The Ground Beneath

by Stephanie Vercier

  “Would you please just stop!” I close my eyes, wanting to fully retreat, just wanting to get out of here. But I don’t move because I’m tired of turning the other cheek the way I had for the last year, never confronting Daniella in the way I really needed to about how much her words hurt. “If you’re bringing this old accident up because you miss having your name all over the internet, then I hope you’ll think twice. Hunter is a nice guy, and he doesn’t need you dragging his name through the mud because of something you’re speculating on. And I’m sure as hell not going to help you do it.”

  “I can assure you that’s not my intention,” she snaps right back. “It never was, not with you or anyone else. But when there’s more to a story, then I need to follow it, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “I guess I can’t stop you then,” I say, turning on my heel to leave. “But I’d be careful on what you say. Hunter makes a lot of money, and if you start throwing around accusations that have no basis in truth, he might just sue you for libel.”

  “I don’t make stories up,” she calls after me as I move through the door. “Everything I ever write is the full truth!”

  “If that’s what you need to believe to look at yourself in the mirror,” I say, unsure if she hears me and not really caring either way.

  After walking back to my parents’ house, I expect my mom to ask for full details on my early lunch with Micah. And even if I were to tell her point blank that nothing would ever, for all of eternity, happen with him, she’d just brush it off and say that I’m not thinking straight, that I’ll feel differently in a week or two, that I’ll start missing home and reconsider my options.

  But when I walk in, the house is quiet, my dad sitting on the couch, an open Bible in his lap.

  “How did it go?” He stands, setting the Bible on the cushion beside him.

  I decide he looks sheepish, that he might actually be cringing.

  “Not great, Dad. What did you expect?”

  “I’m sorry, honey.” He walks over to me, kisses me on the forehead and then leads me back to the couch to sit next to him. “I shouldn’t have brought him over like that. It’s just that your mother is very convinced this is what God wants.”

  I don’t try to argue that because I’ve already argued it so many times before. All I do is ask, “Where is Mom?”

  “Upstairs.” Dad picks his Bible up and sets it on the coffee table. “She took a sedative.”

  I pull my phone out of my purse to check the time. “It’s not even one o’clock.”

  He pushes his lips together and nods. “She got very anxious after you and Micah left. She started pacing back and forth, kept asking me if I thought you’d finally see the light and come home and settle down. The sedative was the only thing that would calm her.”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s not fair what she’s doing, Dad. I didn’t ask for what happened any more than she did.”

  “I know… I know, sweetheart.” He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to him. “She’s trying to get back what she lost. If God hadn’t taken Wyatt and Abe, there might be a grandchild by now that she’d be holding.”

  Looking up at my father’s kind face, I say, “There’s no guarantee I would have stayed married to Wyatt, not after what he did. And Mom knows I wasn’t ready to have kids anyway, not for a long time.”

  Dad smiles softly. “That’s true, but you have a lot of forgiveness in your heart, and sometimes children come along whether you’re ready for them or not.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly planned,” he says with a smile.

  “No, not the kids, Dad… the forgiveness part.”

  “Of course. You’ve forgiven him now, haven’t you though? Now that he’s gone?”

  “I think so, but it’s kind of hard to forgive a dead person when you can’t know what was really in their heart.”

  “Wyatt loved you. There’s no question about that.”

  I don’t reply to that because I’m not sure that a person who truly loves you would give so much of themselves to a person who isn’t you.

  “And Abe? Have you truly forgiven your brother?” he asks.

  The day of the accident, three people had betrayed me, but it was Abe’s betrayal that hurt most of all. Even if his lies were a mask for his own pain, he was still my brother, and that should have counted for more.

  “It will only hurt you to hold onto the anger,” Dad says with another squeeze to my shoulder. “And you don’t have to forget to forgive.”

  “I forgave Abe a long time ago, Dad, no doubts at all.” If I hadn’t been able to do that, it would have only added to the pain of losing him.

  “I’m so glad. True forgiveness sets us free.”

  The truth can set you free as well, and after a few minutes of silence between us, nothing but the sound of the grandfather clock ticking away and the mechanical buzzing of a lawnmower somewhere outside, I very quietly say, “Dad, I want you to know that I’m dating Hunter Lawrence.”

  His breath hitches, his grip on my shoulder loosening ever so slightly. “Is that so?”

  “Mom didn’t mention it to you? That’s what we were arguing about when you and Micah walked in.” I suppose she wouldn’t have considering her focus on Micah and me and her need for a sedative.

  “No, she didn’t. And we’re talking about the quarterback here, not some other Hunter Lawrence you happen to be working with, correct?”

  “Yes, Dad. The one and only.”

  “I can’t be surprised, can I? Considering what a beautiful young woman you’ve grown into, how could he resist my daughter?”

  “Does this mean you’re okay with it?” I don’t want to get my hopes up, but his tone is relaxed, practically accepting.

  “Well, I suppose it depends on some things. There’s an obvious age difference, isn’t there, and a chasm between life experiences I’m sure.”

  “The same thing exists between Micah and I, Dad. He’s closer in age to Hunter than he was to Wyatt, and you and Mom seem to think he’s God’s choice for me.”

