by A. R. Hadley
She deserved far more than him.
Trying desperately to believe he was what she truly wanted, he clung to that thought — do you get that I want to be with you? That I want to really know you? — the way he clutched his phone.
But hearing her voice would break him wide open, which in turn would make him act cold. Well, colder. And that may drive her away for good. It was why she wasn’t with him now. Or one of the reasons anyway.
He’d told her he needed time. He could take a little longer. She would understand him.
No.
She would probably hate him. Or cease to love him.
Goddammit. No.
That was the past. He wasn't doing that.
Annie loved him. Could she love him … through all kinds of bullshit? Through this? His defection. His unacceptance. His inability to open and share and...
Jesus. He needed to stop his exercise in martyrdom. It was getting old … like him.
So, he decided. Communication would only, mostly, be via email. He could type at the very least. That was what he would tell her now. If they spoke, she’d hear weakness, the constant stream of vulnerability dripping from his broken faucet. No doubt she’d surely hear it in his voice the moment he said hello.
He would deflect.
That was something he did quite well.
He would build her up with his words: ask about the pregnancy, discuss baby names, encourage her work, suggest she send photos. Anything to avoid too much bullshit sentiment while keeping love at arm’s length.
If he let her in too much right now, he would break. And he had to stay strong for his mother. For Annie. For Michelle. He had too many things on his plate.
Fuck, you’re an asshole. She’s pregnant.
Cal put the phone aside and rubbed his damp palms over the bedspread, trying like a fool to push his love for Annie to the background, never wanting to allow it to fill him, feeling as though he never deserved the kind of love she offered — still.
Then he started to type.
Dear Annie,
I’m sitting in my room, thinking of you. I’m always thinking of you.
“Damn it,” Cal whispered, shoving the computer away, then cradling his head in his palms.
Cal Prescott — always more than capable.
Sure.
Now he could no longer pretend, and he knew it. He could no longer hide the frailty in his eyes. His voice was weak.
Cal’s mind was in a duel. With itself. Sitting on the bed, glancing at the annoying cursor, he was frozen and unable to write.
The baby... How could he be a father?
He grabbed at his T-shirt, wrestling it from his chest. It was too damn tight. Exhaling, he rubbed a few fingers over his forehead, over and over and over, waiting for more words to come — any fucking words — but they didn’t. Thinking of Annie now was all he could do — needing her and pushing her away, constantly a tug-of-war.
Cal wanted to give Annie all of him, but he couldn’t.
What are we doing? she’d asked in her last email.
He pushed, and she pulled. That was what they were doing.
And as usual, a woman needed to define everything. Except this was Annie. She deserved the whole fucking dictionary. She needed it. And what could he give her? Nothing.
Emails. Sure. Great.
No phone calls.
She was only carrying his baby … alone. He couldn't be in two places. And she couldn't be here, not after the death of her brother. Could she even handle this house, his fears, his anxieties? This house made him impotent. Obstinate. She was better off with her mother. And that was saying a lot.
Fuck.
It was all about the timing.
For once, maybe it would be right, but not right now. Constance came first. No. There were no firsts. Only priorities and necessities.
Annie was strong. Her love would have to endure. Her patience was unlike anything he’d ever seen. He refused to ask her to share in his pain when he felt he’d already given her too much of a burden all her own to bear.
But he needed her — he needed her to share in his pain — and so, the duel, it advanced, making quite a headway. The struggle was always with him. Annie was with him as if she’d always been with him … always.
There had never been a time without Annie … his heavy.
Cal stared across the room, blankly at first, like the cursor, trying to settle his restlessness. Then he fixated his gaze on an old friend, noticing it as if seeing it for the first time.
But he’d seen it many times and taken it for granted.
The faithful friend rested next to the chest of drawers across from his bed, leaning against the wall like a pillar. It had stared out at him for weeks, whispering to him. Today, though, it spoke loud and clear. Its pleading distracted him from his email.
Annie was close, but the friend settled him.
His breathing calmed. His blank expression changed to subtle expectation.
And even though Cal had seen the old surfboard day in and out, he hadn’t allowed himself the pleasure of imagining his body on it. Guilt amassed within him for wanting to spend his time with it, but the more he looked at it now, the more he realized just how much he’d missed it.
The rhythm of the sea underneath his body as he laid across it, carrying him over the ripples. The gentle bob of the ocean as he anticipated catching the wave. The complete serenity in the water and insignificance he felt when adrift in the sea. He remembered the epiphany that came sudden and often in the vast, watery deep:
Most everything we’re taught by society to value doesn’t really matter.
Materialism was vanity. Money was too. Oh, it held weight, sure. It bought things. Made living easier. But in the end, it was vanity.
The ocean didn’t care how much money he had or what kind of car he drove. It didn’t care about his designer fucking clothes. It could’ve picked him up and spat him out.
The ocean and the ride would remind Cal what really mattered: people, kindness, giving … feeling.
How about that? Was that why he’d avoided surfing for so long? Absorbing the current, feeling the energy, the salt, the sun. Feeling himself in his own space. Feeling alive. He had forgotten. Burying himself in work, drowning himself in drink, pleasing everyone but himself, he had forgotten.
