Down From the Clouds (5 page)

She shrugged. "It's kind of like my face. I can make it look better if I want to, but there's rarely a moment that I want to."

I laughed. "Unique way of life there. Not sure many women could relate."

"Well, as long as you don't care, I definitely don't."

"I like your natural beauty. I'd take real over accentuated beauty any day."

"Not sure many men could relate to you either, then. You'd never miss the fact that your guy friends would never consider your wife sexy?"

"Pssh . . . are you kidding me? You’ve always said I’m the only man that should see that side of you, and I can’t help but love that idea.”

She kissed my cheek. "You're a sweet one. If I didn't know better I'd say you were a good liar."

"There's not much I'm good at, to be honest."

"Oh, right. You can't fake humility with me. You're paintings are better than Monet, your music writing skills are way better than anything on the radio”—she twirled around the room—“your house decorating abilities. There's so much. Not to mention you are quite handsome."

I took her hand. "Dance with me."

My phone beeped. She looked up at me as we slow danced under the chandelier in the empty dining room. My phone beeped again.

"You can get it," she said.

"You know how I feel about letting technology interfere with life."

It beeped again.

"Might be important."

"Nothing is important enough."

I took it out to silence it and saw a bazillion missed calls from Matt. Not like him to call so much. They must've been back already.

"It's Matt," I said. "Maybe I will call him back. Is that okay?"

"More than okay."

She unpacked a box as I dialed.

"Gavin," he said. "Did you see the news?"

"What news? Are you back already?"

"We're on the way home from the airport. When we were there I saw something on the news. You never told me your dad went missing."

"You never asked."

"Well, he's not missing anymore."

My stomach rose to my mouth. I waited to hear those words since I was five. Other dads dropped their kids off at school, taught them to ride a bike, tie their shoes, and fly kites. Not mine. He disappeared and chose to desert me. I told myself I'd never let him back in. I wished he were dead. I didn't want him to show up again. I didn't want to face what he did to me. I didn't want a dad.

"Are you sure it's him?"

Ella stopped and looked up at me.

"Has to be. He said he came back because of his dad’s health and he wanted to meet his son, who happens to be named Gavin Kessler."

"Okay."

"We'll talk later. Check the news."

"I'd rather not."

"How do you feel about it?"

"I don't."

"Right. The ever mysterious wonder."

We hung up and Ella inched toward me. "Your dad is back?"

"Apparently."

"And you don't want to meet him?"

"No."

She sensed my defensiveness. I didn't want to take it out on her. Didn't want her to see the anger and bitterness I held inside because of that man, that man who decided after three decades of lost memories he was going to show up and apologize and have a son again? No way in hell.

Ella touched my arm, kissed my neck, and whispered in my ear. "I'm here if you want to talk."

I didn't. "I'm sorry. I just don't think I want to give him the honor of being talked about."

She pressed her cheek against mine and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

There are many sides to all of us. There's the side we show the world. The one that cleans up a messy house before guests arrive, but not for our own spouse. The one that holds a phone in front of our faces for hours, snapping a thousand pictures until we find one good enough for Facebook. This is the side we want others to see. Then there's the real side of us. The side of us buried inside that few people find. Some of us pretend to reveal our true colors. We pride ourselves in being "authentic" and "transparent," touting our flaws like there's no tomorrow, except we choose the flaws we want to show the world in our "transparency." What a joke, really.

Then there's the side no one knows, not even ourselves. The side we suppress and shove so deep inside that we forget about it. Meeting this side of myself didn't appeal to me. Scared the life out of me. I didn't want to find flaws I didn't know existed. Real flaws that I didn't want to parade around. These are the things that make us who we are, the very things we want to hide from everyone around us as we pretend to be someone else. Someone we wish we could be, and all the while miss out on living our own life, real life.

I don't know about you, or anyone else for that matter, but for me it felt safe to hide behind the person I wished I could be. It was easier. Joy could be turned on like a light switch. I liked life this way. The idea of my boat being shaken by a storm at sea didn't appeal to me. Ye of little faith.

That's me.

I didn't want to change, but when a quick-talking detective called to ask if I'd like to set up a day to reunite with Harold Kessler I knew there would come a time when choice no longer existed. Change was about to grip me by the neck and shake me until I consented.

I said, "No, thank you," and hung up the phone. How can you reunite with someone you were never united to in the first place?

Ella walked in the door a few minutes after I hung up the phone.

"What happened?" she said, closing the door.

"Detective called."

"A detective? For what?"

"To reunite me with my long lost father. What do they think this is? Some kind of Hallmark special?"

She reached for my hand. "Calm down. I've never seen you act like this."

There. It happened. The flaws underneath bubbled at the surface, desperate to erupt. I shoved them back inside. Smiled. Pulled her into my body and hid my face in her hair.

"Let's get married now."

"I want to do things properly, Gavin. You know that. I want the first time we sleep in this house together to be when we come back from our honeymoon. And I want our wedding to be something we remember with fondness, not something rushed because we want to turn the page."

"You are a modern Jane Austen, huh?"

"Trying to be."

"Most people are living together without getting married nowadays."

