Sunday, November 6
(Keller)
Saturday and Sunday fly by, and once again I'm forced to say goodbye to Stella long before I want to. Our weekend was typical, we walked around the city, played at the park, ate hot dogs from the cart on the corner, but with Katie there it was like I was seeing it all in color instead of black and white. The fun was amplified into pure joy. Stella had the time of her life. She laughed almost as much as Katie did, which is saying something; Katie laughs more than anyone I've ever known. She's refined the art of enjoyment and living in the moment. I've never seen anything like it. It's breathtaking. I'm not that way. I try, but I'm too focused on the future, on Stella's future. I lost myself this weekend, and it felt great. I watched the two of them together, and it was hard to not imagine the three of us as a family. Just the thought of it gave me peace I've never known. If there's one person in this world I would like to inspire my daughter, it's Katie.
We even spent time with my father this morning. He's usually working the ER when I'm home on weekends. I don't see him much anymore.
Stella is wrapped around me like a monkey. She's crying like she does every time I leave. It breaks my heart. I rock her back and forth slowly and try to sooth away her sadness. It kills me. I'm stroking her wild, red curls, the ones she got from her mother. "Shh, baby girl. I'll be back soon."
She sniffs and whispers in my ear, "I know, but I miss you when you're not here."
I whisper back, "I miss you, too, Stella. So, so much. But I'll call or talk to you on the computer every morning and every night until I see you next time, okay?"
She nods her tiny head and wipes her wet eyes on my shoulder. "I want to say bye to Kate." She squirms indicating she's ready to be set down.
My beautiful little daughter walks slowly to my beautiful friend and extends her hands up over her head, asking to be picked up. Katie doesn't hesitate. Stella wraps her arms and legs around her, rests her head on Katie's shoulder, and snuggles in. Not much in this world seems right, but what I'm watching now does. Katie holds her tightly but with a gentleness that's calming. It's what I feel when she hugs me, too, and I imagine that peace seeping into Stella now. Katie kisses Stella's forehead. "I'm so happy I got to meet you, Stella."
Stella's head rises to look Katie in the eye. "Can you come back again with Daddy so we can have another play date?"
Katie looks at me, and for a second, gut-wrenching devastation flashes across her face, but it's followed so quickly by a smile that I wonder if I only imagined it. She looks at Stella and whispers, "I would love to see you again, Stella." Katie kisses her on the forehead again before she sets her down. "You take good care of Miss Higgins."
Stella smiles. "I will."
After two more rounds of kisses and hugs and "I love you," Katie and I exit the building and climb into a waiting cab. The ride to the airport is quiet. I hate this part of being a father to Stella. The goodbyes.
It's not until we're on the plane that I feel like talking. Katie is perceptive and has given me the past two hours of silence to live in my head, and not in the real world. She's been holding my hand the entire time. It's the smallest gesture, but she'll never know how truly comforting it's been. I speak without looking at her, "You know something? I've never seen my father laugh."
There's no disbelief or prompting me to explain further. No questions. She just lets me talk.
"He's never played a children's game either, probably not even when he was a child. And you got him to play Go Fish with us, just by asking. You teased him that you were glad we weren't playing Operation because he'd kick our butts...and he laughed. He doesn't laugh." I finally look at her and her expression is blank but open. I shake my head and repeat, "He doesn't laugh."
She smiles sheepishly. "It was funny. He's a surgeon, after all."
I can't hold back a smile. "I know. I got the joke. But what happened this weekend...everything that happened this weekend...was surreal. My daughter is completely, head-over-heels in love with you. My mother addressed you by your name. She only started calling Dunc 'Duncan' last year, and I've known him for six years. He lived with us in their home for a full year, and she wouldn't talk to him. My father told you to 'Come back anytime, dude.'"
She laughs. "It's funny when Shelly says dude, but your dad may have one-upped her." She playfully frowns. "Sorry, I may have been a bad influence with all the trash-talking during Go Fish. I got the feeling he enjoyed it, though, or I wouldn't have done it."
I shake my head. "I thought I was fairly good at reading people, but you take that to a different level. You are simply...enchanting. People can't resist you."
She scoffs and changes the subject. She's good at diverting attention away from herself. "Lily was Stella's mother?"
I nod.
"And Lily was Duncan's sister." It's not a question.
"She was. How'd you figure that out?"
She shrugs like it's obvious. "The hair."
I laugh. "I guess the red hair is kind of a giveaway. Stella takes after her mom. That's a good thing."
Katie smiles. "I'm sure Lily was pretty, but Stella looks a lot like you, too. Same eyes, same smile," she winks at me, "and that's definitely a good thing."
"She does have my eyes. Lily's were brown like Dunc's." Now's as good a time as any to tell the story, I think. "I worked at a pizza place my junior and senior years in high school because I just wanted some normalcy. I wanted to earn my own money, buy my own car. My parents weren't happy about it, but they didn't fight me on it. I met Dunc there, and through Dunc, Lily. Dunc and Lily had their own apartment. Their mom was a drug addict, and they never knew their father, so they'd been on their own for a few years. Dunc is two years older than I am, and Lily was three years older. She was going to nursing school when we met. She was quiet, reserved, and smart. What she saw in a kid like me I'll never know.
