“No, of course not. It’s just you’ve never even hinted at wanting to leave Fairfield. Why now?”
He didn’t understand. She didn’t want to leave Fairfield. She had to leave. Every corner held a memory, and even the good ones hurt.
“I know seeing Katie get married was hard.”
“This isn’t about Katie either.” Although, in some ways, it was, but not in the way Joe was thinking. She wasn’t jealous of her childhood friend. She was blown away by her. Too much, in fact, because Katie’s journey over the past year had softened Laila’s heart in all the wrong places. Places reserved only for her ex-husband.
Determined, she made herself look him in the eye, made herself smile. “This is what I want, and I need you to support me.”
Joe scratched his head as if warring with himself. “Chad called me on New Year’s.” The words stung as much as any bullet. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but—”
“Stop. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know.” Cold sweat coated her neck as she pushed past him, her only goal the swinging door that led to the kitchen and back office.
He followed her, his words like sandpaper on an almost-healed wound. “He sounded good this time. Strong. He didn’t even ask for money. He just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She tried to block out his words as he kept pace with her past the kitchen and into the small, dusty office. She focused on her breathing. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Again and again.
But Joe persisted. “Just have a little more patience. I know he’s been gone a long time, but look at Katie. She was gone four years and healed while she was away. Maybe Chad is doing the same. Maybe his time in Atlanta has been good for him.”
Pain splintered through her hands; she’d curled them so tight her nails had punctured the skin in two places. This was the curse of Katie coming back to Fairfield. Everyone expected Chad to follow. It was what he’d always done, follow Katie’s lead, until doing so had left him unconscious and half-dead.
Warm, fatherly hands encircled Laila’s clammy arms. She’d stopped somewhere between the desk and the back wall, paralyzed by the shameful truth.
She too had begun to hope that Chad would come home.
And that hope led to a slippery slope of misery she had to continually resist.
“Come here, honey.” Joe turned her trembling body around and wrapped her up in a hug tight enough to make the last of her restraint collapse. She sobbed, deep and ugly, for too long to count.
She shouldn’t still hurt this much. Not now, not when she’d taken the first steps in moving on. Not when she had a future just waiting for her in Burchwood.
Straightening, Laila wiped away the rest of her tears. “I’m done crying over him, Joe. That’s all I’ve done for years. No more mourning. No more waiting. No more second chances.”
Stepping back, Joe must have read the determination on her face, because finally, the look he gave her wasn’t pity. It was sadness, maybe even a little regret.
She squeezed his hand. “I know you loved him. I did too. But Chad is gone, and it’s time all of us finally accept it.”
CHAPTER 2
Chad shot up in bed, the nightmare so vivid he wanted to squeeze his head until the memory was erased. He scanned the small bedroom, shuddering. Real—this was real. A truth scarier than the nightmare itself.
A night breeze flowed through the open window, drying the sweat on his back. The tiny opening to the outside world was the only gift in his eight-by-eight living space. Twin bed, white walls, stained beige carpet. It all reflected the stale place he’d tumbled into. But living in a halfway house with three other men was a lot better than a jail cell, and truthfully, it was a miracle he hadn’t ended up in one.
Chad picked up the purple sobriety chip on his nightstand and rubbed his finger over the eight, then the words, unity, service, and recovery. For some, eight months might seem small, unimportant, but for him, it was the longest he’d ever gone without a drink.
Laila would be proud of him, if he had the courage to tell her.
That was the problem with sobriety sometimes. There was no more lying to yourself. No more excuses.
He’d ruined the only truly beautiful thing in his life.
Easing off the bed, Chad stretched his aching back and checked the time. 5:12 a.m. Trying to go back to sleep would be pointless; his shift at the hardware store started at seven.
The job he’d held for a full five months wasn’t glamorous, but he took pride in every haul. Cutting and stacking lumber had put weight back on his frame and color back in his face. Gone were the hollow cheeks, the sickly thinness, and the deep black circles under his eyes. In the mirror, Chad almost looked like the man he used to be.
