by Julia Goda
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t. And I take full responsibility for that. You’re right. I should have tried harder, I should have done anything in my power to talk to you. This is all my fault.” I looked up at Jason’s face. I was literally on my knees in front of him, apologizing, begging him to forgive me. His face softened a fraction but not enough to chase away the anger. He moved his eyes from mine and gazed at his son’s headstone.
He stared at his son’s name and date of birth and death for long minutes:
Jesse Cooper
* January 15, 2007
† June 22, 2012
Your beautiful spirit will forever
leave a smile in our hearts.
His angry mask dropped and was replaced with an expression so tortured it would have brought me to my knees if I hadn’t already been kneeling. I sobbed again when I saw tears pooling in his eyes. I got up and slowly moved towards him until I stood beside him. I reached out a hand and touched his. He let this happen for a few short moments, and I was immensely relieved, until he took a step away from me and my touch.
“I can’t do this, yet, Loreley. I’m still too mad at you. Too hurt. I can’t understand how you could ever think so little of me. I don’t have it in me to forgive you right now, maybe with time, but not now.”
“Okay,” I said brokenly. I nodded as I wiped away a new set of tears. Jason watched me do this and his face softened another fraction.
“I’ll want to know about him, see pictures of him.” His voice sounded sad and heartbroken.
I nodded again, a little more enthusiastically, and repeated, “Okay.”
“Okay,” he whispered back. Then he swallowed and said, “I’m not ready, yet, but I’ll call you.”
Another whispered, “Okay” from me before he gazed at the grave one more time and turned around to walk away.
I stayed at the cemetery for a long time after that, talking to Jesse and my mother, telling them both about Jason, begging their forgiveness again and again. I cried until there were no more tears left in me. When I could finally make myself leave, I got up and softly touched Jesse’s headstone as I whispered one of his favourite “I love you so much”-phrases. “I love you so much I want to eat all the chocolate cake in the world until I’m as round as the Willy Wonka Blueberry Girl and you’ll chase me when I roll down the hill and roll and roll until I can’t roll any more, that’s how much I love you.” I kissed my fingers and pressed those fingers against the hard and cold stone. Then I went home.
When I pulled into the driveway, Chris was waiting for me at the front door.
“You okay?” He was worried about me. His eyes roamed over my face and grew even more worried when he saw my puffy-and-red-from-crying-for-hours eyes.
I shook my head and gave him a small smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. “Not really.”
He closed his arms around me and hugged me tightly. “You talk to Jason?”
I rested my cheek on his chest and closed my eyes. “I did,” I said softly, my voice filled with sadness.
“And?” Chris prompted when I didn’t say any more.
“He says he needs time, says that he can’t forgive me right now, that he’s still too mad and hurt.” Chris arms tightened around me as he spoke into my hair. “He’ll come around.” I nodded into his chest but wasn’t at all convinced that Chris was right. “He’ll come around, you’ll see,” Chris repeated as if knowing my gloomy thoughts. We stood like that for long moments, him holding me and rocking me and softly stroking my back, me leaning into him, cheek to his chest, eyes closed.
“I have to go check on the bar. I know you’re off tonight but I want you to come with me.”
“I’ll be okay, Chris. Don’t worry.”
“As if that could ever happen.” He leaned back so he could look at my face. I did the same. “I’ll always worry about you, Lore. You’re my best friend, my family. I hate seeing you this sad.” I knew that. It was the same way I felt about him.
“Look at me, Chris. There’s no way I can go into town the way I look. I’ll scare off the customers,” I half-heartedly tried to lighten the mood, but Chris wasn’t fooled.
“You’ve got two options: you can either come with me and hide in the office and do some paperwork, or I can drop you off at Cal and Ivey’s and you can stay there until I’m done. I’m not leaving you here alone in this state.”
I sighed in defeat. I knew I didn’t have a prayer winning this fight. “Fine. I’ll come to the bar. Just let me go wash my face.” I left Chris’ embrace and headed to the bathroom.
By the time I fell into bed that night, I was so exhausted that I could hardly keep my eyes open as I waited for Chris to be done in the bathroom. Losing the fight, I closed my eyes and thought about Jesse and Jason like I had most of the day, thought about the smile they shared, their laugh, their beautiful eyes.
And then I saw him.
Jesse.
For the first time in a year, I saw my son as if he were lying beside me in bed. He was watching me with proud but sad eyes. He looked older now, as if wherever he was, he was growing and maturing as if he was still alive. He would be six years old now.
I felt his hand as he put it against my cheek like he had done so many times. I felt it as if it was real, as if Jesse was really here with me. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as I held his hand against my cheek with mine, then turned my head and kissed his palm.
“It’ll be okay, mom. You’ll be okay,” I heard Jesse whisper.
Tears stung my eyes at hearing my son’s beautiful voice for the first time in a year. I had missed it so much.
“Don’t cry, mom. It’ll all be okay. I promise,” he whispered again.
The tears were running down my cheeks silently. “I miss you so much.”
He smiled a sad smile. “I know. I miss you, too. But I’m always right here with you.”
