Chapter Six
Brian watched Hayden and the hospice nurse … What was her name?
Marti, that was it. Marti Stover, or Striven Something like that. She reminded him of a Volkswagen Beetle. Short, round, but dependable.
Marti and Hayden settled his mother into the hospital bed that had been delivered just yesterday. Already the room seemed foreign. The bed and other medical accouterments made it feel as if a slice of the hospital had been transplanted into their house.
Into their home.
It pissed him off, though he wasn’t sure why. He knew the equipment, from the bed with the weird air mattress, to the portable toilet, would make things easier for his mom and Hayden. But simply looking at the room made him feel a sense of impotent rage.
It even had that slightly metallic smell he’d come to associate with the hospital over the last few months. He couldn’t grasp how Hayden had stood working in conditions like this, night after night, year after year. Dealing with the smells and the horror of watching people suffer.
She was efficient as she worked with Marti, arranging his mom. Neither seemed bothered that they were putting his mother into a bed that, in all likelihood, she’d die in.
Die?
A world without his mother?
Brian had never thought of himself as a mama’s boy. But since her illness had come back, he’d begun to realize how much he counted on her.
Even during the years when he lived on the other side of the country, he’d known his mother was only a phone call away. She’d watched over Hayden and Olivia when he wasn’t there. And when he’d come home every month, she was waiting, smiling, as happy to see him as he’d been to see her.
Those times had been filled with tension and recriminations—not from his mom, Hayden or even Livie.
After Hayden had come to tell him she was pregnant, that they were going to have a baby, he’d wanted nothing more than to come home. It hurt a lot to know that Hayden didn’t want or need him there.
Whenever he thought of those years, what he remembered the most was being torn. Pulled between his life in California, and his life in Pennsylvania. He’d known his position on the child-welfare committee had made a difference to the kids in California, but at the expense of the one child he wanted to be with the most—Olivia.
If that wasn’t enough, he’d had to deal with Lisa.…
1993
“Don’t go.”
The window was open, allowing a brisk Pacific wind to billow the curtains, blowing the scent of the city into the room. California was supposed to be a paradise. He tried to remember that, but sometimes it was easy to forget when he started longing for home.
His position on the governor’s advisory committee had led to his paid position on the governor’s staff as the Child Welfare Director. He was having an even greater say in California’s policies. But no matter how often he reminded himself of the fact, it didn’t stop him from feeling as if he had let down Hayden and his daughter. He should have insisted he and Hayden marry and that he should return home, despite Hayden’s threats that she’d leave.
“Brian,” Lisa said again.
He kept packing his suitcase. He didn’t bother looking up, didn’t respond. There really was nothing left to say.
Like a broken record, they had played the same song over and over, every time he got ready to visit Pittsburgh.
“Brian.” Lisa’s voice was sharp and demanding of his attention.
Knowing he couldn’t continue to avoid the scene, he finally looked up at his wife of a year and a half.
He knew her face intimately. The small scattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose, the scar by her right ear where her brother whacked her with a broken yardstick as they played knights.
She’d been fearless and filled with a zest for life when he’d met her. Lisa had been there after Hayden left, when he’d been so confused he didn’t know which way to turn. She’d supported him, been a friend and eventually, romance bloomed. Brian had thought it would be forever, but more and more he wasn’t so sure.
Lisa made it clear she wasn’t happy, but Brian didn’t know any other way to do things.
“Lisa, you were aware of Olivia when we married. You were there with me after I found out. You told me that you understood the situation.” His voice was harder than he intended. But he was tired of doing this whenever he left.
“Yes, but—”
“You knew she was important to me, that I hate living so far from her. Hayden didn’t want me there, and what I was doing here was important. That it still is important. But it doesn’t alter the fact that I love my daughter and need to make these monthly trips home. Calling her every night isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. You accepted all of this when we married.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m not sure why every month, every trip we have to replay this conversation. It’s not as if I go and don’t invite you. You’re always welcome. Mom said last time that she wished they saw more of you. That she’d like to know her daughter-in-law better.”
Lisa’s face had always shown her every emotion. Once, there had been humor. Interest. Love. Now he watched as her anger gave way to a sullen pouting. “You know it’s hard for me to get away from work.”
Always the same.
Did every couple find themselves reliving the same fights over and over? Did any of them find a way out of the ruts?
“You could manage it if you wanted to. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You don’t want to.”
“Brian, I’m an outsider in Pittsburgh.”
“Bridgeville,” he corrected automatically. “We live just outside the city in the small town of Bridgeville.”
“Pennsylvania, then. I’m an outsider. You, your mom, Olivia …” She paused. “Hayden. You all have history. The stories, the inside jokes. I’m not a part of them, of any of that. They’re your east-coast family. You’re different there. I don’t know you there. I know the west coast you. I fell in love with the west coast Brian Conway.”
“I’m me, no matter what coast I’m on. If you came with me more often, we’d build our own stories and inside jokes there … ones that include you.” He gently stroked her arm. “Olivia’s still too young to fly across country on her own. My going there makes the most sense. It won’t always be this way. She’ll get older, she’ll come here. But for now, I need to be with my daughter. See her on a regular basis. And I’d like you to be a part of that.”
Lisa sighed and took his hand. “Well, it’s too late for me to get off work now, but I’ll really try next time.”
He kissed her forehead. “I’d like that. We’d all like that. We want you to feel as if you’re a part of the family.”
“I don’t. Not yet. But I’m willing to give it a chance. Now, do you have everything?”
Next time never came. Lisa put off Pennsylvania, and their fight occurred again and again, until finally she’d said he had to choose, her or Olivia.
There was no choice to make.
Brian had helped Lisa pack.
He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about Lisa now. Their marriage had been a mistake from the beginning. They’d wanted different things and neither had been willing to give an inch.
He studied Hayden, who was dealing so tenderly with his mother.
During their last fight, Lisa had said that if it had been just his daughter, she’d have coped. But she could never compete with Hayden, so she was done.
He’d never thought of it as a competition. If asked, he’d have denied ever comparing Lisa to Hayden. But looking back, he had to admit that maybe his ex-wife was right.
Maybe Lisa had a point. Brian couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved Hayden. Recently, that love had felt brittle and fragile, and he was worried. He wanted to grab on to it, hold it tightly, but was afraid that if he held too tightly, it would break.