  Like any human being, Dad has his deficits, but a lack of fairness is not one of them. He can’t help but to tilt his head forward in agreement to my point. With a raise of his eyebrows, he asks, “Is he good to you?”

  “Yes, Dad. He’s been very good to me.”

  “And he respects your boundaries, doesn’t push you to move with the speed I don’t doubt he’s used to?”

  “He hasn’t pressured me into anything, Dad.”

  “You’re still very young, sweetheart. It’s not been that long since Wyatt—”

  “It’s been a year. A year since I was ready to be a wife. I’m not a kid… not even close.”

  Dad takes a moment to think this over. He was younger than me when he married my mother, neither of them wanting to waste their time living as boyfriend and girlfriend. They wanted to get on with life, to build their place in the church and eventually have a family. So, they didn’t have a problem when Wyatt—who’d already been out of school two years—asked for my hand in marriage while I was still studying for finals my senior year of high school. With their full blessing to two young people who also didn’t want to waste time, Wyatt and I were married on a beautiful late afternoon in August, not a cloud in the sky, and not one worry in my heart.

  I hope Dad isn’t thinking about what happened after that. It would only make him more wary of me dating a man like Hunter.

  “I think I have to trust your judgment, sweetheart. I’ve learned I’m not always the best judge of a man’s character.”

  My heart falls a little right then, knowing he’s talking about Wyatt. Dad could have officiated my wedding himself, but he’d wanted to just be my dad that day, and so he’d had a good friend and fellow priest from Portland stand at the altar while he held out his arm for me, walked me down the aisle, and entrusted me to a young man he’d seen me with for years, a man h
e believed would never do a thing to hurt me.

  He’d been wrong, of course, wrong about his own son too.

  “I trust Hunter, Dad. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  “Well, then, that’s what you go with. I know I’ve been complicit with this thing about Micah, but God can pull us into new directions. Perhaps there is a better match for the both of you. Perhaps Micah was meant to learn something as he stood by us and not meant to be your husband after all. And maybe you’re meant to be with this Hunter fellow or to learn something along the way.”

  “I want you to meet him,” I say, filled with a whoosh of excitement as I wiggle out of Dad’s embrace. “He’s the one who dropped me off, and he’s coming to pick me up.”

  “Okay.” Dad gives me a smile that reminds me how much he loves me, that he just needed time to see things differently.

  “I’ll give him a call and see where he’s at then. Do you think Mom…” I don’t finish the sentence based on the downward turn of Dad’s lips.

  “I think your mother needs rest. When Hunter gets here, I’ll meet him at the curb, give him a once over and shake his hand. I’ll make sure he knows he needs to take care of my baby girl.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” It’s a small victory, enough to make my heart fill with joy as I pull out my phone and dial Hunter.

  Chapter Ten

  HUNTER

  When I was a teenager, I had to meet a few dads. They were the fathers of girls I did more than just hang out with. They were men who wanted to look you in the eye with their arms crossed over their chests and a nod back to their houses in Mountainside where you could be assured they had at least one hunting rifle. The message was loud and clear, mess with their daughters and there would be consequences. But even then, I was pretty good at finding the girls who had no interest in having a real boyfriend, girls that usually dumped me for some other guy before I could dump them. They were the girls who wouldn’t be running home to their fathers with broken hearts. And with them, I hoped I was proving something to myself, that I could be a man, a real man. But maybe I was never fully satisfied with the answer, because I kept on trying to prove it.

  But through college and my eight years in Seattle, I’d never once met the father of a woman I was sleeping with, never had to look one in the eye and make a promise to keep their daughter virtuous. Hell, I’d known Theresa Carmichael for three years, and she’d never even mentioned her parents except to say they lived on a beach somewhere in Florida.

  With her and everyone else, I could just melt into a kind of oblivion, sex that didn’t matter because there were no consequences to it, no hearts on the line. We were just people moving through life wanting things for our own reasons. For me, it was about forgetting as well as proving some sick pervert hadn’t made me any less of a man. But the aftereffect was still shame, still wishing I’d grown up to be a different guy.

  So, when Alli calls me and tells me her dad wants to meet me, it truly matters. I want to impress the man and somehow show him that what I feel for his daughter is the most real thing I’ve ever experienced. I want him to know that I would never purposely do anything to hurt her. I want to tell him, right in front of her, that I’m in love with his daughter, the cynics who’d say I’ve not known her long enough be damned.

  I’m not sure how to do that, though, and I’m not afraid to admit to myself that I’m scared a little shitless. Maybe Keith would have some good brotherly advice, and it makes me wish things had ended differently today in Wenatchee. I hadn’t gone there looking for a fight, and yet I’d gotten one. I probably always would where my family was concerned, but thinking about Alli and how she cares enough for me to want to meet her family takes my mind away from that.

  When another call comes in, I answer it thinking it’s Alli, that she has some further instruction for me, that maybe she’ll give me a hint on how to deal with meeting the parents.

  “Well, it’s about fucking time,” Theresa says, her voice filling my SUV.

