by Rodi Chadish
“Hello,” I say answering on the first ring.
“We should be getting in around noon tomorrow, is there anything you need?” my mother asks on the other end.
“Nah, I’m not incapable mom, just bored. I’ve already got everything stocked for when you guys get here, I really can’t wait to see everyone,” I tell her, and it’s the truth.
We chit-chat a bit and then hang up, leaving me once again to my own devices. Mainly leaving me to try and shove this pencil down my cast as far as I can. I know the risks, but really over four weeks of this and I’m going batshit crazy. With little relief, I decide against continuing, even though in my mind I’m already unbending the hanger to get further in. I wheel out onto the deck, overlooking the ocean and I wish she was here. I’ve wished that same wish for weeks, at different times, not only when I’ve been taking in the gorgeousness around me but also when I was at my lowest. We haven’t spoken the whole time I’ve been here, no texts, no emails, no facetime and I’m not going to lie, it’s been the hardest part. Becca has been spending a lot of time with Taylor though so I hear the hand me down tidbits from Ethan when we talk. At first, I begged him not to tell me about what had been going on, but as time wore on and I missed her more and more I caved.
At my mother's insistence, everyone and I mean everyone will be arriving tomorrow. She was still angry with my father about playing along with my exile and this was her way of making it known. It will be a week and a half of Turner shenanigans at their finest. The first time we’ve all been on a vacation since we were in high school. This house will more than accommodate us all, it’s got eight bedrooms, a tv room, Jacuzzi, private beach, elevator and more. It reminds me of a house we rented with a bunch of family when I was ten, it was the best vacation I’d ever had, all those people under one roof.
When I go back inside I go to get a drink from the fridge but I stop, noticing a little instant photo. There was one there this morning, a picture of her hand, sans ring mind you that had arrived in the mail with a little note just a few days after we got here. This picture is different, though, it’s me, watching the waves crash. My heart nearly explodes when the realization of what this means hits me. She’s here.
Taylor
Five weeks and we haven’t spoken, no texts, no emails, no letters. Nothing. What if he’s changed his mind? What if he hasn’t really changed at all and just has everyone fooled? I can’t see Helen insisting that we take a family vacation if he hadn’t but inside I’m so freaking nervous that I can’t help but think the worst. When I walked into his house, our house it was the loneliest I’d ever felt. The warmth of everything Elliot was somehow drained from it. I walked around aimlessly for hours not sure what to do with myself before I found his chicken scratch letter and the box. I knew he’d been hiding something for a long time, he kept dashing to the garage and almost choked Ethan once when he asked if he could take the bike for a ride. Well, here it was, what he’d been guarding out there.
The robin’s egg blue box, a letter and a ridiculously bad selfie that made me chuckle. His black eye and stitched up face, cast on his right hand, they were all present and accounted for in it. Without a thought, I found myself tracing his face with my fingertip as I absently stared at the box. Finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore I read it and cried. Then I spent the next few days being angry with him. Angry that he could just up and leave and not even consider what that would do to me. Angry that he felt so ashamed of himself, angry that his anger won out finally. Then I did it. I took a picture of my hand, sans ring, and wrote him a little note, two can play this game I thought as I sealed the envelope and drove to his parent's house and begged Helen to send it if she wouldn’t give me the address.
“Taylor, he asked us not to do this…” she had started.
“You know as well as I do that he can be an idiot. Please, I could easily text him, but this, he started this and I need to, I need him to get this…” I begged.
With a hug, she swiped the letter out of my hand and then began to tell me the details of our “family” trip.
“A week and a half, we are all going. Everyone. Everett decided to play into this little retreat and well I didn’t like it, but now I see it for what it could be. I haven’t had a family vacation with all of my children in a very long time and now, well I’m going to have one,” she said boldly.
“Can you at least give me details on what to pack?” I asked with a chuckle at her sudden attitude.
“Pack for fun in the sun,” was all she offered.
The next few weeks dragged on and on, sure Becca and Jenna were trying to keep me busy by going shopping for this huge vacation but it was his voice I missed the most. They couldn’t fill that void but they sure did try. I was surprised to come home three weeks in and find Everett on our porch. He smiled when I approached, and I took that to be a good sign.
“Hey stranger,” I said unlocking the door, “Come in.”
“I won’t take up too much of your time sweetie, but I wanted to talk to you for a minute,” he said following me through the house to the kitchen.
“No worries, I don’t think your daughter in laws have anything planned for me tonight. I swear Ethan and Mark probably feel like bachelors,” I joked.
“I’m sure…” he chuckled.
“So, what’s up, is he okay?” I asked unable to stop myself.
