Alex
Why’s she pushing so hard?
After I tell Bryce the story, she calls me over to the bed, and I climb in next to her.
“I’m so sorry this happened.” Bryce’s arm tightens around me.
“I know you are. But it’s not your stuff to take on.”
“I know.” She pauses. “So, back to the fate thing. Don’t you think that things work out the way they’re supposed to?”
This makes me think of Kyle. My sweet Kyle. It makes me think of Randall. The awfulness of what happened to them. Lila.
It’s as if Bryce reads my mind.
“Awful things happen. But I think it’s people’s choices that screw up fate, if you want to know my opinion. Awful people do awful things, like Clay. Things happen that are out of our control. Kyle died doing what he loved, Alex. But, sometimes, things happen where fate takes a back seat instead of the driver’s side.”
I wonder how Eli’s doing with all this. I know Randall was a friend.
“So, this idea of fate and the Golden Globes,” Bryce continues, “there’s a reason your storyline is one of the highlights of the evening. There’s a reason you were invited. And, if I go as your date, I’ll make sure I pick up all the free swag in the green room. I hear they’re giving out Golden State Warriors tickets this year. Not that you can’t afford them, but free is so much better. Another twist of fate? I think so.” Bryce laughs.
But what if what happened with Grace was the twist of fate that is supposed to push me away? What if that is the twist of fate that people don’t want to look at because it doesn’t bring a happy ending?
I want to call Eli.
I should call Eli. Just to let him know that I’m sorry about Randall.
I miss him.
His voice.
The way his heart beats when I lie across his chest.
The look he gives when he’s thinking.
His hands against my backside.
Time and three thousand miles separate us.
What if it’s supposed to be like this? What if me coming back to Belle’s Hollow was the right choice? In the beginning, I made that choice out of emotion. Out of raw feelings. Out of hurt. Heartbreak.
Bryce’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. I look back to her on the bed, but it isn’t me she’s talking to.
“Yeah. No, not a good time. Call you back.” She hangs up the phone.
“Who was that?”
“Work.”
“When do you have to go back home?”
“When you agree that you’ll go to the Golden Globes. It’s in eight days, and if you’re going with me, we still need to find a dress for you. Belle’s Hollow isn’t exactly the best place to find a dress for this black-tie event.” She drops her phone on my bed. “You miss him, don’t you?”
I shrug.
“You don’t have to be such a badass with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Alex, I see it in your eyes. We’ve been friends for how long? Come on, just come back down to LA with me, and we can go from there. You can stay the week. Besides, you need a change of pace anyway.”
“Well, there’s this manuscript that I need to get right. Apparently, my agent thinks it’s too sad.”
“Just needs some fixing. Also, why don’t we do a book signing beforehand? Let’s get reacquainted with your fans. Get you into a happy place. Maybe your love story will end on a happier note.”
Yeah, maybe that’s it. I just need to be in a happier place to edit the book. I need to make some changes. Not so predictable.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Great. I’ll get it set up. Now, can we go to your mom’s for dinner? I’m starved.”
“Yes. Come on.” I help her up just as Larry opens one eye. “Don’t worry, buddy; I’ll be back.”
“Hi, Andy. Is Dad awake?” I push my hands on the counter.
“Hey, Alex. He just finished creamed corn and steak. I’d say he’s doing real good. Go on, look for yourself.”
Bryce gently tugs on my blouse. “I’ll be waiting out here with Goliath.” She nods to Andy, the receptionist/security guard/nurse.
The smell of assisted living reeks just like a hospital in my opinion. Mom decided to put him here after he took a turn for the worse after what happened with Clay and me. She couldn’t handle him on her own. Was afraid he’d walk off and leave in the middle of the night. She couldn’t bear locking him in a room for his safety. It was a really hard decision on my mother, but I think it was the right one. But what Dad doesn’t know is that who tried to kill me was his own son. The son we, my mom and I, didn’t know about. The one he never told us about. The one he kept a secret. For my own reasons, I have to know why he left. Whether I’ll get the answer or not, I’m not sure.
