In with the Tide

by Charlee James

  “Ma’am,” the girl waived her hand in front of Lindsey’s face. “Is there something else I can help you with?”

  Heat rose to Lindsey’s cheeks. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing at the front desk with the girl’s words falling on deaf ears.

  “No, thank you, though,” she said and walked back to her car. Once she was inside the enclosed space, she let the first hot tear slide down her cheek. It blazed the trail for hundreds of others that seemed to burst freely from the flood gates. Lindsey slumped down and rested her head on the steering wheel; her earlier bravado sapped.

  Maybe they’d both misplaced their trust. She suddenly doubted everything, including the feelings she thought Damien had for her. How could he throw everything away so easily? What was worse, he’d walked away from Maris, too. He was the second man to leave Maris in her short life, and it hurt worse than being left herself. Would Maris ever know a father figure? How could he let go of the child he’d helped raise since she was first born? When he had spoken to Maris, there had been love and tenderness in his voice. Had she imagined it out of her own blissful thinking? Lindsey supposed this was a blessing in disguise. It would’ve been so much worse if Maris was old enough to comprehend the situation.

  Providing a stable, loving home for Maris meant far more than catering to her own feelings. From now on, it would be just the two of them. Whatever remaining belief she had in happily ever after, had been zapped right out of her. Would she ever have what her parents had? They were entering thirty-three years of marriage and she’d blown through one marriage and serious relationship in three years. Was there something wrong with her that made men leave or stray, some personality flaw? With Matthew, she’d been too weak and let him manipulate every situation. With Damien, maybe she’d been too hardheaded, and took control of contacting Alex when it was Damien’s decision to do so.

  Maybe it was possible for others to find ever-after, but not for her. She had more than enough love between her sweet child and her parents. The lie was meant to comfort, but a fresh wave of tears shook her. There would always be something missing without Damien. Every time she looked at the nursey he’d designed for Maris, or strolled by the auto shop on Main Street she’d remember, and be faced with what-ifs. Lindsey pulled herself together, started the ignition, and tried desperately to leave thoughts of Damien behind.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Damien had driven off the Cape like a man possessed. The coastal grass and marshy bogs had been a blur of green and gold at the corners of his eyes. Lindsey had betrayed him. Endless cups of stale coffee had left a gnawing hole churning in his stomach. He wanted to drink himself into oblivion, but he was better than that. He’d read his sister’s file. She was born in withdrawals. No, he was nothing like the people that gave him life. It finally clicked for him. No matter how hard he tried, he could never be as selfish as they had been. He was hard on himself, and he’d been an asshole these past few days, but he was a decent human being. One that could actually put others before himself. One that was able to say no to mind-numbing substances because they could threaten the people he loved. Despite the disadvantages they’d caused him, he’d turned out better than his father. An addict. Better than his mother, who had his baby sister in a doped-up stupor.

  The file had taken on a life of its own, beckoning to him throughout the night until finally he threw off the sheets and sat at the work desk. He’d deliberated for nearly an hour with streams of endless scenarios playing through his head. When he finally got the guts to open it, the wind whooshed out of his lungs. The face staring back at him was a fresh and healthy version of his mother’s. Their mother’s. He spent the remainder of the night poring over the documentation, which included everything from report cards to medical records. Each one he read softened him to the girl—his sister. Maybe he was wrong about her. Lindsey’s words replayed over and over.

  “What if she’s sweet and kind? Someone you’d grow to love? Damien, you could have a wonderful family member out there, and you’re brushing her aside. What if she needs you, too?”

  Maybe that was the reason he stood at the gates of Boston University, because as much as he wanted to leave the past where it belonged, his sister had struggled, too. Kate was hurt by the same people as he had been. Lindsey hadn’t left him a choice. It was a terrible thing, to have something so big, so important be stripped from your hands. He looked at the double doors of the main campus. What was he supposed to do, lurk outside like some stalker, on the off chance his sister walked through the building? And what then? How did you explain something like this to someone you’ve never met?

