One Perfect Love

by Jessie Evans

  But Isaac is more than my best friend now. He’s my boyfriend, my lover, and I should be able to trust him with every piece of me, but I don’t. And that is part of the reason I’ve been so long coming back to myself. Standing here, looking up at him, seeing the judgment on his face, I realize that I’ve been living up to his opinion of me. Every day, I see a reflection of the fragile girl Isaac thinks I am in my partner’s eyes, and that reflection is as unhealthy as living in the past, longing for a man I’ll never see again.

  Both of those things have to change, or I’ll have to end it with Isaac. Not because he might one day catch me doing something illegal, but because he won’t let me be the person I am now, instead of the overwhelmed girl I was when we were growing up, or the broken woman he found when he first stepped off the plane last fall.

  We’re going to have to have a long, hard talk and decide whether or not we can give each other room to breathe, grow, and change, but not this morning. I’m too tired to face that kind of talk, and I need to get the younger kids up and ready for Friday morning swim lessons.

  I’d like to talk to Sherry before I approach Isaac, too, and see what she thinks. No matter what Isaac says, the last time we had dinner in Paia—the cute hippy town where Sherry lives with her boyfriend, Bjorn—I didn’t sense that she was upset or worried. If anything, she’s been the one who’s been distant, so obsessed with her first true love that she barely has time to come to dinner at the house anymore.

  I make a mental note to call Sherry while I’m sitting in the bleachers watching Sean and Emmie splash around in the pool, and step past Isaac into the house, not bothering to address his last statement.

  “So that’s it?” he calls after to me as I move into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. “Aren’t we going to finish this conversation?”

  “I am finished,” I say in a tone I haven’t heard come out of my mouth in a long time. It’s a strong, grounded tone, and I know what I did tonight is partially responsible.

  By stealing that hard drive, I helped save a young woman’s career and put her future back in her own hands. As soon as Mimi has the incriminating pictures in her possession, she’ll have more than enough material to tell Skip Munroe that their affair is over, and that he’d better keep his distance if he doesn’t want erotic photos of him and his buddies leaked to the press. She will never again have to put up with being blackmailed or used by a man who once swore he loved her.

  I know how free she’s going to feel because it’s the same way I felt last summer, when Gabe and I made our third deposit into my college fund and I realized I was going to have enough money to get a college education, and break the cycle of poverty that had plagued my family for generations. Pulling jobs isn’t just about the rush I feel when I pick a lock or get in and out without getting caught, it’s about the rush of knowing I’m helping someone the law has let down, tipping the scales of justice back in the favor of those who wouldn’t have a fair shake any other way.

  “Great,” Isaac says, his tone making it clear things are anything but great between us. “Then I’m going for a run, and don’t expect me back anytime soon.”

  I turn to tell him he should enjoy himself, and stay gone as long as he wants to, but he’s already slamming out the back door. I watch him storm across the yard through the window above the sink, with a sigh. I have a feeling I’m going to be making Isaac mad a lot in the next few weeks, but I’m not going to back down. I don’t want to be the girl made of glass anymore. I want to be strong—the woman Gabe was certain could handle anything life threw in her path.

  “Do you think Isaac is going for good?” Danny asks, sticking his head into the kitchen from where he’s obviously been eavesdropping in the hall.

  I shake my head. “No. He’s just upset. He’ll be back by dinner time.” I put the cap on my bottle of water and stick it back in the fridge. “Could you go wake up Sean and Emmie?” I ask, turning back to Danny. “We have to be at the pool by seven, and I want them to have time to eat and let their food settle for at least thirty minutes before they get in the water.”

  Danny snorts. “That’s not even a real thing. I ate two cheeseburgers ten minutes before I went surfing yesterday, and I was fine.”

  “It is so a real thing,” I say. “And you’d better wait at least twenty minutes next time. No one else is allowed to die on my watch, okay?”

  The smartass twist to Danny’s lips flattens into a tight line. “Okay. Do you want Ray up, too?”

