Second Chances: The Seahaven Series - Book One (21 page)

Home movies are running through my mind, a thousand memories coursing through, bumpered by a thousand realizations. I'm so raw lately, so tired and emotional and drained from losing Matt. So wounded. It's no wonder that all of these feelings are hitting me so hard right now. And I realize what I have to do to start getting my life back, to start getting me back. I blink and return to reality.

“No,” I say. “Thanks, you go ahead.”

He walks inside with his son and the door closes behind them. I stand there at the entrance. I look at the door, and then I turn around and leave.

* * *

I walk in through the automatic doors and feel the whoosh of air on my face. The smell of antiseptic cleanser stings my nostrils, which is underscored by an organic, less pleasant smell. I stop at the front desk.

“Hi, Angie,” I say.

Angie looks up at me and smiles. “Hi, Ellie,” she says. “Been a few weeks. How you doing?”

I shrug and give her the so-so sign with my hand, and she nods. “Well, I'm sure he'll love to see you.” She hands me a visitor's sticker and I put it on my shirt. He'll love to see me. Has there ever been a single time when he's loved to see me?

I take the long walk down the hall, noticing for the first time the colorful carpet and the framed paintings, beautiful reproductions of Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso. I smile at a woman leaving her room and she smiles back. Does she have children who come to see her? Who love her? Does she love them?

I continue down the long corridor, shedding the mental armor I dress in for each visit here. I come to room 107 and stop in front of it.

I knock on the door with three raps.

I lean in to the peephole, imagining my father on the other side, looking out, our faces separated by half an inch of wood. So close but so far away.

Which is worse, being so close but so far away, or being so far away, but so close?

It takes almost a solid minute, and then my father opens the door.

He looks at me, scowling, then turns. He goes back into his small apartment, leaving the door open so I can come inside.

I close the door behind me and follow him past the tiny kitchen with the hotplate and into the space that is half bedroom, half living room. He sits down heavily in his chair, and I sit on the foot of his bed. He resumes watching the baseball game on television. He hasn't said a word to me.

“How're you doing, Pop?” I ask.

He doesn't answer.

I scratch my head, wondering why it took me so long to get to this realization, to this place.

“I came here to give you something,” I say.

Again, nothing. A little grunt, maybe. It's hard to tell with the volume of the TV and the volume of the grunt. But I need to be sure he can hear me, so I watch him carefully.

“I ran into Paul a few months ago,” I say. At this he turns his head slightly. He always liked Paul. Even when I told him about all the terrible things he'd done to hurt me, he still liked Paul. And Paul always liked him. Two peas in a pod. “He said he saw you.”

My father keeps watching the television, but he nods slightly, and accompanies it with a slightly louder grunt. Then he says roughly, “He came here. What's it to you.” Not a question, more an accusation.

Okay, so he can hear. He will hear what I'm saying.

“The reason I'm here, the thing I want to give you... is my forgiveness.”

I watch him as he turns slowly, fully in his chair, so that he's facing me.

“You want to give me your what?” he asks, perplexed, brow wrinkled in non-understanding.

“Forgiveness,” I repeat. “My forgiveness.”

I watch his wheels turning as his face goes incredulous and mean.

“What the hell for?” he booms.

Strangely, I feel no fear. I feel like I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing and that I'm right where I need to be. It feels like the worried child, the little girl who was afraid of her father from the time she was born until much too recently, is gone. Now she's free.

I lean in close to him and look him in the eye. If I had done this as a teenager he would have slapped me so hard that my cheek would have swelled and stung for a week. But I'm not scared at all. I feel no fear and I think he sees it. There's something different in his eyes.

“You've been a terrible father. You hurt all of us. You were an awful husband to my mother when she was young and alive and even worse when she was dying. My brother is still to this day full of pain because of the way you treated him while he was growing up.”

“Blame, blame, blame,” my father grumbles, waving me off.

I take a deep breath, feeling almost cleansed. Then I let it out.

“But I forgive you, and I'm letting you go.”

He looks up at me. “What does that mean?” he snarls.

