Chapter 12
At six sharp I open the restaurant's door and Vivian rushes to find her new friend.
"Colin!" she rejoices when she recognizes him in one of the corner booths, sitting on the red leather couch. His body fills the small space between the couch and the table.
"Hello, Viv." He stands up to her and she hugs him tightly. For a moment his enormous body seems to freeze, with her tiny body curling up on him.
"Hey." He manages to sneak a smile at me and Viv releases him from her grip and sits down quickly on the sofa opposite him.
"You look nice," he compliments her as she arranges her hair behind her ears. I sit down beside her, tense.
"You're a giant," she giggles. "Right, Mama? Isn't he huge?"
"Huge." I let go of a single word and give Colin a look that makes it clear his appearance may work on her, but not on me.
"I brought you something." He takes out a flat, paper-wrapped package that must be from the bookshop.
"What is it?" Her hands hurry to open the wrapper, which she throws aside, her eyes darting.
"If you want to be an astromount, it's never too early to prepare." He seems pleased with himself.
"It's not for her age," I caution. "She can't read."
"She can look at the pictures, can't she?" He turns his face to me.
"I suppose," I reply coldly, keeping my distance.
"Maybe she'll go to NASA, if she doesn't make stupid mistakes," he mumbles the last as if I won’t hear.
"Maybe," I reply defiantly, looking directly into his eyes. "If I can keep her away from the wrong crowd."
"Daryl is gunna die!" The little one interrupts our momentary sparrin.
"Yes?" Colin smiles broadly.
"Look, Mama!" She enthusiastically points to a picture of a spaceship.
"That's the Challenger," I explain. I have no intention of telling her how that story ends, and with one look at Colin I make it clear to him to keep his mouth shut too.
"So . . ." he understands, thank God, "let me guess, a hamburger with no onions and pickles, extra fries and a diet coke."
"Big deal," I roll my eyes. As if I don't know what he's going to order: medium size cheeseburger with onion rings and a coke.
"What will you have, Viv?" he turns to the girl who is busy with her book, occasionally mumbling words like 'super-cool' and lots of 'wow'.
"Waffle!" her eyes pop at me pleadingly.
"Real food first, please," I make it clear.
"Mama!" she protests immediately.
"You know the rules."
"There are rules?" Colin sounds confused.
"Yes, Colin," I breathe air demonstratively. "There are rules. They help us keep order and sanity, when the ground seems to fall from under our feet."
"And what happens if we break the rules?" He insists on not accepting my explanation.
"You don't want to know."
"I'm dying to know." He tilts his head sideways teasingly.
He thinks he will side with her and dictate new rules while making a mess of the good order it took me god knows how long to impose in the process?
"Vivian," I pull my bag from the table, "we're leaving."
"No," she whines in alarm, "I didn't eat Waffle!"
"Let her have it," Colin tries to intervene, but I interrupt him with a withering look.
"You don't get to decide."
"Elizabeth," he puts his hand on mine, his touch tingling up my forearm. Goddammit. I look down at where his hand touches me, and forgotten currents make my mind cloud for a moment to when I was seventeen and his thigh rubbed against my thigh.
"It's just a Waffle," Colin's voice is soft as he raises his hand and leaves a strange sensation behind. Stimulating.
Don't be stupid. You hate him, and he doesn't love you. Get a grip!
"It's not just a Waffle, it's . . ." I breathe deeply, "the boundaries that begin to blur, and before you know it . . ." my voice crackles. The waitress comes and saves the day and Colin stares at me as he orders my food.
"A children's meal with chicken tenders and an orange juice," I insist, "and she'll have a Waffle for dessert."
"And I'll take a double cheeseburger, double fries, and the biggest strawberry milkshake you've got," he surprises me. "Oh, and I'll have a Waffle for dessert too."
The waitress nods and walks away from the table.
"What happened to onion rings and coke?" I wonder aloud.
"Don't know," he shrugs, "I guess I got used to eating more."
"A lot more." Double burger with double fries and a huge milkshake? He eats for three people.
"My calorie burn is high, I'm hungrier than before." He keeps his cool. "I treat myself from time to time, it's not something I usually eat."
"I bet not." If he ate this dish every day, he would not look . . . like that.
"I'm more into cooking," he replies, making me cough.
"I'm sorry?" Since when did he cook? As far as I can remember, the guy was a disaster in the kitchen. If I had not cooked myself, we would have eaten macaroni and cheese from a box or lived on cereal. So, he learned to cook, what else did he learn to do in his spare time?