We'd been dating for almost a year when she found out she was pregnant. I was a senior in high school and so confused. I knew I loved her, but my future had always been mapped out for me. I was too squeamish with blood to be a doctor like my father, so I was set on a course to become a lawyer like my mother. A baby didn't fit into my parents' plans for me. They were furious. They wanted her to have an abortion. We refused, and I asked her to marry me. I loved her, and it seemed like the next logical step."
Katie smiles and nods. I take that as encouragement to continue and take a deep breath. "The baby was due right around my graduation and when Lily was scheduled to finish up her nursing program. We planned to marry that summer and move to Grant where I already had a scholarship in the fall, thanks in part to my grades and in part to my mother being an alum with a very generous pocketbook. Plans all changed when Lily died giving birth."
Katie's lips part slightly; the sincere reaction of a compassionate person. She's the best kind of listener.
This story is one I've never even begun to share with anyone, let alone one that I've finished. But now that it's out there hanging between us, I want to. "They said the complications were very rare. 'One-in-a-million,' they said. But they were my one in a million. Losing Lily was devastating, but I was also scared to death by the prospect of being a single father at eighteen. I had no idea what to do with a baby. My parents hired a nanny immediately, because in their home that's how a child is raised. It's how I was raised. I did my best, but I don't know what I would have done without Melanie to help me. I skipped my first semester at Grant, so I could be there for Stella. Again, my parents were furious because I was delaying their plans. Don't get me wrong, they love Stella. But I was a huge disappointment. They convinced me to go away to school, and Dunc came with me. He's always wanted to go to college and get into politics. My parents said the best place for Stella was with them and the nanny so I could focus on my classes and eventually have a career where I could support and care for Stella on my own."
She blinks those gorgeous jade eyes at me and asks simply, "What did you think was best for Stella?"
This is the question that haunts me to this very day. "I didn't know. I don't know."
"Keller, why doesn't anyone in Grant know about Stella?"
I rake my hands through my hair. "God, you must think I'm awful."
She shakes her head. "No, I don't." She means it. "I wouldn't be sitting here next to you if I did. I'm allergic to awful people."
I laugh because she always knows how to add humor when it's needed. "I guess there are lots of reasons I don't tell people. She's mine, and a part of me wants to keep her close and not have to share her with more people than I already do. A part of me fears people would judge me for having her so young, for not being the father I should be, for being away from her. I love her so much, Katie. I just want what's best for her. That's all I've ever wanted."
She squeezes my hand tighter. "Keller, you are an unbelievably patient, attentive, engaged, loving parent. Why do think Stella looks at you like she does? Like the sun rises and sets with you? Why do you think she's so sad when you have to leave? You are her world. She loves you."
My throat tightens up with her words. What she's just described is all I want.
She senses I'm getting emotional and begins to trace circles on the back of my hand with her thumb. "Keller, dude, you only get one life to live. Imagine for a moment that you were free of all the expectations in your life. What would you do? How would you live your life with no one watching? What would your future look like?"
I don't hesitate with my answer, "Stella would be with me in Grant. I'd change my major to English. And in a few years, I'd be teaching high school English in a town where Stella could grow up safe and happy." There are tears in my eyes. I should be embarrassed because I was always taught that boys don't cry. Men don't cry. With Katie, I'm free.
She takes my chin in her hand and turns it until I'm looking her in the eyes. She stares at me unblinking for several seconds. She has my attention. "Do. It." It's a command. "Nothing, and I mean nothing, should stand in the way of that, because that is exactly the way your life should be, Keller. That little girl should be with her daddy every day, and you were absolutely born to be a teacher."
She hasn't released me. She's waiting for a response. I close my eyes because I can't look her in the eyes when I say it. "It's not that easy."
"Look at me," she commands again. There's no anger, but the desperation in her voice is unnerving. She cares. She cares about me and what I want. I forgot what that feels like. No one's treated me like this since Lily, and even Lily never pushed me this far. "Please," she says.
I do.
"Raising Stella on your own will be the hardest thing you've ever done. Knowing that another human being depends on you to get her through life? That's hard, and it's tiring, and it's worrisome, and it's scary, but you know what? It's also fun, and rewarding, and fulfilling in a way that nothing else in this world is." She's emphatic. This is too real for her. She drops her hand to her lap.
"You took care of your sister, didn't you?" I guess.
She nods. I wait until she's ready to talk because I know her sister is a topic that's hard for her to open up about. "Grace had Down syndrome. Mentally she never progressed much past where Stella is right now. My mother had issues of her own that made parenting...difficult. So, it was always my job to take care of Gracie. I bathed her, I dressed her, I fed her, I read to her, I played with her, I took her to school. When she was sixteen, and I was fifteen, she was in an accident that left her without the use of her legs. She was confined to a wheelchair after that—"
I interrupt, remembering something she told me weeks ago. "That's why you had the minivan."
She nods and smiles that I remembered. "Yeah, Old Blue was chair accessible." She takes a deep breath and continues. "When I was eighteen, a few weeks before my high school graduation, my mother passed away."
