Art & Soul (23 page)

L
ate on Christmas Eve
I listened to the sound of Dad’s truck pulling into the driveway. Rushing to my window, I saw him unloading his suitcases.
He came back.
The snow was falling and Mom stepped outside to meet him. For a while they just stood with their foreheads pressed together, holding one another.

The next morning when Grace woke up and saw Dad sitting downstairs, she leaped into his arms, more excited to see him than all of the gifts under the Christmas tree. Then of course, she saw those gifts, and dived right in.

Things felt as if they were finally falling back together—into our new normal at least. I hadn’t had a chance to call or text Levi yet, but every few minutes he crossed my mind. After our late lunch, I tossed on my boots and winter coat to head over to his place to give him his Christmas gift.

As I opened the front door, I was taken aback when I saw James standing on the front porch with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. “What are you doing here?” I asked, confused.

He snickered, his cheeks red from the cold. “Merry Christmas to you, too.” I didn’t reply. His fingers ran through his messy hair. There were heavy bags under his eyes, which matched his exhausted stare. “Look, can we talk?”

With caution, I nodded and stepped onto the porch. I rested my hands on top of my stomach and shifted back and forth from discomfort; my back had been killing me lately. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

“I broke up with Nadine,” he blurted out.

“You what?”

“Well, she broke up with me. I told her about the baby.”

“You WHAT?!?!” I shouted, the back of my throat burning.

“Stop screaming, will ya?!” he scolded, scrunching up his nose.

“Wh-wh-why would you do such a stupid thing?! Oh my God, James! What the heck is the matter with you?!” My heart rate was picking up as my breaths grew short.

“I think we should keep him.”

“Shut up.”

“I’ll sign up for community college. I’ll get a job. Or two jobs. We’ll make this work. We can get an apartment—”

“Oh my gosh. Are you drunk? Please tell me you’re drunk because you are talking like a freaking lunatic!” I was trying my best to convince myself that he was pulling an April Fool’s Day joke a few months early, but the way his eyes were begging along with his words told me that it was far from a joke. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“We can do this, Aria.”

“No,” I corrected him. “We can’t. That’s the thing. He’s not ours anymore, James.”

“I did research,” he explained, stepping closer to me, making me nervous. “A few sites said that the father has to give his rights for the adoption.”

“Which you did.”

“But now I’m changing my mind. People change their minds.” He reached for my hands, and I stepped backward.

“Don’t touch me,” I ordered.

“I want to be with you, Aria.” His words were wrapped in false dreams and tainted lies. “Haven’t you thought about it? About keeping him?”

Sometimes
.

“Please,” he said, glancing behind me before moving in to kiss me.

As our lips lingered, I whispered harshly, “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

He stepped back, and I listened to the sound of someone clearing their throat behind us. Turning around, I saw Levi standing at the end of the sidewalk with his hands wrapped around two gifts wrapped with newspaper. “Levi. How long have you been there?”

His blue Chucks kicked back and forth around the snow. “Long enough to find out that he’s the father. That he wants you. That he kissed you.”

“It’s not what—” I started, but James cut in.

“It’s kind of a family issue, man. If you could get lost, that would be great.”

“James!” I shouted. My eyes shot back to Levi’s, which were filled with rejection.

“Yeah, of course. I just wanted to drop off yours and Mango’s Christmas gifts.” He tapped the gifts against the palm of his right hand before he walked up and handed them to me. “Merry Christmas, Art.”

He turned and started to walk away. I went to follow, but James grabbed my wrist, halting me. “Let him go.”

I ripped my hand from his hold and flung my hand across his cheek. “I said don’t touch me.”

“What’s going on out here?” Dad asked, stepping onto the porch. His eyes landed on James. “Hey, buddy. Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks, Mr. Watson. You too.”

“You looking for Mike?”

I cringed and stepped toward Dad. “No, he was actually just—”

“I’m the father,” James said, cutting me off once more.

Dad didn’t process his words right away. He stood still, blinking with narrowed eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
Oh my God
. We’d been so close to having a perfectly decent Christmas after months of being a broken family, so close to being somewhat normal.

“I’m the one who slept with—”

“Don’t say it,” Dad ordered.

“…Aria,” James finished. He obviously had no desire to respect anyone’s wishes this Christmas afternoon.

“What?” Mike said, standing in the doorway, staring at his best friend. His left hand had a dinner roll stuffed with ham, and his right was a solid fist. He stepped onto the porch, his chest rising and falling hard. “You slept with my little sister?!” His words were filled with blades and anger.

“Mike, man. It was an,” Mike’s fist slammed into James’ jaw, sending him falling to the porch, “accident,” James muttered, brushing the back of his hand against his mouth.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Mike shouted, lunging toward James. Dad grabbed Mike before he could do any more damage, and a stumbling James stood back up. “She’s my sister, you asshole!”