I push open the door, and Dad’s in a recliner. It makes me think of his at home, vacant. He’s watching the news.
“Hey, Meredith.”
“Hi, Dad. It’s me, Gidget.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He beckons me with his hand. “Come in.”
I bend and kiss him on the forehead. I sit on his bed next to the recliner. The rooms are small but livable.
When my dad’s accountant sent me the first bill from Sunny Springs, I did a double take at the zeros that followed the five. My mom doesn’t know I’m paying for it. She thinks it’s being paid for from my father’s trust that his father set up for him. I’d rather keep it that way.
“How are you?” I start with small talk.
“Good. Where’s your mom?”
“In the kitchen.”
There’s a lot of confusion about where he’s at most days. Many times, he thinks he’s at home. Sometimes, he thinks he’s here—and that’s when the anger sets in. But it’s been a few days since that happened.
“So, remember the incident that happened with Clay? We need to talk about it.”
His eyebrows rise, his eyes fill with tears, and his head slowly turns in my direction. “I-I think so. I-I remember it was sad and that I was scared for you.”
I nod. “Yeah, it was scary for me. But you raised me to be tough, Dad. Remember?”
It’s as if he wants to smile but can’t because the memory just isn’t there. As bad as he wants it to be, it just isn’t.
I try to go a different road. “Remember that time we took a trip to Brooklyn, Dad?”
Dad draws his eyes from the television to me. “Was that in the motor home?”
“I don’t remember. Do you?”
“The bridge,” he says.
“Yeah, the bridge.”
He looks up toward the ceiling, tapping his fingers against his leg. An overwhelming bout of sadness washes over me. The way he sits in the recliner, in his old jean jacket. It’s as if everything is exactly the same on the outside about my dad, and the only thing that’s changed is the only thing we need. The brain.
“Should we give you a haircut?”
Dad smiles. “Hey, that’d be nice, Gidget.” His eyes are empty.
I grab the scissors in the cabinet along with the comb. I just cut his hair yesterday, but he doesn’t remember.
I sit him on one of the two kitchen chairs, in front of the television, and wrap a towel around his shoulders. I get the comb damp. I pull the comb through his hair, and I feel his entire body begin to relax.
“You are a great dad. You know that, right?” I say quietly. I pull the comb through again.
“Remember when I asked you to marry me, Meredith?” he asks.
“I’m Alex. Remember, Dad? I’m your daughter.”
My dad nods, as he always does in this part of the conversation.
I hold my breath, knowing this time it might not hurt as bad.
“I don’t have a daughter.”
“But you had a son, right?” I ask, my words breathy, slow.
The world stops. It leans, stretches, and calculates. It’s a moment I know I’ll remember forever, so I latch on to the scent, the noise, the feel. Every last detail.
Breathe, Alex.
He nods. “Clay.”
Breathe.
“Where is he? I haven’t seen him lately.”
My dad laughs. “Such a great kid. Big smile. Bright eyes.” His voice grows quiet as he toys with his hands.
I see the regret, his own heartache. But he can’t reach that memory now. His mind won’t allow it. He knows the exact feelings associated with the decision to leave that he made that day back in Brooklyn. The returned letters from Philip to his son, Clay, in Brooklyn. The regret he spewed across the lined paper in search of Nancy and Clay, only to come up empty handed.
“I don’t know. Gidget, I feel sad. I’m not sure why. But I’m really sad.”
Pull.
Snip.
Cut.
With life comes heartache. We all make decisions, sometimes split decisions, sometimes well-thought-out decisions. Sometimes good decisions. Sometimes poor decisions. But, with the decisions, no matter which way they turn, regret can be a by-product. Sometimes, that regret is easy to carry, easy to push away, not feel. But, sometimes, those decisions are burdens we carry around in life, protecting them because we’re too scared to face them.
“Can you tell me what Clay was like?”
Snip.
Cut.
Silence.
“Can I tell you what he was like?” I ask as a tear streams down my face. I don’t want my dad to die, knowing he left a child. I want him to know what a wonderful father he was. So I give him our memories from my childhood as I continue to cut his hair.
“Yes.”
