23.
Wren
“Do you think it’s totally weird if I go?” I asked Allison. I was having second thoughts about San Francisco. “I mean, really, if any of us were going to go to San Francisco, maybe it should it should be Ollie? Since Darren’s his brother?”
“Yeah, but it sounds like the two of you really hit it off. And if he’s cool with you going, why the hell not?”
We were sitting out on the deck, sneaking a glass of wine before Nigel and the kids got back from the movies. It had been a few weeks since I’d taken Allison to Boulder, and I was glad to see that she seemed totally fine, both physically and emotionally.
“You deserve it,” Allison continued. “You deserve a little get away, even if it was supposed to be the two of you. You’ll still have a good time. Nigel and I went to San Francisco once, pre-kids, and it was awesome.”
I swirled the wine around in the glass, imagining myself sitting at chic restaurants, by myself. “It just sucks. I’m trying not to mope about it, I’m really not, but the whole thing sucks. I want to see him. But I can’t.”
“Some guys just don’t realize a good thing when they have it. Because trust me, Wren, you’re a catch, and any guy would be lucky to have you. Maybe you just need to give him time. He’ll realize he made a huge fucking mistake.”
I smiled wanly. I knew she was trying to be supportive, but it wasn’t making me feel better.
“That article’s not still getting published, is it?” she asked.
“Oh, shit.” I set my glass down and buried my face in my hands. “I completely forgot about that. I don’t know if it is, I haven’t talked to Hunter in a while. I actually totally forgot about that stupid article.”
“Can you call him and
tell him?”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to. There’s no way they can publish that article about
how fate brought us back together and now we’re living this dream life. Ha ha
ha. What a fucking joke.” I stood up. “I need to go find my phone. I’m calling
him right now.” I found my phone on the kitchen counter.
“You can’t publish the article,” I said when he picked up.
“What do you mean? It came out great! I think you’re going to be really pleased when you see—”
“We broke up.”
“What?” I could hear the surprise in his voice. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“But . . . wow. The two of you seemed like such a great couple. You two were really . . . in love.”
My stomach clenched. “I guess things aren’t always how they appear.”
“I’m sorry, Wren.” Hunter coughed. “That was insensitive to say. It’s just . . . you two really did seem to have chemistry. I’ll stop, though. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”
“I feel bad enough as it is—I don’t think it could get much worse. Consider this free rein to say whatever you want.”
“Well . . . I can’t pull the article. It’s too late.”
My stomach unclenched enough for it to flip, a wave a nausea rolling over me. “Wouldn’t you know—I feel worse.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He really did feel sorry; I could hear it in his tone. But it didn’t matter how sorry he felt for me, because that wasn’t going to make Ollie want to get back together, and it wasn’t even going to prevent the article from being published.
If completely losing my shit and bawling hysterically might have changed the outcome, I would have considered it, but I knew that the article was going to be published regardless of what I said or did. So, I just thanked Hunter (for what, exactly, I didn’t know), and then got off the phone. For theatrics, I threw it across the room, which momentarily did make me feel a tiny bit better.
Allison looked at me expectantly as I made my way back onto the deck and to my chair. “Well . . . how’d that go?”
“I don’t have good news to report,” I said grimly, reaching for the wine bottle. “It’s too late. Cue public humiliation.” Fuck the wine glass; I just pulled the cork out and took a big swig straight from the bottle. “Can someone just put me out of my misery now? Please? I’m aware I might sound a little overly dramatic but an article, about me and my now ex-boyfriend, is about to be published in a national magazine.”
“What do you mean it’s too late? I thought these things took forever to come out.”
“I think they usually do, but this is different. They were already scrambling to fill the slot where the original article was going to be, so this was kind of a last-minute thing. If they pull this one, there’s going to be a big blank spot. Or at least that’s the way Hunter made it sound.”
“Oh.” Allison was quiet, looking into her empty wineglass as though some sort of answer might appear there. “Shit, Wren. I’m sorry.” She held her hand out for the bottle, which I gave to her after taking another swig. She put her glass down and drank straight from the bottle, too. “Then I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out of town for a little while. This trip to San Francisco isn’t just something for fun—at this point, it seems necessary. You sure as shit deserve it, and trust me when I say that if I could go with you, I would in a heartbeat.”
And just hearing her say it like that made me think that it was the right thing to do, and perhaps what everyone said about things happening for a reason was correct.