Yes, he was. He was always with me. I carried him with me wherever I went. “I know, baby. I know. It’s just so hard.”
He didn’t say anything, just smiled his sad smile at me as he cupped my cheek in his small hand.
“I visited you today.”
“I know.”
“Did you hear me when I told you about your dad?”
“I know all about my dad. I’ve been watching him just as I’ve been watching you.” My eyes grew big.
“You have?”
Jesse nodded. “Of course.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“It’s okay, mom, I understand. And so will dad.” I sighed as relief washed through me. I stared at him for countless moments, drinking him in. Then I kissed his nose, his cheek, his forehead. I kissed him all over until he giggled and pushed me away playfully. I didn’t care if this was real or if I was dreaming. I would enjoy this moment for as long as it lasted.
Then he looked at me and whispered, “I love you so much I’m gonna let you eat all the chocolate cake in the world until you are as round as the Willy Wonka Blueberry Girl and I’ll chase you when you roll down the hill and roll and roll until you can’t roll any more, that’s how much I love you.”
I thought I didn’t have any tears left in me, but they started running freely and steadily again. He had heard me today at the cemetery. He had been there and he had heard me.
“I’ll always hear you, mom. I’ll always be there.” He said as if he had listened to my thoughts.
Then, looking into my son’s warm eyes, I drifted off and fell into a peaceful sleep, a sleep so peaceful I didn’t wake up once, not even when Chris came to bed and pulled me into his body, not when he kissed the top of my head and murmured, “I’m so sorry this is causing you more pain.”
Chapter 9
LORELEY
The next day I hoped and prayed that Jason would call me. Every time the phone rang or someone was at the door, my heart skipped a beat only to have the feeling of disappointment and emptiness inside me expand and my stomach drop when it wasn’t h
im.
He didn’t call that day.
Or the next day.
Or the two days after that.
I wanted to call him, wanted to talk to him, to apologize again, to tell him all about Jesse, about how much he had been like his dad. But he had told me he needed some time and I had to respect that.
The emotional pain I went through was like nothing I had ever experienced. Not that it was worse than watching my son die and burying him way before his time. It wasn’t. It was just different.
It was indescribable.
And I couldn’t escape it. It was all around me, in every memory, everywhere I looked. It was grief, it was sorrow, and the certainty that I had brought it on myself made me desperate. Chris was still staying with me, but even so, my house felt empty. Jason had never lived here with us, had never even seen it before Monday, but I still missed his presence in it. Because I knew he would have been here with us, and that made the feeling of emptiness and loneliness that much harder to bear.
I felt numb almost all the time. I often caught myself staring blankly at nothing, even in the middle of doing something like mixing a drink or wiping the counter or putting up chairs. I tried to put on a brave face to reassure everyone that I was okay, but I knew that I wasn’t fooling anyone. People were worried about me. Heck, I was worried about me. What was I going to do if Jason didn’t forgive me? What would I do if he never wanted to talk to me again? But no, I couldn’t let myself think that. He said he was going to call me. He needed time. That was all. I had to hold on to the hope or there would be nothing else left.
I developed a pattern: I woke up, went for a run, went to work, came home and stared at the TV, then cried myself to sleep while I waited for that phone call I was desperate to receive. I couldn’t even escape the pain when I was sleeping, since Jason’s tortured and pained expression at hearing that the son he didn’t know about was dead followed me into my dreams.
There were only a few things that broke through that pattern.
On Wednesday night, Macy and Ivey came over armed with a bottle of Tequila.
“We’re here so you can pour your heart out and know that you will be safe. No macho men here to try and protect you from reality or lose their shit when they realize they can’t use their badass super powers to make everything right for you. It’s just us girls. No judgement, no empty platitudes. Just an open ear and lots of alcohol.” Macy had informed me upon marching into my kitchen to cut the lime and get some glasses.
“That’s right,” Ivey had said when she embraced me, “Just us girls and lots of alcohol for the two of you. In my experience, that’s all you need when you don’t know what’s up or down: your friends and Tequila. And pizza of course.”
So I had opened my heart and soul to my two best girlfriends.
I told them everything. From the moment I had met Jason to the moment I had seen him hook up with another woman at that gig and had sworn to never talk to him again. Then I told them how I wished I hadn’t walked away that morning after our fight, how I wished I had pushed past that woman I thought he had cheated on me with and had confronted Jason. If I had done that, none of this would have happened. We would have been together and happy, and Jason would have known his son. Maybe Jesse would even still be alive.