My heart is breaking because this poor girl's life has been so difficult. "I'm sorry," is all I can think to say.
"Yeah." She looks contemplative. "Life was always difficult for Janice Sedgwick. I like to think she's in a better place now. That she's finally happy." She nods. "So, it's okay."
"Where did you live after your mom died? You said your dad wasn't around."
"The months that followed her death were like an avalanche of shit. After the dust settled, I sold everything and Gracie and I rented a place from my mother's old gardener. It was nothing fancy, but it was ours. Grace loved it there. It was the best time of my life. We lived there until she died."
I sit back in my seat and just look at her. You know how you think you know someone? By simply being around them you somehow think you have them figured out? That you know what kind of a person they are deep down? You could literally knock me over with a feather after what I've just heard. The woman sitting next to me on this airplane is the most incredible person I've ever met. "How'd you do it all those years?"
"How could I not? She was my sister and I loved her. Good or bad, I was all she had."
That's exactly the kind of thing she would say. "Who took care of you?"
She smiles, and it shines in her eyes. "Gus. He's always been my best friend. He was my next-door neighbor. His mom, Audrey, is awesome, too. She was like a mom to Gracie and me. She still is."
"He loves you. I thought the guy was going to castrate me over the phone Friday night. It was brutal. I've never known anyone with a relationship like you have with Gus. Two people that close, but who aren't together. It's still hard for me to wrap my brain around."
She shrugs. "Don't try too hard. We're a little weird. Gus's mom swears that she had twins, and we were separated at birth even though he's a few years older. She took one baby home with her from the hospital, and the other moved in next door a few years later."
"I can see that." I'm trying so hard to understand their friendship, but it's so hard not to be jealous of Gus. I want the history they have. I want to know everything about her. I want to be the person she tells everything to. I want to take care of her. I want her.
When she drops me off at my place, I don't want her to leave. "Thanks for coming with me, Katie."
She unbuckles her seatbelt and leans across the small space to hug me. "Thanks for taking me, Keller. I know that it took a lot to share that part of your life."
"Not with you it didn't. You give me courage I never knew I had."
She corrects with a whisper. "I didn't do anything. It was there all along, you just had to find it."
I pull back slightly, knowing that I cannot let her leave without doing something I've wanted to do since the first time I saw her. I search her eyes and reach my hand to her cradle her cheek. She's so soft, and she smells so good. Her wavy hair is wild and messy as always, and she looks so damn sexy. She doesn't resist, so I lean in slowly and hold my breath. When my lips touch hers, every thought and every worry leaves my mind. Everything else vanishes except her. She's all I feel, all I smell, all I hear, all I see, and all I taste. Her lips are so soft as they move against mine, with mine, and when they part slightly, and I taste her tongue with mine, I feel a shudder of pleasure run through my body. Her hand slides up my arm to gently clutch my neck. The sensation of her touch coaxes a soft moan from me. It's a sound in the back of my throat that I can't control. Her touch, her taste; it's almost too much. She must feel it too, because she pulls back. When I open my eyes, I notice that hers have turned dark, like her pupils have swallowed the green.
I say, "Come inside with me." At the same time, she says, "I have to go."
Her breaths are deep and erratic. She feels this. She wants this.
"Why are you leaving?"
She looks away. "I have to."
"What happened to the girl who preached living in the present? Because I have to tell you, Katie, I have never been more present than I am this very moment." Never been more present...
She has both hands on the wheel now. She's still not looking at me. She swallows and I'm afraid she isn't going to say anything when she whispers, "This is different."
"Why? Please. Stay." I'm begging her.
She blinks a few times. "There are things you don't know about me. I'd only hurt you in the end, and I care too much about you to do that."
I'm lost, confused, frustrated. "What? Look me in the eye and tell me you don't have feelings for me. Because that kiss? That kiss was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my entire fucking life. I know you felt it. You fucking felt it."
She looks up at me, and her eyes are glassy. "I did. That's why I need to leave."
I throw my hands up in the air. "That doesn't make any fucking sense."
"I know, Keller. I need to go."
I throw the door open, step out, and slam the door before I open the back hatch to grab my bag. I should walk away quietly, but I'm too pissed not to push her on this. "This is bullshit, and you know it. I don't know what's going on with you, but nothing you could possibly say would change the way I feel about you. I haven't opened my heart to anyone in a very long time, and if you told me you weren't interested, fine. It would suck, but I'd walk away, lick my wounds, and go on with my life. But the fact that you aren't even allowing yourself the opportunity to experience whatever we might turn into, that pisses me off." I don't know if this is a trust issue or a commitment issue, but I don't like to see her deny herself. And that's exactly what she's doing. "I don't know about you, but this connection we have, this attraction, it doesn't come along every day. It's been years...years...since I felt this way. Honestly, I never thought I'd feel it again. Does it scare me? Hell yes. Can I predict the future? Nope. But know this, I would never, ever, in a million years, hurt you. I'd be in it one hundred percent. The ball's in your court, Katie. At some point in your life, you have to trust someone."
I don't wait for a response. I know I won't get one, so I slam the hatch and walk into my apartment without looking back.