I decided it would behoove me to schedule one more appointment with Dr. Mike before I was to leave for San Francisco. I wanted to hear him say that he thought I was doing the right thing, that a visit out there would be healing, that when I came back I’d feel so much better.
Instead, he said, “Do you think you’re running away from your feelings?”
“No,” I said, even though that’s exactly what it was. Was that really such a problem? We lived in a small town and even though I might not ever actually see Ollie again (though chances of that were unlikely; I’d eventually run into him or see him drive by or something), it was like I could feel his presence, I could sense it. Even now as I sat there on the couch, watching Dr. Mike write something on that yellow legal pad of his, it was like I had a little radar in me that was tuned to Ollie, and knew that he was not all that far away, going about his business. “I mean, maybe it is a little. But I was just broken up with. I feel like I need the space to regroup. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“So, you think it’s a
good idea?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“Why did you start coming to therapy in the first place, Wren?”
“I started because I wanted to stop using men for sex. I didn’t want to be sleeping around the way I was and I thought maybe talking about it would help get to the underlying cause.”
“Which we determined was because you wanted to feel in control. You wanted to take back the control you felt you didn’t have the night you were attacked. And often, when a relationship ends when we don’t want it to, there is a feeling of a loss of control.”
“Right,” I said. “He broke up with me, and no, that’s not what I wanted.”
“I would just hate to see you regress back to your old ways during your trip to San Francisco.”
“I’m not going to start sleeping around out there,” I said indignantly. “If that’s what you’re implying. And really—San Francisco is the perfect place for me to go because it’s full of gay guys.”
Dr. Mike wrinkled his nose in an expression of distaste.
“That wasn’t a homophobic comment, by the way,” I added. “I’m just saying, if I wanted to go somewhere just to sleep around, San Francisco would not be my first choice. Lena thinks that San Francisco is basically a mecca for crazy people, which we also know is completely not true, either. It just seems like a place people can go if they don’t want to be judged for liking whatever it is they like. Somewhere you can go and not have to feel guilty about things.”
“Do you feel guilty?”
“Of course I do!” I said. “But we already know that! I feel guilty about everything, at least in regards to Ollie. I don’t think we need to go over all that again, though! I mean, don’t you have it all written down on that yellow pad of yours?”
“We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.”
I leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of what he’d written. He tilted the pad back so my view was blocked.
“Seriously,” I said. “What are you writing on there?”
“Just taking notes. I do that with all of my clients.”
I sat back on the couch. “It’d be funny if you were really just doodling on there or something.”
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“Well, it’d be funny if you were.”
“Is this really what you want to be discussing right now?”
“I thought you just said we could talk about whatever I wanted to.”
He sighed. “We can.”
“Maybe that’s what I want to discuss.”
“It doesn’t seem overly productive.”
I looked up at the ceiling, wondering how many minutes, how many hours, I’d spent sitting in this office, talking about my feelings. Had it helped? Was I just telling myself it had because I’d spent the money on it? “Maybe none of this is that productive. I mean, am I just supposed to keep coming to see you forever? I still feel exactly the same about everything. I don’t think this has changed a thing.”
Dr. Mike put his pen down. “Wren, no one is forcing you to come talk to me. If you feel that it would be appropriate to end your sessions—for the second time—then we can do that.”
I felt very claustrophobic all of the sudden, like the walls were closing in, but not just the walls in this office, this whole town. Its smallness, which I’d always liked, was now something that was trying to drown me, and I had to get out. I needed to get away, and suddenly, going to San Francisco seemed like an absolute necessity, not a choice.
This was a journey of firsts for me. I’d never been on a plane before, and the feeling during takeoff was both exhilarating and completely terrifying. I had the window seat, and I peered out of that little rectangle as the ground got further and further away, disappearing completely as the plane was enveloped in a cloud.
“Wow,” I breathed.
The woman next to me looked over. “First time on a plane?” she asked.
“That obvious?”
She smiled a little, an act that her face didn’t seem entirely comfortable making. “I don’t fly often, either,” she said. “The last time I flew, in fact, I was a young person. And I remember it being quite the novelty.”
“It is. But it’s also kind of strange, when you think about it.”
“I try not to. Because if I did, I’d probably have some sort of anxiety attack.”
I nodded, unsure of what else to say. She did not seem to be the sociable type of person who would just strike up a conversation with someone because they were sitting next to them, but I was also getting the feeling that she wanted to talk, too. Maybe it quelled the anxiety she had about flying.
I took the magazine out of my purse and started to flip through the pages.
