“So wait… let me get this straight. You got into an argument, a simple disagreement, and instead of just dealing with it you got on a plane in the middle of the night and left her in Charleston…alone…on Christmas?” he rhetorically asked.
“She’s with her family––”
“But not with you, the man she’s dating, the one who surprised her with the trip in the first place,” Jackson shook his head.
“Sounds a bit childish to me,” Keri added, pulling milk from the refrigerator.
“And I’m looking for where your opinion matters, Keri,” Mason said irritably.
“Mason,” Jackson interrupted.
“What? I didn’t come here to be evaluated by a shrink, Jacks.”
Knowing Keri, and knowing she wouldn’t hesitate to say something else given the chance, Jackson washed the flour from his hands and went down into the basement with Mason to finish talking. He could tell by the way Mason skirted around certain parts of the story that there had to be more to it. Whatever it was, it had to be serious for him to leave the way he had.
There were boxes everywhere, some opened and some sealed with writing on them.
“Are y’all moving?” Mason asked
“No. Just getting rid of a few things,” Jackson replied, going behind his bar.
He reached inside the small refrigerator beneath the counter and slid Mason a Heineken. “So what exactly happened?” he asked.
Nursing his drink, Mason rested his arms on the bar and told Jackson everything from the beginning.
“But you were having a good time, right?” Jackson inquired midway through, leaning against the counter behind him.
“I was having a great time! I honestly really was enjoying the trip. When we finally got to her parents’ house we were both excited to see her family, apart from being a little tired. I met her mother, and she was great.”
“What about her father?
Mason chuckled darkly, “He reminded me a lot of Kevin.”
Jackson had a pretty good idea of how the rest of the night must have played out.
Kevin was their stepfather, the man their mother had married a few years after their father passed away. Jackson was sixteen at the time, and Mason only twelve. He was the assistant pastor of his father’s church, and a great musician.
Jackson’s experience with Kevin was no different than most young boys’ experience with a stepfather. They had thrown the ball around on the weekends, gone to the occasional football game, and had even talked about girls. Mason, on the other hand, had a completely different experience.
They had stopped playing ball on weekends soon after the wedding, which was only two years after Kevin and his mother first met. They never talked about girls, and they never went to football games. They had even stopped the piano lessons. Jackson could still remember the look on Mason’s face when he had left for college; he had never seen Mason more afraid.
Jackson reached into the refrigerator and took himself out a Heineken and popped the top open. “She never told you about her father?” he asked.
“That he was a pastor?” Mason shook his head. “No, she never talked a lot about him. I mean not that that was a bad thing; she just kept it minimal. I tried my hardest to be myself, to act like everything was okay but it wasn’t, and he kept on talking in that same condescending, arrogant, I’m better than everyone tone.”
Jackson had to interrupt him “Mason,” he put his head down, “at some point you’re going to have to move past this. I’m not even going to pretend that I know what it was like for you, but you can’t hold every priest, pastor, or church accountable for the acts of one man.”
“Can’t I?”
“No, you can’t! I get that he reminded you of Kevin, but he wasn’t Kevin. He may have been a pastor like Kevin, he may have even worn the same kind of clothes as Kevin, but it wasn’t him. I mean, you’re almost thirty years old how long are you going to let your past dictate your future?”
“You sound just like your wife, you know that?”
But Jackson was right. Even though Mason knew that, it was still hard to process. The way he felt around Kevin was the same exact feeling that had come over him the moment Sydney’s father walked into the kitchen. Kevin had a way of making a grown man feel like a child in his presence; or at least that’s how Mason had always felt. For years, growing up in that house was like living in a cult. Kevin was the one who decided right from wrong, who said go or stay. He was the one who chose what was okay and what wasn’t. Jackson had gone long before that side of him came out, but Mason remembered it vividly. It was imprinted on his entire being. Kevin was the one who decided what was right and what was wrong.
Mason took a sip of his drink, “You weren’t there Jacks.”
“And neither was Sydney or her father but they are the ones being treated like they were. Not to mention Sydney, for whatever strange reason,” he laughed, making the moment less serious, “actually cares about you. But you probably just messed that up.”
“Yeah,” he subtly agreed, shaking his head and pulling a box out of his pocket wrapped in lilac wrapping paper with a hand tied white bow.
Shocked, confused, and proud at the same time, Jackson’s eyes fixed on the box as Mason moved it about in his hands.
“Are you serious?” Jackson inquired curiously.
Mason looked at him with a stare of knowing he had made a huge mistake.
“I was going to propose to her today. That was the real reason behind the trip. Or…it became the real reason for the trip.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.” He paused, looking down at the unopened box as if he’d just missed the biggest opportunity of his life. “Maybe I shouldn’t do anything.”
