by Marisa Logan
Then I changed my email password, just to be on the safe side.
Chapter 10
I'd been cooking for an hour by the time Conner showed up to meet Ari. The pasta was almost ready, but I'd forgotten the garlic bread. I was standing in the kitchen, reading the directions on the box, when the doorbell rang.
“Ari, please get that.” I read over the instructions a second time, remembering how badly I'd burned the garlic bread last time I'd made any. I couldn't imagine making something like this from scratch, considering how easily I messed up when using the premade kind from the freezer aisle.
The doorbell rang again while I was setting the garlic bread on a tray. “Ari, please. Get the door.”
“I'm in the middle of a boss fight!”
“So pause it!”
I heard her grumbling, then she came out of her room, still holding the wireless controller. She passed by the kitchen and to the front door, opened it, said, “Hey,” then headed straight back to her room.
Conner came in holding a bouquet of flowers. “Hey,” he said to Ari's back as she retreated into her room. He came into the kitchen just as I was closing the oven. “Hey, you.”
“Hi. Sorry it's such a mess. Dinner's almost ready.”
I took the flowers and gave him a kiss, then dug out an old collectible cup from Burger King that was big enough to use as a vase. I set the flowers in the middle of the table, then gave Conner a bigger, sweeter kiss as a thank you.
“Eww, gross,” Ari said as she came in, sans controller, and caught us kissing.
I pulled away from Conner, giggling and blushing. “I thought you were in a boss battle?”
“I died.” She scowled at me as if it were my fault.
“What game?” Conner asked.
“Arkham Origins,” Ari said. “Copperhead keeps kicking my ass.”
“Ari!” I snapped. “Language.”
She rolled her eyes at me and sat at the table.
“I haven't played Origins yet,” Conner said, sitting across from her. “But I loved Arkham City. Is it the same gameplay?”
“Pretty much,” Ari said. “Except they replaced the Freeze Blast with Glue Grenades, which is pretty retarded, but they do the same thing. And Riddler's called 'Enigma' for some reason.”
“Well, that's his origin in the comics,” Conner said.
I lost track of what they were talking about as they started nerding out over Batman stuff, most of which didn't make sense to me. But I was glad they'd found a common ground and were getting along so well.
I finished cooking while they were talking, then we sat down to enjoy a nice meal together. Conner asked Ari about school and her art classes. I was impressed that she actually talked to him, and her cell phone didn't even make an appearance during dinner, which was a rare treat.
After we finished eating, I got up to go to the bathroom. When I finished, I was about to step out when I overheard Ari and Conner talking about me.
“So, are you and my mom going to get married or something?” Ari asked.
I paused in the bathroom with the door open just a crack, straining to hear Conner's response.
“I don't know,” he said. “I don't think we're at that point yet. Most people date for a few years before they talk about marriage.”
“But like, if you did date long enough, would you marry her?”
Conner let out a nervous laugh. I pushed the door open a little further to listen in.
“Maybe,” Conner said. “I care about your mom a lot. I think we'd probably both want to finish school before we started talking about that kind of thing. But it's definitely possible.”
“Okay.”
“Would that be okay with you?” Conner asked. “I mean, it'd be a long time from now. But I'd hope you'd be okay with it.”
“I guess,” Ari said. She paused for a long moment. “Did you know my dad's in jail?”
“No. Your mom never mentioned him.”
“Here, I'll show you.”
I silently cursed, leaning a little further out the door to peek down the hall. I could only see Ari's back from where I stood, but I caught a glimpse of her pulling her phone out of her back pocket.
A moment later, Conner said, “Oh, damn. I had no idea.”
“Yeah,” Ari said. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Don't tell Mom I told you. I don't think she knows that I know.”
I suppressed a groan and took a deep breath. I could only imagine that she'd shown him either her dad's profile in the national sex offender's database, or some kind of online news article about his sentencing. I had never realized she'd looked such things up, but I shouldn't have been surprised. She was practically a little hacker. Of course she would have Googled her dad at some point.
I waited a few moments, then flushed the toilet again with the door open so they'd hear it and know I was done in the bathroom. By the time I got back to the table, they were sitting there talking about video games again, hopefully with no idea that I'd been eavesdropping.
I started cleaning up the dishes. Ari got up from the table and asked Conner, “You want to play Gears?”
“Co-op or versus?” he asked.
“Pfft. I'm gonna kick your as—I mean, butt.”
“Bring it.” He grinned, then gave me a questioning look to see if it was okay. I smiled and nodded.
I joined them in Ari's room after I finished cleaning up, and I watched them shoot each other for a little while until all the blood on the screen started to bug me. Conner seemed to sense my discomfort, and after he lost the next match (I couldn't tell if he lost on purpose or if Ari was just that good), he set the controller down and said, “Thanks for the game. Is it cool if I go spend time with your mom now?”
“Yeah.” Ari shrugged, resetting the game to set it back to one-player mode. “I'll keep the door shut so you guys can make out or whatever.”
