Almost Missed You

by Jessica Strawser

  Violet sighed. “Don’t we all look for ports in a storm?”

  “Maybe we do.” Gram shrugged. “But let me ask you this. Before you batten down the hatches and go to sleep at night, what are you writing in your captain’s log? That you saw a port and tied up to it? Or some other story, about the stars navigating you into the path of another ship?”

  Violet’s eyes burned. “But I did cross paths with another ship. In fact, as I recall, that ship navigated toward me, with the big Camp Pickiwicki flag I was flying above my sails. And then when it lost sight of me, it put out a call looking for me.”

  Gram was quiet for a moment. She sighed. “Maybe you did cross paths, dear. Or maybe you were the port. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but—” Her voice trailed off. She cleared her throat. “It’s been a while since I’ve been out to sea alone, but if I were, I know I’d be prone to telling myself stories to pass the time. All I’m saying is, whatever you’ve been writing down for yourself in that captain’s log, make sure it’s honest.”

  13

  AUGUST 2016

  Finn stared into the empty fireplace in front of him as if there were a roaring blaze inside. They’d roasted marshmallows here last summer—he and Bear and Violet and Caitlin and George and the twins, all together—back when things had been bearable. Before Asheville. No matter that it hadn’t been cool enough in the evenings to be fire weather. George had opened all the windows for the authenticity of nature’s sound track and left the air conditioner on full blast. And why not? It wasn’t as if he had to worry about the electric bill.

  Finn wished he could build a little fire now, August heat be damned—he desperately needed to find a way to cheer Bear up. There was a huge stack of wood outside, no one would notice a few logs missing, and he’d found a bag of stale marshmallows in the kitchen. But he couldn’t risk one of the far-away neighbors seeing smoke from the chimney and stopping by to say a cheery hello to George or his father. It was out of the question.

  He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. He could hardly stand the stuff without milk. He’d stopped for groceries at a supercenter midway here from Cincinnati, not wanting to be seen at the tiny market in town, and it had been too far from the cabin and too hot in the car to pick up anything that needed refrigeration. He’d worn a baseball cap and outfitted Bear with one too, unsure—especially now that Caitlin had mentioned the FBI—whether their photos had appeared on the national news. But Finn had still been able to see in the shadow of Bear’s cap how his tiny face fell every time Finn denied him something that wouldn’t survive the journey—frozen chicken nuggets, ice cream, string cheese, those ingenious little tubes of yogurt.

  Violet had once remarked that Bear could happily survive on PB&J and applesauce alone. She’d be delighted to know that Finn had proved her wrong—something she rarely was, as far as Bear was concerned—except, of course, that she wouldn’t know.

  She deserved to know, of course. She deserved to have her son. The problem was, Finn couldn’t stand to let him go. And he could no longer see a way for them both to have him together. Nor could he see a way for Violet to remain in his life at all, not even at a distance. Not after everything that had happened. There had been a lot of things in the first place that had been done that could never be undone. Now there was one more—and it was a big one. That Violet so often seemed to be the casualty of Finn’s misjudgments and mistakes seemed to be somehow unavoidable in this life, even though Finn harbored no ill will toward his wife. Not that anyone would believe that now.

  Finn preferred to blame the dominoes that Violet was so fond of as a metaphor for their coupling. There had been 1,001 chances for them not to end up together; 1,001 reasons for them not to end up together. And there was really only one chance, and really only one reason, for it to go the other way.

  Even with the odds overwhelmingly in his favor, he had lost.

  Sometimes he couldn’t believe his luck.

  The night they had Bear—good God, she’d almost died. The pregnancy was an accident to begin with, and he couldn’t stop thinking that if she didn’t pull through, it would all be his fault, again, for putting her in that position. He’d sat by her bedside and thought that surely the better thing for her, if she recovered, would be for him to leave, even then. What kind of man could walk out on his new wife and their newborn son? No one would have understood Finn’s reasons, years deep. But as he’d waited for morning to light the dark hospital room, he’d known with certainty that there was no telling the pain he could cause. Violet and little Bear didn’t deserve to have to find out.