"It's healthier and more economical than eating out," Colin explains, as if I don't know myself.
"So you cooked those muscles?" I point my head towards his arms.
"I'm taking supplements."
"Of course you are," I reply. "How much does that cost you?"
"Quite a lot." He doesn't take his eyes off me, blue and stormy.
"I'm sure." I try not to remember all the times I looked at them and deluded myself that this was what love looked like.
"I can afford it, my business is profitable."
Ah. Colin's mysterious business. I wonder what he'll tell me about it now.
"I still can't believe it's legit," I blurt.
"Why?"
"You have too much money," I answer straight away. "I don't know many people who can spend twenty five thousand dollars without thinking."
"Who said I wasn't thinking?" He isn't impressed with my accusation.
"You know what I mean," I don't cave in.
"I know exactly," he says bitterly, "you meant that I was the last person you expected to have an impressive bank account and a comfortable cash flow, and you are trying to figure out how the guy who worked in construction might be driving a jeep like mine."
"That's not what I said."
"That's what you said."
"You're twisting my words," I say quietly. "I'm just saying I don't understand how it works."
"I told you, I buy goods and sell them for a profit, how complicated do you think it is?"
"Is that the whole story?"
"Elizabeth, how complicated can it be?" He rolls his eyes. "You just have to know the right people, make the right deals and gain experience and reputation."
"You haven't lived here for years, since when do you know the right people?" When did he make connections in the city?
"Danielle knows them," he mentions the blonde, and my blood starts to bubble up at once. Colin's voice interrupts my inappropriate thoughts of Danielle. "I planned the transition for months, and my business is based on working relationships, it wasn't complicated to move it here."
"When did you manage to build it?" I wonder aloud, hoping he won't insist that I work for him again.
"Once I had enough money."
"From the army?"
"You were in the army?" Nothing dodges my daughter. Her gaze leaps from the book and she stares at Colin.
"Yes, Vivian, I was in the army."
"Fighting the bad guys?"
"Sometimes."
"You won?" she enthuses innocently.
"Okay," I try to interrupt the conversation without success.
"You have a picture?" She leaps to her feet and jumps onto the leather couch.
"Vivian Heart!" I scold her and out of the corner of my eyes I see Colin's face fall.
"Heart," he mumbles, and even I, with all my fierce hatred, can hear the pain in front of me.
"Yes." I swallow the lump stuck in my throat and thank God, and our waitress who comes back with our order just in time. Another quick look at Colin reveals to me that the matter has not been closed.
He doesn't take his eyes off me, but there is no blame. Perhaps only towards himself.
"Sit down," I gently pull Viv's hand and sit her down, praying that the rest of the meal will pass quietly and we can run back home.
"And then Elsa melts all the ice, and they chase Hans away, and Anna and can get married!" Vivian rejoices, again, when she finishes telling Colin the whole plot of her favorite film, from start to finish, after we've finished eating.
"And all Anna needs is to pray Christoph won't change his mind." I can't keep my mouth shut.
"Mama," her scolding tone is accompanied by a smile, "he loves her!"
Colin keeps his mouth shut and doesn't interfere.
"Can I go play?" she pleads in a sweet voice, looking with eager eyes outside the window and at the play castle.
"I'll come with you." I stand up immediately, open my bag and pull out my wallet.
"Don't insult me." Colin's cold voice makes me freeze.
"I . . ." The words get stuck. I wasn't even thinking. It’s just habit.
"Go outside, I'll join you after I pay." He shakes his head in frustration.
"Colin," I feel an urge to explain, but Vivian slips under the table and I have to run after her.
Damn.
My hands are clasping my bag to my chest while I try to breathe and fight my tears. Colin and I sit on a bench in the shade and watch Viv jump all over the castle. Yes, he stole that from us too, the normality of a man and a woman sitting and looking at their daughter. Together.
"I wasn't trying to offend you," I manage to say through the choke. "I didn't think, it was . . ."
"Automatic," he completes the sentence.
"Yes, automatic, like a lot of other things. Like making sure three times that she buckled herself up, and that the door is locked, and that no check has bounced."
"Your checks bounce?" his voice becomes hoarse.
"Not usually no, but the fear is always there. It was a struggle, Colin, it still is. Every day."
"You can't live in fear," he says quietly.
"Shall I remind you what brought me to this state?" I formulate my words carefully so as not to quarrel with him again. "Do you think I thought my life would look like this?"