  “No, he can sleep in. You’re going to be at the house until you and Sam leave for the movies this afternoon right?”

  Danny nods. “And Ray can come with us if he wants. Sam’s little brother is coming. Her parents are gone all day on some crater hike, and they don’t want her leaving Erick alone.”

  “Cool,” I say, proud of the person Danny’s becoming. “I bet Ray would like that.”

  “Whatever.” Danny shrugs. “Gotta get him out of the house every once in a while. No one should spend that much time reading inside when there’s a beach ten minutes from their house. It’s like, against the natural order of the universe.”

  “I appreciate your devotion to the natural order of the universe,” I say with a smile. “And I love you a lot.”

  Danny rolls his eyes, but as he leaves the room, he mumbles that he loves me, too. His voice is soft, but loud enough to hear, and it makes my smile stretch a little wider. It’s been a hell of a year, but when the going gets tough, Danny and I are still there for each other. We’ve made it through a lot of hard times in the past without much help, and if we have to, we can make it without Isaac.

  I love Isaac, but in the long run it might be less hurtful to end things now, instead of a year or two down the road, when I’m fed up pretending to be someone I’m not, and Isaac is miserable because I won’t stay in the box he wants to put me in. The thought is a sad one—I’ll never love Isaac the way I loved Gabe, but I doubt I’ll ever care about another man the way I care about Isaac—but I put it away for now.

  Sufficient to the day is the misery thereof. It’s something my grandmother used to say, and a bit of wisdom I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Taken all at once, the misery of the past twelve months might break me, but if I take each day’s challenges one at a time, I can make it through, and maybe even start to heal the bruised places on my heart.

  As Danny moves around on the opposite side of the house, waking Emmie and carrying her into the hall bathroom to use the potty before she gets her swimsuit on, I cross to the kitchen table and open my laptop. I always mean to take it upstairs to my desk, but it ends up hanging out next to me for almost every meal. It’s amazing how much studying I can squeeze in while shoveling salad and tuna poke into my mouth.

  I open up my email, wanting to make sure that swim lessons aren’t cancelled the way they were two weeks ago when Emmie’s teacher called in sick, and am greeted with a string of new emails, all three from Chuck.

  My stomach transforms into a stress knot at the center of my body and I suddenly wish I’d skipped the email check until later in the day. A bunch of emails from Chuck never mean good news, and I prefer not to manage correspondence from my father until I’ve had at least two strong cups of coffee.

  The last time Chuck sent a string of messages, it was to tell me—in three epic emails filled with so many spelling mistakes it was clear they were written while he was three sheets to the wind—that he wouldn’t be flying in to spend Christmas with the kids, after all, due to some bullshit with Veronica and her daughter. The time before that, he sent me a handful of messages, most of them featuring links to websites devoted to dealing with grief, and one email in all lowercase letters musing that maybe it was for the best that Gabe’s baby joined his daddy in heaven so that I didn’t have to be a single mother raising a kid on my own.

  That particular email made me hurl my phone against the wall, and only the super tough case Sherry had bought me, when I ruined my first phone at
the beach our first week on the island, kept it from shattering to pieces.

  Isaac insisted that Chuck had meant well, but I knew better. I could see the smug grin hidden between his consoling remarks and lazy, lowercase letters. For whatever reason—an intense dislike of Gabe, or his own selfish desire not to be saddled with any more grandchildren—Chuck was glad I lost the baby. Aside from giving me the house, the kindest thing Chuck has done in the past year was to keep his distance. If I never see him again, I wouldn’t shed a tear, and if I never have to open another email from his irisheyesrsmiling address, I would consider my life the better for it.

  I almost shut the laptop and postpone my torment, but in the end I decide I’d rather take my punishment and know what Chuck’s up to rather than have Unknown Awful hanging over my head all day.

  I click on the oldest message to find another long, lowercase ramble filled with typos. I skim the email, gathering from the mess that Chuck has something weighing on his mind, something he needs to explain and get off his chest before he goes to the hospital.

