Life blooms in second chances
present
Kai was released from the hospital last week. He’s confined to a wheelchair for the next two weeks due to the cast on his leg, after which he can use crutches. He’s not happy about that, but it doesn’t stop him from getting outside with his basketball and shooting some hoops every afternoon. I thought the stairs at the apartment would be an obstacle, since I can’t carry him, but he navigates up and down them from a sitting position on his butt faster than I can on my feet. The kid is unstoppable. And other than some wicked scarring on his abdomen and legs, and special dietary concerns, he’s back to normal. It’s amazing how resilient kids are.
Miranda was cleared of any wrongdoing in the accident, and though I was urged by outsiders to take back full custody, I couldn’t do it. Because not only was it an accident, it was also a wake-up call for her. Miranda has been a loving parent lately, I won’t take that from my kids because of an accident. She’s finally trying. My kids need that. They deserve it. We signed the revised custody arrangement this week, it was a long time officially coming—the kids spend the school week with me and weekends with Miranda as planned. Everyone’s happy.
The kids are with Miranda this weekend. It’s the first time they’ve been out of my sight, and I’ve been alone, for a few weeks. Which means I made good on my promise and invited Faith out on a date.
The sand is warm under my palms and coarse between my fingers. I’m sitting on the beach, resting back on my hands, watching Faith walk out into the water and thinking about all the different ways there are to be attracted to someone. She’s wearing a simple, ivory, cotton sundress, holding the bottom in her hands mid-thigh to keep it from getting wet. The bright colors have been erased from her dreadlocks, and though I loved it because it was bold like her, the white blond that remains is transcendent. She glows like she’s illuminated from within, her personality shining through like rays of sunshine and fire.
When she returns to me, she reaches down and spreads my legs at the ankles. Then she sits down between my legs facing me, her legs bent, inner calves brushing my sides, dress pooled around us providing cover.
“I know I told you this before, but my heart really likes your heart, Seamus.” The way she says it pinches and twists, heartfelt tainted by heartache, and she drops her chin.
“Hey.” I tip her eyes up to meet mine, and I ask softly, “What’s going on?”
“Every day when I wake up, I remind myself that the present is possibility, and the past is a lesson.” It sounds like a fragile confession that I want to hold in my hands and protect from the world.
I run my fingertip across the writing on her collarbone peeking out from beneath her dress and pull the strap down her shoulder to read it, Life blooms in second chances. “Is that what this is about? Possibility and lessons?”
She nods.
“It’s good advice,” I whisper before I kiss the script.
She’s nodding when I pull back and look at her. I watch her eyes scan my face, pausing on my mouth, before locking her gaze with mine again. “I love the way you look at me, Seamus. No one’s ever looked at me like you do. Your eyes speak to me. When I say something funny, your eyes laugh before your mouth does. When I need encouragement, your eyes tell me I’m good enough. When I’m scared, your eyes hold me. And when you’re about to kiss me, your eyes undress my thoughts.” She pauses and looks away before her eyes dance back to mine. “I don’t want any of that to change.”
“It won’t,” I promise her with words while I hold her in a stare.
She’s not convinced. There’s a look resonating in her eyes, but every few seconds it changes slightly or mixes with another emotion. There’s lust and pain and fear and shame.
“Faith.” I never knew one word could hold so much hope, but her name does. I can’t explain it, but I feel like my future depends on it. My sanity depends on it. My heart depends on it. “Please talk to me. You can tell me anything.”
She pinches her lips together painfully until their rosy shade blanches the color away and she shakes her head. “Not this, Seamus. My past is hideous. I made bad choices and bad things happened.”
“Everyone makes bad choices. You don’t think I’ve made bad choices? Jesus, I was married to a bad choice for twelve years. Enough said. I hold an advanced degree in bad choices and oversight.” I’m calmly pleading with her. “Close your eyes,” I say as I close mine.
“Why?” she questions.
“I’m turning off my judgment and your filter,” I’m whispering. “Are they closed?” I ask from behind closed lids.
“Yes.” Her voice. That voice. So close. So trusting. So soft in the darkness.
“Tell me anything. Tell me everything. I want all of you.” I do. So much.
I’m met with drawn out silence, but it’s not threatening. I can feel her resolve building and apprehension fading in front of me.
“How about we both share?” I coax. “You tell me about your past, and I’ll tell you how I feel about you.”
“Do I want to hear it?” I feel her warm words on my face, there’s a faint glimmer of a smile in them.
I’m nodding, even though she can’t see me. “Probably not as much as I need to say it.”
