Olivia (64 page)

JON

My heart hasn’t stopped racing since waking up to
Matty pounding on the door this morning. I don’t anticipate it
ceasing anytime soon, either. Not with Jack sitting two rows in
front of us. He has been silent, somber. I mean, he has good reason
to be, but I sense it’s more than just the death of his friend;
someone he considered a part of his family.

“
Are you okay?” I ask Olivia. She
had also said only a handful of words to me since the news was
delivered to us. She feels distant, when we had been so close last
night – as close as we’d ever been.

“
No,” she barely whispers. When she
blinks, heavy tears race down her pink cheeks. I know how sad I
feel. I’m also fairly certain that she feels worse. I imagine her
pain is much like the pain I felt when I lost my father. I’d felt
hollow. I’d felt alone in my mourning. Olivia’s not, though, and I
unbuckle my seatbelt and take her in my arms to comfort her. She
releases hushed sobs as she tucks her head into the crook of my
neck. Her hair still damp from her shower, I stroke it gently,
careful not to pull on the tangled tresses. I don’t think she even
brushed her hair before we left.

“
Fasten your seat belts,” Jack
tells us. I catch his stare as I pull away, but he averts his eyes
quickly.
He knows
. I don’t think Matty
told him, but he sure as hell knows. My heart sinks. I know
disappointment when I see it.

After I secure myself into the seat, I put my arm
around Olivia, welcoming her head on my shoulder. She gathers up
some used tissues and puts them in a plastic bag in the seat next
to her. As the jet starts to move, she turns her attention to the
runway outside. The sun is just coming up. On the other side of the
plane, bright orange streams filter through the trees as we pass
them. On our side, though, it’s still inky; the details of the
horizon a mystery. Darkness looms, and steals the exuberance of the
girl I love.

Olivia was sunlight personified last night. I even
told her that as we sat side by side on the bed, just after I felt
the warm, smooth skin of her upper thigh. She radiated heat,
passion and desire, the effect magnified by the warm yellow color
of the slip she wore. Against her tanned skin, she was a vision of
summer that was sure to welcome me into the best season of my
life.

I had never been so excited. Last night compared to
no other night, not even the first night I’d been with a girl,
intimately. It just proves that Olivia is my future. It proves that
she’s the only one for me. The excitement wasn’t just physical. It
was spiritual. Her warmth spread through me, reaching every pore
after our first kiss. The fact that I would be Olivia’s first lover
was not something I would ever take for granted, and every move I
made was cautious, loving, and devoted to her comfort, and
ultimately, her pleasure.

I feel my cheeks heat up, just thinking about our
night together. Her warmth still reaches me through memories, but I
long to feel it again, right here. I know it’s greedy, but a kiss
would offer her assurance, too. My right hand reaching across, I
touch her cheek softly, causing her to look up at me. She makes the
move to kiss me, not the other way around. The way her lips linger,
the deliberate way she moves them slowly against mine, I sense her
need. It’s not the same need as last night, but I don’t want to
fulfill this one any less. She needs a friend, a companion, a
shoulder to cry on, a reminder that she’s not alone. I’m here for
her and would do anything for her.

“
Thank you,” she says breathily
after she pulls away. I nod, pulling her head back against my
shoulder. Her left hand reaches across her body to my right one,
and she links her fingers loosely. I rub my thumb against her ring,
reminding her of my promise. I can feel her sigh against
me.

I watch our hands as I drift back to last night.
While we were both more than willing to make good use of our night
alone – the first night alone we’d ever had and wanted desperately
for months – Olivia was uncomfortable, her purity fully evident.
I’d asked her more than once if she wanted to stop, but she assured
me she didn’t.
I’ll be alright
, she’d said
quickly. Of course I wanted her to be
more
than alright, but I tempered my expectations for our first night
together.