"Not interested." She pulled away from my arms and forced me to look into her eyes. Her finger pressed into my lips. "I know when these things produce real smiles. And I know when they're fake."

I sat on our new white couch. "Come here."

She sat on the opposite side of the couch and draped her feet over my legs. I rubbed her ankles and battled whether to give her the letter in my pocket. I carried all three letters with me every day. Only took them out of my pocket to wash my pants.

"Let me read the first one." I'm not sure whether I loved or hated that she read my mind. Maybe both, depending on the circumstance.

I pulled the first two letters from my pocket. Those stayed in my back left pocket, while the unopened one lived in my right pocket. Alone. Not a single tear in the seal.

"Count to three, take a deep breath, and hand it to me." 

"There's something I need to tell you first."

Chapter Five

After a long and exaggerated breath, I looked at her and searched for the words to say what I felt. That didn’t always come easy to me. A lover of words and books, sometimes too many letters clamored my brain. I couldn’t piece them together into something nice. I needed to try though. For her sake. So, I opened my mouth to tell her what only half of me wanted to say.

"Ella," I said, hands sweating. "When I saw you in that coffee shop my life changed. In middle school and my first year of high school people thought I was the biggest geek ever. Around my junior year I stopped hiding behind books and paint brushes and pretended to be fun and outgoing. I didn't actually have fun and I was still shy inside. All the girls thought I was some kind of god, and occasionally I'd use them to satisfy some bruised part of my ego, but it all got old. I hated that life.

"Then I saw you. That moment changed my life. I realized that I didn't want to party and drink beer while standing on my head. I didn't want to use girls who were just as broken as I was. I wanted life.

"When you smiled at me from the table by that window, you showed me . . . I can't even find the words. All I know is I wanted to be a better man than I was. I wanted to be me. Myself. The part of me hidden inside that no one saw. And I wanted someone to love me for that person, not the person I pretended to be.”

"You know," she said. "I feel the same. Except when I saw you I went a little crazy. Because of the car accident and my lack of organization, I lost so much. So I set out to become as organized and detailed as possible. I thought it would help me find you. If I made every choice with precision everything would be perfect. I'd find you. And it would all be wonderful. Only it didn't work. You found me because everything around me fell apart. I actually had to lose the Ella I had been and resurrect the Ella that died in order for love to find me. It's almost as though I wasn't ready. When I finally let go of my obsession with finding you, you came to me."

"Well. I tend to hide a lot. Have since I was a kid. Honestly, Ella, I'm scared to death at the things buried inside of me. I know it will be liberating to get these things out, but I don't know where to start."

"Start with the letters in your hand."

"Yes. Back to that. So, I wanted to find you. I had to find you. Pop told me to do whatever it took, but I thought it was crazy and useless. So I went off to college and Matt broke up with his girlfriend at the time. For some reason, that made me think of you and how I wanted to find you. Pop's health took a turn for the worse so I went back to Lancaster to live with him. I'd visit Philly every weekend to look for you. Told everyone but Pop that I had art shows.

"Eventually he told me to move back to Philly. Matt needed a roommate and Pop knew how much I wanted to be there. I believed I'd never find you. I thought I'd end up single until I was forty or settling for less than the dream of you. Pop never thought that."

"He sounds like a modern day Jane Austen, too."

I tried to smile. "He was a lot like you."

"So, he made you come to Philly to find me and how does that lead to these letters?"

"His health got worse. I got really depressed. Didn't tell Matt. Didn't tell anyone. My grandfather was all I had. The thought of him dying scared me. I didn't know love outside of him and thought I never would. So I ignored him."

"You stopped talking to him when you found out he was dying?"

"He sent me a letter. It's the first one here." I placed it in her lap and hung my head on the back of the couch.

She opened it. Paper crinkled as I watched the chandelier cast shadows and bursts of light on the walls around us.

I read every word in my mind as I imagined her eyes scanning them. 

Dearest Gavin,

You know I consider you my son. I want you to know that I made a lot of mistakes in my life. I wasn't a good dad and your father's issues are because of me. It's the one regret I have in my life. Not raising him better. Not being the father I should have been. I couldn't fix your grandmother when she went to the psych ward, and I certainly couldn't fix myself either. I was a mess, my boy. And messes create more messes until someone starts cleaning. Unfortunately I didn't start cleaning until your dad left and you landed in my arms. But it was too late. He was gone.

I've tried my best, Gavin. Please know it. I've tried my best to raise you, but I've always felt like I wasn't enough. I couldn't be your father no matter how much I taught you to play hopscotch or trace constellations in the sky. I couldn't fill the void you had.

I know you try so desperately to hide the tiniest amount of pain and because of that you hide your emotions too. You're afraid to love because you think love will bring loss and you can't bear it. It's the reason you want to find this girl and never marry someone else if something happened to her. You fear losing things.

I'm dying, Gavin. They say I have a month to live, or less. Do not live your life based off of fear. If you marry this girl and stay faithful to her for life, do it out of love. Not fear. If you do it out of fear, you're a selfish coward. If you do it out of love, you're a noble hero.

I know you fear my death, but please come and see me before I die. You'll regret it if you don't.

I love you,

Your Ole Pop