“Do you live in San Francisco?” the woman asked.
I closed my magazine and smiled, pleased that she would mistake me for someone who lived in the city. Then I remembered what Lena had said, thinking that it was just a place for crazy artist types. I know I certainly didn’t look artistic, so did that mean I was looking a little crazy? I guess that wouldn’t be that surprising.
“No, I’m just going to
visit,” I said. “Really, a much-needed vacation. I’ve never been there before.
Are you? Going to visit?”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together in a thin line, looking decidedly
uncomfortable about the whole thing. I got the feeling that this was not any
sort of vacation for her. I was going to go back to my magazine because it
didn’t really seem like she wanted to continue the conversation, but then she
suddenly said, “I’m going to visit my son. Who is living as a woman.”
“Oh,” I said.
“This is the first time I’ve seen him . . . her . . . in almost fifteen years. My husband refused to come, even though I know he misses him.”
“I think it’s good that you’re going out there, though,” I said. “I’m sure your son . . . er . . . daughter . . . I’m sure she will be happy to see you.”
The woman blanched at the pronoun, but took a deep breath and smoothed her short, graying hair down. “I appreciate your kind words. I’m trying to keep my expectations low. I know that probably sounds horrible, but I’ve found that if I lower my expectations—with all things, not just this—that I am disappointed far less. So, even if I go out there and he . . . she refuses to see me, or it goes horribly, or . . . I don’t know, something happens, even if that’s the case, I won’t be disappointed, because I’m not expecting it to be great.”
I nodded slowly, thinking about this. It honestly sounded depressing as hell, but maybe she was onto something.
“I wish you the best of luck,” I said. “I hope it exceeds your expectations.”
The woman smiled dryly. “It won’t take much for that to happen.”
I’d told Darren that I would take a taxi wherever I needed to once I landed, but he insisted on coming down there to pick me up.
“It’ll give me an excuse to get the car out of the garage,” he’d said.
It was quite a car. I’d been nervous that I might not recognize him, or that maybe he wouldn’t show up, but as I walked through the automatic sliding glass doors, pulling my little suitcase behind me like a dutiful pet, he was right there, sitting in the driver’s seat of a sleek-looking black BMW convertible. He waved.
“Hey!” he said, a big smile stretching across his face. “I would’ve come in to meet you, but they want us to keep moving!” He nodded in the direction of a police officer who was waving another car on. “I popped the trunk; just throw your bag in the back.”
I did as he said and then I went around to the passenger side. For a second I considered bypassing opening the door and just hopping over and in, but then I figured I’d end up failing spectacularly, so I opened the door and got in like a normal person would. Darren leaned over and hugged me with one arm.
“Great to see you,” he said. “And I’m really glad you still came out here. Even if it was supposed to be the two of you.”
I buckled my seatbelt. “Well, I appreciate you having me.”
He put the car in first and the car zipped off. It was probably the most luxurious car I’d ever been in and it felt more like we were hovering over the ground as we left the airport.
“Flight okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, it was decent.”
“I would’ve gotten you guys first class but I figured that would’ve made my brother more uncomfortable.”
“No, you’re already being more generous than you need to,” I said. “Besides, I had some interesting conversations.”
“I bet you did.” Darren smiled, then glanced at me. “So . . . what the eff happened with you two? I’m no serial monogamist by any stretch of the imagination, but you two made a really great couple! Anyone could see that.”
Just hearing those words made me want to cry, because I knew he was right, but I was not going to shed any more tears over this. It’s not like we’d even been together for that long. So what if we had earth-shattering sex? So what if I doubted I would ever feel toward anyone else what I felt toward him? I just needed to forget the whole thing. Maybe hanging out with his brother wasn’t the best way to go about doing this.
“It just . . . wasn’t meant to be,” I said, though I didn’t believe those words for a second. If Ollie and I weren’t meant to be, then I probably wasn’t meant to be with anyone. I’d end up being the crazy cat lady, married to her business. The future looked bleak.
But I wasn’t going to be able to wallow in my pity for long. We were on a stretch of freeway for a while, the hills golden, just like you’d expect them to be, water to my right, which Darren said was San Francisco Bay. Then, as we got closer to the city limits, I saw colorful houses built onto the hills in front of us, blues and bright pinks and mint green and sunshine yellow. It was like a colorful bouquet of flowers, except they were square, and just the sight of them made me smile. We went beneath an underpass and then another, and then I could see the skyscrapers to my right. The warm sun that had been out in full force when we’d left the airport was starting to give way to a cool, dense fog. It felt like a fifteen-degree difference, and my forearms were covered in goosebumps.