  I say a silent goddamn for answering without waiting for her name to pop up on the display, then try to decide how I should respond. She’d fucked with Alli when we were in Santa Clara, and I’d only kept my mouth shut because Alli asked me to.

  “I thought you were done with me, Theresa,” I say, deciding my best bet is to keep it civil. “So, then what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

  After the night she’d shown up at my condo, where I’d chosen the couch instead of her, she put me on full radio silence. I wasn’t complaining, especially after she brought up what I now realize I should have never told her about my childhood. Sure, it might have been nice to part on better terms, but it was beyond time to be done with a relationship that should have never happened in the first place.

  “I am done with you, Hunter,” she says like I’d just been begging her to reconsider. “I’m only calling because I found something out, and I’ve decided to play nice and share it with you.”

  “Okay,” I say, leery as to whether I want to hear this or not.

  After a pause, she says, “That little girl of yours has quite a past, Hunter. Could be bad press if you and she ever decide to step out into the public eye.”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” I tell her as convincingly as possible, but Theresa is not a stupid woman.

  “Don’t play dumb, Hunter. That might have looked cute a few years ago, but now that I don’t want to fuck you, it’s just annoying.”

  I sigh, thinking myself an idiot to imagine our parting could have been amicable. “If I’m so annoying, then maybe you should just hang up on me.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t get off that easily. You can admit it or deny it, but it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together when Sheila dragged that Allison Briggs along, toting around that fine wine she tries to ply us with, as if that’s going to ever make us jump ship.”

  The us in that statement includes her husband, Henry Carmichael, and I inwardly cringe at the subtle reminder I’d been sleeping with a man’s wife off and on for three years. Even if he didn’t care, I still felt like a rat.

  “Get to the point,” I say, deciding I don’t need to be nice to her if she’s about to try and drag Alli down.

  “She’s the girl you’re fucking now, isn’t she, Hunter? Allison Briggs?”

  I don’t respond to that, her reducing what I have with Alli to something crude.

  She laughs. “I’m right. I knew it from the moment I saw her. Even that slightly risqué wardrobe of hers doesn’t hide her youth… her pretty innocence… those big doe eyes smiling for the camera at the hospital, your arm around her—yes, I saw those too, Hunter.”

  Of course she did.

  “Her arrival into the picture coincided with you taking the couch, didn’t it? I’ll hand it to her—she’s something out of the ordinary. That made me feel better for all of five minutes, that you didn’t throw me over for some two-dollar twat, but then I got bored.”

  “What have you done?” Suddenly I’m worried, partially at the possibility Theresa’s veiled threat has to do with her knowledge of my childhood, but mostly for Alli, that Theresa could find a way to mess with her.

  I can’t stand her silence that I know she’s drawing out to make me worry more. I’m just about to call her out on it when she says, “I haven’t done anything at all to her. I’ve just gathered some information in my spare time, read a few articles, found out that Allison Briggs was at the center of quite the salacious tragedy back in Coalton—stop me if you already know this, Hunter, but somehow I doubt you do much checking up on the women you sleep with.”

  What I know about Alli is what she’s told me, that her husband and brother died in an accident. I’ve been curious to know more, but I’ve put my trust in waiting for her to tell me when she’s good and ready instead of searching out further information for myself.

  “Theresa… you—”

  “I what?”

  I’m about to be evasive, tell her she
doesn’t know anything, that she can think Alli and I are together all she wants, but that won’t make it true. It’s because of my need to protect Alli that I’d backtracked on the idea of going public, but I realize now that speculation can be far more damaging than the truth. If Theresa thinks I’m sleeping with Alli, then it won’t be long until other people know. The best thing for me to do now is to admit it.

  “You’re right. I’m seeing Allison.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “She’s a complication, Hunter. It’s one thing for you to take up with some slut in Seattle or a B-list actress from Vancouver, but it’s quite another to be linked to an innocent young woman with a tragic past. You end up dumping her overboard, and people are going to hate you. I’m telling you this for your own good, you realize?”

  No. She’s telling me this to stir up trouble, to remind me that the man I’d been during my time with Theresa is exactly the kind of man who should be worried about taking up with a sympathetic young woman. If she’s trying to convince me to cut my losses and break up with Alli, she’s delusional.

  “Just let me deal with Allison’s past in my own way, okay?”

  “Isn’t that difficult to do when you haven’t even dealt with your own?”

  She’s taking the low road again, but damn if I’ll let her get under my skin again.

  “Not that I’m going to tell anyone about it. It’s not like I’m a monster,” she says, all sincerity lacking.

  “I need to go. Take care, Theresa.” I hang up on her before she can say another word.

  I keep on driving.

  All I want is to see Alli.

  Theresa’s call rattled me more than I’d like to admit, but by the time I get to Coalton, I’ve done my best to settle my nerves.

  Fuck her if she thinks she can use my childhood against me.

  And God help her if she tries to go after Alli.

  Considering there’re a good number of things I still haven’t told Alli about my life before meeting her, Theresa’s crazy to think I’d be anything less than understanding and protective of Alli for whatever her life was before converging with mine.