Two Bar Mitzvahs (29 page)

That one word faced outward, reminding me of how I felt about this shit going down. She deserved her time, and I needed to finally listen. To push at this point risked me fucking things up further. If that was even possible.

She had made a decision. And I was honoring the consequences. For now.

On her driveway, I sat on my bike. Stared at her door. The pull to stay and fight was tremendous. Didn’t matter though. Walking away for the time being was the right thing to do.

But the part of me screaming inside, the man who’d finally found the woman meant for him, and then lost her, stared at the folded note that showed the only word echoing through my head.

“
No.
”

I stared at what had now become my escape hatch—a first-class airline ticket stub. The original two airline tickets meant for both Hannah and I to seek calm after all the chaos had been sadly exchanged. And the seating choice wasn’t because I wanted comfort. I sought separation. Isolation.

Sitting in my airline seat, I grabbed the headphones the flight attendant gave me and asked for a double scotch. The passenger who sat beside me put on headphones too. Good. I didn’t want to have to growl at him to enforce my do-not-disturb mood. I downed the scotch and closed my eyes.

After a connecting flight and hours of being passed out from lack of sleep, I arrived at a destination most people would go to for an amazing vacation. I looked at it as a soul-searching mission.

The staff at check-in must’ve sensed my detachment, because they efficiently did their jobs without much small talk. Inside of an hour later, my ass was planted on the beach. I stared at the horizon. Then I looked around. White sand stretched in either direction. Several palms curved their trunks over the beach before swooping up, green fronds pointing toward the sky.

This place would be as good as any to figure my shit out. I sat there, trying to open my mind. Nothing happened. But at least I was a safe distance away from Hannah. Half the world between us meant I couldn’t be a stalker and sit on her front doorstep, asking her to talk with me. Begging forgiveness.

Slow torturous days went by. Each the same. Me sitting on the beach. Walking the beach. I paced back and forth, creating a rut in the sand, as I searched my mind and heart for answers.

There were no revelations, though. Only memories of failure that constricted my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I had tried to handle it all, control the universe around me. But doing all that got me into this mess. After trying to do everything, I had nothing. Because I didn’t have Hannah. In thinking I had it together, yet being totally wrong, I barely knew what to trust in myself anymore.

Figuring out what I truly wanted would take sorting through what was really important in life. Yet I kept coming full circle. Hannah mattered most. But nothing else seemed to solidify on how it could all work together. What path to take.

I’d blown it on the whole balancing-work-and-life thing, very similar to what my dad had almost done with our family years ago. And I’d sworn to do it better. A fine job I did of that. It snuck up on me. My own ego had taken me down.

I blinked as a realization hit me. Done with trying to sort my shit out on my own, I jumped up off the beach and headed to the Four Seasons concierge.

A polite brunette wearing glasses glanced up at me as I approached. I looked at her name tag. “Adrienne, I need to use my cell phone. Can you help me make a call to the States?”

“Oui, monsieur. Our hotel offers technology to make your personal phone work here. Or I can assist you in connecting the call through our phone systems.”

“My cell phone would be great.”

“Would you like me to do it for you?”

I nodded. “Yes. Please.” My mind was already blown with too much thinking. I didn’t need to struggle with learning something new.

After a few minutes, she handed it back to me. “Let me know if you need anything further.”

“Thank you, Adrienne.” I walked outside onto the patio and dialed the number.

After a few rings, a calming voice answered. “Hello?”

“Dad.”

“Cade? Good to hear from you. Kristen told us what happened. You okay?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Been better. Being stuck on an island is giving me plenty of thinking time but no answers. Hoping you could help me out with that.”

“Anything I can do, I will.”

“You were a workaholic when we were kids. I know it put a strain on your and Mom’s relationship. How did you figure it all out?”

His deep chuckle sounded over the line. “You’re right. I was focused too much on work, and all of you suffered for it. But ‘figuring it all out’ didn’t happen overnight. Hell, I still have to work hard at pacing myself. Your mom helped me realize a few things along the way.”

“Like what?”

“Intimacy doesn’t take a lot of time, but you do have to make the time. You can’t work long hours, days at a time, only keeping the prize at the end. A healthy relationship needs constant attention, daily, even if just a few moments to connect. Like a pot on the stove—you want to keep it on simmer so it doesn’t boil over.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “That makes sense.” So many days in the last weeks, I hadn’t seen Hannah because I knew I would in another day or two. Texts were great, but maybe it should’ve been more connection.

“I see so much of myself in you, son. Hard charging, driven, wanting to succeed by being the best. But everything comes at a cost. Be sure the sacrifice you make is on the business end instead of your personal life. I saw the reverse too often with business associates; many grew distant with their spouse and children in order to advance in their professional lives. I knew I didn’t want to lose my family.”

“What about communication? I’ve fucked up there. When so many things were being juggled at once, I pushed out of my mind things I felt were nonessential shit to try and focus on tasks that had to be done. But turns out, some of what I thought was unimportant was critical for Hannah to know, but I didn’t see it. I missed huge things and hurt her in the process.”

“Every relationship goes through that. It’s not easy balancing out what used to be two separate lives into one relationship. For years, I pushed so hard at work to make sure I was providing for and protecting your mom, even before you kids were born. But it took me a long time to realize that the women in our lives want to do the same things for us. Protect. Provide.”

I started to see the connection. “Ahhh, guys think
they
have to do it all.”

