by Lindy Zart
“Hi, Ben.”
Her hair softly waves about her shoulders. She looks small, and young, and hesitant. I want to tell her I’m done with hiding what I feel. I want to tell her a lot of things I have no right voicing. There’s something between us. There could be more. Yet, we’re at a standstill. Avery’s going in one direction with her life and I’m going in another.
I stop beside the bed. “Hi.”
We meet each other’s gaze and look away at the same time. Neither one of us seems to know what to say.
“How are you doing?” I ask, gripping the bedrail in an effort to steady my limbs. I feel shaky and hot and cold.
“Good.” Avery picks at the blanket covering her legs. “Tired. You?”
“Same.” I straighten and look toward the door. “I should let you re—”
“Please stay.”
I swing my eyes to Avery.
“For a little while.” She scoots to the side, patting the empty space beside her. Avery waits expectantly.
I climb into the bed, the side of my body pressed to hers. She smells good, and her being close to me sets my skin on fire with tantalizing images of what we shared in the forest. More than that, is the sensation of balance, rightness. I don’t want to be anywhere but where I am.
Avery turns on the television, finds a random show, and rests her head on my shoulder. I let my eyes close, listening to the faint drone of the television.
“Would it sound weird if I said I kind of miss being lost?” she asks quietly.
“I’m not sure,” I reply slowly. I turn my head until we’re at eye level. “What do you miss about it?”
Avery shrugs. “I don’t really know. Maybe because even though we didn’t know what was going to happen to us and it was terrifying at some points, it was simple. We survived. That’s all we had to focus on. Everything is complicated again now.”
“Reality generally is.”
“I know.” She settles back against the pillow and shuts her eyes. “But I wish it wasn’t.”
I mimic her action, getting drowsier by the minute.
“Everything seems smaller, congested. Less important, even.”
I agree. It does.
“Did you tell Duke?” she asks.
“Did you?” I counter.
Avery sighs. “No. I can’t, not yet.”
“When?”
“I don’t know if I can, Ben.” She sounds defeated.
“Avery.”
She stills at the sound of my voice.
“If you don’t tell him, you’ll regret it. Often, the biggest regrets we have are the words we don’t speak.” I smile at the ceiling. “You can use that one, free of charge.”
Avery snorts and laughs softly. “You’re right, you know.”
“I know.” Because I’m living it. I haven’t told her how much I admire her, or how talented she is, or how her never giving up when we were lost in the national forest made me stronger. I haven’t told her that the thought of not seeing her on a daily basis puts a peculiar tightening sensation in my chest, or that I get anxious when I think of my future and know she won’t be a part of it.
“Did you tell him?” she asks again after a couple minutes.
My pulse hikes. “I’m meeting with Duke tomorrow.”
Avery lets out a ragged breath. “You’re really doing it.”
“I’m really doing it.”
“It will be good for you,” she says firmly after a lengthy pause.
I study the wall across the room, knowing she does the same.
“It’s so noisy here…and busy,” Avery says softly.
“I know. It doesn’t feel right to have all these walls either.” I gesture toward the ceiling. “Or that.”
We turn our heads at the same time and lock eyes, our lips within kissing distance.
“Do you know where you’ll go?”
“Alabama.” Even as I answer, the beat of my heart quickens with something akin to anxiety.
She gives me a quizzical look. “What’s in Alabama?”
“I don’t know, and that’s what I want. I’m going to all fifty states, starting with Alabama.”
“Why is that your first stop?”
“If you alphabetize the states, it’s the first one.”
Avery laughs. “You’re silly.”
“Silly and alive, exactly how I want to be.” My eyelids close, and I sink farther into the bed. “You’re going to be okay, Avery. I know it.”
“Sure. But will you?”
I focus on my breathing, in and out, over and over. At the start of this, Avery symbolized everything I detested. Now? I think of her and I’m proud of the person she is. I truly believe she can do anything. I am in awe of her, again and again. Can I really leave her? Do I even want to?
“I will be,” I reply evenly.
“I’m sorry for everything I did that hurt you,” Avery says sleepily. She finds my hand, locking our fingers.
“I’m sorry too. I should have been better to you,” I tell her, gently squeezing her fingers.
“It will be good for you, but not me,” comes out in a whisper that about breaks my heart.
I turn my head, my eyes tracing the lines of her profile. Avery’s eyes are closed, and as I watch, her breathing steadies. With a stilted breath, I shift until my forehead rests on her temple. I shut my eyes, falling asleep to the sound of her soft breathing.
AVERY
After I take a steaming hot bath that I stay in until the water turns cold, I dress in a long-sleeved pajama top and pants and wander around my apartment. We’ve been back in Chicago for five days. Everything seems unreal.
I am unable to eat or focus on anything. Sleep evades me. Brown eyes haunt me. For the first time in quite a while, I am lonely, but not for just anyone. I miss Ben. I spent every minute of multiple days with him. I slept beside him. I heard his voice so often that now I swear the echo of it hums through my mind.