“Mike, chill out!” Dad said, his arms still gripped around his son, who was five seconds away from killing his best friend.

“I want to raise the baby,” James said, spitting out blood from Mike’s punch.

“Shut up,” I cried. “Stop saying that.”

“I won’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Because it’s true.”

“What’s true?” Mom asked stepping onto the porch. Her eyes landed on James and filled with concern. “What happened?”

“He’s the father,” Dad murmured.

“The father?” Mom asked.

“The father,” Mike growled.

“The father?!” Grace said, standing in the doorway.

I tried my best to keep calm, staring at my family as they stared at us, their eyes shifting back between James and me. Dad still held an angered Mike back, while everyone else tried their best to wrap their heads around the newfound information.

“I just came to say that I want to give this a go,” James said, stuffing his hands back into his coat pockets. “With you, Aria. I want to raise the baby with you.”

“Oh my God,” Mom whispered, tugging on her earlobe. “I need you to go right now, James.”

“But—”

“No. No buts. I need you to walk away and let us figure this out,” she said.

“Mrs. Watson—”

“Walk. Away,” Dad shouted, his voice shaking us all. James lowered his head and nodded before he turned to walk off. Everyone’s eyes moved to stare at me. Dad released Mike and within a second, Mike was dashing off after James. As he rounded the corner, all I heard was a screaming James and Mike shouting how he was going to kill him once he got a hold of him. “I should go get him…” Dad grabbed his coat from inside and headed off in the direction of the two boys.

Mom wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “It’s cold, come inside.”

I followed her into the house, but I hardly warmed up.

M
om spent
a long time telling me that everything would be all right, but I hadn’t a clue how that could be true. I felt the walls around me collapsing. Things had finally been getting better. Everyone was coming around to the idea of the baby and the adoption. Then James had to decide to ruin everything.

“We’ll wait until morning to sort through this all. Okay? Don’t worry too much. It will all work out.” She kissed my forehead and left the room.

The moment she left, a few tears fell from my eyes. The whole situation was overwhelming. My fingers rolled over my stomach. He was the only thing that kept me breathing right now. Each breath I took was merely for him.

“James is the dad?” Grace asked, standing in my doorway.

I closed my eyes, wiping the few fallen tears away. “I’m not in the mood right now, Grace.” She didn’t reply, but I listened to her footsteps walking closer to me. “Grace, I said I’m not in the mood.” I opened my eyes and saw her holding two beaded necklaces.

“I used my Christmas bead set and made one for the baby and one for you.”

I swore I felt my heart breaking. I thanked her for the necklaces, and she smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t turn out to be an ugly pregnant person.”

Snickering, I hugged her with my huge belly. “Thanks, Grace.”

I
waited
until the next morning to head over to Levi’s house and explain what had happened the night before. Mostly I was embarrassed, and also angry at James for thinking it was okay to kiss me, to even touch me. Standing on Mr. Myers’ porch, I knocked on the door, waiting for an answer.

When the door finally opened and a fragile Mr. Myers appeared with purple shadows under his eyes, I hiccupped nervously.

“Yeah?” he muttered, staring blankly at me.

“I’m looking for Levi,” I said, giving him a half smile.

Mr. Myers grumbled. “He’s gone.”

“Oh.” I bit my bottom lip. “Is he at Soulful Things?”

“No. He’s gone back to Alabama.”

His words didn’t register at first, because those words made no sense. I’d just seen Levi yesterday afternoon; how could he be gone? “What do you mean?”

“I sent him back home yesterday.”

My heartbeat increased as I stared into a pair of brown eyes that were much colder than the ones that belonged to the boy I’d come to see. How could Levi leave? How could he not say goodbye? Why would Mr. Myers send him away?

“Why would you do that?” I asked angrily. “All he wanted was to be with you!”

“We don’t always get what we want, girl. This ain’t no fairy tale.”

“He’s been nothing but good to you. You’ve treated him like he’s nothing, but all he did was take care of you. And then you ship him off because you’re sick of him? Because he’s a hassle? How could you be so selfish?! How could you just take the easy road and send him away?”

“You think this is easy?!” he shouted, tossing his hands in the air with defeat. “You think it’s easy having your son care for you, spoon feed you, because you’re too damn weak? You think it’s easy living with the demons that took over my soul long ago? Living with the memories of the things I’ve done to people in this town? To Levi? To his mom? Well, little girl, you are stupid if that’s what you think. You’re a fool if you think anything about my life is easy.”

“And what kind of issues do you think you left with your son when you chose to ship him off instead of trying to fix some of those past mistakes?”

“It’s too late to fix anything,” he said, rubbing his hands nervously together.