“Summer in San Francisco,” Darren said. “It’s been foggy for the past couple days, but it should be sunny tomorrow. A rare treat. So, we will definitely go out and enjoy it. I’ve been working so much lately, anyway, that I could really use a day to not really have an agenda and to just see where things take us. I do have a few places in mind, of course. But we can just take it easy for the rest of the day, if you want.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said. “I think I need some R&R.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got the guest room all set up, we can put some Enya on, burn some incense . . . whatever you want.”
I laughed. “Can you get me a full body massage with a really hot guy? That might help take my mind off things.”
“Absolutely, but he might not be into girls.”
“I’m joking. That’s really the last thing I need. Well, the massage would be nice.”
Darren’s house did, in a way, feel like I was at some sort of exotic spa. There was a spotless marble foyer and high ceilings and lots of natural light. In the living room, a magenta orchid was on the glass-top coffee table. Expensive-looking paintings adorned the walls and the air inside smelled fresh and slightly sweet, like lavender.
“You want to just Netflix and chill?” he asked. “And I do mean that in the most literal way possible. You like Thai food? I’ve been craving some Thai lately.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
And if it was at all strange to be out here at my ex-boyfriend’s brother’s house, it didn’t feel that way in the least. Maybe it was because I was trying to have low expectations, but hanging out with Darren, watching bad movies, eating toodmon, red curry with sticky rice, and mama kee mao, straight from the cartons, was exactly what I needed.
Later that night, I lay in bed, happy that I was in a new place, getting to experience new things, but wishing that Ollie was there with me. This bed was certainly large enough. I stretched my arm out and felt the cool sheets next to me, tried to imagine him being there instead. What was he doing right now? He hadn’t tried to get in touch; he’d probably moved on, probably didn’t even think about me anymore. Guys could do that. Girls could too, though, and I was suddenly barraged with memories of all the times that I had hooked up with a guy only to not return his calls the next day. Some of the guys didn’t give a shit, but some of them had, especially those where our time together had actually gone rather well. None of that had mattered to me; I’d let them go all the same. I hadn’t bothered to think about how they felt. Clearly, what was happening now was karma.
What I should really do was go out there and sleep with a couple guys, remind myself that Ollie certainly wasn’t the only fish in the pond, that sex still felt great, whether or not I was having it with him.
I closed my eyes.
I ran my hands up and down my thighs, imagining they were his. If he were here right now, right here in bed with me, he’d be kissing my neck as he stroked my inner thighs, his touch warm and electrifying. I slid my hand up higher and then slipped it into my underwear, running my fingers through my pubes, making a mental note to trim them next time I got the chance (though what did it matter if I wasn’t going to be sleeping with anyone?). I started to rub myself, rolling my first two fingers over my clit, not touching it directly, but moving in a gentle, clockwise motion. My hand was smaller than Ollie’s, but I imagined it was his anyway as my thigh muscles tightened and relaxed and the juices started to flow. I brought my other hand up to my breast and squeezed, then pinched my nipple, hard enough to hurt but not too badly. It felt like some sort of energetic channel had opened up, located deep inside me, where the feeling was the strongest, but it was radiating outward, engulfing the rest of my body.
In my mind, he was right there, and I was climbing on top of him, sliding his dick into me, my breath catching in my throat as it happened. The way we fit so perfectly together, the firmness of his grip on my hips, the look on his face. He was so handsome. I could see his face, the look of exquisite pleasure, his eyes closed, top teeth biting into his lower lip. All because I was making him feel that way.
My breathing got faster and the feeling washed over me with increasing intensity. It was going to swallow me up, it was going to submerge me, I’d drown in it. I didn’t care; I wanted to. I wanted it to sweep me away. I pressed my lips together to keep from crying out as my whole body tensed, my toes curling, back arching high off the bed, the whole time Ollie’s face was there in my mind, as clear as if he were really right there next to me.
The next morning I woke up, for a second completely confused as to where I was. But then I remembered, and I settled back in the soft sheets, the down comforter like being enveloped in a fluffy cloud.