I grab my cell phone with shaking fingers and bring up Ben’s name and number, and I stare. He’s a phone call away, and also a whole world. Duke apologized profusely and gave us each two weeks of paid time off, along with a therapist’s phone number in case we needed to talk to someone. I told him all of that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.
I want to be busy so I don’t have time to think. About who I recently was, and how to get back to who I used to be before my mother’s death. I found the me I know and like in the Illinois wilderness; I want her to stay.
I thought meeting my father would be worth anything, but nothing is worth the loss of trueness to oneself. I’m scared to tell him who I am, even while knowing that if Duke can’t accept me as I am, then he doesn’t deserve to know me.
Ben is right; I have to tell Duke. The whole reason for me to adopt the polished Avery Scottam persona and relocate to a city that’s bigger than any of my small-town dreams was to impress my dad. But it was all a lie—a lie I can no longer live.
I set down the phone and grab a blanket off the back of the couch. Eyes trained on the fireplace with no fire, I think of Ben’s parting words to me when we left the hospital after our mandated twenty-four stay for observation. He didn’t seem unfriendly, but Ben was distant. He looked torn. I know the feeling well.
Ben said to me: “If I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d want it to be exactly the same.”
I didn’t know how to take his words at first; I nodded and got in the cab that would take me to my apartment, desolate over the end of something that never really was. I’ve thought of them at least ten times a day since. I understand now. He does not regret me. He is grateful for the time we spent together.
Tears sting my eyes.
Duke is hosting a going-away party for Ben next week. I feel sick at the thought of Ben leaving and having no idea when he’ll be back, or if he will. More than that, I wish him the best, even if it leaves me hurting. Because, really, how can I be sad that he’s happy? That would be selfish, and although I’ve seem
ed exactly that at times, where Ben is concerned, I cannot be. Not now. We made no promises to each other. And yet…we did. Without words, but we did. We were a team. Partners. Friends. Lovers for a moment that felt blissful and infinite.
A tear trails down my cheek, and I hastily wipe it away when the doorbell rings.
My first thought is that it’s Ben, and my heart races with nerves and anticipation. Reality crashes down on me as I cross the room, and right before I open the door, I know it won’t be him. I also don’t expect it to be Duke. Cologne, faint and expensive-smelling, touches my senses. I stare at his broad and symmetrical features, searching his face for traces of me, searching for the missing parts that make me who I am. His face is set in stone, a piece of paper crumpled in his large hand.
“Hello,” I greet carefully.
Wordlessly, his arm shoots forward, the hand holding the paper halting directly before my nose.
I don’t look at the paper, my gaze held by furious blue eyes. My throat drops to my stomach, making it hard to produce words. They come out ragged and shaken. “What is it?”
Other than a muscle jumping in his jaw, Duke doesn’t move, and he doesn’t respond.
I slowly reach up and tug the paper from his strong grip. My hand drops to my side. I don’t even glance toward the paper. I already know what it is: one of the slogans I pitched with credit given to my mother. Somehow, Duke found it, or someone showed it to him. My thoughts crisscross to Ben, wondering if he would do such a thing. Maybe anything I thought he felt for me was a lie, and this whole thing has been a setup to get back at me, and this is the grand finale in his “Get Back at Avery” quest. I would deserve it.
And yet, I don’t believe that.
What we shared, although brief, was true.
“Scottam isn’t that common of a last name,” he begins quietly. “I admit, when I saw it listed on your resume, it caught my attention. I thought it was a coincidence; I should have known better. There aren’t a lot of those where I’m concerned.”
My breathing picks up, short and shallow. Tingles of unease erupt along my skin. He knows I’m his daughter and he’s not happy about it. I should have expected it, and maybe that’s why it hurts so much—because I did. I don’t know the details of the relationship between my mom and dad. I know they were together at some point. I know she didn’t want me to know him, and I know that he’s never been a part of my life. Whether or not that was by choice is a question I can’t answer. My mouth trembles and I press my lips together in an attempt to hide it.
He looms above me, larger than the doorway. “Who are you? What game are you playing at?”
“Game?” I blink. “I’m not—”
Duke brushes past me, entering the apartment. “Where is she? Did she put you up to this?”
He strides the length of the apartment, opening and closing doors, looking for a person he’ll never find. That rips a sob from me. I’ve done the same. Even knowing she’s gone, I’ve still looked for my mom in rooms. The heart can’t always accept what the mind already knows. Duke calls out for my mom, the sound of her name like a fresh slice through my heart, and he reappears before me, looking agitated.
“She’s not here.”
I shake my head.
“Is she your mother? You look like her. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner,” he spits out, this detail seeming to infuriate him more. Duke slams his fists to his hips and glares at me. “Are you doing this for money? Is that it? I wasn’t good enough for her then, but now that I have money, I am?”
Silent tears stream down my cheeks. I look at my father, my vision blurring as I try to make sense of his words.
“Say something!”
I flinch.
Duke watches me. In a contemplative tone, he questions softly, “Who are you? What is your connection to Cecily Scottam?”
“I’m—she’s—” I gesture helplessly, my throat closing around another sob. I hold myself, wishing my arms were my mother’s.