“He is. That’s what I wanted to talk about actually. I know he’d probably be very angry with me if he knew I was here but Taylor, it’s incredible. I’ve watched him suffer for so long, watched him try to push us all away, since before he got hurt… since Emma. These last few weeks, though, between pining for you and his sessions with Joe, my son, the Elliot I’ve missed for so long has finally started to show up. I’ve never seen him as angry or hurt as I have in these weeks, but honestly, I think it was exactly what he needed to really get through all of the bad he’s been dealt. I know he played a good role over the last twelve years or so but that was exactly what it was a role. It wasn’t the same. I don't’ even think he realized he was doing it after a while,” he says excitedly.
“I’m glad he is working through it, really I am but is it something that is going to happen every few years? Are we going to have to put everything on hold while he gets his act together? I don’t want to live like that…” I said before I knew how hurtful it would sound.
“Taylor, I know that you have reservations… that you have legitimate concerns. I’m here though to tell you, he’s trying. He’s trying to find a way to deal with those frustrations and that anger when it happens as opposed to just pushing it down. I got to witness first-hand how his previous coping mechanisms worked, and then during the first week we were there I saw him at war with himself. I watched him break down that barrier and get frustrated and then instead of figuring a way around it, confront it head on. It seemed to get easier for him as the days went on to just voice his frustrations, his fears. It was different, he was different, Taylor,” Everett says with a look of surprise.
“Is it going to be such a difference that he isn’t the man I love, though?” I ask, not quite sure what to say.
“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Remember the day you got him with whipped cream? How alive he was that day? That Taylor, that was my son, not the brooding miserable person we’ve been treated to on most days… When he first met you, I knew, maybe a few days after because he couldn’t stop smiling, for the first time in years. You know I think about how hard his life must have been all these years living in that constant conflict, never really being able to express what he was feeling, can you imagine?” he asks, catching me off guard.
“Actually, I can. I lived that way with Nathan… I knew what to say and how to act to keep the peace until one day I just gave up. By then though it was too late, and you know the rest,” I answer honestly.
“I didn’t mean to bring that up…” he says his eyes finding a speck on the floor.
“No worries, I, for the mos
t part, can talk about it with no issue, it’s other things that trigger the issues now,” I say, patting his arm.
We sit in silence for a few minutes before his phone rings and I can hear Helen on the other end of the line. The way his lips turned into a smile at seeing her face pop onto the screen is cute and as I watch him animatedly trying to explain why he isn’t home yet I have to laugh. When he hangs up he just shrugs his shoulders and smiles.
“Sounds like you need to get home, I know she hasn’t been too happy with you lately,” I joke as I walk him to the door.
Pulling me into a side hug, he sighs, “I know. I just don’t think she knew what else to do with him and having him so far away, for so long when he was so up in the air scared the daylights out of her, you know?”
“I think that’s part of it, but I also think that she’s mad you didn’t even ask her for her opinion too,” I offer with a smile, looking up at him.
“Because I knew what it would be sweetie, sometimes you just have to go with your gut,” he says squeezing me tighter.
I watch him leave, waving as he pulls away and I really think about the things he said. Elliot must have told him that we haven’t had any contact at all because he wouldn’t have stopped otherwise. As the night goes on the more I find that I’m trying to see what they see for the first time, not just my version of Elliot. To me, he has never been any different but to them, he was.
thirty - three
Taylor
The whole week before we leave I’m constantly trying to figure out where we are headed and trying to imagine this other side of Elliot that I’ve barely gotten to see. Despite my best efforts, it takes me until Friday before I finally wear Everett down enough to let me in on where we were going. I told him the reason and tried to explain to him that I just need a day before everyone arrives, just one day. There are things we need to talk about on our own before they get there. So, when he finally caved he gave me the address and the key. I planned to go a day earlier and surprise him.
I drove the two and a half hours blasting the music on my stereo and singing my heart out. I pulled up around one, the massive vacation house looming in front of me. I grab my suitcase and my duffle and using the key that Everett gave me I head up the stairs, not sure where he’ll be or if I’ll get the chance to surprise him. My heart leaps in my chest when I hear his voice, he must be on the phone I think as I silently set my things down inside the door. Following the sound of his voice I tiptoe through the massive house and finally I see him.
His back is to me and he’s distracted with the phone call, while he sits trying to shove something down into his cast. I have to force myself not to laugh at how boyish his behavior is as I spy on him.
Finally, he hangs up and I tuck back behind the wall waiting to see what he’s going to do next. I watch as he opens the french doors and rolls out onto the porch. I feel the breeze coming in through the doors as I wait to make sure he’s occupied before I pull the instant camera out of my bag and snap the picture. The clear blue sky enhances his silhouette as the picture develops in my hand and it’s breathtaking. Securing the camera back in my bag I again creep forward, just waiting for him to catch me but he never does. I try to decide where I’m going to leave it for him to find when I spot the picture I sent on the fridge. The wheels start turning in my mind and I quickly replace it with this new image before turning tail and looking for our room.
