by Mia Ford
“You want a ham sandwich?” my mom asked.
“I’d love one,” I said with a smile.
“You know,” she said, turning back to me before walking into the kitchen. “Not everything always seems clear right away. Sometimes things happen in life that take you down a path you never expected, but what will make you shine brighter and become stronger is taking that shift in your paradigm and running with it. Make it as beautiful as you want, and don’t let the past dictate what you do with your future.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said with a nod of my head.
She walked from the room and into the kitchen where I could hear Bella giggling loudly. What she said made perfect sense, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I cared about Lacey, but that didn’t mean that I could just throw caution to the wind and run full speed into her arms. I wanted to make this life beautiful—I did—but I hadn’t quite figured out how to do that yet. I was just starting to reach the other end of grief, and throwing myself into a relationship seemed like a really bad idea.
11
Lacey
It was a really great day of tutoring for Bella, but not so much for the interaction between Caspian and myself. When I was done with tutoring, I let Caspian know I was leaving, and all I got was a nod of his head. He was acting so strangely toward me, and I couldn’t help but think that everything I had hoped for was quickly going down the drain. After Monday’s awesome time together, he became incredibly distant, first letting me go the day before after only an hour, and then barely speaking to me the next. I was confused, not understanding his immediate change in feelings toward me. I tried to run through my actions toward him, making sure I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I couldn’t come up with anything. My heart hurt thinking about it, knowing how things like this ended, and it wasn’t good.
When I left his house, I decided that going home and sulking around the house was probably not the best idea, so I headed over to Aggie’s to grab a late lunch. I had made Bella a sandwich earlier since Caspian didn’t seem interested in having lunch with the two of us. I was so upset about the way he was acting toward me that I wasn’t hungry. When I got to Aggie’s, it was pretty busy, and I stood in line, oblivious to what was going on around me. I ordered my lunch and walked over to the side to fix my coffee. As I made my way to a booth in the back, I was stopped by a familiar voice.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Betty said with a smile.
“Mrs. Hart.” I smiled.
“Please, call me Betty,” she said, shaking her head. “Sit down. Have lunch with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, laughing at her strong personality. “How is your day?”
“It’s good, dealing with the nosey townspeople as usual.” She laughed. “Are you done with tutoring for the day?”
“Yeah, Bella did really great.” I smiled. “I am constantly blown away with how smart Bella is. She just gets everything I throw at her. If she doesn’t understand something, she gets super serious and forces herself to figure it out, even when she isn’t in tutoring. It’s really something.”
“She gets that from her mother, stubborn and determined,” she said, smiling. “Don’t you usually eat lunch with them?”
“I do, but Caspian seemed, um, a bit distracted today,” I replied, looking down at my sandwich.
“How are things with Caspian?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Come on now, I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.” She laughed. “I know my son better than anyone, and I know when he has a thing for a woman. He definitely has a thing for you. You guys really got along great at the beach, and the way he talked about you and to you, well, it reminded me of Caspian before life took a toll on him. It’s written all over his face how he feels about you, even when he is being stubborn and overthinking everything.”
I could feel the heat in my cheeks, and I knew that I was blushing hard in front of Betty. She was a very perceptive woman, and she was right on the money about Caspian having a thing for me. It was hard not to talk to her about it. She was one of the only people I knew in Blue Hill, and on top of that, she knew Caspian better than I did. She was the perfect person to help me understand what exactly was going on with him, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell her what had been going on. What if Caspian found out I was talking to his mother? He would probably be furious, and I didn’t blame him for that at all. Still, sitting there, feeling my chest swelling and my heart aching, I had to talk to someone.
“Okay, look, there is something going on, but please don’t repeat any of this to Caspian. If he knew I was talking to his mother about personal stuff, he would definitely fire me and even worse, probably never speak to me again.”
“My lips are sealed,” she replied.
“Something did, or has, happened between Caspian and me,” I said shyly. “It wasn’t planned or even expected, but it was like we were drawn to each other. Everything seemed perfect, comfortable, and oddly right. There wasn’t that normal anxiety or fear, and we just kind of melded together naturally. It was the first time in my life that something happened like that so organically, and it was instantly like we had known each other our entire lives. He seemed like it was something he wanted, something that made him smile in a way I hadn’t seen, and it flowed over to Bella, too, who I love to death. She stole my heart in the first thirty seconds.”
“And then Caspian stole your heart after,” she said kindly.
“Yeah,” I said, looking down. “He did. Watching him sing Frozen songs, pinky promises, eskimo kisses with Bella, and the tone of voice that he talked to me stole my heart right out from under me. I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t see it coming, but I was really happy when it happened.”