My face heated up and I gave my daughter a shocked look. She giggled at me, then turned her attention to her game.
“I'm glad you two are getting along,” I said after we left and shut Ari's door. “I was worried.”
“She's a cool kid,” he said. “And she seems way smart for her age.”
“Oh, I know,” I said. “Her teacher said they're thinking of skipping her ahead a year. And she's already reading at a college level.”
“That's pretty cool. I guess smarts run in the family, eh?”
“Yeah, right,” I said, smacking him lightly in the chest.
We put on some music and sat down on the couch together for awhile, though we didn't do anything since I wasn't comfortable fooling around with my boyfriend while my daughter was in the other room.
We talked for awhile, and while Conner didn't bring up the things he and Ari had talked about, I couldn't stop thinking about them. I was nowhere near ready to start talking about marriage or anything like that, but I couldn't stop wondering whether it was a possibility. Whether Conner would one day be ready and willing to become a part of our family.
I never wanted or expected him to take on a father's role with Ari. But I knew that if our relationship was ever going to have a future, that future would have to include him being a part of my daughter's life.
“You okay?” he asked me later in the night. “You seem a little distracted.”
“Just thinking,” I said.
“About what?”
I smirked and looked down at my lap. I wasn't ready to bring up such sensitive subjects yet. So I evaded the question by simply answering, “Just the future. How school's going to go. Whether I'll ever graduate, or even pass this chemistry final. What I want to do with my life after graduation.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think about that a lot.”
“Do you know what you want?” I leaned my arm against the back of the couch, propping my head in my hand.
“Well,” he said, “I've definitely decided on studying astronomy. And after graduation, I don't know. Maybe if I do good enough I could get a
job with NASA or something. Or maybe just become a college professor.”
I laughed, trying to imagine him in front of a classroom teaching students about the stars. When a hurt frown touched his lips, I reached out and patted his arm.
“Sorry. I was just thinking about how you've been teaching me chemistry all semester long. You do seem to have a knack for it.”
He shrugged, looking down at his feet. “What about you? Do you know what you want to do?”
I looked off into the distance, trying to figure out if I even had an answer to that question. “I don't know. I kind of like psychology, but I couldn't imagine becoming like, a therapist or something. And I guess I kind of like writing, but not enough to become an author.” I shrugged. “I guess I'll see what happens. I'll probably just end up somebody's secretary somewhere.”
“No way,” he said. “You can do a lot better.”
“You think?” My mouth twisted up in an uncertain smile.
“I'm positive.” He reached out and caressed my cheek. “You're amazing. And I'm sure you're going to do amazing things.”
He kissed me, and I held him close, filled with thoughts of the future, and wonder about what it might bring.
Chapter 11
Things between Conner and I continued to go well as the semester ended and the summer wore on. I managed to survive chemistry class with a C-, which was good enough for me. My summer classes were a bit more intense, since they met four days a week in order to cram everything into half as long of a semester, but I kept up with it well enough.
I also got the opportunity to meet my nephew, Liam. Casey and I met at a park one nice summer day, without Jimmy knowing about it. I held my nephew in my lap and listened to his laughter. He was a beautiful child, and I immediately fell in love with him.
“I've been talking to Jimmy about you,” Casey said.
“How's that been going?”
“He was hesitant at first.” She reached out to Liam and he wrapped his little hand around her finger. “He's been holding on to a lot of anger for a long time. I told him I want to get the chance to know the rest of his family. And that I want our son to have a relationship with all of you.”
“How did he feel about that?” I still felt guilty about the bad blood between us. Jimmy and I hadn't spoken since the reading of Grandma's will. I could still hear the anger in his tone when he yelled at me about only coming to him when I needed money.
“Well,” she said, hesitating. I waited, giving her a pleading look. “He said that after six years now, he doesn't know if you and he can ever repair the problems between you. And that it would take a lot of work, maybe even family therapy. And he said he's not sure if he thinks it's worth the effort.”
I looked down into my lap, feeling like I'd just been slapped across the face. I'd known for a long time that Jimmy and I had problems that wouldn't be easy to solve. So did Amanda and I, for completely different reasons. But I'd always held out the hope that when enough time passed and the anger started to fade, we'd be able to make amends and put it all behind us.
I wasn't sure if I was just being naive, thinking that it would be so easy to forget about what had happened. Or if Jimmy was holding onto his anger because he didn't know how to cope with emotions the same way most people did.
But then I realized something. I realized that if I was no longer angry, but Jimmy still was, maybe that meant that I'd hurt him more than he'd hurt me. That I'd left a deep mark on his heart that couldn't be forgotten so easily.
I'd long since given up on being angry, but then, he hadn't really done anything to hurt me. I'd felt rejected when he moved out and left me to pay the rent on my own. But he must have felt like I'd kicked him out of my life.