“Whatever. If you want to give up that’s fine. It seems like that’s what you’ve done all your life. But you could’ve at least tried for him. You don’t have to be such a terrible father!”

“I’m a fuck-up!” he admitted. “Over and over I fuck up in my life. I’m an asshole, ask anyone in this town, ask your father. I. Fuck. Up. But everything I have ever done since the day his mom left me has been for that boy and his mother. He didn’t deserve to have the responsibly of choosing between his mother and me. I saw the heartbreak in his eyes, it was killing him. So I made the choice for him. As parents we make choices. We make the hard choices that we never want to. We give things up when it’s the hardest thing in the world. We allow our kids to hate us if it means they’ll have a better life. We sacrifice every single day. We send birthday and Christmas cards that the kid stops replying to because by that point, he just hates you. Which is for the best, because you ain’t got shit to offer him. He needed to be with his mom. She needed him more than my selfish desires of having him here. The last thing he needed or deserved was to sit here and watch me die.

“I separated myself to make their lives better. To make their lives something good. I was nothing but a damn burden for those two. I fuck up and over and over again, but if it means that they get a chance at being happy, then I will keep fucking up. For them. Always for them.” I stood there with tears in my eyes, listening to his words, replaying them in my head. He rubbed his temple before closing his eyes and taking a breath. “Sometimes loving someone means knowing they’re better off without you.”

W
hen I got back
to Alabama, Denise was waiting for me at the airport. We didn’t go to the hospital to see Mom until the next morning. Brian, Denise,
and I stood outside of her hospital room. When I looked in at her small body, I felt sick. Seeing her hooked up to those machines tore me up inside. She looked a little pale in the face, but her brown eyes had life.

A life I hadn’t seen in her eyes in so long.

“I’m okay, Levi.” Within seconds I was beside her, holding her hands and hugging her tight as she held me back. “I’m okay,” she said again.

I held on tighter.

“
S
he seems good
,” I said as Denise and I stepped out of the hospital room.

“She is good. They have her on some new medicines that seem to be working well for her, besides this incident.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a hair brush and started running it through her locks. She then proceeded to apply lip gloss and mascara. Only she would be worried about looking put together in the hallways of a hospital. “You’ll stay with me and Brian for a while until she finishes up the next few weeks at St. John’s. I’ll help you with your homeschooling and everything until your mom’s back. Then if things are going well, she’ll be an outpatient with three appointments a week for the next few months, but she’ll be home with you.”

Home
.

I’d missed home.

She excused herself to go find a decent cup of coffee.

I looked back into the room to see Mom staring my way with a smile. Within seconds, I was by her side again. “How’s your father?”

“Not too good.” I walked over to her and sat in the chair beside her.

Her fingers ran across my forehead as she moved my hair back. “I’m so sorry, honey. When do you go back?”

“I’m not going back. I’m staying with Denise for homeschooling until you come back home.”

She sat up in her bed. “That wasn’t part of the plan. Denise said you were just coming back to visit for a little while.”

“No. I’m staying.”

Shaking her head, she took my hands into hers. “You have to go back and stay with your father, Levi.”

“I’m here now, Mom. You wanted me to come home, and now I’m here.”

She frowned. “I wasn’t in my right mindset. You should have this time with your father.”

“He doesn’t want me.” I sat back in my chair and released a heavy sigh. “He told me he didn’t want me.”

“That’s a lie. He always wanted you. This is my fault,” she whispered, fidgeting with her fingers.

It didn’t matter anymore. He’d made his choice, and I’d made mine.

L
ater that night
I had Denise drop me off at the cabin. I wanted to finally sleep in my own bed. She tried to talk me out of it, but she agreed after dropping off some groceries and things.

When I glanced at my cell phone, I saw new messages from Aria and opened them.

Aria:
I wish I could’ve explained what you saw with James. He means nothing to me. I just want you to know that. You mean everything. I’m so sorry, Levi.

I knew that, and I knew Aria, but a part of me thought it would be easier to walk away than face the reasoning. I wouldn’t be back to Wisconsin any time soon, and it wasn’t really fair to ask her to wait around for me. Plus, she obviously had things to work out with James, and I was probably just getting in the way of that.

The distance was better for us, for her.

I was only clouding her judgment.

It was about time I awakened from the dream of Aria and me.

Aria:
I –
noun
, 
often capitalized
,
often attributive
 \ˈī\ : Aria Lauren Watson.

Aria:
Miss –
verb
 \ˈmis\ : To feel the absence of.

Aria:
You –
pronoun
| [yoo; 
unstressed
 y
oo
, y
uh
] : Levi Wesley Myers.

Miss you, too, Aria Lauren Watson.

But I couldn’t tell her that, even though it was true.