“So, what has changed?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “Two days ago, we had burgers on the porch, we laughed, talked, played with Bella, and when she fell asleep on the couch, we sat out on the deck relaxing to the sound of the ocean. I left that evening, and it was perfect. By the time I got back the next day, though, he was distant. He went for a walk while I was tutoring Bella, and when he got home, he let me go for the day after only an hour. He said it was a treat for Bella for doing so well, but his demeanor toward me had changed. Then today, he didn’t eat lunch with us, and he barely spoke to me at all when I left. It is seriously like some kind of switch went off inside of him as quickly as it had initially been turned on. So here I am, moping around, sitting in a café with his mom, talking about my love life, or lack thereof.”
“Lacey, do you know what happened to Bella’s mother?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen all the pictures in the house, but no one ever talks about her. Bella hasn’t said a word, and when I’ve asked Caspian about it, he has told me he didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to give him his privacy and not push him to tell me something that he obviously was not ready to tell me. Whatever it is, it seems like it really bothers him, and part of me wonders if whatever happened there is the reason he is pushing me away like he is.”
“Personally, I think that you deserve to know,” she said. “However, at the same time, it is not my place to share that information with you. Caspian needs to be the one to tell you what happened to Isabella.”
“Isabella is her name? Is that where Bella came from?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “They named Bella after her mother. It wasn’t something I had seen happen before, but now, I am really glad that they made the decision to do so. Look, there is a lot of history that Caspian holds very close to his heart. He is a man that has witnessed tragedy. He has felt the pain of losing the love of his life and mother of his daughter in one way or another, and he has had to adjust to changes that most people wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to handle. And at the end of all of that, comes you, this beautiful, kind woman that is open and ready to be there for him. It’s hard for him to see that. Patience is the name of the game in this situation. I promise you that if
you give him time, he will start to come around. If he has been seeing you like this, his head will be swimming with all kinds of questions that only he can answer for himself. I wish that I could tell you more to help, but this is something you and him will have to discuss further. Just know that whatever he felt for you last week didn’t just disappear. It’s still there. He just has to understand what it is that he is feeling and let himself off the hook.”
Listening to Betty made everything a bit confusing because I was missing a very vital part of the story: what happened to Bella’s mother. It made everything seem so cryptic, but I still felt a little bit better than when I arrived. Knowing that he still felt the same way toward me that he did a few days ago gave me hope that I could be there for him and eventually get us back to that loving and fun man I knew was still in there.
Betty gave me a huge hug before I left, and I jumped in my car and headed back to the house. I grabbed a quilt out of the cabinet and went out onto the beach where the peace and calm of the ocean would help me think. If Betty thought I should keep trying, then I trusted her judgment. She knew Caspian better than anyone else did. I wanted to find out what happened to Isabella, where she was, and why he was suffering so strongly about that part of his life. I didn’t want to know just to know or to figure out a way to work around it. I wanted to know so that I could help him heal from whatever break was in his heart.
It was obvious that he cared about me. I was going to let myself have that one, but whatever was standing in his way of keeping me close was really hard to understand. I had become determined to figure out why he wouldn’t talk to be about Bella’s mom. The truth was, I didn’t know Caspian that well. I had only just met him a couple weeks before, but I wanted to know him well enough that he could learn to confide in me, lean on me, and come to me with anything in the world. It would be a challenge, and the simpler thing to do would be to just let it fizzle out and focus on Bella, but simple was not always what was best. My grandfather taught me that at a young age. Sometimes, you have to fight for what you want, especially when you know that the other person wants it too, even if they have other things standing in the way.
I didn’t fight so hard to have a life, to move out here away from the city to find myself, just to throw away the only thing I’ve ever felt so strongly about. My grandparents would be disappointed if I didn’t continue to follow my dreams, and those dreams now included Caspian. I didn’t know if in the end we would work or not—who could know that?—but I did know there was enough between us that I wanted the chance to find that out. I didn’t want to be pushed to the side and forced to let go of something that made life really beautiful, and that was love.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting right there on the beach, thinking of ways to get Caspian to open up to me. The sea air was almost healing me in a way, giving me the strength to push past my anxiety and go after what I wanted. Going with the flow only worked when you got what you were looking for. This was going to call for a bit more energy.
12
Caspian
It was only eleven in the morning, and the day seemed like it was creeping by. I was still stuck in my head, feeling myself pushing Lacey further and further away. There was a wall being constructed very quickly around my heart, and although part of me was doing it to protect Lacey from the stress of a relationship with a widower, a lot of it was to protect my own heart. Keeping Lacey at arm’s length would ensure that Bella didn’t get attached in a way that would hurt her when Lacey eventually left to teach at a school. It would also keep me from getting hurt, something that I didn’t think I could take after everything that happened with Isabella. There was pain and guilt inside of me that Lacey would never be able to understand, and I knew it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask her to live with it.