“Taylor?” I hear getting closer to where I’ve been waiting for almost an hour, “Where are you?”
I keep quiet, I want him to come to me. I can hear the whoosh of his wheels on the tile floor as he comes down the hall and then he finally appears in the doorway. I don’t quite expect what happens next. He makes no move to come to me but I watch as tears form in his eyes and his breath hitches.
“God, I’ve missed you so much…” he breathes.
“Ditto…” I answer, still unsure, maybe a little awkward.
“I almost can’t believe you are really here. I have so much… so much I want to say… but at the same time I just can’t wait to hold you…” he says, unsure of himself.
I get up from the bed and walk over to him, the look on my face questioning whether or not I can take up my perch on his lap. When he nods I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and just breathing in his scent.
“I know, Taylor, I know…” he whispers mimicking my actions.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I say, squeezing a little tighter.
“I won’t,” he answers so sure of himself as he pulls me back, looking at me.
“You don’t know that,” I answer honestly.
“No. You’re right. I don’t know that. Doesn’t mean I want to do that ever again… I’ve been through so much Taylor but do you want to know what the worst thing, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was?” he asks me.
I give him a questioning look, waiting to hear what he has to say but he just sits there looking at me until finally, “It was knowing that because I screwed up, I had to walk away from you… the sheer thought that you may not be there when I was ready was crushing. I had to do it, though, because no matter how much I thought I was dealing with things, on some level I wasn’t and that would never be enough for you. I had to take that risk and hope that you could see that it was for the best. Not just for me but for you too. I wouldn’t want to waste another moment of our future ever feeling like that, or being the person who frightened you. I saw the look on your face, I couldn’t live with myself knowing that you could or would ever be scared of me or my reactions,” he says, breathless near the end.
I don’t respond right away but I take his face in my hands, staring into his eyes and then finally, “Yes.”
It takes him a second to grasp what I’m saying and as he does I can feel the heat rise in his cheeks under my palms, the way his smile spreads slowly.
“I can’t wait to be your husband…” he says before crushing his lips onto mine.
“Sure, did take you long enough, how long was that box hidden under your motorcycle seat anyways?” I tease him when he reluctantly pulls back for a breath.
“How did you… when did you…” he pulls back a hint of defeat on his face.
“Elliot, I knew you didn’t just hang out in the garage for like two minutes every night just to do it. I didn’t realize it at first, but after a while you would come back in looking guilty, I knew you were up to something,” I say with a laugh.
“I’ll find a better hiding spot for your next gift…” he laughs.
“I think I already have a good spot for you…” I answer with a devilish grin as I grab his free hand and guide it where I want it, “What do you think?”
“I think that is a good place to start…” he whispers, the warmth of his breath in my ear enough to drive me insane.
Before we get too intense I pull a bag from my suitcase and after rummaging around a little I whip out his pills and wag my eyebrows suggestively at him. Snatching them out of my hand before whipping himself into the bathroom, he shakes his head in disbelief.
“I was going to ask Mark to swing past the house…” he says.
“One step ahead of you buddy,” I say before he can finish the sentence.
I pull one more thing out of that bag and set it on the bedside table before I strip down to my bra and panties. While I’m waiting I stare at the little blue box, something I’ve done a lot of over the last month. I knew he wanted me to wear it, but it didn’t feel right, I want him to put it on me, I want that grand moment. I don’t wait long before he emerges, shirtless and down to his boxers. I’m still trying to figure out how he’s managing with the cast, but he seems to be doing fine. He catches me watching and stops just shy of the bed, grinning he holds up the cast and points to a piece of black tape that looks a little chewed up.
“I’ve gone through almost a whole roll since I’ve been here…” he admits.
“You’re an idiot...my idiot, but still an idiot,”
I say not really sure if I mean for getting into the fight in the first place or that he is so proud of himself.
He grabs at his chest as though I’ve stabbed him with my words, “You wound me!”
“Hey, you did it buddy…” I say with a chuckle.
“That I did, Cupcake… and now I’m going to do this…” he says eyeing the box on the nightstand.
I feel like my heart is going to explode, I’ve been waiting for this for what feels like forever. In a way, I’ve been waiting for this type of love my whole life so, yeah, forever. I watch him carefully open the box and then the velvet box inside, I can’t wait to see it. I’ve opened and closed that box at least 350 times since he left but never once did I open the little box inside. Without missing a beat, he pulls the ring from the box and takes my left hand.
“Taylor, will you marry me?” he asks, his voice so soft.
“Yes, yes, yes…” I answer as he slips the gorgeous ring on my finger.
“It’s a Tiffany Novo…” he says after we kiss.