It was the smell of coffee that eventually roused me. In the kitchen, Darren was cracking eggs in a bowl.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said. “I’m making breakfast.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’ll just have some coffee—”
He gave me a stern look. “If you’re on the divorce diet, that’s going to stop right now. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be anything crazy; just some eggs and croissants and coffee—of course—and then we’ll go out and do fun stuff. I’ve got the day off today, so I’m going to show you the town. Mugs are over in that cupboard,” he added.
I smiled. “That sounds lovely.” He was probably thinking that if he packed the day with enough stuff, I wouldn’t think about Ollie.
We spent the day walking around the city, taking Muni when we needed to cover a farther distance than we felt like walking. But mostly, I felt like walking because it was exhilarating to be somewhere new and to see things I’d never seen before.
It also made me start to think of what the possibilities might be like elsewhere.
We got some more coffee and croissants at a little French café in the Castro and then walked around. The fog had lifted and the sun was out and people were walking around in tank tops and shorts and sunglasses. The outdoor seating at every restaurant we passed was full, and handsome men walked hand-in-hand, talking, laughing, everyone giddy because of the plentiful sunshine.
Even if I had wanted to mope, I wouldn’t have been able to.
Around lunchtime, Darren took me to a gourmet deli and we got sandwiches, which we took over to Dolores Park, a sprawling green with an amazing view of downtown way off in the distance. People were parked on blankets and towels; it was like being at the beach, minus the water.
“This is great!” I said, stretching out on the warm grass, the sun beating down on me.
“Isn’t it? All we need is some beer and the day would be complete.”
We lounged there for a while, until I could feel the skin on my face tightening, the effects of a mild sunburn starting to take hold. I didn’t care; it felt too good.
“So, is there anything that you’d really like to do?” Darren asked. “We’ve seen a lot of cool stuff, but if there’s anything that you’re really dying to do, you should tell me and I can try to make it happen.”
“You know what I’d like?” I said. “I’d like to see the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean before. In real life, that is.”
“Absolutely!” he said. “Though I hope you don’t mean to go swimming. That you’d have to do on your own.”
“No, I don’t think I’ll go swimming,” I said. “I just want to see it, dip my toes in, maybe.”
“Well, we have two choices. We can go back to my place and get the car, or we can walk over to Duboce and Noe and hop the N to Ocean Beach.”
“I’m quite enjoying taking public transportation,” I said. “So, why don’t we do that?”
“Sounds like a plan. Though I will warn you—there’s a good chance the sun will be completely gone once we’re out at the beach. That’s just how it is out here.”
We got up, stretching, and left the park, walking over to where we’d catch Muni out to the beach. While we waited, I started thinking about the restaurant.
“I’m just going to give them a call and see how it’s going,” I said, digging through my purse for the phone. I wasn’t going to admit it, but there was a teeny tiny part of me that hoped Lena would tell me that Ollie had stopped by looking for me.
“Good afternoon, Ollie’s, this is Lena,” she said when she picked up.
“Lena! Hey! It’s me,” I said. “How’s everything going?”
“Wren! Hi! So good to hear from you. We’re good! Holding the fort down. We were pretty busy this morning but things are starting to slow down now. How are you?” No mention of Ollie.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear things are going so smoothly.”
“Yeah, they are. I know you were probably a little nervous leaving the place, but you have nothing to worry about. We miss you, of course. But things are going really well.”
“That’s great. You know, I might as well just stay out here and not even bother to come back—oh, shit, our train is here. Okay, Lena, I’ll talk to you soon!” I hung up and tossed the phone into my purse.
When we got to the beach, Darren was right: the sun was mostly obscured by a blanket of fog that was trying to roll in, and there was a cool breeze that blew my hair back away from my face. It felt like a completely different climate than the one we’d just left at the park. I took my shoes and socks off and stood in the sand, feeling it between my toes. There were a few people walking the shore, and there were seagulls flying around, their cries sounding almost like some sort of demented laughter.
“Here it is,” Darren said.
“It’s so big.” Maybe an obvious thing to say, but it was. I’d seen land that had stretched as far as the eye could see, but I’d never seen water. The horizon line was a distant blur obscured by the fog, but even still, you could sense the vastness. “I’m going to stick my feet in,” I said.
“Just be careful,” Darren told me. “This beach is known for its strong currents.”
“I won’t go far,” I called out over my shoulder as I walked down to the water. The waves had frothy whitecaps, the water a bluish gray. The wet sand was cool and compact, and I stood there at the water’s edge, waiting for a wave to roll up far enough to get my toes wet.