Still at her parents’ house, Sydney had been up for hours, awakened by the burst of excitement and the loud voices of her nieces. They had the living room a complete mess from opening Christmas presents. Empty and torn boxes and colored wrapping paper covered the carpet and left hardly any room to walk. Sydney, who was still asleep when they burst through the front door, watched them with endearment almost wishing she had children of her own. Ironically, she immediately thought of Mason. She walked over to a chair beside the window, away from all the unwrapping madness, almost tripping over a pile of unopened gifts. It was a new day, a beautiful day, and the only thing that would make it better was to hear his voice and to see his face.
She called, but his phone was going straight to voicemail. She waited and called again, and again, and again. Something was wrong. She tried not to believe it, but she knew what she felt. She made a few more calls to see if he had checked into the hotel, and still nothing. He wasn’t answering his phone, and the hotel they were supposed to stay at had no record of him ever checking in. There was only one more call to make, one that she put past being remotely possible even as she dialed the numbers and reached the automated system. With a few selections and the mention of his name, her heart fell like a weight to the bottom of the ocean. She slowly dropped her phone from her ear and sat in the chair staring out the window, almost fading in the stillness of the trees draped in snow.
Her father noticed her as he walked into the study to find batteries for his camera. “Is Mason on his way?” he asked from a distance
“He never made it to the hotel,” she answered softly.
“He never made it!? Is everything okay?” he asked, walking towards her.
She took a minute, stood up from the chair, and cleared her throat. “He went home,” she said in humiliated disbelief. “I just got off the phone with the airport.”
She forced a smile on her face so as not to cause anyone else to see what she was feeling, and walked back into the living room. She laughed and played with the kids as if nothing in the world was bothering her. It was obvious, though; one word could have brought her to tears. And by the end of the night, the lack of one would.
Chapter 27
New Yea
r’s day had come and gone, as did the blistering snow and cold winds of winter. Mason hadn’t spoken to Sydney in months, but not a day had gone by where he wasn’t thinking about her. He tried his best to find other things to occupy his mind, but mostly he work. He buried himself in paperwork and acquisitions and didn’t spend a lot of time talking to anyone that wasn’t necessary for a purchase of property or development of land. Whether he admitted it or not, he’d changed. Even his secretaries, who might previously have worn a skirt slightly too high or a blouse that showed slightly too much knowing it would usually catch his eye, found that he paid them no attention; instead, he would walk right past them without a glance. Apart from cordial conversation, it was the same every single day except Friday. No one really knew where he would go, not even Jackson. At 11:45, like clockwork, Mason would shut down his computer, close his door, and walk right out of the building. From there, he did the only thing that allowed him to clear his mind without the distractions of people, of places, of any thing. He would go home, get into the shower, throw on a pair of old jeans, a shirt, his black boots and leather jacket, hop on his motorcycle, and just ride.
Mason had changed a lot of things after the holidays had passed. The motorcycle that he rode wasn’t the same as the one he took Sydney out on. About a month previously he had sold his sports bike and purchased a different type; it was less sporty and less youthful as some would say, one that didn’t focus so much on speed as just riding. He cruised, slowing everything down, almost as if he had a new appreciation for the little things in life.
It was almost perfect weather. It wasn’t too hot or too cold; the air was just right. He stopped off at a new restaurant along the riverfront called Thaibon. The scenery was beautiful and more relaxing than he’d seen in a while. Outside of the restaurant there were tables behind a thin white gate just off the sidewalk separating the diners from the water. It was relaxing just sitting and hearing the waves rush to the shore.
The waitress sat him at a table not too far from the sidewalk. There was a young couple sitting a few tables over from him that he couldn’t help but notice. The man was dressed in a crisp white shirt and blue tie with his suit jacket neatly folded on the chair beside him, clearly on a break from work. She, assumed to be his wife by the ring on her finger, was in a light summer dress as if she had just come from home. By the looks of their plates they had been there for a while.
“Peter, are you going to talk on your phone the entire time?” Mason overheard the woman say.
Peter continued, waving her off and ignoring her completely. She clearly gave up expecting any type of conversation with him, staring off into the sun, waiting patiently for this lunch or whatever it was to be over. Mason shook his head, knowing Peter would eventually regret treating her that way. He’ll miss her when she’s gone, he laughed lightly under his breath, thinking of his own mistakes with Sydney.
The waitress brought his food over and placed it on the table. It was still pretty early so he ordered light - a Thai chicken salad and a bottle of spring water. He poured dressing over the salad, stirring it together with his knife and fork. As the wind blew, causing a light whistle past his ear, he heard a familiar voice calling his name as if they weren’t sure it was really him. He looked around and his eyes beheld a woman he’d recognized but hadn’t seen in some time, almost six or seven months by the look of her stomach, which was as round as a basketball. It was Erika.
“You guys go ahead; I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes,” she said to a few of her girlfriends she had come out to lunch with.
Mason stood up from the table and greeted her with a hug as she twisted and hauled her way in between the few tables outside.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” Erika asked, smiling and happy to see him.
“I actually just stopped to grab a quick bite to eat before heading back home. Look at you!” he said, noticing her round stomach poking all the way out through her shirt. “How far along are you now? Please, sit down,” he offered.
