Chapter 18
End to end, Karen’s last love letter explained two things. One, her confession at the hospital. It was the same motive behind the letter she had left with Jamie prior to checking into the Seasons. Lena was, indeed, my biological daughter. Karen had lied to me for a reason, and that reason made up the second part of her letter—the why.
Lying in bed with the sun burning through the curtains and lighting up the bedroom like the skies on the Fourth of July, I read it once more, then tucked it away, cried a little, and fell back asleep. It was the kind of depression that cuts so deep that you learn something new about yourself, realize just how dark your thoughts can get.
I slept for the entire weekend, waking only for the occasional and brief trip to the bathroom to relieve myself. At one point, I woke in the middle of the night and found Lena’s arms wrapped around me, her snoring face pressed against my shoulder blade.
By the next morning, she had left without a trace of evidence to suggest she had ever been there.
By Monday, I felt like taking a shower, but it was still a couple of hours before I summoned the energy to roll out of bed. And even then, I didn’t get far before turning back and stripping the sheets off the mattress, grunting wildly as I tore them away and pitched them into the corner. I sadistically hoped for a crash or smash that no bed sheet could ever cause.
But these…these fucking sheets were poisonous; Karen had picked them—I knew this because thread count and sheet size (twin versus full versus queen) meant nothing to me. I never picked the sheets. Next, I attacked the mattress itself, kicking it off of its box spring and dragging it through the hall. I pushed it downstairs and pulled it outside to the curb for pick up. I was a little more careful with the foundation, less angry and less intent on hearing the sound of drywall breaking or cracking—mostly because I would have to fix it.
With the house so empty and quiet, I cooked a small breakfast of eggs, ham, and toast. I hated the silence because it welcomed the same haunted thoughts that kept me in bed all weekend. Because despite the good news that Lena was now “my” child, I had been kidding myself to think something like a DNA test could link her to another man. I was the one who had held her as an infant, the one who had sung You are my sunshine, my only sunshine all those years, the one who had allowed her to fall asleep in my arms, who had nursed her to health, who would remain at her side until the end of fucking time!
I hated the whirlwind of hatred that Karen had imposed on me.
I fucking hate you now, I yelled silently in my head, and then lost my appetite and tossed the rest of my food (most of it, in fact) into the garbage. As I left the house to buy a new mattress set, I slammed the door, but turned around in time to watch the blue and orange delivery truck roll down my street toward the house. My chest tightened, and my legs seized.
Frozen on the porch, I watched its slow-motion approach, the sun reflecting off the windshield so I couldn’t identify the driver. I wanted to find a streak of blue, that killer smile, her tattoo—Never let me go—and her perfectly perfect breasts and feel her breath on my neck. I wanted Veronica so badly—to see her and touch her and hold her and taste her—that when the vehicle eased to a stop and she stepped out, I didn’t know whether I would ever breathe again.
Wow.
She pulled her hat off and gave a tentative smile as she walked up the driveway toward me. “Were you headed out?” she asked, crossing her arms and standing a safe foot or so away.
I nodded upward toward the mattress at the end of the driveway. “I need a new place to sleep.”
She studied my face for what felt like an eternity. “She never cheated on you, so why are you pissed off at the mattress?”
“How’d you know?” I asked.
She pointed her thumb over her shoulder toward the end of the driveway. “You just said you need a new place to sleep. That, and the mattress at the end of your driveway…”
A semi-smile rose onto my face, the first hint that I would survive this moment, and it was all thanks to Veronica. “I meant the part where she didn’t cheat. How did you know?”
“Lena’s yours. You should be happy about that, not a hermit.” Unfolding her arms, she offered a gentle punch to my shoulder. “Why are you shutting me out, Elliot Fitch?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t.
“Then let’s talk about it,” she said, climbing onto the porch and crossing her legs as she lowered herself into a seated position at my feet. She waved me toward her. “Sit, Elliot.”
So I sat, and we looked like big goofballs. Of course that was the time that Paul happened to drive by (early lunch?) and stare at us with big, wide eyes. I worried he might stop and interrupt us, but he never did.
“Do you want to share the letter?” she asked. “Maybe that’s a starting point.”
I shook my head—she hadn’t returned the last letter I gave her, and this felt nice, this felt right, just sitting on the front porch with Veronica.
I started with, “I’m worried that this isn’t right. You and me. That you’re my ‘rebound,’ the one that never works out. And I don’t want that. I don’t want to be hurt, and I don’t want you to be hurt.”
She actually chuckled, looked away, and chuckled some more before I realized that she had entertained the same fear. Recently widowed men who still loved their dead wives did stupid things; I didn’t want to be one of those men, didn’t want her one tattoo, the strongest one—I am your biggest what-if—to have a prophetic meaning for me, even though it already did. And then I remembered the letter and remembered Karen’s own reference to my what-if. I frowned at that, hoping it was just a coincidence.
“How did you know that Lena was mine? This whole time, right from the start, you doubted that Karen cheated. Why?”
“Because she was a good wife,” Veronica admitted, point-blank.
