Heart on a Chain

by Cindy C. Bennett

  “You look good,” I say, and it’s true.

  His eyes are clear. His face is anxious about me being here but underneath that he is relaxed, no jitters or nervous twitches. His nose is lined with the broken vessels that indicate alcoholism, but it isn’t red.

  “Thanks. So do you.” He takes a sip of his soda, watching me.

  “Lot of memories involving this table,” I say, running my hands across the clean, worn surface.

  “Not all of them good though, huh?”

  I look at him, remembering my last time here when I learned I’d been adopted, the time of the failed Thanksgiving dinner, all the meals served but not eaten by me. Then I think of the times I sat here with Henry, or with Emma. And even a few of those times with my father there.

  “Not all of them bad, either,” I say.

  He clears his throat, hands folded around his can of pop.

  “Kate, there’s something I want to tell you, if it’s okay.” His eyes are on the table.

  “Sure,” I wonder what other revelation he might give, if it will explode my world again.

  “I’m an alcoholic.” He says it so matter-of-factly that my mouth drops open a little. “Not that you didn’t already know that. Not that I didn’t already know that. But I couldn’t admit it before. I can now.”

  He looks up at me.

  “I’ve been going to AA, getting help.”

  “That’s good,” I say, meaning it.

  “I should have done it years ago, though. Before you were born, before your mom and I were married, I was having drinking problems, and had gotten help then, though it didn’t last. I was doing well until I lost my job. That shouldn’t have been so bad but I was scared, she was pregnant with the baby we shouldn’t have been having, we already had you to be responsible for, this house with its mortgage, other bills. And instead of dealing with it, I turned to alcohol to numb the stress.

  “I know it doesn’t matter now, with all that has happened, but it’s important to me that you understand that most of the past ten years have been a drunken fog for me.” He holds up his hands as if I protested. “It’s not an excuse for what I have done. Or for what I haven’t done. Or for anything I allowed to happen to you. I take absolute responsibility for that. I was your father, and I didn’t ever act like it. But Kate, I always loved you. I did a really poor job of showing it, but I did.”

  “Why now?” I ask, curious. “Did something happen to make you decide to get help?”

  “You did,” he answers, as if it should have been obvious. “The last time you were here. You were so angry. And I realized that that was my doing.” He smiles sadly. “When I came home and you weren’t here, and then didn’t come back, I knew that I had let it destroy my life and take from me the one good thing I had.”

  “But you didn’t come find me.”

  “No,” he shakes his head. “I figured you hated me, and with good reason. I had no right to ask you to forgive me. But I know about you.”

  “You do?”

  “It took me some time to get sober. When I did I became truly aware of what I’d lost. So I asked around. I found out where you were living and I cornered Tom Bolen at the hardware store. It took some time and several conversations with him to convince him I was genuine in my concern and not trying to harm you before he would tell me anything.”

  He waves his hand toward the wall next to the opening between the kitchen and living room and I see a white phone hanging on the wall.

  “I finally got a phone. I stay sober, so I can keep my job, so I can pay my phone bill, so I can talk to Tom about you.” He shakes his head. “Pathetic, huh?”

  “No, not pathetic. Responsible. Fatherly.”

  His eyes flicker with something like hope, and the residual anger that is in my heart melts away. I pull a small notebook and pen out of my purse and scribble a number on it, passing it to him.

  “My cell phone number,” I tell him. “You can just call me direct now and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

  “I can call you?”

  “Sure.”

  He’s staring at the paper, rubbing his thumb lightly over the print.

  “Do you think someday you might let me try to be your dad again?” he asks softly.

  “I’d like that.” I cover his hand with mine. He leans down and kisses my knuckles.

  “Can I stay for dinner? I could cook for us,” I say.

  “You can stay, but I’ll cook. I’ve become pretty handy with my grill out back. I’d like to show off for someone else besides me for once.”

  I laugh.

  “Deal.”

  Since that day I’ve talked to him on the phone almost daily. I go to his house a couple of times a week to have dinner with him. This new, sober man is a far cry from the drunken stranger I’d known before. He asked me once about Henry because Jessica’s dad had told him I had broken up with him, but I cut him off, refusing to talk about it, and unlike Jessica he let it drop and didn’t ask me again. Sometimes, though, I catch him watching me with a sad, puzzled look in his eyes and I know he wants to ask, wants to know what could have driven us apart, but he doesn’t ask.

  The summer fades and rolls into fall, the mountains changing from green to red as the leaves change, and finally to white as winter comes and the snow falls. My life is a half-life, but even at that it’s more than it had been before Henry.

  I go to school and do well, no longer feeling a need to keep unnoticed with mediocre grades. I go to work and don’t have to pretend to be anything because most of the patients have a hard time remembering me anyway from time to time. I go to movies with Jessica, and watch TV with her parents. I spend time with my father, even attending a few of his AA meetings with him. I see my psychiatrist and work through my guilt and lack of self-worth as much as possible. I smile and laugh when I’m supposed to.

  I pretend that I’m not keenly aware that he’s gone now, wherever his destiny has taken him.