“You won't see me again.”

He disregards me with a hand wave, not taking me seriously, which doesn't make me feel happy or sad, it just is.

“I'll check in with the managers here and make sure they're taking care of you and that you have everything you need. You have your friends, your television. They'll be good company for you.”

He looks back at the television in disgust. “You're just like your mother,” he says. “No good.”

I watch him for a moment, this angry, broken old man, and I feel sorry for him. Any other day I would have seethed and burned inwardly at him for saying that about my mother, who was by all accounts one of the kindest, most patient people on the face of the earth, but today I'm at peace. This isn't about her. He can't change who she was or make me think any less of her. But I have the choice of whether or not to continue bearing witness to it, and I'm choosing to leave here and never come back.

“Bye, Pop. Take care.” I stand up and look at him one last time. I try to think good thoughts. I consider touching his shoulder, and then I don't. He doesn't look at me.

I leave.

Chapter Thirty-Five

It's 2pm and I'm on the couch watching TV and eating a bowl of ice cream. This might look like depression, but I'm actually feeling okay.

Our shift was long last night and filled with drama. In fact, Danny will probably be hailed as a hero in tomorrow's paper. It's like a cliché right out of the EMT field training manual, but a pregnant lady was stuck in an elevator, and Danny had to climb down through the elevator shaft and drop down into the elevator car to deliver her baby. Bigtime smalltown hero stuff.

Things are slowly going back to the way they were. I have Buster, I have my job. I love my job. I have friends who I like spending time with. Cesar is getting healthier and seems to be more happy each time I see him, which is about every other day. He's hopeful and motivated to change, and I'm confident he'll be strong enough to stay drug free when he gets out. And even though it changed my life, it was the right thing for the Judge to order me to be involved with Cesar's recovery. I think I've helped him. I think me being here for him has made a difference.

It's been six weeks since Matt left.

On TV, the weatherman is talking about a cold front moving in with high winds and rain.

“That's gonna cramp our style, buddy,” I say to Buster, who wags his tail. We've had some fun mornings on the beach lately, running around and playing catch.

I've been feeling lighter, but it's not easy. I have to talk to myself, sometimes even out loud, about staying positive, and I am keeping purposefully busy. It's the long ride home after work to an empty house that can get to me, and it's the time right before falling asleep when my thoughts go a hundred miles an hour and I wish he was there to wrap his arms around me that are the hardest.

It's like a death, a little bit. When you love someone so much and then they're gone. Matt was here with me, every day, and I loved him and he loved me. And now he's gone.

Sometimes I think about calling him to see how he's doing, but then I don't. He was clear about wanting to make a clean break so that we could move on. And you don't move on by keeping in touch.

As Buster tries to lick my ice cream bowl, my phone rings. I pick it up and look at the screen, and it's someone requesting a face chat. I don't recognize the number, so I don't answer it. I put it down.

“Probably some wrong number perv who'll ask me what I'm wearing,” I joke to Buster, scratching his ears. Buster licks my hand.

He and I resume watching a terrible reality TV show about women who'll do just about anything to be on their own terrible reality TV show. And then the phone rings again with another incoming face chat request.

I frown. This could go on and on if I don't just pick it up. I press “accept”.

Matt's sister Betsy's face fills the screen. My jaw falls open. “Betsy?” I say.

“Ellie. I'm so sorry to bother you.” She looks a little disheveled. “Am I interrupting?”

I look down at my pajamas and my ice cream bowl. “No, just finishing breakfast. Are you okay?”

She frowns. She shakes her head. “Not really, no. I'm not.”

I feel a rise of panic. Is it something with Matt? Is he hurt? My grip tightens on the phone. “What is it? What's wrong?”

She must see the panic on my face and backpedals quickly. “No, Ellie, I'm sorry, everyone is safe. Everyone is fine.”

My heartbeat slows and my grip loosens. I'm going to have to work on that. He's not my concern anymore. Even if he was hurt it wouldn't be my concern.