She begins and if it’s possible her voice is even softer and raises goosebumps on my arms. “I was raised in foster care. You already knew that. The last family took me in at sixteen. I left when I was almost eighteen.” She pauses. “Your turn.”
I don’t know if my heart can take the story she’s about to unfold in the air around us, but I wait because that’s all that my life is at this moment, words suspended in darkness. Words I’m determined to make count. “My life is easier when you’re in it,” I offer, “and harder when you’re not. Your presence eases a tension inside me that I’ve carried all my life. You make me hurt less, physically everything’s more tolerable when you’re near.”
“I’m a placebo effect.” She sounds doubtful.
“No. You, your goodness is very, very real. And very healing. Believe me. You made me realize that, though I have MS, I am not my disease. You see me, despite it, and you accept me. That makes everything easier. I don’t feel broken.”
“You were never broken,” she whispers, “You were always Seamus.” I can hear her breathing, deep, measured breaths and when she’s ready, she continues with her story. “The couple was odd. The woman stayed at home and didn’t work. She prided herself being a foster parent, wore the title like sainthood. She wasn’t a saint. She was selfish and vindictive. She ran her house like a dictator. He was a drug dealer. She pretended not to know. He pretended not to watch her mistreat us.”
I know I should keep quiet, but I have to ask, “You told me before your foster homes weren’t bad?”
“Most of them weren’t. I lied about the last one. The truth is ugly.” It’s an apology. “Your turn.”
My turn to take deep breaths. A deep, anxious ache is settling in my chest and creeping up my throat, but I push it away to share. Faith, the present here and now Faith, is what matters and she needs to know. “When you laugh, I feel your joy. It’s a presence that I pretend is all for me. Your eyes sparkle and the smile that takes over your lips is the definition of happiness, radiantly reckless in its bold and heartfelt intent to spread pure joy. You never hide behind laughter, it’s always transparent and true. I love that about you.”
“Can I hold your hands? I need to hold on to you, Seamus.” Words are processed within my mind. But those words bypassed and proceeded straight to my heart. I heard that plea in my heart.
“Yes. Please.”
Her fingertips find my arms, skimming down, and she twines hers with mine. Her grip is tight. She’s preparing herself for what she’s about to share. “He was also an addict. And after nine months in their home…so was I.” The shame in her voice is unbearable.
I lean forward and kiss her forehead. And then I inch down and kiss each eyelid, they’re wet with tears like I knew they would be. It breaks my heart. “When you cry, I want to erase from existence whatever brought you sadness.”
“I don’t remember much of my last night with them. She was gone, and he and I got high while the other kids slept. Cocaine. It was my drug of choice. He wanted to go to the park a few blocks away, even though it was past midnight. Normally, I would’ve said no, we didn’t hang out. But he insisted, and I was antsy, so I agreed. I drank an orange soda he gave me while we walked. The last thing I remember was sitting on the rusty, old merry go round listening to it squeak in protest with each revolution.” Her grip on my hands is tight, so tight, by squeezing it’s releasing the hate and hurt that’s building inside her.
I tell her something she told me months ago, “Give me your hate, Faith.”
She’s crying. “I can’t, Seamus.”
“Give me your hate, Faith,” I repeat. My voice is rising, begging her to purge this admission. “Please. You need to get it out. I can take it. Yell at me if you need to. Give me your hate.”
It’s several seconds before her hate shatters the silence in ragged, hurried, whispers, “I hated him, Seamus. I hated her. I hated myself. I hated my addiction. I hated my life.” She pauses before she blasts the next sentence in angry sobs, “I just hated; it’s what I did to survive.”
The words tear me apart. She’s not hate. She’s not her past. Damn them for tainting her. I release her hands and hug her. She responds immediately. The hug is a mutated version, strength driven by rage from both of us.
Just when I think the adrenaline coursing through her is going to grant her the strength to split me in two, her grip lessens to her normal loving squeeze, and she sniffs. “We. You and me. We should be standing on your doormat, Seamus.”
I smile through the anger, eyes still closed, and kiss her on the forehead. “We should. Later,” I add because all I want to do is take her home with me and never let her go.
She hugs me tighter and sniffs again. “Promise?”
“Always,” I promise.
“It’s your turn, please. I need something good before I finish this. The end isn’t pretty.”
“Your hugs have the power to change people. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. You have a genuine kindness about you that’s so rare and pure, it brings me to my knees. I could live in your arms forever.” I rub her back and hold her, willing her to relax. Her story is housed within her muscles creating tension. She needs to relax to let it out.
