“Not really,” Demi shook her head sadly.
“They didn’t really get any real time together to bond or anything.”
“That’s a shame,” her Dad said.
“Is it?” Demi countered.
“Don’t you think so? You said yourself the whole point of the trip was for Logan to get to know his father.”
“Arthur’s got this whole life going on out there,” Demi began.
“A life where a young child just won’t fit in. He lives in a skyscraper, on the twentieth floor. His furniture belongs in a music video not a home. He’d never know how to be father.”
“No one ever does until you do it.”
“Trust me, he’d never get it,” Demi said sadly.
“Was he sad to see you go?”
“I guess,” Demi took a sip from her drink. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Don’t dwell on this too much sweetheart, you did the right thing. You gave him a chance.”
“He’s just not the guy I knew. His life is in New York now.”
“I’m sure you’ll see him again.”
“I doubt it very much.”
Demi’s Dad sighed and looked slightly awkward. Demi immediately recognized the face as it was the one he wore when he had bad news to impart.
“Dad, what is it?” she asked anxiously.
“Look,” her Dad began, struggling to find the right words.
“Just tell me!” Demi demanded.
####
In New York Arthur stood and stared out of his window, not sure how to take the news he had just received. A part of him wanted to open the window and jump right out of it but he knew he was too cowardly for that.
He pressed his palms against the glass and took a deep breath. Nothing made sense. He’d messed up his entire life and let down those who depended on him. Demi, Logan and know…it was too painful to think about.
Something had to change. He had to change. This wasn’t who he was supposed to be. This wasn’t the life he wanted to lead. Arthur decided then and there to stop running from his future and finally be the man he was meant to be.
####
“You’ll see Arthur soon because he’ll be coming to Collinswood next week,” her Dad said softly.
“What, why?”
“For Jared’s funeral.”
I Promise You This
The flight to Collinswood gave Arthur Cooper time to think. Time to think about the things he had done in his life up until this point, and more importantly, about the brother he’d lost.
The brother he’d ignored for the past four years because he reminded him of his greatest mistake; of leaving Demi and his son.
Jared adored Demi and Logan. He spent as much time with them as he could. Arthur tried to close his ears to the whispers of it at family gatherings but the glaring truth was that Jared was a better man than he was. He stepped up to the plate to take care of Demi and her son as best he could. And now, he was gone.
Arthur hastily ordered another whiskey on the rocks, desperate to numb the pain so that he didn’t start crying on the plane.
####
“Oh my God,” Demi held a hand to her mouth as tears pricked at her eyes. “When?”
“While you were in New York,” her Dad explained sadly.
“It’s so awful.”
“I know sweetheart.”
“Are his family okay?”
“As okay as they can be,” her Dad said gently.
“When is the funeral?”
“It’s next week.”
“I must go.”
“Yes, of course. Jared thought such a lot of you.”
“And I of him,” Demi felt her voice tremble as she spoke and let the tears come cascading down her cheeks. Jared was such a sweet, loving boy and his illness had finally robbed him of his life. His battle was over, and now everyone had to learn how to survive in its wake.
####
“How was your flight?” Conrad Cooper asked his now only son generically as they sat on the sofa in their house which now felt unbearably empty.
“It was fine,” Arthur said flatly, drinking yet another glass of whiskey.
“You should go easy on that,” Conrad noted.
“Speak for yourself,” Arthur replied, glancing at the mirrored image of his father also clutching a glass of amber liquor as though it were a life preserver.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Arthur sighed, rubbing his head wearily.
“You wouldn’t have come,” his father said coldly.
“Yes, I would have!”
“No, you wouldn’t. You never come home. Jared was ill so often and yet you never made the trip back here.”
Arthur didn’t like the way guilt made him feel and suddenly he had so much to feel guilty about. He’d abandoned his son and now his brother at his time of need, what sort of man had he become?
“He was taken care of here,” his mother whispered as she came in the room carrying a fresh batch of cookies. All she’d done since Jared’s death was bake. The house was bursting at the seams with cookies, cakes, turnovers and pies.
“Cookie?” she offered to her husband and son who both declined, having no appetite.
“I know that you took good care of Jared,” Arthur said kindly.
“I wasn’t referring to us,” his mother said absently.
“Then who?”
“Demi works as a nurse now. Whenever Jared was in hospital she’d take extra shifts to make sure he had a familiar face around all the time,” a sad look swept over his mother’s soft features as she spoke, almost breaking into tears.
