Always Something There to Remind Me (39 page)

“I’m sure she is,” he said, holding my gaze and speaking quietly. Gravely. “But I haven’t seen her in five months.”

Something in my chest lurched. It was immediately dampened by caution. After everything I’d been through with this man, and all the time in my life I’d spent getting over him, there was no wisdom in jumping to conclusions. “You haven’t?”

Five months?

“No.”

More information, please
. I tried to still my pounding heart and had the passing thought that if this visit didn’t mean what I was sure, deep down, it did, then I might never get over it this time. “Why is that?”

He looked at Cam. “Would you mind,” he asked, “if I took your mother out in order to talk? I think we have a lot to catch up on.”

“Absolutely!” she said with a smile.

“Wait, don’t I have a say in this?” I asked.

“Not really,” Cam said.

He smiled at her, then turned his gaze to me. “You heard your daughter. Maybe we should talk about this, just the two of us.”

“I … don’t know.” I didn’t know anything.

“Erin. Please.”

I swallowed hard. There was a lump in my throat that I was pretty sure would never go away. “Maybe it’s too late.” I straightened my back, as if that would lend credibility to the idea of my lack of interest.

He sighed and leaned against the doorframe, a half smile playing at his mouth the way it always did when he knew I didn’t mean what I was saying.

And he was totally right, of course. There was plenty to say.

Which made tears spring to my eyes. “I can’t do this,” I said to him. Then I looked at Cam and said, clearly about five minutes later than I should have, “Go to your room.”

She looked like she’d just been caught watching something wildly inappropriate on her computer. “Oh! Sorry. Okay.” She scurried off.

I watched her disappear down the hall and around the corner into her room. Then I returned my attention to him. “This is crazy.”

“It has been for a long time.”

“I don’t know what you want, but I’m not sure I can go through this.”

He took a step toward me. “You know what I want.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know anything.”

“What do
you
want?” he asked. “That’s the question.”

It took a little while for me to find my voice. Because I knew what I wanted. Of course I knew. On some level, I’d always wanted it. But did that make it
right
? “It’s been a long time since that was your question,” I said to him. “I’m scared to answer it.”

“What are you scared of?”

I sighed and shrugged, holding back tears with everything I had. “Everything.”

“Mom?” Cam called from around the corner. “Can you come here just for a minute?”

I held Nate’s gaze. “Not right now!”

“
Please?
”

I broke eye contact. “Fine!” This was ridiculous. “Wait here,” I said to him. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded his assent. Like he was ready to stand there in my foyer all night if that’s what it took.

I started to walk away, then turned back to him. “You’ll really be here when I get back?”

He gave a laugh. “I promise. I will wait forever.”

A sigh caught in my chest.

I went to Cam’s room and the short walk felt like it took forever, each step taking me treacherously away from what might well turn out to be another one of those realistic dreams I had about him.

I wanted to stay with him, to keep him there, to keep him
real.

“What are you
doing?
” she demanded as soon as I got to her door.

I was taken aback. Her words were like cold water on me, bringing me right back to the present. “What are you talking about? I’m trying to handle a
very
difficult situation. What do you think
you’re
doing?”

“I don’t know, maybe trying to stop you from making the same stupid mistake you’ve made over and over?”

“The same stupid mistake
I’ve
made?”

She nodded impatiently. “You’ve made, he’s made, everyone’s made.
God
.” For a second there, she sounded just like Roxanne. “What
ever
. It’s late on a freezing winter night and he just showed up here saying he hasn’t seen his wife, or maybe his
ex-wife,
in months. Even
I
know what that means! Now is your chance.”

I shook my head and found myself pacing back and forth in front of her. “No, now is
your
chance. At least it
was
. But my stupid romantic choices have cost you over and over again. You had a chance to have a normal family, a
sister
, a father figure who lived in the house with us and was there full-time, and I blew that. I blew it for you. Because of silly, childish notions about romance and love and ideals that couldn’t possibly have withstood the test of time.” Tears burned in my eyes and spilled over uncontrolled. “I’m sorry.”

“Mom—”

I held up a hand. “If I go out there and chase a teenage dream off into some John Hughes movie sunset, I will be the worst mother who ever lived!”

“
Why?
”

“Because…” Well, why? Because I didn’t marry a man I wasn’t in love with? Because I’d held out and now the man I
had
been in love with for twenty-three years had shown up at my door with what seemed to be his heart on his sleeve? Because if I went with him, I showed my daughter that there is power in true love, and faith, even if you have to wait for a long time to get to it?

I was going to him. It had been over for so long, but now I knew—I
knew
—this was it.

“See?” she said smugly, and for a moment there she was much older than her years.

And I was much younger.

I looked at her, and could see—just barely—the child she had been, there in the face of the woman she was becoming. I had no regrets. If I had done all the things I’d just spent so much time wishing I’d done differently, then I wouldn’t have had her, and that thought was simply untenable.

My life
had
gone right; it had gone exactly as it needed to in order to bring me here.

“Mom,” Cam said firmly, clearly sensing my wobbly uncertainty. “
Please
do this. You
need
this.” She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “You’ve spent my whole life sacrificing yourself for me.
Please
do this one thing for yourself.”

She was right.

“You stay here,” I cautioned her, following a sudden urgency to move the earth, if necessary, to do this thing. “I’m going out for just a little while. I’ll have my cell phone if you need me.”

She beamed and clapped her hands together quietly. “Yay!”

“We’re just going to talk.”

“I know!”

Were we?

Would it stop there?

“Keep the door locked,” I said unnecessarily. I’d stayed home alone all the time when I was fifteen, almost sixteen, I don’t know why I worried so much about her, but I knew tonight was one night I really needed
not
to worry.

