren’t ready to hear any of it.”
“Are you friends with him?” she asks.
He holds her gaze while considering her question until finally, he speaks reluctantly, but honestly. “I didn’t mean to be, but I am.”
“But why would you do that Callum? It is such a betrayal.” Her eyes beg him to understand the simplicity of this equation.
“You can’t keep Marina from those children. You can’t. It is just that simple.” His eyes beg her to understand the simplicity of this equation. “Those children are her brother and sister. What Christopher did to you was monstrous, unforgivable, but Marina mustn’t be kept from them. Finding a sister at thirty…”
“Callum, Marina isn’t you and that child…” Victoria struggles for her name.
“Jessie. Jessie is Marina’s sister,” Callum whispers.
“I don’t care what her name is, but she isn’t Anna. Marina is my daughter and, as her parent, I can do whatever the hell I want to.”
He shakes his head at her words. “No Victoria. This is wrong.”
“You are a moron, Callum.”
His incredulity at her word choice is obvious and satisfying.
“Really?” he asks. “I let the stupid go downstairs, but did you really just call me a moron?”
She shrugs, maybe a little ashamed, but standing by her words.
“Out with you. Time for bed.” He opens the door for her to go, but she leaves the box.
“Take your little sex toy box with you. I’m not in the mood to play with you tonight.” He whispers as she passes.
“You are an absolute fucking moron,” she says. “The combination is 1-2-3-4. I know, brilliant.”
When she gets back to her room, she climbs into bed and cries the tears she saves for times when she is alone and sure no one is looking. She cries for her mother. She cries for her daughter and the sister and brother she will never know. She cries for her father who is dying. Lastly, she cries for Callum because she thought there was something there, but she was wrong.
Callum opens the cabinet and pours himself a bourbon, a tall one. He drinks it down quickly before taking the box to the desk and using the given combination. Inside is a lot of fabric. Callum holds it up and shakes it out. The dress smells musty and old. It has been balled up in the tiny box for a long time. The wrinkles seem permanent. Smooth, delicate lilac is wrapped around some type of netting. Tulle perhaps? The netting is covered in brown stains. It takes Callum a moment to realize it is blood. The back of the dress is streaked in green. Grass stains? This is the dress Victoria wore the night she was raped. The night Marina was conceived.
He has a quick thought about dresses and past presidential events and realizes the power in the tangible. Words are one thing, holding it in your hands is another thing entirely. Callum’s first instinct is to toss it into the fire, but he doesn’t.
Callum folds the dress in half at the waist and then in half again. He folds in the sides and rolls it with the expertise he would roll a roast or a strudel. He tucks the dress back into the lock box and sets it in his bottom desk drawer. Callum considers crossing the hall to Victoria, but he has no idea what to say to her. Maybe he is a moron after all.
The next morning, Callum finds George at the dining room table. Marina and Victoria are nowhere in sight.
“Morning Callum. How’d you sleep?” George asks, chipper for a dying man who was lying on the floor last night.
“Shitty, thanks to you. After your antics I was up half the night.”
“Antics? What antics?”
“George you are a lot of things, but you are no actor.” Callum pours himself a coffee, refills George’s cup and joins George at the table.
“I take offense at that statement. I had the lead in my school play in third grade. I was a hell of an Oliver. Please sir, ca
n I have some more. Did Victoria know?”
Callum lays the back of his hand over his forehead and uses a terrible, female, southern accent. “That you were faking a spell? No, she had no idea.”
They sip their coffee in silence. George shakes the paper to catch the fold and begins reading an article. Sparrows fight for their place on the feeder, outside the window.
“What the fuck, George?” Callum asks after a minute.
George lays the paper down with a pat. “I thought it was obvious.”
“Nothing is obvious to me.”
“I know you have been spending time with Christopher. I know you are trying to decide if he is fit to be a part of Marina’s life. I know you aren’t happy with Marina being kept from her brother and sister.”
“And how in the fuck do you know all of this?” Callum asks feeling a little stunned.
“You are a lot of things Callum, but good at hiding how you feel, isn’t one of them.” George smirks over his steaming coffee cup.
“Really? I thought deception was one of my better talents.” Callum is genuinely surprised.
“If it was, you lost it. Maybe you were a better liar in England. The United States is bringing out the shred of integrity you had hiding in there.” George taps an index finger at Callum’s heart. Callum suddenly misses his father. I do have Daddy issues he thinks a little disgusted at himself.
“Callum, I will be gone inside a few months. Are you going to be here when I go?”
“Bullshit George. You look good. I don’t think that timeline is accurate.”
George looks out at the sparrows on the feeder. “I’m not staying around for the bad parts Callum. No one is feeding me or changing my diapers. I don’t want tubes or respirators or hospital food. I’ll go when I am good and ready. I have what I need, when the time is right.”
Callum sets down his mug hard. He hasn’t thought about pulling the plug on his Dad in a long time, but he does remember that day.
“My Dad had an aneurysm. His brain basically exploded when I was at boarding school. He was in a coma for a month, before my mother had to make the horrid decision to let him die. Tubes and respirators and all of that shit. I was thirteen.”
Callum doesn’t tell George how agonizing that decision was. In the end, his mother, mother of the year, decided the boys might blame her for killing their father. She forced them to turn off the machines together. A young hospital nurse tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant and she never lost an argument.
“So you understand what I’m going to do?”
Callum nods “I do.”
“Callum you owe me nothing. If you need to go, go now. But if you are staying, you need to make things right with Victoria. She needs to decide one way or the other what to do about all of this. Marina is too smart to live in this town and not figure things out.”