I couldn't remember most of what I'd said to him that day, but there was one thing that stuck out in my mind. I'd been the only one yelling. I'd screamed at him, unleashing my anger on him, and he'd simply stood there and taken it. And when I told him to get his stuff out and give me back his key, he'd simply said, “Okay.”
He hadn't fought back. Our whole lives, he'd never been one to fight back. He'd taken the brunt of my rage, then spent the next six years waiting for me to be the one to reach out to him.
Maybe, I realized, it was time for me to own up to what I'd done. He might have hurt me unintentionally with his lack of sensitivity. But I'd hurt him on purpose with my rage.
“Can you tell him I want to talk to him?” I asked. “Tell him...tell him I don't expect him to put everything behind us. And I understand if he doesn't think I'm worth the effort. But I want to apologize to him. I think I owe him that much.”
“I think that would help a lot,” Casey said. “I don't really know exactly what happened with you two. I just know what he told me, but that's just one side. But he's...stubborn. And I think it would really help if you made the first move.”
I bounced Liam up and down on my knee, looking at his smiling face. If I wanted this little guy to ever be a part of my life, I was going to have to fix things with his father. “I'll do what I can,” I said. “I just hope it's not already too late.”
* * *
Jimmy and I traded a few emails over the next few weeks. I offered him my apologies, though it turned out not to be anywhere near as simple as that. I'd kept my first email simple, just telling him that I was sorry, that I knew I'd hurt him and I'd never meant to, and that I hoped we could set things right between us again.
His first response was over fifteen pages long. He went on long, meandering explanations about all of the issues that had been weighing on him over the years, going as far back as when we were teenagers, on up through the time we'd spent as roommates.
He apparently had a much longer memory than I did, listing grievances that I'd either long forgotten, or never realized were an issue.
He spoke of the way I'd excluded him and not invited him to parties and other things when we were teens. At the time, I'd just been a teenage girl who didn't want to hang around with my little brother. But from the way he described it, it had made him feel outcast and unloved.
He talked about similar things happening when we were living together, like the time a group of my friends and I had gone to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, all dressed up as pirates, without asking him if he wanted to come along. I remembered letting him tag along when he came home and saw us about to leave, but I had never realized that he thought I'd only let him come out of pity. I had never realized that he had thought I didn't want him around at all, and that I would have left him behind if not for my guilt.
The list went on and on. Right up until the day after he moved out, when he described a story that made my heart clench in my chest.
Back when Jimmy was living with me, we had a regular dinner Thursday night, with friends and family. It used to be me, Jimmy, Amanda, a few of our friends, and anyone we were dating at the time. It had been our regular thing for over a year, week after week.
In his email, he described sitting in his new apartment with his girlfriend, watching the phone, waiting for me to call. I didn't remember much about that particular Thursday night, except for a few of my friends asking me where Jimmy was and why he wasn't at dinner. I'd told them he was mad at me, and then waited to see if he would come by the next week.
He hadn't shown up the next week, or the week after, and before I knew it, years had passed.
What I'd never known was that he'd been waiting for my call. That he'd assumed he was no longer welcome, because of the way I'd spoken to him the day he moved out. And he told me that not being invited back had convinced him that I must never have loved him at all.
I sat at my computer and cried when I read those words. For so long, I'd thought he never called, never came over, never reached out to me because he was angry. I'd never realized that it was because he felt unloved.
Conner came over for dinner that night. I was still in tears when he got to the apartment. Ari let him in, then retreated to her room. Conne
r found me in the living room, trying to wipe away my tears.
“What's wrong?” he asked. He dropped to one knee beside my chair and took my hands in his, looking up to me with deep concern in his eyes.
“Nothing. I...” I shook my head. “It's just, family stuff. My brother.”
“Oh. Is there...can I do anything for you?”
I smiled at him and stroked his face. I'd never explained the extent of my family drama to him. He knew I was estranged from most of my family, but that was it. Unless, of course, Ariella had explained any of it to him.
“I think this is something I have to do myself,” I said.
“Okay.” He frowned in concern and kissed my hands.
“But I could use a hug.”
He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. I buried my face against his shoulder and cried while he stroked my back and whispered soothingly in my ear.
I eventually calmed down enough for us to have dinner. But I was distracted for the rest of the night, thinking about everything Jimmy had said. And wondering, were I to reach out to Amanda in the same way, if she'd have as long of a list of grievances against me as our brother had.
I didn't know if I could face those sins. But if I wanted to mend the rift in our family, I realized that I was going to have to be the one to fix everything. And I had no idea how to do that.
Chapter 12
A few days before the start of the new school year, I convinced my brother and sister to meet me at our dad's house. Dad took Ari and Casey off to play XBox in order to give us some time to talk.
We sat in Dad's dining room, surrounded by awkward silence. I noticed Jimmy's hands were shaking a bit, and I worried that he was going to have another panic attack. I sat across from him, taking a deep breath to steady myself, and I spoke in a calm and quiet voice.
“I've had a lot of time to think about everything. I know there's a lot of problems between us. And I know a lot of it is my fault.”