“She’s a nice girl.”
“Yes, Jared really liked her,” Conrad Cooper said uncomfortably as his own guilt pricked at his skin. As a family they’d never supported Demi and yet she so selflessly came to the aid of their dying son.
“I imagine she will be at the funeral,” Arthur’s mother said as she considered returning to the kitchen to make a new batch of cookies.
“Will be strange seeing her after all this time,” Conrad declared as he begrudgingly went to take a cookie from his wife, desperate to ease her anguish and help her feel useful.
“Oh, actually, she came to see me in New York a few days ago,” Arthur mumbled awkwardly, realizing he’d yet to inform his parents of her visit. “She brought Logan with her.”
Both of his parents stared at him as though he were a stranger, their eyes wide with shock.
“She came to visit you?” Conrad repeated, as if unable to believe it.
“Yeah.” Arthur began to regret saying anything.
“What does that mean?” his mother almost shrieked.
“Mom, calm down, I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You can’t play with that poor girl’s emotions!” his mother thumped the tray of cookies down with severe force and placed her hands upon her hips.
“You can’t invite her in to your life and then cast her out again! She has a son to think of! Your son!” Rage flared in his mother’s eyes and he realized he’d never seen her so angry.
“Jared adored Logan, he thought he was the sweetest little boy in the world, and seeing him…it gave him hope…” her voice broke off as she began to weep and shake.
Conrad immediately got to his feet and went to comfort his wife.
“What your mother is trying to say, son, is that we were wrong about Demi. She stood by Jared when she didn’t have to. She drove him to treatments when we couldn’t, brought him books and magazines, took him to see Logan in nursery plays when he was well enough to attend. She made him a part of her family.”
Arthur got up and left the room, not because he was angered by what he was hearing but because it was too painful.
For so long he’d closed his eyes to so much. He’d been running so hard from his past while Demi had the grace and good heart to embrace it. How could he ever have let her go? And then he denied her in New York, for the sake of a job? He
felt sick with disgust at himself. Not knowing what to do or where to go, he went and sat in Jared’s bedroom.
####
“I heard about Jared,” Hayley said sadly, her tone apologetic.
“Yeah, it’s awful,” Demi sighed. Between the two girls in the café Logan sat in his high chair merrily playing with his rattle, oblivious to the sadness all around him.
“He was such a sweet guy,” Hayley continued.
“Yeah, he was lovely.”
“Are you going to the funeral?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Won’t it be weird seeing Arthur again? That is assuming he goes,” Hayley added bitterly.
“Well…” Demi knew it wasn’t really the time to tell Hayley about her visit to New York but also knew the change in topic would be a welcome distraction from her current grief about Jared.
“I saw Arthur recently. He invited me and Logan to come and stay with him in New York.”
“What, that’s huge!” Hayley gasped in delight.
“Not really.”
“So what happened? Are you guys back together?” Hayley leaned forward excitedly over her milkshake, eager to hear the news.
“No, no, nothing like that happened,” Demi said, shaking her head. “He just wanted a chance to meet Logan, I guess. But then…”
“But then what?”
Demi didn’t want to admit how she’d been stupid enough to go visit her ex in New York only to have him disregard her and their son as merely his friends. But she saw to kind look in Hayley’s eyes and knew it was safe to share with her. They’d been through so much, so many sleepless nights where Demi would sit and cry and lament about how she couldn’t be a single mother and Hayley would stroke her back and remind her that she’d never be alone as long as she was there.
“We went out for breakfast and bumped in to this leggy blonde who he worked with. She asked who I and Logan were and he dismissed us as just friends, as easy as that.”
“Ouch.” Hayley said sympathetically.
“Exactly.”
“So what did you do?”
“The only thing I could do, I came home.”
“So Arthur hasn’t changed then?”
“It doesn’t look like it,” Demi admitted sadly, having wanted so much for the boy she had fallen in love with to return, to not be gone forever.
“Don’t be sad, Dem. You’ve come this far without him, you don’t need him in your life and neither does Logan.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Pancakes!” Logan shouted merrily, causing a few other diners to glance up from their tables.
“Logan, quiet down,” Demi chided gently, handing her son another toy to play with.
“Pancakes!” he called out again, throwing the new toy to the ground.
“You’ve just eaten!” Demi told him, her voice slightly stern.
“Pancakes!” Logan yelled again.