“Stop right there, Lore. You can’t put that on yourself. You can’t blame yourself for Jesse’s death. Believe me, it won’t get you anywhere,” Ivey had stopped me in a gentle but firm voice. Her eyes had been on me, soft but hard and reprimanding at the same time. “Believe me, Lore, I know all about survivor’s guilt and blaming yourself for your baby’s death. It took me a long time to figure out that life happens and there isn’t much we can do about it. We make our choices based on what we know, and you couldn’t have known that Jesse would die that day. You couldn’t have known that when you got in your dad’s truck that morning, that Jesse would not come out of that truck alive. You couldn’t have known, just like I couldn’t have known that my boyfriend would beat me half to death and kill my baby. Don’t put that on yourself, Lore, or you might not find your way out of it.” I had thrown myself into Ivey’s arms at her words, had started crying big and ugly tears as she held me and comforted me. Ivey had been through a lot. She’d had an abusive childhood in which her dad beat her and her mom for years, had escaped all that when she went to college, only to find herself entangled with another abusive man who beat her so bad that she lost her baby and had to stay in the hospital for almost a week. She hadn’t really recovered from any of that until she and Cal had gotten together and he had made her go to therapy. So she knew what she was talking about.
“You also couldn’t have known that Jason didn’t cheat on you. Honestly, if I had been in your place, I would have thought the same thing. And I would have run away, just like you. He says you should have known. Well, I say he should have come after you. He should have known that you wouldn’t leave him without looking back because of a fight you both say was stupid. You’re both to blame, but at the same time, it’s neither of your fault. Life happens and we can’t change the past. What we can do and need to do is face the past and overcome it.”
“Wow, Ivey. I think you’ve been hanging out with Betty too much,” Macy had mumbled through her own tears.
We had talked and cried and talked some more until Chris came back and Cal showed to drive Macy and his wife home in the early morning hours.
On Thursday, something else and very unexpected broke through my fog of emptiness and regret: Nathan was in town.
Nathan, Jason’s drummer and one of his closest friends, was in Cedar Creek. We had been good friends back then. He had been the band member I had bonded with and liked the most. The fact that he was here gave me hope. At least that meant that Jason was still in town and hadn’t fled back to L.A.
He gave me the biggest hug when he walked into the bar on Thursday night and came straight behind the counter when he saw me standing there.
“God, it’s so good to see you,” he murmured into my hair as he lifted me up and shook me back and forth jerkily. “I’ve missed you, beautiful.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked when he released me.
“I came here to help out my buddy and beg you to give him another chance. But now I’m here to shake some sense into that stubborn little shit.”
“So you know? He told you?”
His eyes grew sad and compassionate. “Yes, beautiful, I know. And I’m so very sorry for your loss.” My lips trembled a little but I didn’t cry.
“Thank you, Nathan,” I said in a shaky voice. The emotional turmoil of the last week was taking its toll on me.
“That stubborn son of a bitch,” he whispered darkly. “Come on, let’s talk.” He grabbed my hand and let me out from behind the bar and to a table in the corner where we could talk more or less privately.
“You know, he never deserved you. I’ve said it before and I stand by it. I haven’t given up the dream that you’ll someday run away with me,” he teased after we sat down and Chris had brought us each a beer.
I gave him a small but sad smile. I knew he was trying to cheer me up, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him.
Nathan sighed a heavy sigh, then started talking in earnest. “Jason is angry. And he’s got a right to be.” I tensed. Nathan kept laying it out. “He’s angry and he’s hurt, and we both know that he lashes out when he’s like that. But it’s always easier to blame other people for what happened, even though you know most of that anger is directed at yourself. It’s easier to lash out at someone else, because it saves you from having to look at your own mistakes. Jason has hated himself for years for not going after you, for letting you slip through his fingers, and he’s been a miserable fucker because of it. Now, he’s got even more reason to hate himself, for being a thick-headed asshole, because not only has it cost him you but his son. He won’t ever get that back and he blames himself for it. But it’s easier to blame someone else than to admit that you did it to you
rself. Believe me when I say this, Loreley: he doesn’t blame you. He might say he does, but he doesn’t. Not really. And I’ll tell you what I’ve told him: if he doesn’t realize that soon and get his head out of his ass and talk to you, he won’t just have to look forward to a royal ass kicking by Cal and Chris. I’ll be right there to cheer them on and wait my turn.”
That had been yesterday.
Nathan and I had talked some more before Chris had joined us. He had stayed for most of the night and had given me another tight hug and a “Chin up, girl” with a kiss on the cheek when he left.
Now, another day had passed and still, Jason hadn’t called.
It was now Friday afternoon, day four of no contact, and I was getting restless and more and more anxious and resigned by the hour.
Maybe this was it.
Maybe there was no way he could ever forgive me.
Maybe he had gone back to L.A. and was done for good with me this time.
What Ivey and Nathan and Chris and everyone else had said to me in these past few days did penetrate to some degree, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t still blame myself.
The thought of never seeing him again, of never getting the chance to tell him about how great of a son Jesse had been and how much he had been like his dad in so many ways, made my breath hitch as a sharp pain pierced through my heart yet again.
This all reminded me of how I had failed to get in touch with Jason six years ago. But whereas then I had been hurt and disappointed and bitter, now all I felt was a terrible sadness and emptiness that I couldn’t seem to shake, that actually grew darker and emptier with every day I didn’t hear from him.
Jason
Jason was sitting on the back porch strumming his guitar as he stared out to where the sun was slowly setting over the mountains. Apart from going to the cemetery every day to visit his son’s grave, this was pretty much where he’d spent the past four days while he wallowed in self-pity and anger and confusion.