by Vesper Young
A one-way ticket.
I didn’t look back. I headed towards the elevator, already dialing on my phone while Claudia called after me.
My flight touched down just over three hours later. Once in the air, I instructed Claudia to stay in contact with the credit card company and notify me of any other charges. As it turned out, when Claudia thought I was going to fire her any minute for my wife running off, she was motivated to produce results. She’d located the cab company Mindy had used and had instructed the cab to meet me. It was probably frowned upon to have a driver take me to a previous stop, but the five hundred dollars I handed over to him had him speeding off.
I rubbed my hand over my face. I felt out of control, and I wasn’t used to that feeling. Hell, I’d left the most important meeting of my life without a second thought to chase Mindy down. Why?
I tried calling her for what was at least the tenth time. No answer. I put my phone in the inner pocket of my jacket. My fingers brushed an envelope. Surprised, I took it out.
Scrawled across the front was my name in unmistakably clear handwriting. After all, my father grew up when many correspondences were still written, and unless you were a doctor, you’d be judged for sloppy handwriting.
I stared at it for a long moment. The last time I’d worn this suit had been months ago. The day the will was read. Abbot, the lawyer, had given it to me. I’d been so full of grief and anger, I’d shoved it in my pocket and had never opened it. Forgotten about it, even.
I glanced outside. Compared to the city, we were in the middle of nowhere. Now was as good a time as any to read it. Apt, even, considering I’d essentially just thrown away his life’s work to chase down the woman he thought I loved.
Maybe the woman I did love.
I opened it.
Deacon, my son,, it started.
How can I explain all the ways I failed? I suspect you think you know them better than me. But I’ve had time, now, to think. To step away from the office. Suddenly, I can see everything much more clearly.
When Clarisse died, I failed to realize you had lost not just a mother, but a father. I thought my world had ended. I should have realized you were my world, but when hurt, I resorted to what I knew. I knew work. Any four walls would do, anything I could drown myself in. At the time, I told myself Donna would raise you well. Unfortunately, even without me being there, or rather explicitly because of it, you grew up like me.
I hate myself for it, Deacon. It’s a cruel way to live, for yourself and for those around you. You work and work and work and I see myself in every late night you spend at the office. Don’t think I’m not proud. I am. But I also feel regret, deeply. You were too young when Clarisse died to see the other side, the side she brought out in me. A side that would’ve been a good father for you. A side I shouldn’t have buried when she passed.
Yet I have hope. Perhaps it’s a silly hope. I see how you look at me when I get emotional and I know if I told you any of this you’d smile and nod because I’m in pain, not because you agree with me. Whatever you think, you should know I’m neither stupid nor oblivious. I know exactly who Mindy Killip is to you. The fact you’d go as far as you did warms the heart of your old man.
I see things even you don’t, Deacon. You may think it’s all an act, but I know it’s not. Mindy and your mother have little in common, yet I find she may be for you what Clarisse was for me. Something more worthy than work. Someone to come home to. Someone to leave early for. And yet I suspect the moment I die, you’d bury any chance at that happiness with it and go on defending what you see as our family legacy. It would be out of love to me, I suspect, in part. It would also be because it’s familiar. It’s easy.
So I’m making it a little less easy. Donna thinks it’s a silly idea, and she’s never hesitated to tell me when she thinks that. She’s often right, as I’m sure you know. But this time, I’ll take a chance she isn’t.
I hope you discover something more worthy than work, Deacon. I love you. I’m proud of you.
I stared at the letter. It turned blurry by the end, probably from the tears welling in my eyes.
He’d known, I realized. The whole time, probably. And he’d known I’d push her away. Had he known I was going to fight for her, too?
The car lurched to a stop. We were at the entrance of a large building, declared Sunshine Care Facility by the bright sign out front.
Mindy 31
I sat on the hard plastic lobby chairs, my head in my hands. It was easier to look at my lap than the sterile walls around me. They were the same at every spot in this state-run Sunshine facility, I was convinced. So unlike the tastefully decorated and varied walls of the apartment I considered home.
The thought barely registered. I’d seen my mother. Spoken to her, though it hurt so much I just stared at those grey walls until I was sick of them. Her voice was as warm as I remembered. That was the thing about her, she had a way of making you feel taken care of with just a word. A warm hello, as if I was returning home after school instead of this.
I hadn’t heard her voice since I’d called her, furious, when I found out about the debt. I’d been so mad that I blocked her number. When I unblocked it and tried calling back a week later, the line had been disconnected.