  Hairs tingled on the back of his neck. He was being watched. Damien turned his head to the left and there she was, sitting with a birch tree against her back and books spread around her knees. She held his gaze with eyes he knew would be as blue as his own. She shifted to her knees, gathered the books, and stood up. Kate walked toward him. It could have been seconds, or years, he wasn’t sure. He stood stiffly with his hands tucked tight inside his jean pockets. Then she was in front of him. Her eyes flashed, something hard and sad swarmed behind her lids. She dropped the backpack at his feet, and crushed her arms around his shoulders. How could she possibly know who he was? What did it matter?

  In her embrace he found complete acceptance, and an innocence that turned him into the lowest of creatures for wanting to live his life without knowing her at all. Kate stepped back and looked up at him.

  “You have my face,” she whispered. “My mother told me, the day before she died, that you existed. I thought it was the high talking, but now you’re here.”

  If he were hit by an eighteen-wheeler, the blow would have been softer than the words she delivered. Lindsey had mentioned his mother during their fight. She’d tried to tell him. They were orphans.

  “Oh, my God.” She stepped forward and clutched his shoulder. “I’m such an idiot. You didn’t know. Of course you wouldn’t have known.” When tears threatened to spring from her eyes, he shook his head.

  “It’s okay.” He repeated the words again, until her face softened. “We have a lot of catching up to do. It won’t all be pleasant.”

  Kate blew out a breath, sending her choppy side bang flying up. “A lifetime.” She grabbed his hand, easy and trusting. “You found me and now we have each other…except, I don’t know your name.” She looked up and studied his face.

  “Damien,” he said. Could it be that simple? How could she accept him into her life with the snap of a finger? “Hungry? Maybe we could grab a bite, talk a bit?” Damien wanted to do the right thing, he wanted to try. He lifted her backpack, and slung it over his shoulder.

  She nodded. “I know a place up the street. Burgers the size of your head, dripping with grease. Perfect for a family reunion.” Leading him by the hand, she tugged him up a few blocks. They rounded a corner and stepped into Jake’s Shake Shack. The smell of fried food made his stomach grumble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. They slid into a cherry-red booth in the back of the restaurant and ordered drinks, cherry vanilla soda for her, and a water to cool the perpetual ache in his throat.

  “When did it happen?” The question rendered him breathless, but he had to ask. He unwrapped a straw and popped it in his drink.

  “She was in and out of rehab my whole life. It was like this all-consuming demon she couldn’t break free of. I tried to help, I swear it, but I was just so tired. Tired of calling the ambulance, tired of the hospitals, of the bills. It was the week I gave her the ultimatum. Get clean, or I won’t see you ever again.” Kate swiped a tear from her cheek and Damien’s chest crushed inside him. “I got the call the next day. She’d overdosed in rehab, of all places.”

  He couldn’t think of the right words to say. He now knew what had driven his mother to leave. Had his father tried to help her get clean? He’d never really thought of his father’s own struggle. It must have been a lot to have a young wife who was addicted to heroin. Maybe he ga
ve her an ultimatum, too, and forced her to leave him behind. Were all the beatings and harsh words a result of his pain, or not knowing how to raise an unruly boy? It didn’t make it right and it didn’t fix things, but it gave him a new perspective.

  “And our father?” Kate twisted and knotted a straw wrapper. It looked like his insides, after days of stress.

  “He died of complications from alcohol abuse. I enlisted the second I graduated high school and didn’t look back. Maybe I could’ve done something.”

  “Don’t. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been forced to play the blame game your whole life.” She looked up at him, a young girl, with eyes of an old soul. “We’re together, and that’s something happy.”

  The waitress came back and dropped two overflowing baskets in front of them. A grin ghosted around Kate’s mouth and two dimples popped on her cheeks. “I’m going to go ahead and bury my sorrows in this giant burger. I suggest you do the same, or I’m coming for it.” As if to prove her point, she picked it up with both hands and lifted it to her mouth. She took a giant bite that turned her little cheeks into a chipmunk’s.