“Good? She lied to me. She ruined me. She shoved a wedge between Lena and me for over a year. She—”
“She loved you,” Veronica interrupted. “What she did to you was cruel, I’ll concede to that. But she did it out of love. The kind of complete and absolute love that lasts forever.” She ran her hands down her face and massaged the back of her neck. “I’d probably have done the same thing, or I’d like to think I could.”
I sighed, finally reached into my back pocket, and produced the folded envelope that had kept me in bed all this time. “Take it. I don’t want to see it again.” I held my breath as she took the letter, then I rose to my feet. “I need a new place to sleep.”
Veronica stood as well, tapping the edge of the folded envelope against the palm of her hand. “So? Now what?”
Shifting from one foot to the other, I nodded at my car. “I’m leaving. You have the letter, her last words. All things are great, Lena’s mine, now it’s time to get on with my life.”
I started walking toward the Chrysler.
“Hey, Elliot,” she called after me, and her voice had just enough of a tremble to it that I knew she was cracking, coming apart. “I really don’t want to be your biggest what-if.” She let out a fake chuckle.
“Neither do I,” I said under my breath before getting into the car and driving away, leaving her on my driveway. If I had stayed any longer, my depression would’ve only dragged me deeper into its darkness.
The new mattress allowed me to sleep for three more days. And on Thursday morning, when I opened my eyes, I felt like I had finally awakened. Life felt clear, crisp. I could see and hear the words from Karen’s last letter as though they were etched into the insides of my eyelids, or I could press an imaginary pause button in my mind, start up again, and skip forward or backward on a whim.
Sitting up on my new Simmons, I wished those words had never been printed. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and carried myself to the shower. With the water pouring down my body, I closed my eyes and thought about Veronica, her smile. I pictured her sitting down at my feet on the front porch. Craving that moment, wanting
it back, I sat down as well, in the shower.
I don’t want to be your biggest what-if.
I heard her voice so clearly in my head that she may as well have been standing right behind me. She said it with a smile, the last words she had spoken to me.
It broke my heart.
I started crying on the floor of the shower. With the dragon’s breath of water pouring over me, I set the tears free. I hated and loved Karen all at once. She wanted me to find someone else, wanted me to find happiness and to love. Somehow, I hooked up with Veronica Murphy, a delivery girl for a mid-level courier company. She drove an orange and blue truck, she was something like fifteen years younger than me, she had a blue streak in her hair, and had stories written all over her body in short bursts of insight.
I wept harder.
Lena was pregnant. By the time she turned eighteen, she would be a mother.
I had no job, no means to support any of these people once my severance burned out in a couple more months.
The sobs turned into laughter at just how naïve I had been this entire time. I had listened to Karen from the start, believed her when she “confessed” that I wasn’t Lena’s father. I ended up hating her, just like she had wanted. And now I simultaneously loved and hated her at the same time.
No matter how little sense any of this makes to me now, Veronica isn’t an accident.
My laughter brought tears eventually, and then mild hyperventilation.
I finished up in the shower, got dressed, and chanced a peek outside. I didn’t know whether I would find the Chrysler in the driveway; Lena had made a habit of just taking it to school during my days of sleep and depression. But it was there.
After preparing a quick breakfast, I rushed to the Chrysler and drove out to Nathan’s palatial estate on Lake Shore. The gate was closed, the first time ever in my experience over the past few months. I stopped and got out of the car and walked to the control panel with its tiny camera integrated in it.
“Nathan!” I said. “It’s me, it’s Elliot Fitch!” I hit the call button a couple more times, but nobody answered. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
I heard a bleep-bleep behind me and found two police cars blocking me at the end of the driveway. An armed officer stepped out from the driver’s side of one of those vehicles, his hand on his holstered gun. I suddenly remembered that the wealthy folks in Detroit had plenty of access to these kinds of services. Raising my hands to show I was unarmed, I stood still.
The cop asked for my identification. I produced it. “I’m a friend of Nathan Darien’s,” I explained. “I was here a few days ago. I can’t believe he’s not here.”
The cop handed my ID back and told me to get lost. “Next time, try making a call first.”
“Thanks,” I said, then got back into my car and headed back toward Birmingham. Except I got off at Big Beaver and followed Crooks into the complex of buildings where Veronica and Ava lived. I didn’t expect either of them to be home, especially not Ava who was too young to stay home by herself, but it didn’t deter me from stopping anyway.
Despite my positive intentions in the shower this morning, I felt absolutely alone at this moment. I hit the buzzer and waited, noticing that the quiet of the complex allowed the chaos of the heavy traffic just two blocks away to reach me. I had a great revelation to share, and nobody to listen.
When no one answered after the second buzzer, I headed back home.
As I pulled into the driveway, I saw the shopping bag hanging from the doorknob. Even from behind the wheel of my Chrysler, I could tell it held the things I had given Veronica when we first began this journey together—yearbooks, the first letter, the wedding video, and obviously Karen’s second and last love letter.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wouldn’t hear from Veronica. Months would pass before I would ever get to see her again.
And I would become her biggest what-if.