It wasn’t as cold as I was expecting it to be. It was cold, yes, but not freezing, and I took a step, then another, closer. I pulled the bottoms of my pants up so the water could rush around my ankles without soaking the fabric. A big wave broke though, the spray soaking me. My breath caught in my throat and then I was laughing, because it felt good. Refreshing and cold like it was washing away something I hadn’t realized I needed to be rid of. Without thinking, I dove headfirst into the next wave, the power of it pushing me back, but my momentum enough that I broke through, the water swallowing me up.
I resurfaced, still laughing, knowing that I probably sounded and looked like a lunatic. But that just meant I wasn’t crazy, didn’t it? Because you were only truly crazy if you didn’t know it. I knew full well how it looked, and I could see Darren rushing down to the water’s edge.
“I’m okay!” I yelled, waving, hoping that it didn’t look like the universal drowning sign. I stood up, seaweed brushing against my arm. My shirt clung to me, felt like it weighed fifty pounds. The cold air blew and I shivered, my skin covered in goosebumps.
“What are you doing?!”
Darren’s voice sounded far away. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” I shouted back.
And I really did feel amazing. I felt cleansed, purified, completely washed clean of all the shitty feelings I’d been feeling lately.
“Are you insane?” he asked. “That water must be freezing! And we don’t have a towel!”
“I needed to do that,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know it probably looked crazy.” My teeth clacked together.
“Look, honey, I totally understand wanting to just jump in the water with all your clothes on—I might’ve had the desire to do it once or twice myself—but I never actually followed through. One, because that water is cold as fuck, and two, because there’s probably sharks or some other huge-ass predatory creatures lurking about. Never mind the fact that it’s freezing and we don’t have a towel! Here, use this to dry your hair.” Before I could say anything, he was pulling his t-shirt off and patting my wet hair with it.
“You don’t have to get your shirt all wet!” I said.
“Your hair is going to be dripping all over you if I don’t. And besides, I’ve been focusing on strengthening my core muscles lately, so I might as well show them off.”
I cast a glance at his torso, which was indeed sculpted and smooth. “You look great,” I said.
He gave me a dry look. “Why thank you. Wish I could say the same about you, but you look like a drowned rat. Let’s get back to my place so you can change out of those clothes.”
When we got back to Darren’s, I took a warm shower and used some expensive shampoo that made my hair smell like coconuts. When I got out, I put on a dry shirt and some yoga pants and wandered out to the living room, where Darren was sitting, typing something onto his phone. I went over to the side table and looked at one of the framed pictures that I’d somehow missed before.
“Is that Ollie?” I asked, picking up the picture.
“Sure is,” Darren said.
“And that must be your mom.” The picture was the two of them sitting at a picnic table. Ollie was looking at the camera, smiling, and his mom was looking at him, a matching smile on her face. “She’s beautiful,” I said.
Darren nodded. “She was. She had a hard life. Our dad was an asshole; I don’t know how much Ollie’s told you, but he certainly wasn’t going to win any father-of-the-year awards. Mom stuck it out, though. I have no idea why. Well, she probably didn’t want to break up the family, though we would’ve been so much happier without him.”
“He hasn’t told me that much,” I said.
“Probably because it’s a pretty depressing story to tell. She was finally getting to live her life and then she finds out she has cancer. I should have come back more after she found out, but I didn’t. Things were just getting started for me in terms of work, and I really never thought I’d set foot back in that state again. That is, of course, completely selfish, and my mother deserved better, but there’s not much I can do about that now. I did go back for a little while after Ollie went to prison.” He came over and stood next to me, looked at the photograph. “He was probably fifteen in that picture. Always a good kid. Our mother just couldn’t believe that he’d done what they said he did. Though I think she would’ve forgiven him that, if he would’ve come out to see her those times she went up to visit. He never came out though. Which, funnily enough, I can understand.”
“I guess I can, too. I wouldn’t have wanted people to see me like that. But, probably more than that, I would’ve wanted to see my family and friends. I would’ve been more selfish about it.”
I sighed and set the picture back down.
“You could call him, you know,” Darren said. “It might help.”
“I don’t think it would. There was a part of me that thought he was going to call, or he’d come by, right after he broke up with me, but that never happened. I think he’s moved on. Or just forgotten about me. And if I called, it would probably just annoy him and make me seem needy.”
“Breaking up is never easy. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“I know. But I am glad that I still got to come out here.”
Darren smiled, and it was like looking at a well-groomed version of Ollie. My heart ached. “I’m glad I get to be the silver lining,” he said.