  Just before Christmas I move back home with my father. I’m determined to keep a happy face for him, to help him stay sober and not drag him down with my sorrow.

  At night I still cry, and dream of Henry, and miss him with an aching loneliness that threatens to overwhelm everything else in my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Spring comes early. The snow and ice melt quickly, the spring flowers blooming when they shouldn’t be. I still walk as much as possible, so I’m glad about the flowers, especially when I’m on campus, because they are so beautiful. They feel like new life, new beginnings. I like walking from building to building to go to class, the sun warm on my back. I wear Henry’s jacket, which I kept, deciding that this little piece of self-torture is worth it to feel closer to him.

  When I hear my name being called one spring afternoon by a voice more familiar than my own, I decide that it’s the power of wishful thinking, since I’m wearing his jacket. I turn anyway, schooling my smile to not show how much I wish the voice really does belong to him, expecting to see one of my classmates there.

  My smile falls, arms going limp as my books scatter across the ground when my eyes light on him. He’s here, really here, standing ten feet away. He walks closer, a wry smile crossing his face as he takes in the strewn books. My heart twists painfully at the familiar expression, my hands curling into fists, nails digging in to keep me from crying out in pain.

  “Still not big on carrying a back pack, huh?” he asks, gaze coming to my face. I’m nearly knocked over by the pain I see reflected in his eyes. I squat down, scooping my books up to give myself a chance to regroup. Any chance of that is lost as he walks closer, his shoes right next to me now. Slowly I stand up, taking a breath, wanting to run away, but facing him anyway.

  “Why are you here?” I intend it to come out sounding careless, remote. Instead the words are nearly breathless, hurt underlying each syllable.

  “I don’t really know,” he says, his words a repeat of his answer the first time I talked to him, when I asked
him why he wanted to be my friend.

  “You should go.” I order my feet to turn and walk away, but they disobey, fixed in place.

  “I can’t, Kate.” The sound of my name on his lips is like a physical blow. I rock back a little from the impact. “Not until I tell you what I came to say.”

  “Say it then,” I mumble, wanting this moment over now because I don’t think I can take it for much longer, but also wanting to draw it out so that I can drink in the sight of him, so much better in reality than in my dreams.

  “I think it’s time for you to stop being such a martyr,” his words come out harshly, his jaw clenching. He runs his fingers roughly through his hair, the gesture so endearingly familiar that I ache with it. He takes another step closer. “How much longer do we have to suffer apart until your sense of justice is fulfilled?”

  “What?” I gasp. “You think this is some kind of masochism, or self punishment?”

  “If not that, then what?” his voice is rising, and a few students nearby look our way.

  “It can’t work, Henry. I told you—”

  “You told me a load of crap! I’ve thought over everything you said, a hundred times a day, every day, and it makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is that you think you’re not good enough for me, you think you don’t deserve me. You think you have to self-sacrifice in order to make everyone happy.”

  This hits so close to home that hurt washes over me. I turn that pain into anger.

  “Pretty arrogant, Henry. Sounds like it’s you that thinks you’re too good for me.”

  “Don’t try to turn my words around, Kate.”

  “You were only with me because you pitied me. I was just some poor creature for you to rescue.”

  “No!” His denial is vehement. “Not at first. And then, okay, maybe a little.” I’m stunned by his admitting it. “But not after that. You, Kate, I fell in love with you! With your strength and courage, with your naiveté and innocence, your unschooled sense of humor. With your loyalty and how willingly you gave your love and trust.”

  “Not exactly flattering, Henry,” I flounder around, trying to find a part of his speech that isn’t singing through my heart, trying to maintain my anger. I finally find a word. “Loyal! Like a good dog.”

  “You’re turning my words around again,” he growls.

  His face is only inches from mine as we yell at one another, so close that if I just lean in just a few more inches, our lips will be touching.

  I see the moment when Henry realizes the same, when his face changes from anger to intensity, when he starts to make the move forward. I channel every ounce of self-control and will-power I have in me to jerk back and take a step away. His jaw tightens.

  “This is stupid, Kate. I love you. I want to be with you. Today, tomorrow, always. And I know you love me. Tell me I’m wrong about you, about why you left me. Tell me you don’t love me.”

  I know I should open my mouth and say the words, say the lie, and then he can move on. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out, so I snap it shut.

  “You’re wearing my jacket,” the accusation is soaked with misery. I pull it tighter around me in response, my throat clogged with tears.

  “So here’s the deal,” he says when I remain silent, clearing his throat and drawing himself up. He reaches out toward me, then stops himself, his hand falling uselessly to his side. “I’m living at home, going to school here, at the university, which I will be doing for the next three years. And after that I don’t know where I will be, but wherever it is I want to be there with you. I don’t want to go without you, but I will. And then I’ll come back for you. If I have to wait one day or twenty years, I’ll wait for you. So when you decide you’re done with this…” he trails off searching for the right word. Apparently not finding it, he continues. “When you’ve punished us enough, you come to me. Because that’s what you’ve reduced me to—a man who will live a pathetically empty life, just waiting for you.”