It’s quiet for a long time before she begins. Her voice sounds tired like she’s already exhausted from the secret she’s about to share. That’s the thing about secrets, they’re heavy. Getting out from under them requires strength and work. It’s not easy. “The doctors and detective filled me in when I woke up in the hospital. It explained the pain and fear I felt. Along with the drugs I’d willingly ingested, they also discovered Rohypnol in my system.” Her voice is calm, too calm for the knots in my stomach. “He knocked me out…and then he stripped me and raped me. We were found under a tree like discarded trash by a man walking his dog at dawn. I was naked, and he was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”
I wait for her tears to come. They don’t. But mine do. I hold her tighter because I don’t know what else to do. I’m trained to receive bad news and make it better, more manageable. This isn’t bad news. This is horrific. The things human beings are capable of are incomprehensible. “I’m sorry, Faith. I’m so sorry.” I know it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t help. But I can’t sit here and not say anything.
“Do I disgust you now?” It’s the most timid whisper I’ve ever heard. It’s a question that only fears the worst and has already accepted a negative response.
“No. Never. Thank you for trusting me enough to share your past with me. Him, on the other hand? He absolutely disgusts me. Only the vilest type of person is capable of something like that.” It boggles my mind that people can willingly inflict harm on others. “When did you get clean?”
“That night. No drugs since. Though, I almost stumbled when I came back to California. It’s what led me to the shelter and meeting Benito.”
My eyes pop open at her mention of the shelter, and I release the hug. Hers are still closed over tear stained cheeks. It’s dark now, and the beach is empty around us. “Faith, open your eyes.”
Wet eyelashes cling together, but separate slowly to reveal glistening, deep blue eyes.
“You were living at the homeless shelter?” My heart just broke for her. Again.
She nods. “My lease was almost up. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have much money. I didn’t have a choice.”
She didn’t have a choice? Why wasn’t I a choice? “You could’ve come to me. You should’ve come to me.”
She shakes her head, and her eyes soften. “Miranda was there. Hope said you were a family, which I realize now was a misunderstanding, but at the time, I didn’t want to interfere and cause any trouble for you and your kids.”
I swallow back bad choices and their domino effect. “Miranda. She’s like a bad penny. She needed a place to stay when she moved back and took it upon herself to claim my couch. I was desperate. I wanted my kids back, so I let her stay for a few weeks.”
She nods, understanding shining in her glassy eyes. “I get it, Seamus. You don’t need to explain. You did the right thing. Everything worked out, you have your kids again.” She blows out a breath and wipes her cheeks with her fingers. “And Miranda isn’t as bad as I first thought. Benito likes her. Hope likes her.” Even though I’ve known about Hope being Faith’s mother for a few weeks now, it’s still shocking to reconcile their relationship in my mind. “Miranda was the one who convinced her to take a job cooking in the kitchen at the shelter. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s the first real job Hope’s ever had. She loves it.”
“I’m glad you found your mom and got some answers.”
“Me too.” She smiles slightly. “Life blooms in second chances.”
I can’t help touching more of her, stroking the outside of her calves just to reinforce that this is happening. That she’s real. “It certainly does. You’re here with me.”
Her eyes are thoughtful when she opens her mouth to say something. Hesitation steals it away momentarily before she asks, “Do we get a second chance, Seamus? Knowing about my past, does that change the way you feel about me?”
I stand with the aid of my cane, brush the sand off my jeans, and offer her my hand. “Come with me. I can’t answer that question here.”
She takes it, and I pull her to stand in front of me. “Why not?” she asks as she brushes the sand off her dress and legs.
“Because you’re wearing clothes. And I’m wearing clothes. And my body is begging me to answer that question…in great detail…and at great length…with touch instead of words, behind closed doors in the privacy of my bedroom.”
Her lips part in response, and I watch the rise and fall of the swell of her breasts increase as arousal floods her being. “Seamus, do you have any idea how sexy you are?”
Those were the last words spoken that night, with the exception of Faith panting out, “We,” between kisses on the W…E mat.
As promised, I led her to my bedroom, closed the door, and removed every stitch of clothing between us. And for the next several hours I laid bare my soul in every touch…every kiss…every connection. I took away her doubts, quieted her fears, and promised a never-ending second chance.
All without a word.
And as we lay tangled up in the darkness, exhausted, but sated in all ways, Faith breaks the silence. “Seamus?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
I smile because she heard every touch loud and clear.