“Dan—” I tried to interrupt.
“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry I cheated on you. And I know you’re sorry too. But I just don’t think I can forgive you. I can’t even forgive myself.”
And there it was. The truths we’d been avoiding.
The end of our marriage.
Over with a handful of soul-crushing words.
Everything after happened in a haze. I nodded my head in assent, letting him know I wouldn’t fight him on this.
We talked out how the dissolution of the last eight years of our lives would be handled. I would stay in the house until it sold. He would move out that weekend. It was all so matter-of-fact, clinical almost. Dan walked away that day with a lightness in his step and relief in his eyes.
My body sagged against the wall in relief that he never noticed the baggy sweater that covered the tiny swell of my stomach as the door shut behind him. And as the reverberations of his departure went through me, all I felt was hollow.
Thirty-Nine
The wind whipped my hair around my face as another wave hit the shore, sending a spray of mist from the ocean over me. A shiver ran through my body, and I pulled my sweater tighter around my body to ward off the chill in the December air.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, yearning for the briny scent of the ocean, the smell that reminded me so much of the one I missed. As much as I loved it, the ocean was no replacement for what I truly wanted, for the thing I would likely never have again, though it did soothe some part of my mangled heart.
I didn’t know what it was about the ocean, but it always called to me, the waves crashing like a siren’s song to my soul, beckoning me back home to where I belonged.
“Ros, it’s fucking freezing out here. What are you doing?” The warmth of Josie’s body as she dropped down onto the sand next to me began to thaw my frozen arm and leg. She threw a blanket over both our laps and I leaned over, resting my head on her shoulder. I simply shrugged in response as her rumble of laughter moved through me. “Nope, not good enough. Talk.” Jos wrapped her arms around my shoulders and squeezed.
I had a feeling I knew what she wanted to hear, but I wasn’t ready to say the words out loud. So I sat and let the silence settle between us. God love her, she let me sit with my thoughts, allowed me the time I needed to formulate what I wanted to say.
“Do you ever come to the beach and the minute you set foot on the sand you feel like you’re home? Like all the answers are there just waiting for you to discover them?” I turned then and looked at her, willing her to understand.
“Is that why you’ve been out here every night for the last couple months? You think you’ll find the answers to your problems in the waves?” Jos asked, voice barely audible above the crashing of the water at the shore.
“I tried going out during the day, but this town is so small and I was always seeing people who didn’t know Dan and I had split up. Trying to explain that was difficult enough. Now that I’m showing? I just couldn’t do it.”
Jos hugged me to her body again, and I knew that she got it. “Dan still doesn’t know I’m pregnant,” I whispered, part of me hoping she wouldn’t hear.
“Oh, Ros. You’re hiding out, then?”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
And it was true. I had begun hiding when I realized I could no longer hide the child growing inside me. I didn’t go out during the day, I had my groceries delivered, I only ventured out when necessary after dark and to places that I wasn’t likely to run into anyone Dan or I knew.
My now nightly trips to this secluded strip of beach? Those too were a necessity.
Sometimes I dreamed, hoped that Archer would figure out how to leave that piece of land he was tied to and find me on this beach. That we would come full circle and figure out a way to make this work. Some nights I even convinced myself that he was there, lingering nearby, that the scent of sandalwood and musk mixed with the salty ocean breeze wasn’t just my imagination yearning for something that wasn’t possible.
“Are you happy, Ros? Really, truly satisfied here? Because I have to say, it doesn’t seem like it. You came back from that island a different person, and yeah, I know that was bound to happen with everything you’ve been through, but you’re like a shadow of your former self. You’ve been walking around here these last few months like a ghost. Tell me, are you happy with your life right now?”
Jos’ words would have been ironic if it weren’t for the fact that she knew that a ghost was at the root of what I was going through. I sat and considered her question, not sure how to put into words all the thoughts tumbling through my mind, all the feelings coursing through my veins.
“No,” I whispered before turning to face her. “No, I’m not happy. But I have no idea how to fix this. I don’t think there is a way to fix this. My marriage is over, and I know that didn’t happen overnight or even in a year, but it’s done and I have so many regrets about that, all this guilt that just threatens to tear me apart.”
I couldn’t help or hide the tremble of my voice, so I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.
One breath. Then another.
Attempts to calm down the roiling inside that threatened to drown me completely. A moment to gather the strength to say what else I needed to say, the words I needed to hear uttered out loud.
“Now I have this baby coming, and I want so badly to be excited and happy about it. Every time she kicks and moves or has hiccups I smile so big it hurts my face, and the wonder and joy of her existence fills me to the brim. And then the crushing reality that I’ll be raising this child alone with no concept of how to tell her who her father is sets in and depletes every last bit of that joy. My child will never know how amazing her father was, and it breaks me to know that Archer will never know how amazing a father he would have been. And I have so many regrets about that too, though I cannot for even a second even muster one bit of regret for the child we created.”