After removing his glasses, Cal walked over to the board while running his palm over his unshaven face. Reaching out, he touched it, skimming his fingers along its dust-caked edges. Its once vibrant colors had faded. It had stood for years as only a decoration. It had become a noun — no longer a verb.
As Cal held the board with both hands in front of his body, he smiled and dropped his head, fondly remembering Annie's gifts: the surfboard wax and the mirror. What she’d expressed in those handwritten notes not that long ago was correct. The strength he needed to value that ride had been inside him all along. It had never truly left him. He just needed the courage to let go.
To set aside his work.
To feel all his pain.
The courage to accept love.
To heal.
Allowing himself this nautical pastime wouldn’t be an answer to everything, but it was a start.
A beginning.
It held a promise.
Taking the board out into the cold Pacific waters would offer him something nothing else could.
A few more weeks had passed. Constance appeared to be much the same.
The medical staff said they couldn’t predict how long she would hang on. Cal was doing his best to hang on as well, to cling to his life as he’d once known it.
It wasn't working.
His life was changing. It had changed.
He was trying his best to keep up with business, but it suffered too. Everything in that old brick house suffered. The mourning left no one in its wake.
Resting in one of the rockers in the sitting room, facing the fireplace, Cal listened to the sound of the embers burning. Folded over the t
op of the chair was a blanket his mother had made. He leaned his head back and rubbed the crochet between his fingers, poking his thumb through the holes. It smelled familiar, like Constance. Vanilla, love disguised as disinterest, roses. Or was it thorns?
He smiled, then flicked his gaze to the large canvas of Constance's parents, his grandparents, hanging a foot or two over the mantle. The shadows from the flames intermittently lit up their young faces as they stared down at him. He took turns, shifting his gaze between the flames and the picture.
Cal rocked and stared.
They approved of him.
Damn, he missed his grandfather.
As he stared into E.W.’s bold, brown eyes, the only father he’d ever known, it seemed he was still alive. There were days he would reach for the phone ready to call and share some exciting news with him. It had been years since he passed, and it didn't matter. Every so often, the urge to pick up the phone and speak to his grandfather still rushed over him.
Cal’s lips curved into a smile as he pondered his grandparents’ serious expressions, knowing behind his grandfather’s grave face was a devoted, kind, and funny man. Always ready with a joke, he’d made Cal laugh often. The humor had passed away with his grandfather, though, shortly before Cal's college graduation. Without Everett in his corner, whatever Cal had strived for, whatever success he’d found, it all seemed empty.
He knew it wasn’t, but he couldn't shake the notion.
He’d constantly chased things, bringing them before his mother like an offering. But she was never satisfied.
His grandfather, on the other hand, had been simple, modest, not interested in anybody else's idea of success. The pride he saw in his grandfather’s eyes, the look E.W. had in that photo, carried Cal forward. Rosa had picked up that same torch after Everett’s death, running with it, chasing Cal, always chasing him and commending him, caring for him and loving him.
Yet none of it had been enough to stop Cal's searching.
He stopped rocking, sat forward, and looked around. He stretched his legs toward the glow and crossed his ankles, warming his toes.
The house was quiet.
Michelle was presumably upstairs, and Constance was sleeping. Only the embers crackled in his ears.
Yawning, Cal stroked his beard. The stress had been taking its toll, and his mind ached from the exhaustion. Actually, he suddenly ached for a drink.
Cal stared into the flames, hypnotized, his mouth watering.
He wanted a drink.
Needed a drink.
Sure, it hadn’t been the first time Cal had wanted a swallow. He’d wanted one the first night he’d arrived. Every night. He’d thought of it often: the smoothness of the whiskey, the burn — the coating, the altering, the numbing.
He wanted to be numb — mind-achingly numb — but he’d refused to succumb to it. In fact, Cal hadn’t had a drop of liquor since stepping foot into the house. Michelle only kept cooking wine, and Cal had simply chosen not to buy alcohol or order any when out. It had been a conscious, purposeful decision. Afraid if he took in a bottle, he might never come up for air.
The alcohol worked like a Band-Aid, always covering pain. He was well aware he was suffering the consequences of years of isolating wounds with drink, and he could no longer conceal it. The hurt roared up like a lion the way the flames lit the fireplace.
Stuffing the craving aside and swallowing past his parched throat, Cal stood and looked at the bookshelf across the room. The empty rocker stopped moving by the time he reached it. The sturdy mammals whose trunks pointed toward the windows now met him face-to-face — or nose-to-trunk. And he picked up their strength.
He touched a few. Turned them. Inspected them.
Below the elephants were books. His eyes dropped to their spines. Lots of books, old books, ones he’d left behind.
He’d always loved to read. Looked forward to it. It kept him sane. He read any book he could get his hands on, even the ones he wasn't supposed to be caught with. He read ferociously before bed — when he should’ve been asleep — a flashlight in hand.
Reading was his best habit.