The man he swore he’d be again when he entered rehab eight months ago after learning Katie had returned to Fairfield. It was his fourth attempt and the only time he really believed it would work. If Katie could get clean, then somehow he’d find the strength to do it as well.
Setting the chip back on the counter, Chad shook away the lingering nightmare. He had to focus on the future. On Laila and staying clean. She was still waiting for him. Joe had practically promised as much when they’d talked on New Year’s. And when Chad finally went home, he’d make sure her wait was not in vain.
A blue haze of the coming sunrise filtered through the living room blinds as he quietly stepped over shoes and discarded laundry to get to the kitchen. Mark had called a house meeting for tonight, and Chad had a pretty good idea that household maintenance was on the list of topics. None of them were especially tidy, himself included.
Two Post-it notes appeared when he flicked on the kitchen light, one on the fridge scolding them for drinking the rest of the milk, and the other on the stack of unwashed dishes that said, “Wash me or I will kill you.” Chad shook his head, but welcomed the unexpected smile. Mark was a softy—soft enough to take in three recovering alcoholics and mentor all of them—so his threats fell short of their target.
Chad had met Mark in rehab during one of the group sessions. He was their success story, a man who’d walked along the cliff with one foot dangling over the abyss, yet found a way not to tumble to his death.
Mark was a nineteen-year alcoholic, four of those sober. He understood loss, understood temptation, and understood Chad’s journey through years of alcoholism and drug use. He understood that though the drugs had been Chad’s final undoing in Fairfield, it was the alcohol that obliterated him time and time again.
Chad had spent most of his adult life blaming his father for the affliction. But Mark had shown him that he was the only one responsible for his actions. He’d chosen to hide inside a bottle, and years later, he was living out the consequences of that choice.
Pushing away the lump in his throat, Chad rolled up the note, tossed it into the nearly full trashcan, and spent the next fifteen minutes quietly unloading and reloading the dishwasher. It was a job he knew well, one of the few Laila had trained him to do after they’d moved in together.
His hand froze on its way to grab another dish, the memory as vivid as the nightmare had been.
“You’re doing it all wrong,” Laila says, hopping off the counter.
I pretend to be offended but I’m not. There’s not much she could ever do to offend me. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that if you discourage a man from doing dishes, he’ll never help again?”
“What good is your help if none of the dishes come clean?” She’s in tiny shorts and a tank top that shows the edge of her bra. I thank the universe again that she’s mine, that she somehow said “I do” just a few weeks ago. “Here, give me the bowl.”
I do because it means she’s going to lean over and, let’s face it, my wife has the best behind in Georgia. I watch both her and the dish placement because it makes her happy. Then I grab her around the waist and lift her back on the counter.
“Let’s finish them later,” I say finding that spot below her earlobe.
She giggles and runs her fingers through my hair. “Mr. Richardson, you are not behaving.”
“Mrs. Richardson, you knew that before you married me.”
Pain seized his heart. Eyes pressed closed, he gripped the sink and fought against the all-too-familiar ache. He was fighting for her. For them. Laila had always chosen him. And now he needed to prove himself worthy of that choice.
“I knew it was nasty in that sink, but not enough to make you hurl.” Mark came around to his right and pulled the coffee pot from the corner. He was twenty-two years older than Chad, a good forty pounds heavier, and had only about half the amount of hair. But in a lot of ways, they were the same. Mark’s family gave up on him ten years ago and still hadn’t fully allowed him back into their lives, even after four hard-fought years of sobriety. His ex-wife was remarried, his two sons still bitter, and his daughter’s only contact was a Christmas card once a year.
Chad straightened and pulled back the sting in his eyes. “Yeah. Fez needs to learn to rinse out his cereal bowl.” He sprayed the almost-empty stainless steel sink, pushing the last of the soiled food down the disposal. “You’re up early.”