  He stares at me a few eternal seconds longer while a thousand thoughts swirl in my head, each fighting to get out, none succeeding. Finally he turns and begins walking away, ignoring the tears running down my cheeks. He pauses, with a murmured, “I’m tortured, Kate,” before continuing away from me.

  “Henry,” his name is out before I can stop it, before I even know I intend to say it. He stops, frozen, and then slowly turns back toward me. His face is creased with misery, hurt shining from his eyes, every line of his body reflecting despair. And I realized that that’s because of me.

  I love him more than I ever thought it possible to love someone, and here I am, causing him so much pain when all I ever wanted was for him to be happy. With that my decision is made. I wipe my tears away, squaring my shoulders.

  “I want to tell you a story,” I say. “It’s about a girl, who fell in love with a boy. But she didn’t think she was worthy of this boys love, or anyone’s love. She thought she had to push him away so he could be happy.” I watch as slow understanding crosses his features, though still tempered by the idea that I might not be saying what he wants. I begin to walk slowly toward him. “She was a foolish girl, miserable and lonely, crying herself to sleep every night because she missed him so much. But that didn’t matter, what mattered was that he was better off without her.” He shakes his head, opening his mouth to protest, but I’m in front of him now, and I place my finger lightly on his lips to stop him. Warmth, and a feeling of rightness, flows through me at the contact, nearly derailing my train of thought.

  “But then one day he came to her, and she could see that he was hurting, that she had done that,” my hand flattens against his cheek, “that she had caused him to ache even though she would rather die a thousand slow, agonizing deaths than cause him one second of pain. And she realized that maybe she’d been wrong.” His hand comes up, capturing mine, pressing my palm against his lips. “She decides that maybe she could make him happy and she wondered, if she asked really nice, if he might forgive her, and give her another chance. That he might let her spend the rest of her life showing him how sorry she is and how much she loves him.”

  His free hand comes up to my cheek, cupping my jaw.

  “I’ve heard this story,” he smiles.

  “Oh yeah?” I ask, losing myself in his dark eyes that are now shining with elation. “How does it end?”

  “It doesn’t end,” he says, pulling me close. “It begins, like this.”

  As his mouth comes down to mine, my heart lifts free of its burden and soars. I’m back where I belong.

  Epilogue

  Henry

  I slide my hand beneath the table, running my fingers lightly, slowly down her arm until our hands meet. She immediately turns her hand over, tangling her fingers with mine. It works out really well, my being left-handed and her being right, so that I can hold her hand whenever I want and not have it interrupt her meticulous note-taking.

  She doesn’t look my way, keeping her eyes resolutely turned to the front of the room, ostensibly listening to each word the professor spouts. I know her so well, though. The corners of her mouth turn up, and the slightest sigh escapes her lips.

  I’ll be getting a kiss after class.

  I always knew Kate was stubborn; I didn’t realize the exact extent until I decided just how our lives should go.

  Turns out Kate has her own ideas.

  She stayed at the community college for a full additional year, while I attended the university. No matter how much I cajoled, threatened or pleaded, she did what she wanted. It was torture, with both our schedules so full, to see so little of her.

  Last year she transferred to the university, and though this is the only class we have together this year, we worked our schedules out so that we are in school as much as possible at the same time—and therefore home at the same time.

  Kate lives with her father, whom she has grown very close to. John has turned his life completely around for Kate—a sentiment I completely empathize with. He’s finall
y being the father he denied her of for so many years.

  She refuses to marry me.

  She says she won’t marry me until she finishes her degree and can support me while I go to medical school. She’s less than a semester away from her teaching degree.

  She wants to teach fourth grade, she says, because for her, that’s when she needed someone to recognize how her home life was deteriorating. She wants to be in the position to do that for someone else if needed.

  My compassionate, courageous Kate would be just the person to do that.

  I stare at Kate, compelling her to look my way. She glances down at her paper where she’s taking notes, sliding her eyes sideways to glance up at me from under long, dark lashes.

  “I love you,” I mouth silently, rubbing my thumb across her palm in her lap. She smiles openly at me.

  “Me, too,” is her mouthed response.

  Absently, I reach up and muss my hair, and her eyes turn liquid. I laugh silently. It never fails to amaze me, the things she loves about me. She’s told me repeatedly that she finds the habit “adorable.” I’m not sure how I feel about that—it doesn’t sound too manly to be “adorable.” But then she looks at me like that, when I do it, and suddenly I don’t mind being adorable.

  I don’t know exactly how many times I’ve proposed to her. A lot. But she’s going to have to say yes soon. Not just because I can’t wait any longer—though that’s certainly true.

  This time I have the deal breaker in my pocket. I’ve been accepted to pre-med in Maine, almost twenty-five hundred miles away—and I’m not going without her. She’ll say yes because it’s the only way she’ll go with me, if we have our union bound legally. She’s very firm on that, not living together while unmarried. Part of it is her personal values; part of it, I believe, is that she’s afraid I’ll leave her still. She doesn’t know that I’ll never leave, and if she goes, I’ll follow her to the ends of the earth.