James shook his head. “You don’t know Mom,” he joked.
Mason laughed under his breath, but a part of him realized James was right. There was so much about her now that he didn’t know. Twelve years of life had passed him by while she lived without him, waiting for him as he lay in a hospital bed asleep, dreaming that she’d been right there the entire time.
“You go ahead,” he said to James. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Are you sure?” James asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. Tell her I’ll be right in.”
He watched as James stepped out of the limo and adjusted his tie the same way Mason did, checking his reflection in the window the same way he would have as well. Mason shook his head in light laughter. I have a son, he said to himself. A son. Bittersweet, he thought back to Sydney telling him what had happened. How it happened. How she came to know James as her own, and how he came to know Mason as his father long before Mason knew he existed.
Erika had gone into labor as planned. She and Chris rushed to the hospital on a beautiful spring morning after her water broke while she was asleep. Mason had been in a coma for two months by then. Neither Erika nor Chris knew about the accident or the coma.
She couldn’t have been more excited that morning, and Chris couldn’t have been any happier. They rushed through traffic on pins and needles. Erika was nervous and Chris was scared and excited all at the same time. They were having a baby. She breathed the way she was taught in the Lamaze class, and Chris held her hand as tightly as he could without her yelling at him to not tear it off. At 9:36pm, after nearly eleven hours in labor, Erika delivered a healthy, beautiful baby boy at 7lbs 6oz. Chris, near tears, clipped the umbilical cord and the doctors wrapped him in a white blanket with a teal strip and handed him to Erika. She was so happy as she lightly kissed him on the forehead. She looked up at Chris, who couldn’t hold back his tears if he had tried, and smiled. Ja – she began to say the baby’s name, but as soft as the words left her lips, Erika’s arms loosened from holding James and her eyes fell to the covering of her eyelids. No one knew what was going on, but something was wrong. She had stopped breathing. The doctors rushed her into surgery, but not long after they told Chris she hadn’t made it. As much as they tried, there was nothing they could do. Erika died that night of a massive pulmonary embolism. They didn’t see it coming.
The next few days and months were spent in a depression that almost made Chris forget he had a son he needed to be a father to. He’d avoided clearing the desk she kept in the house, or her clothes from the closet, for quite some time. One day he had to do something to keep his mind at ease, so he tried. He stared at the desk with her unopened mail, files, and papers. In the pile were a few letters and envelopes from the hospital: the first was a bill, the second another and the same for the third. But the fourth was one of James’s birth records. He pulled it from the envelope and read it. Before tossing it aside he noticed in the slot where they listed his blood type that it was different from both his and Erika’s. He thought, like with Erika, the hospital had made another mistake; that they had filled it out wrong. Either way it was another reason for him to call and yell at someone, blame someone. But they hadn’t made a mistake. After a number of phone calls he was just about certain of that. There was only one other reason it could be different, only one other reason that made sense. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew. He fought himself all of the way, but he went to the doctor and had a paternity test done. It was then that he realized that James, the only connection he had left with Erika, wasn’t his. He didn’t think twice about how, when, or why. The fact was, he knew. He loved Erika, more than she knew. He loved her enough to pretend he didn’t know how she really felt about Mason, who she always said was just a friend. He’d known about Mason the entire time, but he loved her too much to let her go. She was gone, though, and the son he thought was his, the son she told him was his …wasn’t.
Sydney didn’t remember what time it was, but she remembered the rest of that night as clear as a blue sky. The night a quiet knock came at the door. Chris was expecting Mason as it opened, but instead got her. She’d been staying there from time to time since the accident. This time, however, was a night she’d rather have been alone as she answered the door with her eyes red and swollen with tears still waiting to fall.
“Are you okay?” Chris noticed she had been crying as she opened the door.
She leaned against the frame with her arms folded. “Yes. I’m sorry, are you –”
“Looking for a Mason Everett. He does live here doesn’t he?”