I was shaken from my thoughts when I heard the knock on the front door. It would be Lacey, arriving to start tutoring Bella for the day. I had decided that I wasn’t going to pursue something with Lacey, but at the same time, I needed to be a little less standoffish. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and I didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had. That wasn’t fair. I knew that it was incredibly confusing to her, but I couldn’t find the courage to tell her what was really going on. I had some really strong feelings for her—that part hadn’t left me at all—and I feared that if she tried to comfort me, to bring me past all of this, I would just melt into her arms. Getting out of another situation like that would be very difficult, and I needed to shield all of us from that.
“Hey,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Hey there,” she said, looking less upset than the day before. “How has your morning been?”
“It’s been good,” I said, following her into the kitchen. “Bella had a good nap. She is raring and ready to go for tutoring today, and the sun is shining. What more could I ask for?”
“How about a hot meal tonight?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I wanted to know if I could cook you and Bella dinner tonight after tutoring was over?”
“That would be so awesome,” Bella said, coming out of her room.
I had to admit, putting me in a position where I wasn’t sure how to say no and letting Bella hear irritated me a little bit. I tried not to be upset, though. The signals I had been giving Lacey weren’t exactly clear or fair in any way. Still, now I almost felt obligated to say yes because Bella looked so excited. I wrestled with it in my brain for a little while, trying to find the right words.
“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my hands through my hair.
“Why not?” Lacey smiled and put her hands on her hips.
I stood there staring at her for several moments, not sure how to answer. I ran through a million different excuses, but they were all transparent, and I didn’t have an actual reason to say no. On top of that, the way she was standing there staring at me with a coy smile was absolutely adorable, and the irritation I had felt just a moment before completely drained out of me. I didn’t know how Lacey did it, but she had an incredible way of making me want to tell her yes to everything. I wanted to give her anything she wanted in that moment, like I was under some sort of spell. I glanced down at Bella, who was mimicking Lacey’s stance. I smiled and shook my head with a deep sigh.
“What will you be cooking?” I asked.
“Yay,” Bella yelled with her hands in the air.
“Spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread,” Lacey said in a triumphant tone.
“That’s my favorite,” I said sweetly with a warm genuine smile.
“Mine too!” Bella yelled, jumping up and down.
“That makes three of us,” Lacey said, bending down to Bella. “Are you ready to learn some new stuff? I decided to make today all about space day!”
“Did you know that Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?” she asked, making us chuckle.
“I did know that,” Lacey said. “How did you?”
“I heard it on one of Daddy’s space shows,” she said confidently.
“Poor Pluto,” I said laughing.
“I know, right?” Lacey looked up at me. “Alright, let’s get to work so that later on, we can enjoy some killer spaghetti and relax!”
I watched as the two of them made their way down the hall and to the office. I didn’t know what Lacey had done to me, but it was really hard to keep my resolve around her. I felt so sure and determined in my choices, then I looked her in the eye and I just completely and totally melted. She wanted to cook us dinner, and I could have come up with a million excuses, but I didn’t, and I thought that was because deep down inside, I wanted to have dinner with her again. I wanted dinner to turn into a movie and a movie to turn into alone time with Lacey. No matter how resolved I thought I was, apparently it was no match for the kind of feelings I had for her, and that was a problem I wasn’t in the mood to solve. Instead, I just decided to get some work done and wait for the dinner with her and my daughter.
After about tw
o hours of tutoring, it was lunch time, and I pulled out some mac and cheese and hot dogs for us. When Lacey rounded the corner, though, she had her purse over her arm and her keys in her hand. Obviously, she had something else on her mind.
“Hey, I’m going to run out to the store as fast as I can to grab the supplies to make dinner tonight.”
“Don’t worry about going crazy. I heard the lessons today. Bella learned a ton.” I smiled. “Take your time, and we will see you in a little while.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, her shoulders easing. “You are going to love the spaghetti tonight. It is pretty much amazing.”
“I am already looking forward to it.” I chuckled.
I watched as she left, feeling a tingle in my chest. She made me happy, even when I was trying my hardest to not let her do so. I finished up lunch and brought Bella to the table, eating and listening to her talk about all the things she learned about space. Lacey was right. My little girl was incredibly intelligent, and she was capable of putting what she learned from Lacey together with what she learned from the space shows, and it actually made sense to her. It was like you were handing her the missing link, and she was crazy excited about it.
When lunch was done, we cleaned up and took a walk on the beach, trying to keep Bella from crashing. I knew she was still trying to get past the whole two naps a day thing, and Lacey was still gone. Hopefully when she got back, Bella would perk up and maybe help her cook dinner or something.
“Look at those tiny little specks out there,” I said, pointing out the white dots in the distance. “Those are very large ships heading either out to sea or in to port.”
“Why do they look so small?”
“Good question my little genius,” I said, standing up. “It is called the visual angle. It is how our eyes work. The farther away something is, the smaller it appears to us.”