  But then she was awake, beaming at him with color back in her cheeks, asking immediately for the baby, and his resolve faded. “I’m perfectly okay,” she said, reaching for his cheek, and he caught the hand and squeezed it hard and lowered his head to their entwined fingers, unable to meet her eyes, to even look at her face at all just then, and he was overcome with the reality of it all in the light of day. To have ended up here with this woman. To have somehow produced this beautiful baby boy, and to have almost lost her in the process. His heart had never felt so helpless.

  In the days and weeks and months that followed, he had watched her dote on Bear with as much detachment as he could muster even as he quietly grew more and more enamored with his son. He loved their Bear Cub, as they took to calling him, more than he’d thought himself capable—but Bear always saved his biggest smiles and sweetest coos for Violet, and at that Finn would find himself holding back. By the time the wondrous little creature began sitting up and interacting with them, though, Finn could no longer resist. Being a father, the man charged with teaching Bear how to become a man himself—how could he even describe it?

  Outside the sliding glass doors, the lake sparkled in the late morning sun. Bear had never slept this late, ever—but then again, he’d been up most of the night, crying and asking for Violet. At first, taking Bear with him had been an impulse. As panic had set in at the realization of what he’d done, Finn had tried to convince himself this was something of a second chance—not one he’d ever have taken if he’d thought it through, but one he’d taken nonetheless. To start over loving someone on his own terms, without the heavy burden of the things he’d left unsaid, things that he hated himself for and that he felt sure Violet would hate him for too. To start over without the constant fear of causing further hurt, and of finally getting what he deserved—his every small happiness snatched away. Now of course he saw that that was not going to be possible. He’d been an idiot to think otherwise.

  Maybe if he’d had any sort of plan at all, he would have had an answer ready when Bear first asked where she was. Maybe he would have avoided the way the little boy’s shoulders heaved with sobs, the way he’d looked up at Finn last night, let out a shaky breath of a sigh, and said, “But she’s a good mommy. She’s my best mommy.”

  What could he have said? Bear was right. Violet was a wonderful mother. Eventually, Bear had cried himself back to sleep. He was still where Finn had left him, curled up miserably on the bottom bunk bed in the back bedroom.

  It was a cold comfort that when it came to making a mess of things, this particular mess hardly even ranked at the top of Finn’s life-to-date list. It probably wasn’t even number two. Third, maybe. Fourth? Lucky, too, that self-hatred wasn’t anything new to him—any minute now the sharpness of this fresh guilt would dull and he could brush past it as if it were merely an inconvenience, an annoyance. He wouldn’t allow himself to think further of his wife. Or of how awful he’d been to Caitlin yesterday, mining her insecurities the way only a close friend could to get what he needed.

  What he needed. That was the key to surviving it all. He was clear with himself that this wasn’t about what he wanted anymore—if it ever had been—but need was key. And number one on that list was some kind of plan.

  People did stupid things every day. And they got out of them every day. And so could Finn.

  Somehow.

  The unmistakable so
und of the key in the door interrupted his thoughts, and Finn jumped to his feet. Shit, shit, shit. There was nowhere out here to hide, and he couldn’t leave Bear. He started toward the back bedroom, hoping whoever was at the door might delay, but it swung open, and there, her arms filled with paper grocery bags, was Caitlin.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You scared me half to death.”

  Then he saw who was behind her, and froze.

  “Uncle Finn!” The twins rushed him together, each grabbing one of his legs in a hug. “Where’s Bear? Where’s Bear?”

  Finn felt the color drain from his face. “Bear’s not—”

  But they were already gone, down the hallway, and he could hear Bear’s yelp of surprise as they jumped into his bed.

  He turned back to Caitlin, furious.