Chris’s voice took on a sudden discomfort in his tone. Sydney stood straight from leaning on the doorway, recognizing him but unable to place his face. She was reluctant to answer but started to tell him Mason was there when she noticed his hand nervously clenching a car seat with a beautiful little boy wrapped in a blue blanket inside. She still couldn’t place Chris’s face, but when she looked at James sitting in that car seat - his eyes, his smile as he looked up at her- Chris didn’t have to say a single word. Mason, she said to herself as she felt her heat beat deep inside of her. When he finally told her who he was and who his wife was, it was then she remembered. She’d never met Erika, but she remembered seeing her at the wedding when Chris showed her the photo he kept in his wallet. She remembered seeing the note she left for Mason that night she stayed over. She never told Mason about it. She never had a reason to. Since they had started talking they were practically inseparable, so there was never a thought of anyone else before or after.
They talked for a long while, though it was mostly Chris. Sydney just listened, staring at this little baby nestled in a car seat sitting on her sofa. She could hear the grief in Chris’s voice from the pain of losing his wife. The more he talked the more afraid she became, thinking one day soon this would be her. She hadn’t lost Mason, but she didn’t have him either, and according to the doctor Mason was at the end of his road. The only recommendation from there was hospice, so as much as she was angry and upset, she sympathized with him.
Chris didn’t talk much about James or the relationship between Mason and Erika. Every time Sydney tried to bring it up he quickly changed the subject and ultimately came back to how much he loved and missed Erika. Sydney looked up at the clock that hung from the wall and noticed the hour had grown even later than she thought. When the baby started to get fidgety and cry, Chris left to get the diaper bag from the car. Sydney, not knowing if she should let him keep crying until Chris came back in or pick him up, found herself reaching beyond any ill feelings she may have felt and unbuckled the car seat straps and rested James in her arms. She held him close and rocked him to a lullaby she hummed until his cry faded.
Chris had never seen him so peaceful as he stood outside of the house with the diaper bag in his hand watching the two of them through the window. At what didn’t even look like a second thought, Sydney looked up and saw his headlights pulling out of the driveway, passing the diaper back he’d left sitting on the front step. Within days he’d disconnected his phone and moved out of his apartment. It took a few more days before she finally told Jackson what had happened, and it was at that time he’d told her about the conversation he and Mason had the day he called her. Now left in the middle was this little boy Mason’s little boy and neither she nor Jackson were going to let anything happen to him.
Sydney wasn’t like most women, and as her days with James turned into weeks and months, so her relationship with him turned from stranger to mother. From that day forward she raised James as her son, taking him to see his father every chance she could and making sure that despite the loss of his mother that he was loved.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” James whispered into Mason’s ear, standing beside him.
Mason cleared his throat, embodying the pure white gown that clothed her in his glossy eyes. “More than ever,” he responded.
His smile was unwavering watching Sydney walk down the aisle a
s tears formed in his eyes. Each of her footsteps grazed the path laid in African violet petals, with the train of her dress pulling all of them closer as she walked past. As she took each step towards him he saw the years she’d stayed by his bedside holding his hand, telling him how her day went. He saw her telling him what James had done in school or how many times he had fallen when trying to teach him to ride a bike for the first time. Mason pictured her telling him about his first crush, his first kiss, and his first heartbreak. Then he saw the many nights she cried alone, praying that one day he would wake up and be able to share these stories with her. With each step she took he was reminded that it wasn’t a dream. He was actually there, and so was she. Her hand reached out and fell into his as he turned to face the minister. Held tightly, their eyes fell on each other like love-struck teenagers.
“Do you, Mason Everett, take Sydney McCail to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, and promise to be faithful until death parts you.”
His eyes melted into hers. “With all my heart, I do.”
“And do you, Sydney McCail, take Mason Everett, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, and promise to be faithful until death parts you.”
Her eyes beholding his, Sydney smiled. “I already have.”
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
In the very beginning of the chapter Mason Everett looks down on one of the groomsmen's wedding ring, as they're asking a question, why anyone would give up all of the opportunities afforded to a single man and responds “It will never be me”. Why do you think Mason dislikes the idea of marriage? Do you think his age profession or success as anything to do with it?
