by A. L. Cook
“I feel so selfish,” she confessed miserably, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’m so happy with you, and I feel like it’s not fair that I can be so happy and so sad at the same time. Shouldn’t I be over this by now? Shouldn’t loving you be enough?”
“It is enough,” Cam told her with a soft smile, “but it’s a little unrealistic to think that it should be everything. You love me, I know that. You know I love you too, yeah?” At her short nod he shrugged. “That’s it. That’s all we need. My loving you includes supporting you when you’re sad, or heartbroken, or whatever. Your loving me needs to include a little more communication, maybe, but the same support is still there. It’s enough, baby; it’s perfect.”
She finally met his gaze, but the corners of her mouth tugged downwards. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but stopped.
“Tell me,” Cam said quietly, taking her injured hand and unwrapping it so she had the buffer of not needing to look at him while she spoke. “Whatever it is, tell me.” The cut was small and relatively superficial, but he drew out his inspection of it as she spoke.
“I want to go and see Danny’s parents.” She was silent for a long moment. “And I need you to come with me.”
Well that was certainly unexpected. “Okay.”
“It’s just that they were the closest I ever had to parents after mine died, and I feel like I owe them, you know? I haven’t spoken with them since Daniel died, which is hugely unfair on my behalf, I know that, but I feel like I might be ready now, and I think it’s important that they know you, and know that what I feel for you isn’t trivial, that it means something, you know? And that I’m not trying to replace Danny, because that’s ridiculous but it might seem like that, and-”
“Erin,” Cam murmured, placing her hand in her lap and taking her face in both of his own. “I’ll be there. Just tell me what to do.”
*
As the taxi turned onto Pearl Street in south Redondo Beach a short two weeks later, Erin’s agitation visibly increased. Cam reached over and took her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he reassured her. “I’m with you every step of the way, okay?”
Erin nodded jerkily and tried to smile at him, though it looked more like a grimace. “I know. Cam- thank you. Seriously, thank you for all of this. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“You’re my girl, it’s just part of the job.” The cab pulled to a stop in front of a tidy brick home and Cam paid the driver. They retrieved a small carryon bag each and stood together on the sidewalk. “Want me to hold your hand?”
“No! Yes. I don’t know,” she said in an agony of indecision. “I don’t know if that would be- shit.”
The obscenity was the biggest tell Cam had seen towards Erin’s state of mind, and he unsuccessfully stifled a snort of laughter. “They know you’re seeing someone, so I don’t think it’ll shock them too much if you want to hold hands.”
She shot him a glare that was part-irritated and part-terrified, then took his hand like a challenge. “Come on,” she told him firmly. “I need to knock on that door before I hyperventilate.”
Cam tugged her to a stop and kissed her tenderly. “Breathe. I’m here with you.”
She nodded and did as she was told, not that it appeared to help much, and marched towards the front door. She didn’t hesitate when she rang the bell, but her hand was shaking badly, and Cam felt a sudden light flutter of nerves settle over him.
They barely had time to draw breath before the door was wrenched open and a small, dark-haired woman had her arms thrown around Erin, tears pouring down her face. Cam watched as Erin hugged the other woman as well, the two of them crying together on the stoop. A grey-haired man emerged from the house to join them, exchanging a welcoming nod with Cam before he rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“Oh, my darling girl,” Daniel’s mother said, smoothing the tears off Erin’s face with her thumbs as her brown eyes catalogued every detail. “I’m so glad you came.”
“I’m so sorry it took so long-”
“If you needed this much time, then you’re here at the perfect time,” the older man said gently. “Come now, into the house. I believe there are introductions to be made.”
They all moved into a well-lit living room made homey and comfortable with mementos and photographs.
“I’m Jonathan Campbell,” the greying man introduced himself to Cameron with a firm handshake, “and this is my wife, Rose.”
“Cameron Thomas,” Cam replied. “Thank you so much for letting me come and stay with you both.”
“Any friend of Erin’s is a friend of ours,” Jonathan told him sincerely. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I think we could both use some water, thank you,” Cam told him, the two of them retreating to the kitchen,
“How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine, Sir,” Cam told him honestly. “I’m mostly here for Erin.”
“Please, call me Jon. How is she, really?”