“Exactly, Cade. That’s the difference,
that’s the key
. You have to do it together.”

The sun was suddenly too warm, and I sat down on a chair in the shade, letting his words sink in. “Great perspective. I think that’ll help. But what I’m still rolling around in my mind is the success thing. At school, they did a great job in teaching us how to create something out of nothing, how to really work hard to achieve results. How did you balance love and work?”

“You’ve heard the phrase, work smarter not harder?”

“Sure. Ben and I say it often at Loading Zone.”

“Just because you’re working smarter, doesn’t mean you should pile on more work to fill in the extra time. That’s
why
you’re working smarter. To be able to have time with her.”

Shit.
The simplicity of it nearly overwhelmed me.

Frustrated at my idiocy, I blew out a hard breath. “And all I did was take on one more thing, then another one more thing, until it was my time with Hannah that suffered. That’s how I let things slip through the cracks. If I’d set aside more time for her, we would have communicated everything.”

“Maybe. Sometimes we have to learn the lesson to know what to focus on. I know I did. We incrementally lose control with each new responsibility we stack on our shoulders. But in the end, we’re the ones who added the stressors into our lives. And we’re the only ones who can take them out.”

“Yeah.” I let it all soak in, grateful as fuck I’d called him. When the silence stretched on, I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs. “Thanks, Dad. This has helped more than you know.”

“Anytime, Cade. And trust me…I know. I wasn’t smart enough to learn that I needed to ask these questions when I was your age. So does that mean you’re coming home?”

I laughed. “Soon. I still have a few more days before the return flight. And I think the extra time will help me figure everything out. Now that I’ve talked with you, I have a roadmap to get there.”

“Call me if you need anything else. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I hung up. And after the call, I experienced the first calm I’d felt in days. And…a little bit of hope.

The following day, I sat on the beach again under the shade of a palm tree after having the best night of sleep I’d had since I’d arrived. In small bursts of clarity at different moments, I remembered what Dad had said and thought about how it applied to my situation. Around lunchtime, I realized I needed to stop trying to figure out how to correct the past mistakes. Instead, I began to focus on the future.

I tipped back my beer bottle and took a long pull while watching kids splashing around in the waves. A line of pelicans glided low over the water, searching for fish in the shallows. The beauty of the place started sinking in as I got out of my head for a moment.

And in the peace of it all, with my mind relaxed, my confidence grew. I didn’t have it all together. I probably wouldn’t do everything right the first time, but since my dad was still learning, I figured I didn’t need to. I just needed to want to, be aware that it would take effort and attention. A relationship wasn’t an autopilot, take-for-granted thing. And the rest would have to work itself out.

Someone shouted, sounding alarmed. I sat up, planting my bottle into the sand. A woman stood at the shoreline, shouting something in French while she pointed to an abandoned paddleboard floating on the surface about a hundred feet straight out.

I ran up to her as did others. Tears were streaming down her face. No further translation needed. I raced into the surf after another man, who’d already taken off toward the paddleboard.

By the time we made it out there, no one was around, and we began diving on separate sides of the floating board. The water was clear enough for me to see a form beneath the surface moving with the ebb of the tide. I grabbed an arm and pulled him up.

Thank fuck I’d rowed crew and our coach insisted on Advanced CPR Certifications for the entire team. I swam quickly back to the beach, pulled him safely away from the waves, and laid him onto the sand as I yelled toward the small crowd gathered on the beach. “Tell the hotel to call for help!”

With no time to waste, and no pulse or breathing detected, I started with the breaths. The other man fell to the sand beside me and began chest compressions. He and I spoke no words, instinctually working as a team to save the man’s life.

After what felt like forever, but was likely only about ten minutes, an emergency crew arrived and took over for us. They opened up their automated external defibrillator, hooked the leads up to his chest, and asked us to step back. Seconds later, they pushed a button and his body jerked. When no response came from him, they checked his breathing and pulse. They repeated the process once more.

The crowd had pressed in around us as the man finally began to move. He coughed out water, and the emergency crew rolled him onto his side to help him clear his lungs.

I took a couple of steps back, hands shaking, as I tried to get my own breathing and racing heart under control. The French woman came up to me, one hand covering her mouth as the tears continued to stream down her face. She placed her other hand on my chest as she swallowed hard.

She looked too choked up to find words. That made two of us.

I pulled her into my arms, and she held me tightly while the emergency crew strapped the man onto a backboard to carry him to an ambulance that was parked on the edge of the beach.

As they lifted the man and began to walk off, she pulled away from me, speaking rapid French as she glanced between me and the other man who’d assisted me. I shook my head, not understanding, then nodded anyway and motioned toward the man we’d saved. She gave me a weak smile and ran off after him.

The other man who’d assisted in the rescue stepped closer toward me. “She thanked you. Thanked us. For saving his life. She said her husband is her world.”

My lungs froze. Then I forced in a deep breath. Moisture welled up in my eyes as I stared toward the emergency vehicle. Everyone around me faded away, dispersing into different directions as I stood alone.

Hannah
was
my world. It wasn’t about trying to fit her in to what already existed. It all needed to
begin
with Hannah.

The Seychelles Four Seasons concierge had taken great care of me, making arrangements so I could take a flight back home two days early. At my request, I’d been supplied with a gel pen and parchment stationery. And during plenty of contemplative time on the plane, optimism ruling my thoughts, I’d drafted Hannah a letter—the most important of my life.