I was done. There it all was, laid out in front of us, ready for Jos to soak in the truth of my situation, to come to the conclusion that there was no straight line to happiness for me anymore. This was my new reality, and all I could do was find a way to accept it for what it was, and find a way to move on without breaking myself or my daughter.
“Okay, bear with me for a minute,” Jos began, shifting her body so she no longer had her arm around me and was now mostly facing me, her legs curled up underneath her. “If we lived in a perfect dream world, one where anything was possible, what would you want?”
I turned away from her and back to the ocean. I had never even bothered asking myself this question because I knew that I didn’t live in a perfect world. I lived in a world where shitty things happened. Where girls lost their mothers far sooner than they were ready to. Where marriages fell apart and burned to ash, even with hard work. Where somehow a woman got knocked up by a ghost. My wildest dreams coming true wasn’t even an option to consider at this point.
I also knew that Josie wouldn’t let this go until I answered, so I humored her. “Perfect world?” I asked and looked at her out of the corner of my eye in time to see her nod. “Okay. It would be me living on Orcas Island again, for good this time. Archer and I would have found a way to be together and raise a family. I would take over Wild Art and consider expanding it into Seattle. And I would create my own pieces. I would finally live the life I never dared to hope for.”
I trailed off there, considering if there was anything more that I wanted to add, any other long-forgotten or abandoned dreams I could find a place for in this dream world I was creating. I avoided eye contact with Jos, not wanting her to see how much this pained me, how even just imagining this created an ache in my chest.
“And that’s what you really want? In your heart of hearts?” Jos asked, breaking through my turbulent thoughts.
“Yes. More than anything. But what good does it do to dwell on what I can’t have?”
My hushed words were quickly carried away by t
he wind, and I wasn’t sure if she was even able to hear them.
“Rosalind, why not? Why can’t this be your reality? You’re no longer married. While you’ve been teaching again, you aren’t really doing anything you can’t do there. So what that Archer is a ghost? He was real enough to get you pregnant. I don’t see how you both can’t find a way to create a life together as well.”
She stopped ticking her points off her fingers there, giving me a moment to take in what she was trying to say. Jos turned to me then, forcing me to face her, and took my hands into hers. I recognized the strain around her eyes, the furrowed brow, the defiant tilt of her lips. She was about to hammer home her point, and she wanted my full attention.
“You know what you want. You know, deep down inside, what feels right for you. When are you going to start giving yourself permission to trust those instincts? When are you going to give yourself permission to go after the life you want, judgment of others be damned?”
Each word made impact like a punch to the gut, rocking me to the core. My hands became slippery with sweat, Jos tightening her grip in response. She wanted an answer, one I wasn’t sure I could give her right this moment.
She waited a moment, then another. She searched my face for clues to where my thoughts were, and then she nodded, a resigned smile on her face, a signal that she had found what she was looking for, even if it wasn’t what she wanted.
“That sounds so much like something my mom would have said.” I let the words slip out onto the wind, not sure if I said them loud enough for Josie to hear. Her responding gasp a second later was my answer. We let the words hang there in silence for a minute. Then another.
Finally, Jos let out an incredulous laugh. “You’re right. That is something your mom would have said. I think a lot of my good advice comes from her.”
“I think so too.” I turned then and smiled at her. The disbelief and joy in the wide smile she returned let me know she understood the importance of this moment.
“She’d be really proud of you, you know? I know it seems like everything is a mess right now, but you’ve changed so much over the last year and a half. You’ve taken so many risks that the old Ros never would have even considered. I know she would be so proud of you, and so happy that you’re going to become a mother.”
“God, Jos, I hope so. I can’t wait to pull out her old recipes and bake with my daughter. I can’t wait to share with her the old movies we used to watch. Remember classic movie nights? I can’t wait to share that with her. And vacations, adventures. Mom was amazing, and I hope I’m even half of that for my girl.” I didn’t even bother wiping away the tears that made my cheeks even colder in the wind. I was no longer willing to hide my emotions or my memories.
“Just about every night was classic movie night at your house. I can’t wait to do those things with you two, too.”
I looked over at Jos. Her cheeks were wet with her tears and made red by the cold ocean breeze. “We should start writing down the stories about my mom we want to share with her, so we don’t forget anything.” Jos squeezed my hand tight in agreement.
It was then I pulled out my phone and played with the screen until I pulled up the photos. I scrolled through until I found the one I was looking for. Jos and I standing in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland, smiling at the camera with baby faces and eyes squinting in the bright sun, wrapped in the arms of my mom who was sporting her own massive smile. What couldn’t be seen was my dad behind the camera.
Jos inhaled sharply, covering her mouth. “Ros, where did you get this? I remember that day.” She looked up at me with glassy eyes, fully recognizing how important this was. Some things had been lost during my parents’ divorce, several photo albums included.
“My dad. I went and saw him. We talked for a bit and he gave me albums of photos he’d found in a box.”