  The mention of the hospital is unexpected, but I’m not worried. Chuck’s been in the hospital before, usually because of some drunken tumble down a set of stairs, or the result of passing out on the street between the bar and home, and getting frostbite by the time he woke up the next morning.

  I click on the second email to see only six words—I’M SO SORRY PLEASE BELIEVE ME—all in caps as if he’d tried to make up for using only lowercase in the first email. I sigh, wondering what he’s sorry for this time, and open the final and latest email, expecting to find the mystery solved and Chuck’s latest sin spelled out.

  Instead, I find a message from Veronica—

  Hi Caitlin,

  This is Veronica, writing from your dad’s email, because I don’t know how else to reach you.

  I’m really sorry to tell you bad news like this in a letter, but your daddy is dead. He had a heart attack two days ago, and then another one this morning in the hospital, before they could get him into surgery. I know he was real upset about something and wanted to talk to you about it, but he didn’t have your phone number and we couldn’t find it on the Google.

  Again, I’m sorry. I know you and Charles had your bad times, but he loved you, and was real proud. He was sad he wasn’t a better dad to all you kids, but proud of all of you, just the same.

  I think we’ll try to have the funeral sometime in the next couple days. Let me know if you and the kids are going to come. I’ll just be getting the cheapest stuff they have unless I hear you want to chip in.

  Real sorry,

  Veronica

  I freeze, my hand hovering over the mouse pad, my stomach sinking until it feels like it’s going to fall straight through the floor. It looks like my wish from a moment ago came true—I’m never going to see my father again.

  Heart in my throat, I close the laptop, cover my face with my hands, and cry as hard as I cried the day I lost the baby.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gabe

  “Tis in my memory lock’d,

  And you yourself shall keep the key of it.”

  -Shakespeare

  Before I was diagnosed with an allegedly inoperable brain tumor and nearly died, I had no interest in the obituary page. I was young and immortal. I was going to live forever, go out in a blaze of glory, and I couldn’t care less how many unlucky people had the misfortune to die on a given week.

  After the surgery, I read the Giffney Gazette’s obituary page every Sunday morning, thumbing through the snapshots of lives lost as I linger over my coffee. It was only luck that kept me from gracing these pages. I feel obligated to read every entry, like I owe it to the people less fortunate than myself to read about the children and grandchildren they left behind, and the many adventures they had before they got old and set in their ways and hunkered down to waste the rest of their lives watching television.

  But until today, I haven’t known any of the recently deceased personally.

  When I read that Charles Edwin Cooney has died at age fifty-four, leaving behind five children, and one grandchild, I can’t say that I’m sad, but I feel the news. It hits me physically, tightening my throat, making my stomach clench around my second cup of coffee.

  Chuck is dead, and one more avenue to finding Caitlin is closed forever.

  Not like you’ve been looking too hard lately, anyway.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” My mother leans across the table, peering into my face, as attuned to my moods now as she has been since the moment I came out of surgery.

  I don’t remember my mother being this concerned about my emotional well-being last summer—or any of the twenty years before—but Deborah is clearly trying to make the most of our second chance. She’s determined to be the plugged-in parent she never was when I was growing up, no matter how irritating I find it, or how uncomfortable and strange this forced intimacy is for the both of us.

  “I’m fine,” I say, folding my paper in half. “Just read that Charles Cooney died.”

  I watch her face as she reacts, but her eyes are cool and unreadable, the way they always are when the Cooney name comes up in conversation. “Well, that’s sad.”

  “It is,” I say. “He was in his early fifties.”

  “That’s what hard living will do to a person,” my dad offers, not looking up from his own section of the paper, apparently unmoved by the news that my ex-girlfriend’s father is dead.

  According to my parents, they didn’t know Caitlin and I were dating last summer. I kept our relationship a secret from them, and they have no clue what happened to her, or why we ended things. They’re very convincing, but I know they’re lying. I remember sitting next to Caitlin at this very table, running my hand up and down the silky soft skin of her thigh, thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her as soon as we were free of my parents.

