Present Day, Early October
On Monday night, I turned the key on my condo lock. I held the door open and flipped on the light. “Go on in, sweetheart.”
With a passing grin, Lizzie scampered around me into the living area.
I had her pink overnight bag slung over my shoulder, and I dropped it to the floor beside the door.
A wistful smile played at my mouth as I watched my daughter enter my condo. God, I’d been missing her. The last time I’d spent any time with her was Saturday morning before I dropped her back home, and she’d spent the last two nights with Elizabeth. I’d had an early meeting this morning, so I had to ask Elizabeth to take her to school and then she picked her up this afternoon. I’d been anxious all day, wishing the hours away so I could head to Elizabeth’s to pick Lizzie up to spend the night with me.
There’d been something I couldn’t quite read about Elizabeth this evening.
Maybe I was grasping, but I thought I sensed a change, something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Like maybe there was a subtle difference in her eyes. Like maybe there was a flicker of life. It’d been missing for so long, I almost didn’t recognize it, but she’d dropped her gaze faster than I had time to study her, to understand her.
I shook my head. I just didn’t know, didn’t know what she wanted, didn’t know what I could do.
But I knew I was going to have to do something. How much longer would I just sit idle? Doing nothing? An overbearing feeling of helplessness had held me back, kept me down. But I felt it all coming to a head.
I quietly latched the door behind us.
Rays of sunlight streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling windows in my loft. Burning streaks of oranges flamed against the fading blue on the horizon, glimmered across the rippling bay as daylight slipped away.
Lizzie went right for the windows, her favorite spot at my place. “Look at all the sailboats,” she whispered, almost pensive as she pressed her face and hands to the glass. “I wish I got to see the ocean every day.”
I crept up to her side and rested my hand on the back of her head. “It’s really beautiful out there, isn’t it?” I cast her a soft smile.
She returned one that eclipsed anything happening outside. “The ocean is my favorite, Daddy.”
“I know, princess. I know.” It’d become my favorite, too. Something so special to Elizabeth and Lizzie had inevitably become my own. We’d been looking at houses near our beach when everything fell apart. Lizzie had been thrilled, running through each house with unadulterated wonder as she proclaimed almost every single house we looked at as the one. I could only pray one day we would finally make it there.
I nudged her chin. “Are you hungry?”
“Uh-huh.” She dropped one earnest nod, and a sudden cheerfulness took over her expression. “I’m super hungry, Daddy.” She scooted away from the window and into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and peered inside.
Making dinner had become one of her favorite chores. She always wanted to help plan and cook. These cherished moments we spent in the quiet ease of my kitchen had become one of the things I most looked forward to.
“What should we make?” she asked, a flurry of excitement flooding her voice from where it echoed back from the refrigerator. She had her head buried inside, searching through the stock of food I had ready for her.
“I went to the grocery store yesterday to make sure I had plenty of food for you. I picked up some chicken. I thought maybe we make some mashed potatoes and vegetables with it? How’s that sound?”
“That sounds yummy…but I did just have chicken yesterday.”
Wandering in behind her, I kind of laughed as I ruffled a playful hand through her hair while I passed by her. As if she wouldn’t eat chicken every day. I moved to the opposite side of the kitchen and leaned down to pull a large pot from the lower cupboard and set it on the stove.
“You did, huh? Did your help your mommy make dinner last night?”
“Nope! Me and Mommy had a barbecue at Kelsey’s house, and we had barbecue sauce on it, and I ate two whole pieces.”
Normally I would have chuckled at my daughter’s rambling. Not today.
I stilled as a slow sense of foreboding took hold, a shock of ice-cold awareness penetrating deep as it slithered down my spine. It spread out to freeze every cell in my body. With my eyes narrowed, I turned to look back in her direction. Lizzie was leaning over with her back to me, digging through the vegetables in the bottom crisper.
“You went to a barbecue at Kelsey’s house? With Mommy?” I clarified. The words came harsh, forced, because I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to stomach her answer.
Lizzie stood and, with her foot, she nudged the refrigerator door closed. Her entire face glowed as she spun around and danced her way over to me with a plastic bag stuffed with broccoli swinging from her hand.
“Oh, Daddy, we had so much fun. Mommy and I spent almost all day there. I got to play for so long, and I got to help put the sauce on the chicken. I was careful not to burn myself, just like you taught me.”
On its own accord, my head slowly began to shake, and I felt as if I was being led into a massacre, set up for the kill.