“It's just...” She's having trouble getting words out, like she doesn't know how to say what she's feeling. I wait patiently, and as I wait I look at the scene behind her. She's in her house, where she lives, where Matt is probably living, too. If I see him in the background I don't know what I'll do.

“I feel so guilty, Ellie. I feel terrible. The kind of guilt where I'm finding it hard to sleep at night.”

She looks at me, stricken. She looks so sad.

“Why?” I say. “You didn't rob a bank, right?” I'm trying to make light of whatever she's feeling guilty about, because it can't be anything big. She's such a genuinely nice person.

She looks at me, then starts to laugh. Then she starts to cry. “You're so kind, Ellie. This makes it even worse! It probably hasn't even occurred to you that you should hate me.”

Now she's really crying and I don't know why. “Betsy, hey! It's okay, I don't hate you. Why would I hate you?”

She looks at me. “I took him away from you,” she says. “He came back here for us, and he left you. It's my fault.”

Oh. That's why she's feeling guilty.

I shake my head. “Betsy,” I say. “If you were here right now I would hug you and tell you that it's not your fault. You're his family. He wanted to help you. He asked me to come with him and I couldn't. And then he broke up with me, so it's not your fault. You have to promise me that you will start sleeping well immediately after we hang up.”

Now she's not laughing. Instead she says quietly, “He broke up with you?”

I nod. “He said he didn't want me to be unhappy about us being apart, he said couldn't bear the thought of it. He was very clear.”

Now I'm feeling sad and like I'm going to cry.

“Ironic, right?” I continue. “Him thinking I'd be happier if we broke up.”

She balls up her fists and grunts. “He's so frustrating!” She blows her nose. “It's just like a man to cut things off because he's scared.”

“No,” I say. “He wasn't scared. He said he didn't want us to be miserable and he didn't want our lives to be on hold.”

She gives me a look like I'm slow. “If you could see him this past month since he's been back. He's a sorry lot because of you.”

“But this is what he wanted,” I say. “He can't still be thinking about me, it was his idea.”

I think back to how I've been behaving and feeling the last month. But it's hard to believe that he's been suffering too much. He's the one who broke it off so easily. He knew what he was doing. Right?

“I'm sure he thought he knew what he was doing,” Betsy says, echoing my thoughts. “Ending things because he didn't want you to compromise your life, so that you could move on. It's so daft.” She shakes her head. “He probably thought he was being noble. But he's been a right mess.”

I look at her on the screen of my phone. A spark of hope that I'm not sure I want to let in is rising in my chest.

“Are you saying he's not over me? He doesn't want to move on?” I ask.

She doesn't hesitate. “Oh God, no. He's devastated. It's ridiculous. I don't think he'll ever get over you.”

I start to think, to drift, to do the opposite of everything I've been doing for the last month and a half, which is trying desperately to get over him. My heart gets lighter, my head gets lighter. It feels like everything has changed in a moment.

“Can I talk to him?” I find myself whispering hoarsely.

She glances over her own shoulder. “He's not here, he's at work. He's taking on as many shifts as possible, trying to keep busy.”

I can relate.

“Why don't you call him later?” she asks.

I nod. I'm almost too shocked to speak. Betsy smiles at me.

“The two of you are meant to be together,” she says. “And I'm going to figure out a way to make it happen. And
then
I'll be able to sleep.”

We say our final goodbyes and I touch the end-call button. I sit on the couch, Buster in my lap, TV on, everything exactly the same as it was before the call started. But nothing is the same, now that I know he still loves me.

I get up off the couch, my head suddenly clear.

Everything has changed.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I knock on the door, Buster wriggling in my arms. Maria opens it.

“Hey!” she says enthusiastically. “You made it! Come in!”

I look past her into her apartment. I totally forgot. It's four in the afternoon and nearly the whole ER crew is inside drinking beer. If you work the night shift and you have the next day off, that's when the partying happens, the equivalent of 10pm on a Saturday night.

“Andalay, mija. I have a drink with your name right over here,” she says.

I walk inside and start saying hi to people over the music and the conversation. Danny emerges from the kitchen and sees me. “Hey! You came!”