The paper falls from my hand, Duke’s gaze following it before lifting to me. His skin pales, the harshness falling away to nothing. Slackness takes over his face and Duke stumbles back a couple steps, as if he’s physically hit with overwhelming emotion. He holds his head and spins toward the door, bumping into the doorway as he hurries from the apartment.
I don’t understand what’s going on. Duke Renner looks as if his heart was ripped from his body. Numb, I follow, finding Duke sitting on the floor to the left of my front door, his head resting on the wall. Pain, deep and undeniable, holds his features hostage. I sink to the floor beside him, looking at the wall across the hallway.
“She’s dead,” he says. It isn’t a question, the words as hollow as the hole in my chest.
“Yes,” I whisper.
It’s a long moment before Duke speaks again. “How?”
“Cancer.”
His eyelids close; he takes a shuddering breath. “How long ago?”
I sniffle. “Almost a year.”
“You’re her daughter.”
Again, it isn’t a question, but I answer it anyway. “Yes.”
I wait for Duke to ask who my father is, but he doesn’t.
“I was married once.”
“I know. Ben told me.”
“It didn’t last long. It wasn’t the right person. I married someone to try to replace another, and it didn’t work. She—your mother—couldn’t be replaced.” Duke turns his head toward me, his eyes stark with longing and sorrow.
“What…what happened?”
He looks forward. “Do you want her version, or mine?”
“I never got any version, so…both would be nice.”
A faint smile lines his face. “She would tell you I wasn’t mature enough, and much too selfish, to be a husband, that I was more worried about getting ahead in life than having an actual life.” Duke pauses. “She would be right, to a point.”
“What’s your version?”
He shrugs one broad shoulder. “I asked Cecily to marry me; she said no. My pride was too strong to let me try to change her mind. I left, and I never saw her again. It didn’t make me think of her any less. There have been times, more than I care to admit, that I wanted to look her up, but I never let myself give in. I’m stupidly stubborn that way. I’ve always wondered about her, where life took her, what she became, if I’d see her again.”
Duke faces me, his knee touching mine. “Did she have a good life?”
The enormity of the situation blasts into me, making me weak with emotion. I’m sitting with my father, having a conversation about my mother. It makes it hard to not weep.
I give a wobbly smile. “She did. She laughed a lot; she was happy…even—even at the end, she was still smiling.”
His eyes flicker. “She had a good husband? Your dad is a good man?”
“I think he is,” I answer after a brief pause.
Duke exhales slowly. “Good. That’s good.”
I set my hand on his knee, holding his gaze, and emphasizing each word slowly, tell him, “I think you’re a good man.”
Confusion filters through his eyes before Duke goes unusually still. He looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time, and I guess in a way, he is. I refuse to look away from his face as he processes what I said, and what it means. He studies me for endless moments. Duke gives his head the barest of shakes. His eyes trail over my features again and again, looking for something. I think, after a time, he finds it.
Duke straightens his back, blinking at me.
“Did you know about me?” I ask, my gaze finally dropping to where my hand still rests on his knee. I start to move my hand away and Duke grasps it in his, tightly squeezing it.
“Are you…you’re mine?”
I meet his eyes, catching glimpses of me that I hadn’t been able to see before. I have his mouth, and the shape of his eyes. “We can do bloodwork to verify it, but my mom told me…before she died…yes, I’m your daughter.”
; He then does something I will never forget. He lets out a choked sound, blindly reaching for me to gather me in his strong arms, and he softly cries. A tear drops to my cheek. I close my eyes, relishing in the feel of my father’s arms around me for the first time as my father. My first dad-daughter hug, and at the age of twenty-five. I smile, both sad and happy.
“I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me. Cecily, why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers against my head, hardening his hold on me.
My heart fills, and breaks. I hug my father, crying for my mom, and my dad, and everything I lost, and everything that could have been. I cry for the family I never had, and for the one I lost when my mom died. I also cry for the one I now have, with this man, my father, but with relief, with a feeling of peace. I wish I could have had my parents at the same time, instead of losing one to find another. It’s a complex mix of pain and elation.
22
AVERY
“Do you know why she wouldn’t have told you about me?” I ask as we sit at the high table in the dining nook beside the kitchen. The wall is made up of windows, showing a great view of the busy street, and beyond that, the river. Sunshine streams into the room, highlighting the side of Duke’s face. Two cups of coffee sit before us, untouched.
Red-rimmed eyes settle on my face, raw emotion in them. “The same reason she didn’t say yes when I asked her to marry me. She thought she knew me better than I knew myself, and I guess maybe she did.” Duke looks at the palms of his hands, closing them and opening them.
“She didn’t want to feel like a burden, and over time, I might have begun to look at her and you that way. I wanted to make something of myself and nothing I did was ever good enough. Every time I reached a goal, there was another to overcome. I had to continue to succeed.”
He looks at me. “And she wanted the best for you. It isn’t something I care to admit, but she probably did the right thing. I wouldn’t have been the best, not then. But she also didn’t have to do it on her own.” Duke sighs and shakes his head. “I wish she would have told me.”