  He laughed. “No way you could eat two of these things. I think I’m safe.” Damien liked her sense of humor and quick smile. Lindsey was right—she’d been through a lot, too, and she was built tough. He admired that.

  “They used to have a free food policy for employees at the diner I work at. They changed it when I came around.” Kate took a break from the burger to gulp down some soda. They got there at the right time because every red vinyl seat in the restaurant and at the counter was taken. Every few minutes a new plate appeared in the kitchen window as the cook churned out orders.

  With each laugh Kate and Damien shared, something eased and released inside his soul. Maybe things would be okay after all. If only he hadn’t screwed up so badly with Lindsey, things would really be looking up. The sterile manila file she gave to him was supposed to lend to stress and pain. Did Lindsey give him a gift instead? When enthusiasm lit up his sister’s eyes as she told him all about college and what she was majoring in, he second-guessed his anger and the biting words that spilled off his tongue at Lindsey. Had Lindsey known exactly what she was doing? And if she did, she must have known he’d fly off the handle and leave, but she did it anyway. Did she believe so deeply in the power of family, that she’d risk what they’d built to make sure he had one of his own, no matter how small it was?

  Kate cleared her basket, licked the ketchup off her finger, and eyed longingly at the fries still piled on his plate. Damien grinned and slid the basket toward her.

  “My sister’s a straight-up savage.” His heart lifted when she grinned and chuckled. He was glad he came to Boston. “The food must suck at your school.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a dining plan. You have to live on campus for that,” she said and popped a fry in her mouth.

  “If you don’t live on campus, where are you staying?” Damien wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Was his little sister homeless?

  “In Mom’s apartment—really my apartment since I could earn a paycheck. Do you think you could give me a lift, when we’re done?”

  “Of course,” he said. What type of apartment could a college student afford in the middle of a major metropolitan city? He was impressed by her ability to juggle so many different plates. If he hadn’t enlisted, he would’ve been finding trouble. His sister was a scholar and a hard worker at such a young age.

  “Do you have a family of your own?” Kate asked. “A wife or a girlfriend?”

  “I had one. A girlfriend. It didn’t work out.” It hurt to say the words. To openly admit they were no longer together.

  “What happened?” Kate said, wide eyes filled with curiosity.

  “She did something—” Damien stopped himself. What was he going to say? That she did something he couldn’t forgive? He looked at the girl sitting in front of him. His blood. His sister. Saying he couldn’t forgive Lindsey for introducing them would be like saying his sister was some awful mistake. That he’d never wanted her in the first place. “We had a disagreement, and I don’t think she’ll be forgiving me anytime soon.”

  Kate rolled her eyes, and looked impossibly youthful for all she’d been through. “Well how do you know she won’t, if you don’t try?”

  “I said some pretty rotten stuff,” he admitted. He was so scared of what she’d found; he was spouting off words in angry bursts. He didn’t deserve to be a shell caught in the tread of her sneakers.

  Kate flapped her hand as if to brush his comment aside. “People say words they don’t mean. It’s the actions that count. Words can be twisted or faked, actions can’t.” There was that old soul thing again.

  “Maybe you have a point.” The bill came and Damien plucked it off the table, pulled out his wallet, and stacked a few bills neatly on top of the slip. When they stepped outside, Kate linked arms with him. The gesture made his heart melt. They walked back to campus, and got on his bike.

  “Where to?” Damien asked. Kate gave him an address and then shouted directions over the wind and noise as they blew through the city. The scenery began to change from quaint brownstones and glass high-rises, to crowded triple-deckers lined tighter than a row of dominos. She shouted to turn right and yelled out a building number. Graffiti washed the buildings and a few chained-up dogs barked outside them. A woman walked around the corner, her barely-there dress revealing bony legs and skyscraper heels. She leaned into the passenger side of a car window, deliberated, then slid in. Damien gritted his teeth. His baby sister had grown up in the slums and now she lived here alone. He’d known her only a few hours, but he wanted better for her. He would give her better. The sun had escaped below the city line by the time he parked his bike.