“I
will
.” She giggled. “And Mom…”

I stopped. “Yeah?”

“He’s really cute.”

My heart thrummed. “Yeah.”

She paused and frowned. “Shorter than I expected, though.”

I laughed. “But good-looking.”

She nodded. “Totes. Have fun!”

I went back to the foyer. Nate was fiddling with the knickknacks on my foyer table.

It was nice to see him like that, looking strangely at home in my place, with my stuff.

I caught myself. It was stupid to start thinking that way. Yes, my instincts told me where this was going. He’d intimated as much too. But neither of us knew where it would end tonight.

Or maybe both of us did.

This was no time to start counting on my assumptions. I might as well just beg him to kick me in the heart and get it over with.

“Sorry,” he said when he saw me. He set down a picture of me holding Cam as a baby. He came toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t mean to ambush you like this. I’m not all that great at this kind of thing. The … romantic move.”

The warmth of his touch was comforting. “It’s okay.” It had been too long for me to play coy. It
was
okay. It was more than okay.

In fact, I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

“Oh, Nate…”

He looked toward the bedroom where Cam was singing loudly with a Weezer song and then said, “So … you want to go outside and talk?”

“Sure. Yes.” What I wanted was to take him into my bedroom for a solid week. “Good idea.” Given what had already transpired between us, this conversation had to be between us alone. We needed to
feel
alone.

I grabbed a sweater from the hook by the door and followed him out, shrugging into it.

Nevertheless, I was immediately cold in the brisk air.

Without asking questions, he took off his coat and put it over my shoulders, just like he’d done the first time we’d met. It was warm and smelled like him. I pulled it closer around me.

“So what happened with you and Theresa?” I asked. “Did she leave you for greener pastures?”

He laughed quietly and shook his head. “Not exactly. That would have made things easier.”

I stopped. “You left her?”

“I had to.” He turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

“Why?” I breathed.

There was so much weight on his answer. So much. This was the moment that could change not only our futures, but also our past.

But Nate didn’t seem to feel any weight pressing on it at all. “I’d rather love you and be alone than love you and be with her,” he said simply. “Or anyone.”

And there it was.

Finally.

The moment I had waited for, for so long.

“You love me?” I tried to swallow, but my throat was tight.

He kept his gaze fastened unwaveringly on mine and gave the smallest nod. “I love you. I have
always
loved you. And it’s pretty clear to me now that I always will.”

“And even if I say no to you right now, even if I tell you it’s too damn late and you blew it a long time ago, you’d rather be alone than go back to the beautiful and perfect Theresa?”

“Baby, I’d rather be in a monastery than live my life trying to convince myself that one more woman could hold a candle to you.”

His use of
baby
made me come unglued.

He moved in and put his arms around me, holding tight, stilling my shaking emotions with his deep calm.

He drew back and looked into my eyes. “I love you,” he said, with more sincerity than I’d ever heard from a man.

“But—”

He kissed me. And whatever I was going to say or ask disappeared with our breath, rising into the cold air.

Because whatever had gone wrong—with him, with me, with us—I knew what was right.

And I was never going to let that go again.

We stood there, clutched together, for a long time, breathing each other’s breath, drinking each other in. Then it hit me—the only possible next move.

“You want to go for a ride?” I asked, excitement building deep within me.

“A
ride
?”

I nodded. “You know. In the car?”

“Sure.” He looked a little confused. “Where do you want to go?”

I tipped my chin up and looked at him, smiling and crying at the same time. “Now, where do you think I want to go?”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. He smiled, that charming thief smile of his. “Down River Road? Violet’s Lock?”

He remembered.

And heaven knows I remembered.

The weight of heartbreak fell off my shoulders like a bad costume. There was a lightness in my heart that I almost didn’t recognize.

Almost.

But I
did
recognize it. It was myself. It was deeply, elementally me. And I loved this man.

“Perfect!” I said, but my voice was tight with emotion.

He smiled and reached for my hand and we started to walk.

We crossed the parking lot, hand in familiar hand, got into his car, and drove, away from the present, away from the past, and straight into our future.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the people who kept me sane in various ways while I wrote this unusually difficult book: Patrice Luneski, Paige Harbison, Jamie Taylor, Steve Troha, Annelise Robey, Meg Ruley, Mike McCormack, Dana Carmel, Kim Amori, Nicki Singer, Mimi Elias, Anita Arnold, Connie Atkins, Devynn Grubby, Jami Nasi, Mike Beall, Carolyn Clemens, Martina Chaconas, Russell Nuce, Mark Bozek, Cinda O’Brien, Sue Conversano, Susi Keffer, Tatjana Kruse, Zarathustra, Melodious, Rose and Lily, and THM.

Thanks also to Sean Osborn and Dan Luneski for hitting the road in emergencies. And sometimes doing the clean-up afterwards.

As always, thanks to Jen Enderlin for her brilliance in every way, and for seeing things I can’t.

And finally, thanks to those guys who were there, then, and raised me to be the monster I became, much to the dismay of later boyfriends: Gregg, Doug, Jamie, Brian, Roger, and Eric. I appreciate the fact that you taught me to throw a punch, and that you threw them on my behalf now and then, but sometimes I wish you’d taught me to block better.

Also by Beth Harbison

Shoe Addicts Anonymous

Secrets of a Shoe Addict

Hope in a Jar

Thin, Rich, Pretty

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME
. Copyright © 2011 by Beth Harbison. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Harbison, Elizabeth M.

    Always something there to remind me / Beth Harbison. — 1st ed.