“
Let me know if the pain is too
much,” I’d requested, and she nodded in agreement. Still, as I
pushed against her, she’d squeeze her eyes shut as her body tensed
beneath me. “Talk to me, Olivia.” Her detached response was another
nod as her eyelids once again opened. She looked afraid.

“
I can’t,” she said. “I don’t want
to spoil the mood.”

At that point, I slid to her side and smiled at her.
“Nothing you say could spoil the mood. I mean,
Stop
would spoil the mood, but that’s nothing I can’t
get over.”

“
I don’t want to stop.”

“
Okay. Well you have to tell me if
it hurts, so I know to slow down or be more gentle. I need you to
communicate with me.”

“
Come back,” she had said,
attempting to pull my body back on top of her. I made her task easy
and willingly moved back where she wanted me. We kissed a few more
times, and I touched her softly beneath the blankets before trying
again. This time, I took her left hand in my right and linked my
fingers with hers.

“
If the pain is too much, I want
you to squeeze my hand. Squeeze it tightly, and then I’ll know.”
Her fingers went slack. “You don’t like that method?”

“
I love the method,” she said, “I’m
just showing you there’s no pain because you’re not doing anything
right now.”

“
I see –”

“
And I want you to do something.” I
gazed into her then-eager eyes. “Okay?”

“
Okay,” I said softly into her ear
before taking her lobe between my lips. After that, we began to
communicate with hand gestures, and I reacted accordingly until her
hand released mine and she desperately wrapped both arms and legs
around my torso.

In the seat next to me, Olivia starts to whimper,
then cry. I rub her arm with my left hand, but nothing seems to
lessen her tears. “Are you alright?” I ask.

She answers by squeezing my hand tightly.
The pain is too much for her
, and my heart
breaks.

JACK

I turn around in my seat to check on Livvy. She’s
been crying for the past five minutes, and all I want to do is hug
her and assure her that we’ll get through this together, as a
family.

But I can’t do that, because she’s clinging to that
boy like he’s her only lifeline. Their closeness today is different
than before, and I can’t hold my suspicions in any longer. Livvy’s
sobs will mask the conversation.

“
What happened last night?” I ask
my brother. Emi had persuaded me to let Matty chaperone Livvy and
Jon on their date, even though I knew my daughter had him wrapped
around her little finger. I had a feeling she could convince him to
do anything – or to let her
do
anything.
Of course she could do that, she’d done
it all her life!

“
They went out to dinner,” Matty
says, “while I went to a club.”

“
How much did you drink?” I ask him
instinctively.

“
Enough, but not too much,” he
answers. I don’t like his vague response.

“
And when they got back to the
hotel from dinner?”

“
I left them alone–”

“
Damn it, Matty!”

“
Shhhh!” my brother says as he
looks behind us. I follow suit, seeing Jon stare back at me. He
looks guilty. “I left them alone in the living room of the suite
while I hung out in the bedroom. They were watching TV. When I got
tired around one o’clock, I kicked Jon out.”

I stare at him hard. I know he’s lying, but my
brother’s so good at it that I can never
truly
tell.

“
I know you’d cover for her,” I
challenge him.

“
I would never cover for
her–”

“
You covered for me,” I remind
him.

“
There’s a big difference between a
14-year-old kid not telling on his big brother, and a 46-year-old
uncle not telling on his teenage niece. Give me some fucking
credit, Jacks.”

“
Something’s changed with them,” I
tell Matty confidently, turning back around and catching Livvy and
her boyfriend kissing. I look away quickly, feeling like I’m
intruding on their intimate moment. Any other time, I’d break them
up. Any other time, I don’t think either would feel comfortable
like that in front of me. But today’s a hard day for my daughter,
and I want to be understanding and supportive, in whatever way she
needs me to be. All I know is that I wish Emi was next to me
instead of my brother. I want nothing more than to feel her
comforting hand on mine, her assuring kiss on my lips. I have no
doubt she is needing the same from me… and as I relate these
intimate moments with my wife to the moments that are occurring two
rows behind me, I realize – as a father – I can’t let it
continue.