  “I’d take everything you have inside,” Kate said and fished through her backpack for a set of keys.

  “Can I take the bike, too?” he said only half joking.

  They pushed past a group of men sitting on the warped steps of the building smoking, and squeezed inside. They walked up the stairs leaving a trail through the dust every time either of them gripped the railing. He was completely confident that the building wouldn’t pass a fire inspection. She stopped in front of a door, and slid her key in the lock. There were shouts above them. His eyes darted toward the ceiling. Something shattered, and then went quiet. This was not a nice place. Damien followed her into the apartment, and Kate shut the door, fastening several locks that went around the frame. Inside was worn down, but she’d made it bright, cheery, and clean with colorful pillows on the couch and red valances in the windows.

  “You stay here, alone?” he asked again. “It doesn’t seem like the safest neighborhood, Kate.”

  “What clued you in?” She laughed his question off, then turned to him when he continued to stare at her with concern. “It’s my home Damien. For now, it’s what I have.”

  He couldn’t dispute that, but she wouldn’t be staying here alone tonight. An intense need to protect her from any more harm or hurt made him want to drive her away from this place. Kate agreed to let him crash on the couch and brought out a pile of blankets and pillows. They stayed up late, chatting about everything and nothing. He told her about Lindsey and Maris, and eventually what their fight had been about. She understood he was scared to meet her, but told him how glad she was he’d found her. When the clock ticked past midnight, she padded down the hall to her room for bed.

  Wailing sirens and the mad bark of dogs kept him up. He got up once, then twice to check the locks on the door. Damien lay on the lumpy couch and put his hands behind his head. Lindsey had broken his trust, betrayed his heart, and reconnected him with his little sister who he had an instant bond with. Could he ever thank her enough for pushing him off the ledge with one swift kick? She had wanted him to have a piece of his family, and Kate was the best part of what could have been growing up. He tried to picture what their life would be like now, and could image Kate there, but also Lindsey a
nd Maris. They had become his family, too. That wasn’t something you could throw away with a single disagreement or fight. Lindsey and Maris were his and he’d run away. He was always afraid of being like his mother, and in trying not to be, ended up doing the exact same thing.

  Damien’s chest tightened. What if it was already too late? He was just starting to figure his life out, one that revolved around this new beautiful family and he’d tossed part of it away in an angry rage. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. Would he be a good partner to Lindsey—a good father to Maris, long-term? If he kept second-guessing himself, he’d never get anywhere. He loved them enough to do what it took. Damien knew at that moment he had to fight for them. Kate was right, if Lindsey was going to forgive him, he needed to show her with actions. A grand gesture to prove to her he wasn’t playing around. He wanted her and Maris for keeps.

  Damien swallowed hard. The inside of his mouth was suddenly as dry as old bread. Lindsey could turn him away. Would she forgive him? Had Matthew already swooped in to pick up the pieces? Damien gritted his teeth and glanced at the clock. He’d give an arm and a leg for the hands to tick by faster. Damien stood up and paced the living room. He needed to see Lindsey’s face, and to touch her soft skin. He needed to look into her eyes, and see that everything was okay. If only he phoned her before he left, texted even. Had she looked for him? If she found out he’d left town, would she think he’d abandoned her and the baby? The back of his throat burned. That’s exactly what he’d done. Damien was so preoccupied and out of his mind with fear of the past, that he’d walked away from the two most important things in his life, without a second glance. What an ass.

  He swiped his hand over his head. Never again. He’d set things right. He had to. Damien reached for his cell phone. He might still be upset that Lindsey had been untruthful, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about them. Are you okay? He tapped in the message before he could change his mind.