“For the most part, I think she’s okay. She’s still grieving, and she feels guilty sometimes for being too happy, but I think she’s starting to heal.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of hard for me to gauge, given that I didn’t know her until a while after she had moved to Juneau.”
“And I take it you two are serious?”
“Yes, we are,” Cam said unflinchingly. “I plan on asking her to marry me.”
“Well, now. Isn’t that something.”
Drinks poured, the two men returned to the living room and sat, while Rose and Erin talked. Cam sat and tried not to notice how closely Jon watched him.
*
Dinner was a lot less awkward than Erin had anticipated. Her head ached, her body was weary and her eyes burned with tears finally shed, but she was finally at peace. There was still a hole in her heart that would likely never be filled, but coming back to Rose and Jon had been exactly what she hadn’t realised she needed to finish putting her life back together.
Daniel’s parents had been extraordinarily generous in their understanding and forgiveness of her long absence, both of them telling her that they understood perfectly, and that they didn’t blame her for leaving. Rose told her over and over again how glad she was to have what felt like a small piece of Daniel back, and Erin confessed that she felt the same.
Cam was uncharacteristically quiet as they ate, but seemed untroubled enough whenever she looked his way. She gradually became aware of Jon’s scrutiny of him, but chalked that up to the awkwardness of Cam’s being his ex-daughter-in-law’s new partner.
“So, Cameron,” Rose began as they were eating, “what is it you do for a living.”
“I’m a firefighter,” he told them, and the sudden and profound silence that befell the room was broken only by Rose’s fork slipping from her fingers and clattering onto her plate. “That’s exactly the same look Erin gave me when she found out, too,” he said with a crooked smile.
“Oh dear,” Rose said, flustered. “Oh, Erin…”
“I know,” Erin told her sombrely. “It’s not a decision I made lightly,”
“What if-” Jon began, but Erin shook her head once, resolutely.
“I can’t live my life as a series of ‘what ifs’, Jon. I’ll tell you one day about how long I made Cameron wait before I decided I was ready, but ultimately I had to acknowledge that I had fallen in love with him and decide if I could live with that, or live without him. I chose the former. I spent so long alone, and I didn’t want that anymore.”
“We worry about you, honey. We saw what it did to you the first time, and I’m just worried that if it happened again-” She broke off and gripped Erin’s hand tightly where it lay on the table.
“We’ve spoken about it,” Cam said gently. “Erin has a family, now. She has my family, and the one that she made for herself, should the worst happen.”
“And I’d have you two, I hope,” she added, squeezing Rose’s hand and smiling a l
ittle at Jon. “I promise not to run like that again, and there’s a place for you in my life, if you want there to be. I wouldn’t be as alone as I was when Danny died.”
Jonathan abruptly got to his feet and left the room, leaving the others staring after him in shock. Rose moved as though to rise, but Erin rested a hand on her forearm and got up instead. She squeezed Cam’s shoulder as she passed to exit into the kitchen, the solid warmth of him beneath her hand as reassuring as ever, and she took strength from it.
She made her way through the kitchen and out into the backyard to where Jon was leaning on the fence overlooking the pool, and crossed the soft grass to stand next to him, close but not touching.
“If my being here is too difficult,” she told him softly, “I can go.”
“I’m sorry, Erin,” he said said abruptly, steadfastly refusing to look at her. “I’m so sorry that when all this first happened, when we first lost Danny, that we turned away from you. I can’t help but think if we had just kept you close, if we had-”
“What? Jon, no,” Erin protested, gripping his shoulder firmly and pushing gently at him so he was facing her. “You and Rose didn’t turn from me, you turned to each other. That’s a huge difference. And even if things had gone differently, I wouldn’t have- couldn’t have- stayed. There were too many memories here, and it just hurt too much. Do you think I’ve been blaming you this whole time?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” he asked roughly, finally meeting her eyes again, his own dark eyes, so like his son’s, now brimming with tears. “You were all we had left of Danny and we let you leave, let you go thinking that you weren’t as important to us or as loved as he was.”
“I know you love me, Jon,” Erin corrected him sternly. “Why else would I have brought Cameron here to meet you? I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure that you were okay and to apologise for having been gone so long. And I wanted you to know that I’m happy. That Cam and I are in love and he’s so great; he’s so good to me, and he’s so encouraging of me having Danny be a part of my life. And you and Rose, too. If you think that’s something you want.”