Chapter 19
Of all the places I could’ve landed a job, I never would’ve expected to find myself working with Beth and under Paul’s direction at the Wayne County Credit Union as a partially commissioned, personal banker. But with Lena’s tummy getting rounder and larger by the day, I knew I had to suck it up and find something, anything to generate income before I exhausted my severance.
On a Wednesday morning in December, Paul met me at the front doors with a big smile on his face. He welcomed me inside the branch like he often did, but instead of directing me to the training office at the back of the building (an office with no windows, feeble circulation, and a wet-box odor), he steered me to the office closest to the front doors, one of the “real” offices. Except this one in particular had been empty for some time.
“Congratulations,” Paul said, slapping me on the back with enough enthusiasm to leave a mark. “Head Office sent your signing number and approved your certification. You can now sell home loans, offer credit products, and deal with real people instead of those stupid fucking training modules.” He laughed. “Enjoy the real world of fast-paced retail banking, Elliot.”
He nudged me deeper into the office. I would normally bring my lunch to the staff kitchen downstairs, but felt that Paul was watching me, waiting for me to click my heels and announce to the world that I was in love with this eight-by-eight glorified prison cell.
Instead of worrying about my lunch, I settled behind the desk and fired up the computer. It was a little disappointing that the highlight of this moment consisted of how this “live” terminal was so much quicker than the “training” terminal in the back office. Once the Windows theme song hummed from the integrated speakers, I smiled at Paul and he gave me a nod.
“The world’s your oyster, Elliot,” he said before walking away.
I took his inspirational speech to heart, and the first thing I did on my “live” terminal was run searches for some of the people I knew—Jamie (the guy was mortgaged up to his tits) and Nathan (more money in a non-earning bank account than he should prudently have) and then…I stopped because this was ridiculous.
By the time I brought my lunch bag to the kitchen and returned, the branch doors had opened and I had my first prospective client, a former laborer at one of the second-tier manufacturing facilities. He was now out of work and had no means to repay the mortgage refinance he wanted. Well, he actually needed the refinance in order to draw capital out of his property so that he would have enough money to feed his family until he found more work. Because he had no means to repay the loan, I turned him down.
It didn’t end well; the security officer assigned to our branch needed to escort Mr. Wilcox outside where a police officer had a few questions for him.
That was when I saw her.
Well, I actually saw the blue and orange uniform that may as well have been the raciest lingerie in the world because my heartbeat picked up at the simple sight of those colors. I walked to my office door, watching her use a trolley to haul several boxes to the reception counter, where Beth signed for them on the industrial-strength iPad. I had always known I would miss her, but now I realized that I actually ached for her.
When Veronica spun around and started toward the door, she didn’t notice me. I cleared my throat with the hope of snagging her attention.
Cleared it three times, in fact.
She kept walking, so I figured she knew I was working here and was deliberately ignoring me, just like she had ignored my texts and calls in those early days after I finally “woke up” and saw life with a new clarity. I hurried after her, outside and down to the sidewalk, getting close enough to see a new tattoo on the back of her neck. Close enough that she couldn’t ignore me. And she didn’t.
“Elliot,” she breathed, stopping suddenly. I nearly ran into her from behind, but at least I saw that the tattoo on the back of her neck said: In your arms, I am found.
I smiled and leaned in closer, curious about what kind of stupid shit would fall out of my mouth. My heart raced so quickly that I questioned whether
I was about to have my first heart attack. “I hate my job.” It could have been worse.
She turned around and smiled back. “It’s for Lena.”
I nodded. “I miss you.”
Her smile brightened. It still had that melting effect, and I realized that my eyes likely became glassy and dreamy and lost. With her latest tattoo echoing in my mind, I wanted to hold her, I wanted to be found. Again.
“I miss you more,” she answered, then turned and kept walking to her delivery van. I opened the rear doors for her and reached down to help her lift the trolley, but she burst out laughing and told me, “Move back, Elliot. Before you get hurt.”
I watched her lift and flip and slide the trolley into its safety braces inside the cargo area. It looked easy, but it also proved just how silly my attempt at helping her would’ve been.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. “A little over a month. Today’s my first day as a non-trainee. I can take credit applications and turn people down.”
She acted impressed to match my fake enthusiasm. “Wow.” She wasn’t a good actress.
“You should get a loan, Veronica.”
She frowned. “A loan?”
“So I can spend some time with you in my office,” I said, winking.
My lame attempt aroused a bit of laughter from her, and she pulled her hat off to scratch her head, setting her hair loose. I noticed that the blue streak was gone now, which deflated me a little. But she was here, right in front of me.
“You look good, Elliot,” she admitted, pulling her hair up and tucking it back into her cap. “I might just take you up on that loan.”
“Yeah?” I pointed back at the doors. “You want to set an appointment right now? It’s warmer inside.”
She shook her head. “I’ve gotta make a few more deliveries before lunch.”
“That’s a good idea,” I blurted. I wanted to stop, but my lips kept moving. If I kept talking, she would stay. “Lunch. Where can I meet you?”
Surviving Goodbye Page 22