Insipid

by Christine Brae

  “I know, Jadey. I know. And I’m so sorry for the way I acted towards him before.” She starts to cry. “He would have been such a good father to her.”

  “Don’t cry, Mama. Twenty years is too long for this ruse to continue. I want Chris to regain his spirit. I want Joshua to find his happiness. I want to clean up this tangled mess so we can all live what’s left of our lives in peace.”

  “It’s time to add some color into your life. The brightness of your eyes doesn’t match the sadness in your soul. When you were born, I wanted to name you Jade because all I could see were those big green eyes from where I was on the hospital bed as they took you away to clean you up. And your dad. Do you know why he agreed with your name? Because he said that Jade also means tranquility. Years later, he told me that your presence in his life gave him the serenity he longed for at the end of every struggle he went through, moving to this country, trying to make a name for himself…” She daintily dabs her eyes with a tissue. “You are our peace.”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  She straightens up and looks at me pointedly. “What does this mean for you and Chris?”

  “I don’t know yet. These past few months… this self-destructive behavior… no one can stop the cycle but me. I alienated my husband and hurt him, I risked my job and career, I disregarded my health and well-being.” I laugh half-heartedly. “Cia wouldn’t be very happy about this right now.”

  “She would tell you off and cuss you out,” my mother agrees.

  “I’m so sorry I disappointed you, Mama!” I cry, seeking penitence for the past twenty years. “Not just for what has happened in the last two years, after Cia, but for luring you into believing that everything was fine with my life.”

  “Oh, Jade. I only wish that I knew how you were feeling. I would have been there for you. You’re my daughter, and I love you. You have never ever done anything to let us down. You have always made being your parents such a privilege for us.”

  “Thank you.” I shake my head slightly, knowing that nothing more needs to be said. I need to accomplish what I came here to do. I allow her to cuddle me for a few minutes before kissing her forehead and getting ready to leave.

  “Go,” she encourages me. “Take whatever car you want. I’ll let your father know that you’ll be out for the evening.”

  THE GPS ON my mother’s car leads me to a newer neighborhood called Crescent Park in Palo Alto. I drive cautiously, looking from side to side to find the house number that’s scribbled on a Post-it note. I find myself parking in front of a simple yellow brick home. Its rather new exterior boasts bay windows and a wrap-around balcony on the second floor. As I make my way up the brick-paved driveway, I admonish myself for showing up at his house unannounced. The neatly manicured front yard and the tidily planted flowers immediately give me the indication that he’s not living here alone. It’s spring, after all, people do that with their yards.

  I stop in my tracks for a few seconds, deciding what to do. And as I turn around to run back to my car, he opens the door. He looks the same as the day I left him. Shirtless. Jeans. No shoes. In my mind and in reality, he will always be the only boy I ever loved.

  “Jae?”

  I turn back towards him, feeling displaced and unsure of myself. “Chris, I—”

  He flings the door open and runs towards me, scooping me up in his arms and lifting me up from the bottom. I wrap my arms around him and allow him to carry me inside. He doesn’t hesitate as he kicks the door shut and carries me upstairs. I’m still wrapped in his arms as he settles me at the edge of his bed and kneels in front of me, holding my face in his hands. He kisses me slowly, cautiously, waiting for me to respond. “Jade.” He starts to unbutton my dress, but his impatience has him ripping it open with his bare hands. I don’t say a word as he cups my breasts and pulls my bra upwards so his mouth can touch my skin.

  “Jade.” He says my name again as he lifts me up to pull the dress over my head. He pushes me down on the bed and in a few seconds, I am naked underneath him.

  I can feel his love through his lips. Right then, I make a conscious decision to allow myself to be swept up with the tide, with the waves; I finally jump into the ocean. The anxiety that I had all these months over my work, my life, Joshua, Lucas—I let it all go with Chris. My Chris.