My mother had been here for almost a year, the nurse explained. I hadn’t known. They claimed they’d called me, but a year ago I was still fielding several calls an hour from collection agencies. It was entirely possible I’d missed it and that had been that. All I knew for certain was my mother had been put in the care of the state. I was listed as next of kin. In the case of an emergency, like today, they’d called me. It just happened the so-called “emergency” had been a false alarm that resolved itself by the time I got here.
The crash of emotions as the nurses explained the situation and the waning adrenaline from my frantic rush to get here left me exhausted. Not to mention my fight with Deacon. Had he waited, wondering if I’d come? Probably not. Today was too important to let something personal get in the way of business.
Still, I missed him. I’d come to look for his reassuring presence, even if he was just across the room reading a book. I wished he was here. I wished I could talk to him and go over the million thoughts racing through my head.
“Mindy?”
Gosh, I had it bad. I was so torn up I was imagining his voice. I wondered for a moment if I should tell the nurse to put me in a room by my mother. The thought was so twisted I laughed, but for some reason, it sounded like a sob.
“Mindy!” The voice was insistent.
Hands pressed against my shoulders. I looked up and my field of view was filled with him. Deacon.
He was here. In Florida. In this awful, sterile waiting room.
I blinked.
“Hey,” he said softly.
I wanted to fall into his arms and pull his body against mine, but I forced myself not to.
“Hey, yourself.” My voice was shakier than I’d hoped.
He said nothing for a moment. Whatever he saw on my face told him I couldn’t be here another minute, so he gently tugged on my arm.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Seconds later we were out the door. Another minute’s walk led us to the boardwalk. Up in New York, the cold weather had begun, but here it was warm. We walked for a while. At some point, he’d taken his hand off of me so now we were side by side. Close enough to touch, but not.
“What happened?” he eventually asked.
I looked around, unable to face him. I settled on some kids playing volleyball ahead.
“I got a call, this morning. The nurse said it was urgent I get down here. I hadn’t even known she was in Florida. When I arrived, they told me it was a false alarm and they’d tried to call me back, but I was already here. They thought she’d had a heart attack, but apparently she was just hoping she’d get taken to a hospital and get to the gift shop.”
I felt he wanted to ask about that. He was used to her need to shop like I
was. “They threw a bunch of terms. CBD, compulsive buying disorder, also known as oniomania, along with a few other disorders.” It had never occurred to me before there was a word for what my mother had, the incessant need to shop and spend.
“Had she always been that way?”
I shook my head, still watching the volleyball go back and forth. “I don’t know. As long as I can remember, she would buy me gifts. Every day, practically. Sometimes she’d take me with her, but usually she was gone from morning until the stores finally closed on her. Then she’d come home and give me something and smile and say it was just for me. I thought it was her way of showing me love.”
“Is this how you got into debt?” It was a logical conclusion.
I nodded. It was stupid to have not seen it at the time. She was a single parent and if she was shopping all the time, how was she working? “I had no idea until I was about to graduate. I applied for a credit card and was rejected. It was one of those college ones. I’d had a job for a couple years, so it should’ve been no big deal. I called and asked why. That led me down the rabbit hole to the truth.”
We’d passed the volleyball game now. There was nothing else to look at so I chanced a glance at Deacon. He wasn’t facing me, allowing me the privacy to be vulnerable, but I felt that I had his undivided attention.
“She’d stolen my identity. Opened dozens of cards in my name and maxed them out. My credit was tanked, her number no longer worked, and I was on the hook for it.”
His head bobbed in understanding. “Did you try to report her?”
“No. I asked around briefly. Basically, to get the debt out of my name I’d have to say she stole my identity. She’d go to jail.”
“And you wouldn’t do that to my mother.” There was no doubt in his voice.
“She wasn’t perfect, but she raised me. And I do think she loves me in her own way.”
We kept walking. The sand of the boardwalk crunched under my unseasonable boots. Deacon was still in his stunning suit from this morning. He was out of place amongst the rest of the Floridians, but in a way that made you stare rather than snicker.
My chest ached as I looked at him. It wasn’t the apartment I’d been missing all day, but him. He’d become my home.
“How are you here?” I finally asked. I’d been lucky to catch the single daily direct flight down to Destin. He hadn’t been on it, but somehow he hadn’t been far behind.
“Took a private jet. When I realized you weren’t coming, nothing else mattered except getting here as soon as possible. I figured if I wasted time, you’d stop using the credit card and eventually slip away.”