“I never went to sleep.” Mark didn’t elaborate on why, but a quick fear tore through Chad’s limbs.
“Everything okay? I mean, are you . . .”
“Drinking?”
So matter of fact. So absent of the monumental impact if the answer was yes. Chad held his breath as he waited for him to continue.
“No, I’m not drinking. Michael let me go to his daughter’s preschool performance last night.” Michael was Mark’s oldest son, and the only one who’d begun to forgive him. “They let me treat her to an ice cream cone, and he even hugged me when we left the restaurant.” Tears swam in his aging brown eyes—happiness, regret, hope. “Sleep was a little impossible after that.”
“Mark, that’s, wow, man. That’s huge.” Chad backed away. He didn’t want his lingering anxiety over Laila to overshadow his sponsor’s breakthrough.
Mark scooped two heaping piles of coffee grounds into the filter. “Yeah, it really was. But seeing them is kind of like a shot of whiskey. All I want is more.” With quick fingers, he dropped the lid and pressed start on the pot. His voice fell along with his shoulders. “How was I such an idiot that I didn’t see the beauty of what I had?”
The million-dollar question that every recovering addict wonders.
“I don’t know.” Chad fell into a dining chair. “I ask myself that question at least ten times a day.”
With an expression he’d been on the receiving end of many times before, Mark pulled out the chair opposite from him and sat, leaning in close with his elbows on his knees. “Yesterday was hard for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
Yesterday was the equivalent of an arrow through the eye, but that wasn’t Mark’s fault. “Don’t apologize. You were with your family, as you should have been. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood to discuss the death of my marriage.”
Most of the year, Chad could believe the divorce wasn’t real, that his not signing the papers meant Laila was still his, but yesterday, even his disillusions couldn’t compete with the truth.
A default divorce.
If he’d known she could end things without his consent, he would have fought harder. Of course, a year ago, he was a train wreck. Penniless, hopping from one friend’s place to another. She had every right to leave him.
“How did you cope? Honestly.” Mark maintained eye contact, likely to discern if Chad was sprinkling lies among the truth. The curse of mentorship, he’d once said, was watching when a friend stumbled.
“I didn’t drink if that’s what you’re asking, but . . . I did walk into a liquor store.” Chad rubbed his hands over his face. “I admit, it’s the closest I’ve come to failing since I left rehab.” He recognized the pattern from his other face-plants off the wagon. It’d start with just driving by the store, then he’d walk through the door only to rush back out, and finally, when the temptation became too strong, he’d succumb to the darkness and buy the bottle that would inevitably ruin all his progress.
This time, though, he’d only stood there while the rows of bourbon, whiskey, and vodka called out to him in hushed whispers, using the same words his father had.
You’re worthless. You’re a failure. You’re not good enough for her.
Lost in the haze of his shortcomings, Chad had even gone so far as to touch a few of the bottles. But in the end, he’d called Joe’s Bar. Laila had picked up, her raspy voice so unique and familiar that he’d walked right out of the building, listening as she repeatedly said hello. It was the sixth time he’d called in the last two months, and every time, that small piece of contact gave him strength.
“What pulled you out?” Mark did this a lot, made Chad walk through the steps he took when fighting alcohol’s plea.
“I called her.” He kneaded his eyes. “Selfish, I know, but I just needed to hear her voice.”
Mark’s tone remained soft. “Maybe next time, you need to let her hear your voice too. Let her hear that you’re sober and have kept a job consecutively for months. Heck, you’ve almost paid off all your debt. Do you know how few addicts ever get to that point?”
Chad’s stomach sank like he was falling down a well. Not quite all the debt, which was why he had no right barging back into her life. “I’m not ready. I told myself a year. I want to be sober for a year before I go back.” Because she deserved no less.
“A year may be too late.” Mark held his hands in his lap and bent his head as if lost in prayer. Usually, he pushed the one-day-at-a-time mantra, refused to accept when Chad or the other guys retreated into self-pity. But today wasn’t a usual day. Mark had seen, in high definition, what all his addiction had cost him.