  “Damn it, Cait, I warned you—”

  “You didn’t, actually.” She breezed past him into the small galley-shaped kitchen area in the corner of the open room and deposited the paper bags onto the counter with a grunt. Then, her hands freed, she began checking items off her fingers, one by one. “You said no FBI, no cops, no Violet, no George—nothing about me.” She smiled innocently and removed a gallon of milk from the first bag. “Want to freshen up your coffee?” she asked, glancing at his full mug on the table, and it irked him that she knew him that well, even as something like relief began to show itself in a back region of his brain. “I’ve got creamer, too. French vanilla.”

  “But what are you doing here, Cait? And bringing the boys into this? Are you nuts?”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “No more so than you, evidently.”

  “They won’t be able to keep a secret.”

  “I’m well aware of that. And I wouldn’t ask them to. Any more than you could ever ask Bear to—could you?” Her pointed words didn’t match the nonchalant way she began loading the groceries into the fridge—summer squash, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, blueberries, eggs, even burger patties and steaks—and Finn found himself struggling not to feel at least a small amount of gratitude, especially when another peal of giggles erupted from the back room. He stared down the hallway toward the bedrooms, his mind racing. He had to get rid of Caitlin—now. And yet, he was in her in-laws’ cabin, with nowhere else to go. And Bear hadn’t laughed in days.

  When the last bag was empty, Caitlin folded it neatly and looked at him. “Listen,” she said. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Finn. I know that whatever you’re going through right now, it’s bad. You said yourself you were desperate. You said yourself you didn’t feel like you had a choice. And you came to me for help. So I’m going to be understanding about you acting a little stressed yesterday.”

  Caitlin had always been clever. Before and after he’d made the calculated decision to confront her at her house, he’d played out as many different scenarios as he could think of as to how she might react. What he’d do if she did in fact call the cops, for instance, or if he opened the cabin door to find Violet standing there. But he hadn’t thought of this one.

  “You asked for help,” she said again, “so I’m here to help. I’m still your friend, Finn. I was your friend first, remember?” She turned away to pour a cup of coffee as she said this so that he couldn’t see her face.

  “But bringing the boys here—”

  “I had to,” she said simply, turning back toward him and leaning against the counter. “I just spent the better part of a week down in Asheville with Violet, my first time ever away from them.” Finn looked away, out at the lake, trying not to think about what must have gone on there, what must have been said. “I tried to work out a way to come alone, but George would never in a million years have believed that I would voluntarily leave them again right away. He’d have known something was up.”

  “How do you know he won’t show up here too?”

  “He’s got a big project at work—doesn’t he always? And he understood that I wanted a couple of days away to reconnect with Leo and Gus.”

  “But you know they’ll tell him that they saw me and Bear when you get home. How do you expect this to go?”

  “I have no idea. But I do know that by the time I get home, whatever the boys say won’t matter, because this will all be resolved by then.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you and I both know that you need to figure a way out of this. We’re both in trouble now, okay? So neither of us are leaving this cabin until there’s a resolution that involves you no longer being a kidnapper on the run.” She took a sip of coffee, but her eyes never left his face. “Sooner or later, you need to face this, so let me face it with you.”

  Something about the way she delivered that line made him think that she’d been rehearsing it the whole way down. The idea of it irked him.

  “Face it with me, or face off with me?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe both. But like you said, you don’t have any other options.”

  Finn could feel his anger dissipating a little as his eyes wandered past her and out toward the lake. It was the exhaustion weakening his resolve, slowing his reaction time. If he hadn’t been feeling so lost anyway, he would have been able to stay angrier. Then again, if he had any other ideas of what to do or where to go, he wouldn’t be here. He would be … well, somewhere else.

  “Come on, Finn. Aren’t you a little relieved that you don’t have to do it alone?”

  In the distance, a sailboat was hoisting a tiny white triangle into the air like a flag of surrender.