“Of course that’s what we want, girl. You’re as much our daughter as Daniel is our son. You should have seen Rose’s face when your letter arrived. She looked like all her Christmases had come at once.”
“I really am so sorry I was away for so long,” she told him. “I was weak, and it was unfair.”
“We all do what we have to do.”
“I think you’re right,” Erin agreed.
They were silent for a long while, the breeze gentle and cool against their skin, until Jon spoke again.
“He’s a fine young man, your Cameron.”
Erin smiled, glancing back towards the house. “He’s wonderful. Clever, sweet, loyal, funny and incredibly respectful of Daniel’s memory.” She glanced at Jon and then away. “I think we’ll get married one day.”
Jon nodded. “Is that why you brought him with you?”
“Partly. But it was mostly so you could meet him and see for yourselves that he’s a good man, and that I’m not in a relationship with him lightly.”
“You can’t live your life by what Rosie and I think,” he chided gently.
“I’m not, not anymore. But you’re both so important to me, and I want you to know Cam and know us as a couple. I’ll completely understand if that’s too much, or if you’d rather not know any of the detai-”
“We want to know,” Jon reassured her. “We’ve come to a kind of acceptance, I guess, about Daniel’s death. It’ll never be easy to bear, and there will be days where the grief threatens to overwhelm us, but you’ll always be a part of our lives too.” The older man turned to Erin and drew her into a hug, warm and enveloping, and she returned his embrace just as tightly.
*
Their trip was only short, but by the end of it Cam could tell that Erin was in a much healthier place mentally than she had been in Juneau. He watched as she let Rose take her arm and walk with her to the car, pleased to see her smiling as she loaded their bags into the back of the sedan.
“Cameron, a word, if you would,” Jon said from the doorway behind him.
“Sure,” he replied, turning to face the other man.
Jon cleared his throat, looking suddenly abashed. “That girl is very special to us,” he began, “and her happiness is of utmost importance.” He looked as though there was something else he was about to add, but just shook his head instead. “You haven’t asked it and I’m not sure it’s really even my place to offer it, but for what it’s worth, you have our blessing.”
To say he was stunned would be an understatement, but Cam recognised the importance of the gesture immediately. “Thank you,” he said seriously, sincerely. “That means a lot to me, and I know it will to Erin, too.” He paused briefly before smiling at Jon. “She loved your son very much, and I’m very glad you and she have found each other again.”
“I suspect a lot of that had to do with you,” Jon smiled. “And I’m glad for it. Now come on, we need to be getting to the airport.”
“Thank you, Jon,” Cam said, holding out a hand which Jon shook firmly.
“The thanks goes both ways.”
Proposal
He planned it months in advance. Together on the boat, sharing a moonlight drink as the gentle murmur of the ocean serenaded them, he would take the ruby and diamond ring from his pocket where he’d been carrying it for weeks and slide it onto her finger as he asked her to marry him. It would be perfect, and a story worthy of sharing with their grandchildren someday.
What actually happened was quite different.
Cam had finished work and was going by the bakery to pick Erin up on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday evening. He let himself into the back of the bakery and found her sitting at her workbench with her headphones in, humming to herself as she did something impossibly delicate-looking on a cake with a tiny metal tool that looked like a dental pick. The only illumination in the room was the lamp she had angled over her hands, and it lit the gold highlights in her hair like a sunrise. She glanced up at him as he came in and smiled, tugging her headphones from her ears.
Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ came floating up to him and he smiled. “Listening to our song, huh?” he asked, leaning down to kiss her as he sat on a stool next to her.
“On repeat,” she promised, and reached out to tug him close by the shirtfront and kiss him again. “How was your day?”
“Every moment spent without you is an eternity,” he told her seriously, making her laugh.
“Rufus worked you hard today, huh?”
“We had to do ladder drills in the rain again,” he confirmed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be warm or dry again.”
“I’ll warm you up later,” Erin promised with a suggestive smirk and Cam grinned.
“I’ll make you a hot tea,” he said with studied casualness, “because that’s what you are.”
It took Erin a moment, but when she got it she groaned and rolled her eyes, her sugarpaste modelling forgotten. “That is truly abysmal, even for you,” she told him.
“If you were a vegetable, you’d be a cutecumber?” he tried.
“If you were a fruit you’d be a fineapple,” she shot back with a laugh.