“When did this happen? What did he say about that?” She gestured at my protruding belly with my phone still clasped in her hand.
“It was a couple of months ago. I knew it was long past time to start repairing our relationship. Oh, and he doesn’t know about the baby yet. I was able to hide the belly. I’m not ready to explain all this yet.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Have you seen him since?”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to work out how I feel about it all. I haven’t seen him since then, but we do talk on the phone once a week.” I shrugged, unsure what else to say.
“Well, it’s a really good start.”
Jos handed back my phone and threw her arms around me and gave a tight squeeze. I thumbed through my phone and handed it back to her, wanting her to see the photos I’d saved on there from our childhood. She glanced at me with a bright smile, tears pooled in her eyes and threatening to fall at any moment.
We sat without talking, huddled close together for warmth, the waves crashing on the shore and the wind rustling the palm fronds the only sound. Jos and I scrolled through the pictures, exchanging smiles and looks full of the memories we shared.
“Okay, babe,” Jos began after a while, handing me back my phone and placing her hands on my belly. “It’s fucking freezing out here. Let’s get my precious niece home before she becomes a little ice cube in there.”
She helped me up and we walked hand in hand to the street where our cars were parked. I almost asked if I could spend the night with her instead of returning to the cold, empty house Dan and I had shared before he moved out. I almost asked, but stopped myself at the last minute. I needed time alone with my feelings and thoughts, time to make sense of everything, to find a way for my heart and head to sync.
As I drove home, Jos’ words reverberated through my mind, on a constant loop.
Why couldn’t I give myself permission? Why had I been denying myself permission for so damn long? What did I have to lose?
It was in that moment, when I truly asked myself those questions, that I realized what I should have a long time ago: if I stayed, I had nothing to gain, but if I took the risk that didn’t look so much like one anymore, I could gain everything I ever wanted.
So I jumped.
Forty
As my car made its way up the drive, I had a flashback to another day not that long ago when I’d been traveling this path for the first time. In some ways, it felt like just yesterday, in other ways it was like years and years had passed. I came around the final curve and the vegetation cleared and made way for the house that felt more like a home than anyplace else I had ever lived.
The surprise, joy, and hope I’d felt the first time I made this drive were all present now. The tightness in my chest that sent icy tendrils through my veins was all new. My body grew colder as I got closer to the house, my anxiety reaching all-new highs.
What if Archer didn’t want to see me? What if he didn’t want a life with me, with our baby?
All of these what-ifs, so many fears and worries were on a constant loop in my head, had been since I set foot back in Washington. There was so much at stake and for once in my life I hadn’t considered what the alternative would be, what my course of action was if this failed.
I put the car into park in the driveway and took a deep breath. I had spoken to our contact with MarisCorp and she’d let me know the home was empty and I was welcome to walk around. I got out and stretched my aching back and rubbed under my massive belly.
Another thing to be nervous about. What would Archer’s reaction be when he saw me in this state? Would he know it was his child I carried inside my body? Would he just assume it was Dan’s and wonder why I had come at all?
I slammed the car door and forced myself to take that first step. And then the next. I made my way to the front window, cupped my hands around my eyes and looked inside. The furniture was covered with drop cloths and even from my limited vantage point the layer of dust over some of the surfaces was obvious. No one had lived here since we had moved out.
I didn’t have the keys to the house, but I knew I woul
dn’t need them to get Archer’s attention. My presence there alone would be enough. I also didn’t think I was capable of taking one step into that house again, not after all that had happened, no matter how much I loved the place.
I followed the stone step path around the side of the house, being careful to watch my step. I could be clumsy on a good day, but considering the extra bulk on my frame, all it would take was one careless step to cause me to come crashing down. Once I made it to the back and the balcony off the main floor, I stepped to the railing and looked up.
Dusk was fast approaching, and the sky was on fire, shades of pink, lavender, orange, and red painted across the darkening sky in streaks. Out over the water the signs of an incoming fog could be seen in the distance. I knew the visibility would be gone within an hour or two, so I soaked it all in, knowing my time on the island could be short-lived.
As the sky darkened into a deep blue, I glanced at my phone and realized nearly an hour had passed as I waited for Archer to sense my presence.
“Archer? Are you there?” I called out in little more than a whisper.
I could have shouted out to him, but I knew from past experience that it wasn’t necessary. If he were here, he would know. He would sense me, he would hear my whispered words.
I closed my eyes and waited. I tried to feel him, searching with my senses for his presence. I inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to calm the growing unease inside of me, the feeling of nausea and fear clawing its way through my system, up my throat. I tried to ground myself to this place that used to feel so right, hoping with a heart that was starting to burn to ash that I hadn’t lost him.
I kept my eyes closed for what felt like hours, trying to feel that energy that always flowed and arced between us, that electricity that used to spark to life the minute I set foot on this land and we were in close proximity to one another, that unnamed thing that I’d tried to ignore and deny for so long. I opened my eyes to the twilight sky when I realized that it wasn’t here.
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