“Where is Victoria, by the way?”
“She picked up a shift at the hospital. They were short-handed. Be warned, I think Marina has plans for you today.”
“Okay,” Callum says. “But wait. George, why didn’t you say anything? Did I do the wrong thing? She is furious at me.”
George sips his coffee, thoughtfully. “I have been doing the same thing for years.”
Callum is shocked. “Tell me George.”
“I almost killed him for what he did to my daughter. He put his hands on my baby, Callum. That next day, I went over there with a handgun. I sat in the car for three hours with a bottle and a gun, trying to talk myself out of it. In the end, I decided I had to protect Victoria. Revenge would have been right. I don’t doubt for a single second that killing him would have been within my rights as a father. With her mother dead though it wouldn’t have made things better for Victoria. She’d have no one. I didn’t know how to help her, Callum, so I sent her away… to Europe. She thought I was hiding her, ashamed, but I was trying to protect her. When she came back, she told me she was pregnant. I thought we could still get her back to a normal life if she got rid of the…”
George shakes his head and stares off at visions of memories Callum can’t see. “I’m so ashamed of how I handled it. I was wrong in every way a father can be wrong. And I knew this day would come eventually. I tried to be ready for it. For Victoria and Marina. I’m still not sure…”
Callum nods to the stairway to let George know Marina is headed their way. She bounds into the kitchen.
“What’s up buttercup,” George asks rumpling her bedhead.
Marina smiles at her grandfather. “Did you tell him?”
Callum can see the love between them.
“Nope,” George says. “I left that to you.”
“What’s on your mind kid?” Callum asks.
“Since Mom is working and it is Saturday and the weather is good, I had a plan for the day. But, it is a surprise. And it is about an hour away. And then we have to hike about a mile or so.”
“I’m in,” Callum says, happy for a day on the mountain. “Breakfast at Tupelo Honey?”
Marina claps her hands. Tupelo Honey Café has the best bacon in town.
“George, are you up for some breakfast?” Callum asks.
“No thanks, just you two today. I have some papers to get organized. There is a lot to do around here for an old man.”
“Okay then. Hop to it Marina. Out the door in thirty. I’m hungry.”
Marina runs the stairs to dress for their adventure.
“I’m staying George,” Callum says watching after Marina. “I’ll be here for them until the end.”
Two hours later, bellies full of biscuits, gravy, bacon and eggs, Marina navigates and guides Callum through the mountains, neighborhoods and finally into Dupont State Forest. The mountains hold uncountable shades of green as they approach the summer months. They park in a long lot and Callum reads the sign.
“Triple Falls?” he asks.
She nods, sure he won’t know why it is special.
“Is this where they filmed Katniss finding Peeta in the mud in the first Hunger Games movie?”
Marina smiles wide and nods her head.
“This is awesome!”
“How did you know?” she asks.
“I can read on occasion,” he says. “When I learned they filmed outside of Asheville, I was intrigued,” he says.
Marina pulls her backpack from the car. She has a few water bottles, a camera, the book, and something else she wants to talk to Callum about.
“You ready? Want me to carry that?” he asks.
She shakes her head, slides the straps onto her shoulders and their shoes crunch through the graveled lot into the woods. There are few hikers for a Saturday. The trail is well marked and easy to follow. Birdsong fills the air and the sun filters through tall trees. After twenty minutes, they descend downward to the falls, walking the dozen flights of stairs that guide them onto the rocks.
Falling water drapes the enormous stones surrounding them. They are able to walk out into the middle of the falls onto massive dry, flat stones. Water falls on three sides. They speak in loud voices to be heard above the pounding water. They take a few pictures including a selfie to send to Anna. Marina points out where Katniss found Peeta and they watch the video clip on her phone. Finally, they sit on a dry ledge and watch the beauty around them.
Marina tries to decide how to start the conversation she wants to have with Callum. She wants to have it here, just the two of them, with her mother and grandfather far away. After dinner last night, she asked her mom if she could have Jessie over and she said no.
“Callum can we talk?” Marina asks, facing the man who somehow has become an important part of her life.
“Oh no. Sounds serious. Am I in trouble?” he jokes.
“No, but it is serious. I think it is anyway.” She rolls her phone end over end in her hand, delaying the next sentence.
“Come on. Out with it.” He says with a slight shake to his voice.
She knows he knows everything she wants to know
. She also knows he doesn’t want her to know anything her mother doesn’t want her to know. But she needs to know. And she won’t get an answer from her mother. She just knows she won’t.
“George was faking last night. I can’t believe Mom didn’t know.”
Callum laughs out loud, sounding relieved. “Your grandfather is quite something,” Callum admits.
Well at least Callum isn’t lying about that too. “He didn’t want Mom mad at you,” she says and Callum stops laughing.
“Oh Marina, just us men sticking together. We have done a lot of male bonding, George and I. He’s just looking out for the other guy in the house, is all.” He stands up like it is time to go. Marina keeps her seat on the hard stone.
“Callum. It’s all about me, isn’t it?” She pulls his sleeve to guide him back to the seat next to her. “Isn’t it?” she repeats.
“Marina this is a conversation you should be having with your mother. I’d like to help, but I’m a nobody in this. You mom will talk to you,” he says with a surety that she knows he does not feel.
“She lied to me already, Callum. Everything she told me in Memphis was a lie. I know it was. I believed her until we got here Callum, but it just isn’t true. When Jessie came over last night, I knew for sure. I really like her and I asked Mom if she can some over. You know what she said Callum?”
Forever Falling Page 19