2. Mason and Erika have a pretty eccentric arrangement. Do you think it's possible for two people to be involved and not develop feelings for each other? Why or why not?
3. Towards the end of their first date, Sydney expressed her concern about what she clearly thought were Mason’s intentions. In Mason’s response he said to her “I know you don’t know a lot about me, and until tonight, I obviously didn’t either”. What do you think he found out about himself within the twenty four hours he’d spent with her? Can someone like Mason change overnight?
4. Mason and Sydney spent their first night together during which Sydney tells Mason that she still a virgin. What if anything do you think would have changed if they had slept together?
5. When Mason finds out that Erika is pregnant he fights himself on whether or not he should tell Sydney. To what extent do you keep a secret, whether past or present, to preserve the strength of a relationship?
6. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone where other people assumed you were married? What gave it away? Was it the love at first sight glances, the light giggles, or the moments of missing them even when they were only a few feet from you? How influential do you think the store employee was in Mason making such a drastic decision?
7. Why do you think it was so easy for Sydney to fall in love with Mason, despite her intuition?
8. When Mason meets Thurgood McCail, the world he built around a secret he’s kept from everyone begins to unravel. Do you think it was unfair of him to pass judgment & disgust on Sydney’s father?
9. When Mason left Sydney in Charleston, he knew he was risking it being the last time he would ever see Sydney again. Have you ever been in such a position where you felt the need to just run and not look back? Does running from anything actually solve the problem? Do you think it will solve or create a bigger one for Mason?
10. Many relationships go on with skeletons in the closet that are often never addressed. Is there ever a right time to discuss them? Do you think it was fair for Sydney to ask Mason what happened to him?
11. When Mason finally told Sydney what had happened to him, why do you think he became so angry at the end? Have you ever shared a secret so deep it felt like it hurt even more as you told it? Did you feel a sense of relief afterwards?
12. In light of the molestation cases that have filled the media, what do you think victims fear the most when they finally tell someone? Mason felt a slew of emotions when he woke that morning, the first beginning with wishing Sydney had ran away as a result of him telling her. What do you think you would have done in that situation?
13. The story makes a surprising twist after Mason wakes of from his coma only to realize he’d never woken up the first time. What do you think the significance of everything that took place in between then? Do you think there is a power in forgiveness?
14. What do you think the author was trying to achieve with the conversation between Mason and Kevin?
15. At the end of the novel Mason finally answers Jackson question of Sydney’s last words to Mason came at the end of her vows “I already have.” Why do you think she held on so long?
16. This novel is in large part about growth, change, forgiveness and love. Where you able to relate to any of the feelings and emotions of any of the characters? Have you seen them before, known someone like one of them before? Do you know what it’s like to forgive someone who’s hurt you? Has this book helped you in any way?
J. Alex Blane
J. Alex Blane is an author, and an exceptional novelist. His debut Novel “Where We Left Off” was his first break in the literary world of fiction romance, but definitely not his last as he is currently working on his second. A Multi-Media developer by trade, his creativity is fascinating. And from a number of his reviews, so is his ability to draw you into his writing, his suspense …his story.
A native of a small city in Pennsylvania, Alex is a graduate of Wilmington University where he received both his graduate and undergraduate degree. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a Career Counselor within the University and a media developer for design firm he and a friend founded in 2004. He’s always had a passion of writing, telling himself one day he was going to write a book. After nearly eight years of deciding to put his pen to a piece of paper he finally finished, Where We Left Off, a story that has evolved with his many life experiences into something to this day he will say he never expected.
Alex currently resides in Bear, Delaware with his wife and his two children where they share a small home just right for him to sneak off into a little corner and write more of what he loves and where he is currently at work on his next novel. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Nu Upsilon Chapter in Wilmington, Delaware, a father and a husband. Alex loves to tell a good story, but more than that he loves to make you feel as if you are right there as it’s happening; a part of the feelings, the emotions, the joys and the sadness’s. Pull up a chair, or find that special place where you can escape the world around you and get to know a few new people. That’s how he makes you feel, as if you are just as important reading the story as the characters living it.
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Where We Left Off Page 22