"I can't change what happened." He doesn't take his eyes off Vivian, and for a moment I think he apologizes to her, even if he refuses to regret what he did.
"Would you change the decision you made, now that you know your daughter, that you understand what you've lost?"
"I told you it was complicated."
"You took everything from us—your security, your love."
"I couldn't stay, Elizabeth." I'm not at all sure I want to hear his explanation, how in one day he just stopped loving me.
"You couldn't stay," I repeat his words. Maybe if I do so enough times, I'll catch up. I'll understand why he disappeared.
"I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have." He looks at me for a moment and then back at Vivian.
"In the end, this is the point we got to, huh. You hurt me, and I hate you."
"Do you really hate me?" his voice is almost a whisper.
"You broke my heart, you left me alone, what do you think?"
"Did you tell her?"
"What?" I frown as I look at him.
"Vivian."He tilts his head in her direction, "That you hate me, that I'm a piece of shit."
"I have never spoken a bad word about you to her. Do you know how hard it is, explaining to a little girl where Daddy is when you have no idea?"
"Did she ask?"
"She rarely asked why you weren't with us. She just wanted to know if you didn't love her. I didn't know how to answer that."
"What did you tell her?"
"That you had to go, and I didn’t think you were coming back. I didn't want her to have false hope."
"You still think I'll leave again."
"Yes." My eyes go back to Viv. It's easier not to look at Colin when I tell him the truth. "I think anyone who ran away once, will run away again."
"I'm not that boy anymore," he mutters.
"That's what you say."
"Do I look like him?" Colin turns his face to me. He seems to be on a mission of convincing me I'm wrong.
"Your muscles are trying to hide the truth, but it's there," I insist. "In your stare, in your eyes, when I look at them, I see you, and you're still that boy."
"Who you loved." The three words that come out of his mouth take me off balance for a moment.
"You are still the one who appeared at my door with a bleeding lip. The one I hugged, who made promises and abandoned me."
"Elizabeth." He doesn't seem to like what I have to say.
"You didn't find anyone better, so you came back."
"You know that’s not true," his voice, though quiet, booms. I turn my head to him and stare at him with my pain.
"How many girls have you been with, Colin?" my voice cracks. "Do you have any idea?"
"Not many."
"Not many . . ." I don't want to imagine him with others. Whether there were few or many, the thought of him with someone else . . . "I had no one."
"Say that again?" He pauses, his eyes searching my face, trying to identify if there is truth in my gaze. He knows I'm not lying.
"Someone had to raise your child," I grumble. "I didn't have time to play games."
"You’ve had no one?" He looks shocked. "Just me?"
"Ages ago."
"Only me," he repeats the words. How hard is it to understand? He knows me, he knows who I am.
"Are you going to repeat that many more times, stroke your ego a little more?" Unlike me, I'm sure he likes the answer he got, but I can erase the smile off his face before it even appears. "It just goes to show you how much you've hurt me, how much my trust is shattered, that I haven’t wanted to be with anyone."
"If it comforts you, I didn't love—" I rush in before he can go on.
"Comfort me?" I snort, "What do I care who you loved? As far as I'm concerned, you don't know what love is."
"You're wrong."
"Am I really? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not. You've had plenty of opportunities to come back, but you chose to stay away from us for all these years, from me and your own daughter, who needed you." I breathe. "I think the conversation is over, we're going home."
"When can I see her again?" He looks up at Viv, who keeps on jumping.
"I don't know. I'll let you know." I stand up and straighten my t-shirt.
"Call if you need something, anything." He stands beside me, and I feel myself diminished by his enormous body.
"Vivian!" I call aloud and wave my hand at her. She continues to jump in complete disregard of my existence.
"Viv!" I wait another moment and try again, and get the exact same response. She doesn't hear me, or chooses not to listen, and I begin to lose patience.
"Vivian," Colin's voice booms over me, "your mother wants to go, let's see how fast you run!"
She hears this, and her competitiveness, which she inherited from him, makes her leap out of the castle and reach us at top speed.
So you listen to Colin?
"Thank you," I grunt, holding out my hand to Viv, who grabs it.
"It's nothing," he answers quietly. "Good bye, Vivian."
"Bye, Colin, thanks for the book," she remembers to thank him.
"My pleasure." His smile widens. "I hope Daryl loves it too."
"He'll die for it. Can I take it to daycare, Mama?"
"You can," I agree immediately. We'll see if Daryl ever says again that no one buys my daughter anything. "Let's go home."
"Bye, Colin!" she calls back at him once again as we walk toward the parking lot.