He pulled out a chair and watched her sit down the best way she could. “I am seven months.”
“Wow!” he gasped. “You are huge,” he added jokingly.
“Thanks a lot,” she laughed.
Erika stayed at the table with Mason and talked for a while. He treated her to lunch and the two spent the time catching up. There were a number of awkward moments, but they seemed to work through them just fine.
“It’s been a while,” he said, “you know…since.”
“Yeah, it has been,” she agreed.
“So…how do you feel?”
“I feel pretty good,” she answered.
She noticed his awkward silence and knew exactly where it was coming from. “I know this is weird for you. You don’t have to say it. I almost wish I just kept it to myself sometimes,” she timidly chuckled.
Taking a bite of the bread that came with his salad, he asked, “How’s Chris doing with all this?”
“Chris and I are really good right now. The baby, he’s good. We’re all…really good.”
Until that moment he had forgotten she was having a boy. He smiled and laughed off the realization that she hadn’t told Chris anything about the pregnancy, about him not being the father. “So have you two thought of any names yet?
She smiled, “I have!”
“And?”
“I’m going to call him James.”
“James?” he repeated before drinking his water. “That’s interesting; my father’s name was James – James David Everett.”
“I know,” she inserted modestly, as though her decision to name him that was intentional.
By the look on her face he could clearly see it was.
He placed his glass down onto the table and shook his head in confusion. “Why would you do that?” he asked her.
Mason frowned, trying to understand what seemed incomprehensible. His voice carried a tone of worry, not only about her decision to name the baby after his father, but in some part the decision to continue with the pregnancy at all given the circumstances.
Embarrassed and hesitant to answer, she looked around and settled with ease, knowing their conversation hadn’t extended beyond the two of them.
“I know you think it’s crazy but it’s not…”
“Erika, you can’t be serious –”
“Just…listen to me for a second.”
She took a deep breath and put her head down, gathering her words. “Mason… you are, and have always been, one of the best men I have ever known. And I’m having a baby – your baby. Your son.”
“Yeah, but Erika–”
“Wait,” she cut him off again. “I know. I’m getting married to Chris, who is also a really good man, and I love him so much and he doesn’t know. And I will never tell him. So regardless of how this baby got here, he is Chris’ son. Not yours.”
“You know what you just said makes absolutely no sense, right?”
At that moment, she realized she was sounding extremely indecisive. She moved her eyes from Mason and looked down at the ground, feeling more embarrassed than she had expected.
She took a deep breath and brought her eyes to his. “I named him James because I couldn’t name him Mason.”
Though he could sense her sincerity, he was still confused. “I still don’t understand why you would do that, why you would even want to do that.”
Because one day, he’ll know, whether it’s when he leans to ride a bike, or kisses a girl for the first time, or when he graduates high school. One day he’ll know. And when that day comes he will also know that his father, his real father, was a beautiful, strong, intelligent man, the only one that I have every truly loved with everything in me.”
He fell back in his chair, overwhelmed by her words. He didn’t expect to hear that, not from her. Their relationship had always been physical, just sex, as far as he knew. Regardless, he realized that even if she had shown him in some kind of way, or even told him, he would ne
ver have noticed.
“You never told me that was how you felt,” he uttered.
She shook her head with mild laughter, “We never really did much talking,” she bashfully responded.
“And Chris?” he asked.
The corner of her mouth rose in a smile. “Chris was what was real. He was to me what I needed, when I needed it, and became everything that I knew I could never have with you.”
“But Erika, you never told me.”
“I never told him either. But if I had told you, would it have really made a difference? You and I both knew we would never be anything more than what we were.”
She was right. He smiled contently. She was right.
They didn’t stay for too much longer, but they talked for the time they did. The conversation between them was a lot lighter, and in some ways settling. The friends she had come in with had already finished eating their food and from the looks on their faces they were ready to go. When they reached the front of the restaurant she hugged him to say a final goodbye and placed a kiss on his cheek.
“You take care of yourself, Mason,” she said, sliding her hand to his chest.
“You too,” he responded softly
He watched her walk away, pondering everything she had said, and his life in general. “I get it,” he yelled out, catching her attention only a few steps ahead of him. “This is his son… because it has to be. But if he ever needs anything – I don’t care what, when, or why - he’ll have it,” Mason promised.
She smiled and walked away.
Chapter 28
The rest of the day was uneventful, and so was the weekend. Outside of a few errands and stops, each day ran routinely. On Saturday Mason would clean his house, water his lawn, drop off and pick up his laundry and dry cleaning from the cleaners, order in, and watch a movie. On Sunday, if the weather permitted, he would pull out and wash his car and his motorcycle while the majority of his neighbors were leaving for church; then, he would go to the gym for a few hours, come back home, order out, and watch television. He didn’t spend a lot of time around people and he hadn’t been back to the Avenue or any other nightclub or lounge at all. Mason just kept to himself. As the start of the week approached, he repeated the same process all over again.
Where We Left Off Page 14