Cal loved having Annie by his side while he read, preferably in bed. It seemed there hadn’t been a time when she hadn’t been there … next to him.
She was there with him at his mother’s as he read, tucked away inside his heart, hers beating against him while he turned each page, her warmth filling him more than the choicest liquor ever could.
He missed his heavy.
Head cocked to the side, Cal scanned the titles on the bookshelf, looking for a treat to take to bed. After hooking a finger into the spine of The Sun Also Rises, he pulled it off the shelf and smiled, looking over the cover like he’d just met up with a long-lost friend. As he began to ruffle the pages — flip-flip-flip — something fell out.
Squinting toward the dark corner of the room, Cal was unable to make out the object. Bending down, he picked it up, then smiled until his cheeks hurt. He even laughed out loud.
Un-fucking-believable.
A joint had slipped from the pages … an old one obviously. He laughed again as he rolled it between his fingers, staring at it with an affectionate curiosity. The eagerness he’d felt to read the book under his arm had been quickly replaced with a desire to find out if his discovery would burn.
Could it? After all these years?
It was one of the few times since he’d been home that he was actually excited about something. Giddy even. A forty-five-year-old man giddy. How ridiculous.
Resting a hand on his belly, warm with nostalgia, he remembered days of being stoned. He shook his head, the same dizzy smile threatening to split his dimples.
A long time ago indeed.
Far removed from the man he was today. Was it? Yes, and that was precisely why the need to do it seized him with a great intensity. Closing his fist around the joint, he slipped it inside his pocket and began to look near the fireplace for a lighter. Not finding one, he made his way to the kitchen.
Cal searched every drawer for a match in the gray of the room, only a trickle of moonlight illuminating his hands as they rustled through utensils and gadgets, clinking and clanging as he moved junk around. A few seconds later, the light flickered on, and he jumped.
"What are you looking for?" Michelle’s tone insinuated Cal had finally gone mad.
He slammed the drawer shut and looked up at her. "Matches."
"Matches?"
"Yes, Michelle. Matches." Damn it. He wasn't a child. He didn't need to explain himself to her.
“Did the fire go out?”
“No." He tapped a foot on the floor, following her movements with an impervious eye.
With an eerie slowness, sure to irritate the fuck out of him, she calmly retrieved a pack of matches from one of the upper cabinets, then extended her hand. As he reached for them, she pulled the pack back toward her body with rapid-fire agility and laughed.
Fuck. Her.
She did think he was a child. How did she manage it — making him feel like he was ten years old again? The game was starting to wear thin, but he kept his temper.
"How do I know you aren't going to set us all on fire?" She wiggled her eyebrows.
"Give me the damn matches," he hissed.
Her eyes danced with delight as she handed him the pack in earnest. "You really need to lighten up."
Yeah, that was exactly what Cal planned on doing, and he couldn't wait.
Michelle had just pushed any functioning nerves he had left in his body over a cliff. Turning around, he started to walk away without another word.
"Where are you going?"
"To bed. Is that okay with you?” He paused near the swinging doors without bothering to look in her direction.
"It's not even nine!"
She never knew when enough was enough. He was on the verge of letting her have it. He turned around, and as usual, she looked quite pleased she pressed all the right Cal buttons.
"I'm tired,"
he said, trying sincerity … as much as he could muster.
"Tell me about it. I've been here—"
"I know. I know." He stepped toward the table. "You've been here all along, and I'm grateful to you, but I need to be alone right now. May I please go to bed?"
"Ever since you've gotten here, you've wanted to be alone. I've given you your space, haven't I? We used to talk all the time. Don't keep avoiding me."
She was right. He had been evading deeper conversation with her since he'd arrived. They’d skimmed the surface of most matters, usually at dinner, making polite small talk, but Michelle needed more. He probably did too. They weren't just cousins. They were friends.
Where could he start?
Let's see...
His long-distance girlfriend he’d been shirking like the plague was pregnant. Oh, yeah, and she was the Allens’ surrogate child, and she’d recently graduated college, and he was a bastard … well, the bastard part Michelle knew.
Fuck. Him.
“You’ve given me my space." He set the book on the table. "I'm sorry."
Sorry. That was all he was lately. I'm sorry, Annie. I'm sorry, Maggie. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
Sorry was the state he allowed. A choice. An excuse. It was a word said when nothing else would do. A cop-out for what needed to be done. The business of living, not dying. Except … he was sorry.
Still, the last thing he needed was for Michelle, or anyone for that matter, to see him come undone. He’d controlled his emotions for years. No one had seen him come unraveled.
No. One.
He didn't do broken. He knew how to gain control, and he knew how to keep it. He owned it. If it weren’t for the massive amount of pressure inside the fucking unforgiving walls of his childhood home, he could’ve swept the loose ball of yarn under the rug.
The tortilla-covered bricks squeezed his trachea.
The prospect of death and waiting and not talking and ice-cold, empty staring had him on his knees. Too much digging beneath the surface, looking into the basement, or diving into the deep end would cause a seismic implosion. A crack in his armor. He would be taking a risk. Because never before in his life had he felt so close to shattering into a million fucking pieces.