"Bye, Viv!" He remains standing there. "Good bye, Elizabeth."
I nod quickly and wait for the moment we get into the car and drive away.
"I need to pee!" Vivian whines from the back seat of the Toyota that decided today, of all days, not to start.
"Just another second," I sigh and turn the key for the umpteenth time.
"Pee! Urgent!" she cries miserably.
"Just another second, Viv!"
"It's coming out!" She waves her legs in the air. "Why can't Colin drive us home, doesn't he have a car?"
"I don't know!" I raise my voice and give up trying to get the car to move. Colin has a car, all right. The maniac drives a terrifying jeep while I'm stuck with this shit. "Let's go back to the restaurant, you can go to the bathroom."
She unfastens her seat belt and opens the door quickly.
"Wait for me!" I call after her and hurry out of the car. We'll just go into the restaurant, use the toilet, and call my mother and ask for help, again. How wonderful.
"Elizabeth," my mother sighs as we sit at my dining table drinking coffee, after she came to the rescue and called the towing company. Vivian fell asleep only a few minutes ago, and we're waiting for my father to bring me his car so I can get to work tomorrow. "We need to talk to your father."
"Do you really want to tell him I took Viv for dinner with the guy who broke his nose?" I defy.
"I want to know you're making plans and not letting things just happen."
"We're talking about Colin, remember?" I snort, "What's the point in making plans if he disappears again?"
"The way it looks from here, you're trying to scare him away."
"And that's so terrible?" I roll my eyes.
"I can understand why you want him to suffer, and he earned it honestly, but you're destroying yourself, don't you see?"
I know she is right, but this desire for vengeance refuses to be released. After all these years I'm finally the one with the power in her hands, and it's up to me now.
"Why couldn't he stay away?"
"Is that what you really want?" Her gaze penetrates. "Think of Viv."
"What about me?" I burst out. "What about what I feel, when will I think of me? All I did was for her."
"You're her mother." She doesn't really have to remind me.
"I'm twenty six, look at my life." I sigh in silence.
"You're upset." She puts her hand on mine and presses her fingers into mine. Of course I'm upset. I'm going to be unemployed, dependent on the money I don't want to make use of and the man I can't trust, and worst of all Vivian is dependent on me, which means now she is dependent on him too.
"What kind of a mother am I," I wonder aloud, "that I want to care about myself first with this?"
"Human." She isn't moved by my real distress. "You're a good mother, you've made her your top priority. You're allowed to think about yourself, you deserve to be loved."
"You won't let it go, will you?" I grumble.
"I don't want you to grow old alone because you're scared. Colin hurt you, but it's been years, he's not the only man out there."
"No one will want me." The words roll from my mouth, echoing in the air and dissipating in front of the unhappy look on my mother's face.
"Don't talk nonsense."
"I'm faulty. You know it, I know it, and it's not something I can hide."
"You should stop using that word and trust the right guy to come and accept the situation as it is." She insists that someone will want me. How wrong she is.
"I have a new word for you," I defy her, "barren."
My attempt to push back the pain fails. First I lost Colin, then I was bleeding on the operating table just to wake up from the anesthesia and discover that I'd lost my womb and, along with it, the ability and perhaps the desire to meet someone who would want to start a family with me.
"Elizabeth," her pain comes through in her voice.
"The right guy will come," I continue, "and accept that I can't have children?"
"There are other solutions," she tries to cheer me up, not for the first time.
"The only thing I have is a scar on my stomach that reminds me every day that I'll never be pregnant again. Excuse me if I think I'm defective, if I don't jump into bed with anyone," I mumble as I recall Colin's reply to my question.
How many girls have you been with?
Not many.
I don't know if I believe him or why it even matters. He was with others, while I stopped my life.
"Why do you believe every man you meet will leave when he finds out that you . . ." She refrains from saying the word.
"Why should he stay?"
"Because you are smart, beautiful and loving, and you have other things to give."
"Except for children," I insist.
"If Colin couldn't have children, would you leave him?" Her question lands on me like a ton of bricks. Nothing would have made me leave Colin. Not getting into UT, not the constant struggle for the next paycheck, and certainly not the inability to have children. Nothing would scare me away.
What if my mother is right? I deserve someone to lean on, someone to be there for me. Vivian deserves someone like that who will be part of her life, and her father I have already learned not to trust.
I sip my coffee quietly and meditate over the last few years. The last weeks. I think of the lost boy who returned from the desert, a man I don't know.