  The twins came stomping into the kitchen, exaggerating each step to show off their light-up sneakers to Bear and, Finn could see right away, to one-up each other. Bear padded in barefoot behind them, his hair flattened to his head on one side and spiked out dramatically on the other, his lanky little body clad in tight thin cotton pajamas patterned with surfboards and palm trees. Violet had picked them out especially for their vacation, and Finn saw Caitlin’s almost imperceptible wince as she took them in. He was what they call a sorry sight.

  “I’m hungry,” he announced to Caitlin by way of greeting.

  She smiled brightly at him. “How about blueberry pancakes? And scrambled eggs? With cheese?”

  “Yummy!” Bear cheered, embracing her legs.

  “Mommy, do we have two breakfasts?” Gus asked. “We already had cereal.”

  “Since Bear hasn’t had breakfast, yes, we will have two. Boys, this is our very special visit to cheer up Bear, remember. So Bear gets to pick.”

  “Bear wants to watch ‘Thomas,’” Leo said, sticking out his bottom lip defiantly.

  “Leo, that’s not how it—”

  “‘Thomas the Train’?” Bear asked, already smiling.

  Caitlin clapped her hands together. “Well, then!” she said. “Uncle Finn will turn on the DVD while I get those pancakes started.”

  Finn knew she was dismissing him, and he decided to let her.

  14

  AUGUST 2016

  It had seemed safe, stepping out for only a few minutes. Violet was out of both milk and juice—two staples Bear couldn’t get through a day without. She had to keep hoping that he could come home any minute. And if and when he did, she wanted it to feel like home. Violet was reluctant to leave the house at all just in case he did come through that door, and she knew Gram would gladly honor a request to stop at the store for her. But the grocery was a short drive down the street; she could be there and back in ten minutes. It felt important to have some kind of purpose, to prove to herself and anyone else who might be paying attention that she could still get out and function in the world—she could still function as a mother. She just needed her kid back so she could do it.

  But she didn’t count on running into anyone she knew. There, loading milk and creamer into his own cart, was Bear’s pediatrician. Bear had struggled with a bad run of ear infections after they moved to the higher altitude, and Violet had gotten to know Dr. Saito better than any parent should in a short year. When he saw her, he let out a small “Oh,”
and simply opened his arms. She stepped into the awkward hug with a mixture of gratitude and helplessness, fighting the urge to run and hide. She felt … well, it dawned on her that she felt embarrassed. Her husband had left her. Dramatically. With her child. What kind of wife and mother must Dr. Saito take her for now? Violet stepped back. It felt rude not to smile but inappropriate to conjure one, so she merely stared at him blankly.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked, and Violet’s eyes blurred with tears at the kindness.

  The fact was, she’d always had a bit of a crush on the pediatrician. It was silly, really. He was a thin, soft-spoken, spectacled man, certainly not her typical idea of sexy. She knew the only thing that attracted her to him was that he cared so well for her child, the center of her universe. That, and the fact that she didn’t get out much anymore. Still, she’d entertained little fantasies of what might happen if she ran into him after hours. If Finn wasn’t in the picture, of course. Which was what made the fantasy harmless. Because Finn would always be in the picture. Pending some tragic act of God, it was preposterous that he wouldn’t be.

  Dr. Saito reached into his pocket, removed a plastic sleeve of tissues with Elmo on the front, and handed one to her. “This is unfathomable,” he said. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through. The FBI came by my office, asking all sorts of questions about Bear’s well-being. It’s just absurd.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry you’ve been dragged into this. I’m sure that’s the last thing you have time for.”

  “You are the last person who should be apologizing.”

  “What did you tell them?” As soon as the words came out of Violet’s mouth, they seemed wrong. What if he thought she was prying because she had something to hide? “Don’t answer that,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m not thinking straight.”

  “I told them the truth. That you are one of the parents I most enjoy having in my office. That you always seem to instinctively know when to be concerned about Bear, and when something is just growing pains. In these days of Google and WebMD, you wouldn’t believe how many parents show up every week in a certified panic over nothing.”