“A jet?” I repeated. “The same one you borrowed when we got married?” That had been a next-level introduction to the one-percent. “If you keep using those favors you’re gonna run out.” I teased him because it was easier than letting myself think about what else he’d said and hope.
“Didn’t borrow it this time. I bought it.”
My jaw almost dropped. “Just like that?” That was extravagant, even for Deacon.
Next to me, he gave a nonchalant shrug. “Just like that.”
“You own a jet.” Somehow, despite this trainwreck of a day, this was what I was harping on.
“We own a jet,” he corrected. “It’s ours. Yours, even, if you want it.”
I stopped walking. “I just told you about my mother. I’d never be able to accept something like that.”
He looked at me. I’d laid myself bare and it was like he was seeing even deeper than that. “The strings. I know you’re worried about strings. I understand why now, but I’ve known this for months about you. But I promise, I’ll always tell you the strings. And there’s only one, there’ll only ever be one, Mindy.”
My breath caught.
“You go with me. Or I go with you. Anywhere. I don’t care if we fly to Japan or India or anywhere else. I don’t care if we never step foot in Manhattan, I don’t care if you never want to budge from this spot. We stay together. The strings are all attached to me.”
I was unable to speak. I looked at him, wondering. It sounded… it sounded like he was saying…
“I love you, Mindy. I love your wit and your games and the way you love me. This morning when I thought you were gone for good, I was terrified. I want you to be my wife in truth. If we weren’t already married, I’d propose.”
Tears turned my vision blurry. “If we weren’t already married I’d say yes.”
He leaned in. “Say it anyway.”
“Yes, Deacon. Yes. Yes, I love you and yes, I want you and all your strings.”
I pulled his head down the last few inches to kiss me. He was familiar, even with the ocean salt flavoring our kiss. He was my husband and I’d know him with sea salt, desert sand, or city smog.
Epilogue
After we flew back from Florida, I found out the board had not, as I assumed, jumped ship. Claudia informed me that Rose had quickly taken charge, quoting profits and percentages without a spare glance at the slide deck. In four grueling hours, she convinced the board members that the partnership was mutually beneficial, allowing both companies to tap into foreign markets. Given the hassle it had been to even get Rose to talk specifics, I’d been surprised that she was so articulate about the issue. Apparently the subtext of her presentation had been, If you idiots screw us on this, I’ll have you committed for being so stupid.
Claudia also mentioned Harold had stammered through a conversation with Elias Dukas where Dukas praised Blake Enterprises for its family values and brought up other doors he could open, now comfortable I wasn’t just another “money-grubbing malakas.” I decided to take it as a compliment.
None of it mattered though. Sure, I was happy to have my father’s company secured in ownership. The six-month mark came quickly, and Abbot sent the paperwork which I brought home.
Mindy smiled at me when I walked in. Her long hair was tied back, the flyaways giving her almost a halo. My wife was adorable in her frilly apron that she’d proudly made in her sewing room.
A glance at the wall clock said it was quarter to five. I’d become a bit of a slacker, no longer willing to burn the midnight oil each day. I didn’t care. Time with her was infinitely more valuable. She didn’t know it yet, but I was taking the next week off so we could fly the jet wherever she wanted to go.
I dropped my briefcase and kissed her, long and hard. She tasted like cookies, floury and chocolatey. She caught my gaze drifting towards the kitchen.
“After dinner only,” she said.
I was reluctant to agree, but she pulled my face back to hers and I quickly forgot about the cookies.
“How was your day?” she asked when we finally broke apart, her voice breathless.
“Good,” I said. “Abbot dropped off the papers.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Deacon! That must be a weight off.”
I shrugged. I was happy my father’s company wasn’t going to be sold off. It was his legacy. But Mindy was my present and my future.
I opened the briefcase and took out the contract, handing it to her. She skimmed it curiously, then stared at me, realizing I hadn’t handed her the paperwork to secure the shares.
“What is this?”
I pulled the second copy from my briefcase, then moved over to the couch, holding her close while she looked at the paper.
“It’s a postnuptial agreement. In essence, it dissolves the prenup.”
She looked at me, eyes wide.
“I can’t change how this relationship started. I’m not sure I’d want to. And I can’t promise it’ll be easy to be with me. But all I want is you, Mindy. No strings, no clauses, no conditions.”
Her eyes welled with tears. Even though I knew they were happy ones, I loathed seeing them.
“Deacon,” she started.
I pulled her in and kissed her, cupping her face.
“Say yes,” I told her. I pulled a pen from my breast pocket and handed it to her.
Sh
e took it and smiled.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
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