  I smooth my fingers over his back and shoulders, looking for that familiarity I’ve been searching for over the past twenty years. It’s still there. The sound he makes as he enters me. The feel of him, the fit of him; he feels good and ever-so-safe. I spread my legs wider, making sure to take him all in, wanting to show him through actions, not words, how much this means to me.

  “Jade, say my name, please,” he groans, pausing only to look into my eyes. “I want to hear you say my name.”

  “Chris,” I whisper, “It’s me. Oh, Chris.”

  “Oh, God, Jade!” he exclaims as we try to forget the tragedy that led us to rediscover each other. “Take your heart back, Jade!” he cries. “I still have it with me. I’ve kept it for you all these years.”

  A FEW MINUTES later, we’re snuggled together on his bed, face to face, whispering in the dim light of the setting sun. I’ve covered myself with his t-shirt while he’s wearing nothing but the sheet on top of him. Next to his bed are three ostentatious picture frames with images of our daughter. Cia as a baby, Cia at twelve, and Cia at seventeen. Not only do they look out of place, I know whose home they came from.

  “Did Mama pick those pictures for you?” I ask, playing with the fingers that are clasped around mine.

  “She did. She ran after me as I was walking down your driveway.” He chuckles, lovingly pulling my hand to his face.

  “Which one is your favorite? I can tell you all about the picture, if you’d like.”

  “Tell me about all three,” he requests. I notice that his eyes are bright blue again, the darkness temporarily cast away.

  “Okay. Let’s see.” I point to the oldest photo. I pick it up in my hands and lightly touch her face with my finger. “This one is one of my favorites. She was obsessed with that basketball. She was two and could hardly keep her balance, but with that thing, she was able to roll it in front of her while riding her body on top of it. I remember Daddy telling me that she was really your daughter. I kept that close to me all these years. She was rambunctious as a baby. Always finding herself in little fixes. I caught her trying to climb into the dryer once. The other time, she fell down the stairs trying to make it to the kitchen on her own. She managed to climb over of the baby gates on the stairway.”

  “This one.” I pick up the second picture frame. He moves his head close to mine as I hold it up in front of us. My heart stops when I hear her squeal of delight in my head. “She’s twelve. Do you see that purse she has on her? She was posing with her first ever Prada bag. Joshua finally caved in and bought her one. I thought she was too young to have something like that, but the look on her face when she got it was priceless. She kept that bag for years and years. In fact, she was—” I pause without warning to compose myself. “She was using that six-year-old bag on the day of her accident. Your daughter was very practical. She never asked for anything outrageous, never cared about name brands.”

  Chris stops me for a moment and repositions our bodies so that my head is on his chest and both of his arms are around me. I lose myself in his scent. It feels like nothing has changed at all.

  “Ah. This last one. You need to know the story behind this one. This was during our mother-daughter trip to New York. It was Fashion Week and we were there to see the new spring collections. Mama has the rest of the pictures, but this one was taken right when she was freaking out but trying to stay cool because her favorite guy from One Direction was speaking to her. She was that enthralling. Everywhere she went, people paid attention to her.”

  “She’s a perfect combination of me and you,” he commented quietly, a smile touching the corners of his mouth.

  “Felicity means happiness. I named her Felici
a because that’s what she was to me. She defined my life, my joyous moments.” I reach for my phone and show him the last picture I have of her, in the midst of one of the feather-related pranks she used to play on me. “Look, she even has that wide-mouth laugh just like you!”

  This elicits a heavy-hearted smile from him and he turns to look directly at me, meeting my gaze. “Jae?”

  “Uh-huh,” I answer, sinking into deep relaxation as I lay in his arms.

  “Can I go and get you something to drink? I’d like to speak to you about what happened after you left. I need to tell you everything.”

  I scoot myself up against the headboard and turn my head towards him. “I’m ready. No drink needed.”

  He sighs and follows suit, folding his hands calmly in his lap.

  I push my knees up towards my face and wrap my arms around my legs. “I’m here, Chris. I’m listening.”