  But Deborah and Aaron don’t know I’m recovering my memories.

  Or that I was recovering them.

  Since the night I saw Caitlin with the bruises on her throat, I’ve done my best to let sleeping demons lie. I keep my thoughts in the present, and steer clear of places that remind me of Caitlin. I take a sleeping pill before I go to bed, and I fuck Kimmy with a certain degree of reserve, not wanting to lose control and swing too close to the edge of the chasm. I don’t want to glimpse the skeletons I sense are littering the ground on the other side. I’m afraid I’ll learn something about myself that will make the surgery, and all the days I’ve fought to recover, pointless.

  If I killed her, I don’t deserve to be alive.

  If I killed her, there is only one course of action I can take, and that would certainly be a waste, though I hear a good number of people like me do commit suicide. The post-operative fog, the feelings of alienation, and the sense that you will never be the person you were before—the person everyone in your life wants you to be so badly—is too much for a lot of people. They would rather check out, letting a bullet finish the job the tumor started.

  “You won’t go to the funeral will you?” Deborah asks, breaking into my thoughts.

  I shake my head. “Why would I?”

  Deborah looks flustered, but only for a second. By the time she speaks, her cool has returned. “Of course not. Don’t know what I was thinking.” She smiles. “What about church? Are you joining us this morning? Might lift your spirits.”

  “My spirits are fine,” I say, forcing a smile. “And I think I’d rather worship in my own way today. I’ll probably take a ride, and meet you for lunch after.”

  My father chuckles. “I wish I could get away with worshiping in my own way.”

  “Your brand of worship involves way too much time on a fishing boat,” my mother says, taking another sip of her coffee. “You’re only home two days a week as it is. I’m not going to give up an entire day to the catfish in Lake Anderson.”

  “You could go with him,” I suggest, though it’s hard to imagine my perfectly pulled together mot
her baking in the sun on a fishing boat.

  Deborah raises one thin, blond brow. The dubious expression on her face makes me smile. Sometimes I like Deborah, even if she is a manipulative liar. Considering my own, checkered history, I’m not really in any position to judge.

  “Sorry, must have been the tumor hole talking.” I stand and circle the table, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “See you at noon.”

  “We’re going to Peabody’s on the square,” Deborah says, patting my arm. “The Jamisons are coming, and I’ve only got reservations for six, so don’t bring a guest.”

  I clench my jaw, biting back the smartass remark on the tip of my tongue. I know which “guest” Deborah is talking about, but there’s no point in getting into an argument about Kimmy. If Kimmy and I hadn’t run into my mother at the grocery store last week, Deborah never would have met my latest fling.

  Kimmy and I are fuck buddies, nothing more. I don’t plan on keeping in touch after I leave for school, and Kimmy doesn’t even know how long she’ll be in town. She has a six-month lease, and a job as a cocktail waitress, but no real ties to Giffney. This is just the place she ended up when her money for bus fare ran out. She has dreams of moving home to Louisiana and opening a fabric store, and I have dreams of going back to the university, picking up where I left off, and pretending this long, strange detour never happened.

  Or at least that’s one of the lies I tell myself.

  What I really want is something very different.

  What I want is for this hole inside of me to be filled up with something. Someone. I want to know Caitlin wasn’t a dream, and that I’m not a monster.

  And so, when I hear my parents’ car pull down the driveway on their way to church, I don’t go to the barn to saddle my horse. I head down to the Beamer and drive into town, across the railroad tracks, to the ranch house where Caitlin used to live.

  I pull slowly around the cul-de-sac and park behind a silver Toyota Camry I don’t recognize from similar drive-bys. It’s an older car, but in good condition, with Florida plates and a bumper sticker that reads “Progress not Perfection.” The driver’s side door opens and a feminine foot wearing a shiny white sandal emerges.