This was not happening. I refused to let this happen.
“Here you go,” Lizzie prodded at my side, looking up at me in confusion as she handed me the bag of broccoli, completely unaware that her words had cut me to the core.
For once, the child seemed oblivious to the turmoil she’d spun up in me.
“At whose house, Lizzie?” I asked.
Lizzie gave me a look that told me I was crazy. “I already told you, silly. At Kelsey’s house.”
“Which one of Kelsey’s houses?” My voice came out harsher than I intended it to.
Because I already knew.
Shit.
Distraught, I scrubbed my palm over my mouth and dragged it down my chin. It took everything I had not to shout, took everything inside me not to demand Lizzie give me a different answer than the one I already knew she was going to give. This had nothing to do with her, the unwitting messenger who stood there grinning up at me. No chance in hell would I take this out on her. No chance would I show her that the day she was going on and on about was enough to shred what was left of me.
“Oh…” She giggled as if my meaning had just dawned on her. “At her daddy’s house.”
That asshole. I knew it. I fucking knew it.
I forced myself to stand still, because my control was slipping fast. Steadying myself, I pressed my palms onto the counter. The cool surface shocked into my heated hands. Anger pounded through my system, a raging storm that thundered through my veins, an onslaught of fear and outrage and the brutal sense of disappointment that tightly fisted my chest.
Dropping my head, I sucked in a breath and tried to swallow it down. It just lodged at the base of my throat.
I didn’t know if I was angrier with myself or with Elizabeth.
What I did know was I wasn’t going to let that asshole anywhere near her. Who the fuck did he think he was? Taking advantage of Elizabeth when she was at her most vulnerable?
This wasn’t a fucking game.
This was my family.
I raked a shaky hand through my hair, then forced a fraudulent smile. The act was physically painful. “Why don’t you finish rinsing the broccoli and I’ll be right back to help you get it started, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the images from invading my mind. I searched for my bearings before I started down the hall to my bedroom. Darkness swallowed me as I quietly clicked the door shut behind me. For a second, I stood there, just forcing the stagnant air in and out of my lungs, then I staggered the rest of the way into my bathroom. Blindly I fumbled for the light switch. Light flooded the space, and I blinked to orient myself. Not to the harsh glare shining from the lights above the mirror, but to the cruel reality that I might actually lose her.
I guess somewhere inside me, I’d held onto the belief that one day Elizabeth would open her eyes and really see me. That she’d see me the same way I saw her.
As the one she couldn’t live without.
Shit.
How could I have allowed this to happen?
I held myself up on the counter and dropped my head.
Realization crushed me.
Like Matthew had accused me of the other night, I was a fool.
The worst kind of fool.
After everything we’d been through together, I’d left Elizabeth when she needed me most. Left when life was the most difficult, because I didn’t know how to deal with the pain any more than she did. We’d been blindsided, our foundation ripped from beneath us, nothing there to catch us when we fell.
And when we’d fallen, we had completely fallen apart.
I’d been standing on the sidelines, waiting. Waiting when I should have been fighting.
I lifted my face to find my reflection staring back at me. My eyes swam with torment, swamped in a grief that felt unending and echoed the loneliness that was eating me from the inside out. It was destroying the last piece of me, my last bit of hope that somehow we’d make it out of this together.
But what was Elizabeth supposed to think when she woke without me morning after morning? What was she supposed to feel? Was she supposed to believe I loved her, that I’d stand by her side no matter what came our way, like I’d promised her I would?
Fuck.
I squeezed my hands into fists.
What had I done?
I felt a glimmer of Elizabeth’s touch, felt her mouth near my ear as she promised, I’m going to love you forever.
My chest tightened and my head spun.
The truth was, even though it was Elizabeth who’d forced me out, I’d walked away because it was too hard. Because life was hard and unfair. Because Elizabeth was hurting and she hurt me in return. Because I couldn’t stand to stay there and watch her suffer anymore. I realized now that seeing her that way had cut me so deeply, I didn’t know how to handle it.
I’d had the overpowering urge to shake her, to force her to snap out of it, because all I wanted was to see her smile again. I should have just sat by her side, taken it, endured it, even when the distance between us had seemed insurmountable.
I should have stayed.
I always knew, even though she never came straight out and said it, somewhere inside of Elizabeth, she believed I had let her down.
I had to admit now that I had.
I’d been so wrapped up in giving her perfection, I hadn’t been prepared to hold her up when devastation hit.