Demi felt the judgemental eyes on her which she couldn’t bear. People wondering why she couldn’t calm her son down; was it because he didn’t have a father at home to discipline him?
It all started to become too much and Demi began to pack up her things.
“I’m sorry, Hales, but I need to go,” she said tearing up.
“Stop, it’s all in your head,” Hayley placed a hand on Demi’s and stopped her from collecting her things together.
“People look because Logan is loud, not because you are a bad mother.”
For the first time, Demi turned to face the eyes who she felt were so often judging her and was shocked to see barely anyone looking, and if they were, it was with kind smiles. Collinswood was a warm, kind place. Here, people respected her for having the strength to raise her son alone.
“Let’s sit down and enjoy our drinks,” Hayley suggested gently.
“Yeah, okay,” Demi sighed, feeling flustered.
“You’re doing great, Dem, everyone knows it,” Hayley told her friend kindly.
“Thanks.”
“No, seriously, you’ve done an amazing job with Logan. I could never do what you’ve done.”
“Thanks, Hales.”
“And do you know who was your biggest fan?”
“You?” Demi suggested.
“No, Jared. He really admired you for raising Logan alone, never forget that. So when you see Arthur at his funeral tomorrow, make sure you remember that you don’t need him, you’ve done just fine on your own.”
####
It rained on the day of Jared Copper’s funeral which seemed fitting. That helped hide the tears of those who stood and mourned him.
Demi stood beside her Dad, huddled beneath the large black umbrella he was holding. She shivered, not from the cold but from the sadness inside her which kept threatening to escape.
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Father Simmons declared to the great number of people who had congregated to bid farewell to Jared Cooper.
As he said those words, Demi glanced up and caught Arthur’s eye, who was standing across from her beside his weeping mother and stoic father. She saw something in his eyes as they locked onto hers.
There was a moment between them, when they both contemplated that it was now only the Lord who took things away, sometimes people did it all on their own.
Arthur looked awful. He was ghostly pale and his eyes were deep and sunken. It looked as though he hadn’t slept for many days.
Demi wanted to feel pleased by this sight, that finally Arthur understood the true meaning of grief. But instead, her heart bled for him. She hated to see him in so much pain, so much despair. She realized as she stood there, sheltering from the rain against her Dad, that she still loved Arthur Cooper, and always would.
####
Arthur kept wishing that at some point he would wake up and this would all just be some horrific nightmare. But he didn’t. The service wore on, a cruel, unrelenting march which drummed home the fact that his brother, Jared, was gone. Just a few feet before him, his lifeless body was encased in a casket, soon to be committed to the ground.
It was utterly unbearable to witness. But Arthur tried to be strong; he had to be strong, for his mother. But it felt strange to suddenly act as her rock when for so long he had been running from all responsibility.
“My baby,” his mother sobbed, stretching out a weak hand towards the casket which contained Jared.
“It’s okay Mom,” Arthur wrapped a reassuring arm around her and she fell against him as if her legs had failed her and she could no longer support her own weight. He held her and let her tears soak his black shirt.
He glanced around the sea of faces around him, most of which he recognized. Everyone was looking across at the Coopers which pitying glances. All except Demi. When he caught her eye, he saw that she looked concerned. Concern meant that she cared, and for the first time since he’d received the devastating call about Jared, Arthur felt a flicker of hope enter his life. A last shot at redemption.
“It was a lovely service,” Conrad Cooper said as they walked away from the grave site and back to the awaiting black cars which would take them back home for the wake.
Still clutching her remaining son, Beth Cooper said nothing; she was too lost to her grief to talk.
“Come now, Beth,” Conrad urged his wife to get a grip on her emotions, hating to make a public scene, whatever the context of it.
“Dad, let her cry,” Arthur said tersely.
“It won’t bring him back,” Conrad replied bitterly.
“No, but it will help Mom feel better.”
Conrad watched his eldest son assist his grieving mother in to the car. He noted how gentle and caring he was with her and for a brief moment, it was as if Jared was not gone. The Arthur he had known seemed to be disappearing right before his eyes as he became the sort of man he always should have been.
Glancing back up towards the cemetery Conrad noticed Demi ambling away from the grave site, arm in arm with her father, her head down. Jar
ed had thought so much of her, and of Logan. It pained Conrad to see them both there, knowing that all he’d ever done was cast them aside when despite everything, they had become a part of his family but only Jared had ever had the foresight and kindness to see that.
Just Like Heaven Page 14