  He starts to speak. I feel every word he says, just like I’d never been gone.

  “The night you left my apartment, my world just crumbled all around me. I realized that I had lost you right there and then because I knew how much I had hurt you. I didn’t leave the apartment for days. I broke it off with her and was determined to win you back.”

  I can’t help myself. I find the need to interrupt. “What was her name?”

  My question throws him off. He takes a deep breath and looks away. “Katie.”

  “Katie with the blue shorts.” I wink at him before reaching over to touch him with my hand. “Sorry, please go on.”

  He starts up again, eager to move on from that moment. “You stopped answering my calls and I often wondered how you managed to do that, after everything we were to each other. Could you imagine my surprise when I came across the newspaper article about your engagement to Joshua? I was angry and confused, I felt deceived. Did you love him all along? Were you attracted to him after all? Why did you marry him one month after you left me? I was too young and selfish to put the pieces together at that time. I went to see Joshua shortly afterwards. We had some words and I worked him over quite a bit right before threatening to kill him. He took out a restraining order on me, which affected my prospects of finding a decent job. After your engagement, I packed up my things and moved away. I drifted from one job to the other until I saved enough money to start my own construction company. That’s how I ended up in Las Vegas for a few years. I came in just when the housing market exploded, right before the recession. I’m not going to pretend that my years were not filled with many women. There was one in particular… her name was Emily. I thought that loving her meant that I was in love with her too. We wanted to get married and planned to start a family together. We were together for ten years. And then I woke one day feeling like my entire life was one big joke.”

  “God, I know how that feels,” I interject.

  He nods his head and continues to speak. I don’t change my position. I’m still wrapped around my legs, staring straight out in front of me.

  “When I saw you the day of the funeral, I decided that I could no longer live this kind of a life. I had to admit to myself that I had never stopped loving you. And so I moved back here, replanted my roots, started applying for coaching jobs in the area, and accepted the assistant coach position for the Wildcats. So far, it’s been great. One part of my life feels complete. The other, well, the other is sitting right in front of me now.”

  “Oh, Chris. So many years have passed between us,” I say apologetically. “Joshua reached out to me the very next day after the last time I saw you. I confided in him and told him about my situation. He didn’t care that I still loved you. He wanted to take care of me and the baby. I still went to Stanford in the fall, right after our wedding, and he helped me finish school despite having a little one to care for at home. His medical career was just starting and soon enough, we got caught up in the everyday life of working and raising a child. He was good to her. He treated her as if she was his own.”

  “I will always be thankful to him for that,” Chris admits. “But I still hate him for snatching you up so quickly.”

  “It’s my fault. I played the game for so many years. I thought I could do it. Cia’s death severed the very fine thread that held us together. He did nothing wrong.”

  I start to cry because I know I’ve robbed him of the privilege of knowing his daughter. After all the years of guilt and pain and denial, here I was, face to face with the only person I have ever loved. The one who hurt me, the one who deserves to hear of my suffering. “I’m so terribly sorry for keeping her away from you. You didn’t deserve that. No matter what, you are her father. Y-you deserved to know her just as much as I did.” I pause for a moment, finding it hard to speak through my brokenhearted sobs. “I can’t turn back the time to undo the past. How can you ever forgive me?”

  “To be honest with you, I think I’m going to be angry about it for a while. I’m going to seek help so that I can talk through it with someone.” He remains calm and focused, brushing away my tears with his fingers.

  “I am so sorry, Chris,” I murmur through the tears that won’t stop. “I’ve always been sorry.”

  “I know you are. And I’m sorry that you lived through this with Joshua. I’m sorry that he wasn’t able to give you what you needed.”