“
Nothing’s changed,” my brother
says. I unlatch my safety belt and stand up. “Where are you
going?”

“
I’m going to see for myself,” I
respond.

“
You’re wasting your
time.”

“
I’ll be the judge of
that.”

I’m happy the private jet has rows with facing seats
that double as foot rests. They will allow us all rest, if we get
the urge to sleep. Right now, my adrenaline is still pumping from
the shock of the news. I hope Emi and Jackson are able to relax on
their flight.

The ambient noise on the plane masks my footsteps,
and Livvy is still kissing Jon by the time I arrive in their row. I
sit in the seat facing my daughter, my presence still unknown to
them.

“
Ahem.” They quickly separate, both
of them looking at their hands clasped in his lap. Jon’s fingers
loosen, attempting to escape Livvy’s grasp, but she isn’t letting
him go. When I look at their faces, Jon’s is splotchy. He’s
embarrassed. Livvy’s cheeks are still wet from her
tears.

“
Yeah, Dad?” she asks.

“
How are you?”

She shrugs and blinks a few times quickly. “It
hurts.”

“
I know,” I tell her with an
empathetic smile. “I miss her already.”

“
Me, too.”

“
I do, too,” Jon chimes in. Of
course Donna’s death affects him, too. She was a creative mentor to
him as much as she was to Livvy. She was a strong female role model
that I have no doubt he looked up to. She was a stand-in mother to
many of the kids in Nate’s Art Room.

“
She wouldn’t want us to be sad.” I
put my hand on Livvy’s knee, and she finally lets go of her
boyfriend to put her hand on mine. I can’t help but feel a little
triumphant, although I know it’s petty and silly. She’s growing up.
She will go to other people for comfort at times.

She’s never felt loss like this, though. When her
birthmother died, she was too young to know. She’s never lost a
relative, and she’s closer to Donna than she was to my parents or
Emi’s. She knew Donna before she even knew us. My eyes begin to
water, as hard as I try to fight the feeling. Livvy quickly
releases my hand and leans toward me, hugging
me
, comforting
me
.

I embrace her back and hold her tightly. Her stifled
sobs make their way to the surface, and she cries as I hold her.
“Shhh, Livvy. It’s okay,” I whisper. Jon excuses himself from the
row and makes his way toward the lavatory at the front of the
plane. I take his seat and hand my daughter a few tissues, emptying
the box. “When you use the last one, no more tears,” I tease her.
She chuckles lightly, and I’m grateful she remembers the rule from
her childhood.

“
I just don’t understand what
happened, Daddy. She was always so healthy. She took care of
herself.”

“
Brain aneurisms don’t
discriminate, Contessa.” She sniffles and nods, wiping her nose. “I
guess it was just her time.”

“
I wasn’t ready to let her go. I
never said goodbye.”

“
You said goodbye before we left.
She knows you love her… and with, death, honey… no one is ever
ready to let their loved ones go. If anyone knows that, Donna does.
She’s with Nate now, and his father. It’s probably a happy reunion
for her,” I explain. Emi and I had talked about it before I left
England for Greece. She was inconsolable, and I hated to leave her
this morning, but that thought seemed to bring her some peace. I
hope it will do the same for Livvy.

“
Is everyone coming back?” she asks
me.

“
Over the next few days. I think
everyone will be back for her funeral.”

“
Funeral.” The word escapes her
lips like a tiny puff of air. She looks bewildered. “I can’t
imagine life without her.”

“
My parents will be staying with us
this week when they get in.”

“
They’re not going back to
Wyoming?”

“
They’ll stay for the funeral. She
was like family to us. Mom and Dad know that, and they shared some
good memories with her, too: your birthdays, holidays, Art Room
shows. They want to take the opportunity to spend some time with
you and Jackson, anyway.”