“You used to take him on your back, like you were the horse and he was the cowboy, and you used to run around the house like crazy boys. You taught him how to build a fence and ride a horse. You taught him respect. How to love and to never give up. You taught him about second chances.”
Because my dad is a living example of second chances. He might not have gotten it right the first time, but he sure as hell got it right the second time.
Pull.
Snip.
Cut.
In this moment, I realize that I can’t afford to live a lifetime full of regret. I can’t allow the burden to sit and hang in the back of my mind like a heavy, worn-out coat.
I don’t want Eli to move on and marry the hot blonde and have two-point-five kids and a white picket fence.
I want Eli to love me. Marry me.
“Thank you for teaching me about life, Dad.”
He stops fidgeting his hands. He reaches up, pulls me to his side, and looks me in the eye. “Thank you for being so easy to love, Gidget.”
I walk out to Andy and Bryce.
My best friend looks up from her phone, legs kicked up on the chair beside her. “Hey. You ready?”
“Yeah.” I take her hand, and we leave Sunny Springs, not knowing if it could be our last time leaving.
I’ve learned about my grief with Kyle. I have to talk about it. And maybe Eli has brought that out in me.
My mom is waiting for us in the parking lot. She just couldn’t bring herself to go in today. I understand. No matter what, she’ll always be there for my dad. Always. Because that is what love is. Being there to pick up the pieces, even when it hurts.
“Mom, I need to tell you about Eli.” I say Eli like it’s natural, as if it’d been rolling off my tongue since I was a child. “He’s a game warden in Maine.”
I go on and tell Mom about Brand and Merit. How Brand lost Rebecca when Eli and Merit were just kids. I tell her about Rookie. I tell her about how Eli is the kindest, most compassionate man—aside from my father—and just like Kyle, only different. I think, at some point, I’m not sure when, I stopped comparing Kyle and Eli and separated them into two different men. One I lost. One is here—or rather, three thousand miles away but nevertheless living and ready for me to love him for the rest of my life. His life.
His letter he wrote broke down another wall I’d put up. His words, his heart, were smeared across pages, making himself vulnerable, open, to love. Maybe that’s what I need to do.
“Do you love him?” my mom asks.
“Yes.”
“Then, why is he all the way across the country?”
“Because I just realized, I’m ready to eat the lettuce for the rest of my life.”
My mom stares at me. “Eat the lettuce?”
I laugh. “Long story.”
Bryce is in the back seat. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m getting hangry. Can we please go eat now?”
Mom and I laugh.
I turn and look at my best friend, Bryce. If I hadn’t taken a chance on sending her that manuscript eight years ago, our friendship wouldn’t exist.
Funny how fate works.
In this moment, no matter what is wrong with the world, all of a sudden, everything seems so right. Though we don’t get what we want when we want it, life seems to pan out the way it’s supposed to. Some might call it fate. Divine intervention. Karma. In this moment, I am genuinely happy. I’m not happy because of material things. I’m not happy because of what I have. I am happy because of the experiences that have brought me to this precise moment in my life.
I am resilient.
I am woman.
I am a widow.
I am a survivor.
But all of these things don’t define me. If we allow our experiences to define us, then I believe we get stuck—emotionally, mentally, spiritually. But, if we begin to embrace who we are fully, not allowing any label to capture us, then we become whole. We can take our life experiences and help someone else find their own.
I am reborn.
I plan to walk on a path that does not define me but allows me to push the limits. Allows me to refine myself. Allows me to walk uncomfortably in my own skin when life gets hard. Because let’s face it; life will get hard. But it’s how we walk through the hurt, the hard, and come out on the other side of things—stronger, more in tune with who we are.
“Bryce, can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask as we pull up to my parents’ place. “I want to fly to Maine tomorrow. Tell Eli I love him.”
Her mouth drops. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because … you just can’t.” Her fingers twist around themselves.
I cross my arms and don’t even have to ask why again.
“I committed you to Barnes and Noble for two days from now. We fly to LA tomorrow. You have to do the signing.”
“But—”
Bryce stomps her foot. “Woman, listen, LA first and then Granite Harbor.”