  “I have something else to tell you,” I say softly, clinging to this as a small light of redemption. “She knew about you,” I blurt out. “Felicia. Cia. Your daughter. She was aware that she wasn’t his. After she turned 10, I told her all about you. I told her that she was made with so much love, that I loved her father so much, but it just wasn’t the right time and place for us. She saw pictures of you. She knew she looked just like you and she was proud of it. Out of respect for Joshua, she didn’t want to open up the past until after she turned 21, but she knew where she came from.” I look down at our hands, still clamped together with no sign of letting go. “She asked all kinds of questions about you, Chris—about your personality, about your skills. She knew.”

  If there were different types of tears for every occasion, these were tears of comfort. He covers his face with his hands and leans towards me so I can hold his head close to my heart. This time, he allows me the privilege of consoling him.

  “The other day at the park, you kept on saying that you weren’t good enough for me, when the truth is that it’s me who doesn’t deserve you,” I say sorrowfully. “The lie I lived, the people I’ve hurt… I’m not worth your love and I don’t know to prove to you how much I regret what I did. But when I told you that nobody else would have my heart, I meant it.”

  No matter what happens, he needs to know the role that he played in my life.

  “Show me, Jae,” he hushes as he aligns his lips with mine and kisses me. “Show me that you never left me.”

  I DRIVE BACK home the next day, after leaving Chris and with a promise to call him as soon as I arrive back in Chicago. We spent the rest of the night reminiscing about our past. I overloaded him with memories of Cia; we laughed and cried together. In the end, we both agreed that he would have to work through his anger at not having been a part of her life, and I accepted full responsibility for whatever feelings may emerge out of this new revelation for him. I’m going to be there for him, and as I process all these feelings, I’ll figure out what that means. Whether as a friend or more than a friend, I realize that we have a lot of work to do.

  We’re both grieving for the loss of our child. I don’t think it matters whether I had her in my life for eighteen years or whether he’s only known about her for two weeks. It’s a mourning for a life that was cut short, for a bright light that suddenly burned out, for the waste of a precious heart and soul. She could have changed the world, made it a much better place to live in.

  I’m exhausted by the time I pull into the circular driveway of my parents’ home, fully aware that I have a flight to catch in four hours. I lean over to the passenger seat to retrieve my purse when I notice a black Mercedes E350 parked on
the sidewalk from my rearview mirror. As I approach the car, I realize that it’s Lucas. He’s wearing sunglasses and is leaned back on the driver’s seat, fast asleep. I tap lightly on the window before opening the door and slipping into the passenger seat. He is casually dressed in jeans, his trademark button down shirt, and Converse sneakers. His chair is almost fully reclined and his legs are stretched out on top of the steering wheel. I lightly caress his arm with the very tips of my fingers. “Luke?”

  “Jesus, Jade! You scared me!” he says, bolting upright and adjusting the seat back while removing his sunglasses and furiously rubbing his eyes.

  “Sorry. When did you get here? Why did you sleep in your car?” I ask, my voice tinted with humor. “Are these leather seats all they’re made out to be?”

  “Very funny. What does it look like? Yes, I slept here—I’m on a stakeout. I knocked on the door and your parents told me you weren’t home. And the leather seats? I don’t know, I haven’t been able to test them yet,” he bounces back quickly. That’s Lucas for you.

  “Secret agents don’t fall asleep during stakeouts,” I joke. I see him suppress a smile. “When did you arrive in Chicago?” I ask, keeping a light hold on his arm.

  “Yesterday morning.”

  “You’re kidding. And you flew here shortly after that?”

  “Yes. I asked Taylor to call Noelle and pretend that we had to set up a meeting with you.”

  “More covert operations. You’re getting so good at it.” I smirk. But truth be told, I missed him terribly. My heart is doing somersaults at the fact that he’s here to see me.

  “It’s not funny anymore. I’m done with it,” he snaps, his eyes penetrating mine, squinting, reprimanding. “We’re going to talk about this today. Now.”

  “Okay. But let’s talk in Chicago. I have a flight to ca—”

  “Cancel it. We’re spending more time in San Francisco. Just you and me. Lucas and Jade. Not Ms. Richmond or Mr. Martinez. Not MT Media or Warner Consulting.”