Chad stood and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Mark’s remorse was contagious, and Chad felt it roll up his arm and down to his already-hurting soul. “Last night was just the beginning. You’ll see.”
Mark simply hung his head lower. “I’m going to hit a meeting tonight. You should probably come too.”
“Okay. I’ll head there after work.” He went to remove his hand, but Mark’s own stopped his retreat. Slowly, his eyes raised until they shone into Chad’s with laser-like intensity.
“Don’t let her go without a fight,” he said with more conviction than Chad had ever witnessed from his almost-annoyingly-steady landlord.
“Oh, believe me. I don’t plan to.”
CHAPTER 3
Laila hurried toward the painted Burchwood Elementary School awning, anticipation and nervousness building in her chest. For months now, Ben had been asking her to volunteer with him at the church-sponsored after-school program. She’d completed the background check, picked up the T-shirt, even pored over the curriculum, yet today was the first time she’d found the courage to show up.
It still felt impractical, her teaching children about the Bible when she’d only just begun to read it herself.
Heart pounding, she pulled open the heavy glass doors and entered, moving into a reception area to her right. Two small kids sat in chairs lining the wall, their little legs dangling as they kicked them back and forth. One held on to her pink heart-shaped backpack. The other watched the ceiling, boredom etched on his chubby face.
“Can I help you?” The woman behind the counter was young and dark haired, and wore a green Burchwood Elementary School spirit shirt.
“Yes, I’m here for the Kids’ Bible Club program. Do I need to sign in?”
The young woman eyed Laila’s blue volunteer shirt and name tag. “Yep. Right here.” She slid a clipboard across the counter. “I also need to see your driver’s license.”
Laila quickly withdrew her wallet and handed her license to the receptionist, who copied it using a small scanner, then placed it back on the counter. The whole process took much less time than Laila had expected, and her nerves ratcheted up again. “I was told they meet in the cafeteria, but I don’t kn
ow where it’s located.”
“Follow the purple line down the hall, and you’ll run right into it.” The young woman smiled, her eyes warm and appreciative, as if she could sense Laila’s unease.
Tension uncoiled from her shoulders because for once that smile held no pity or judgment. In Burchwood, Laila wasn’t the local bartender or the ex-wife of an addict. She wasn’t the infamous Katie Stone’s best friend or Loretta Parker’s neglected daughter. She was just Laila.
“Thank you,” she said, knowing the receptionist had no idea how much deeper that thanks went.
The sounds of voices and tables moving accelerated her steps to the cafeteria, the echoes of each reverberating off the waxed vinyl floor. The air smelled like markers and glue with a mild hint of bleach. White cinderblock walls were covered in various kid art projects, some as simple as handprints, others so elaborate Laila was sure the parents had offered more than oversight. Not that parental support was a surprise. The schools in Burchwood were consistently rated higher than Fairfield’s. Of course, everything in this town was just a touch nicer, newer, and more expensive. It always had been.
She entered the room from the far end to see a group of blue-shirted bodies talking and laughing while they each prepared for the coming kids. Out of the seven volunteers, only two were men, so Ben was easy to spot unloading sound equipment by the stage.
“Hey, you made it,” he said when they made eye contact. “I was starting to think you changed your mind.”
He was dressed in khaki work slacks, and she could see his white collar sticking up through the Kids’ Bible Club T-shirt he’d thrown over it. Ben was nearly six foot, wore round wire glasses, and had an adorable Clark Kent persona working for him. He was uncomplicated and kind—a small-town guy with a big heart. Not to mention, beneath the glasses and the starched shirts, Ben was a really attractive guy.
She continued toward the man who had become so significant in her life. “I’m sorry I’m late. I went by the cottage to sign the last of the paperwork and totally lost track of time.”
My Unexpected Hope Page 2