Coming Home to You (12 page)

I looked at my watch.

Quarter to twelve.

Mom would probably be home.

“Hey, sweetie, what’s up?” she asked when she picked up.

“Oh, I’m so glad you picked up! Nobody else seems to be able to answer their phone today, and I really need someone to talk to. Maybe it’s silly, but I do. Hell, maybe it’s nothing, but—” I was talking in one very long stream, hardly pausing for breath.

“But tell me anyway,” she said, cutting me off mid-sentence.

I was beginning to feel silly. Would it even make any sense?

“Um. Well, I got a letter in the mail the other day. From Neil,” I started, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder.

“You did? Oh, that’s great! How exciting! A
letter
. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I got a real letter in the mail. No one seems to do that anymore, do they?”

I heard the soft clinking of dishes on the other end of the line.

“Not really, no. Anyway, he gave me his e-mail address so that I could get in touch if I needed to know anything about the house. I sent him an e-mail, kind of just to let him know I got his letter and introduce myself, since we’ve never met. I wasn’t sure if he’d send anything back, but I was really hoping he would…” I trailed off, feeling more and more idiotic with each word.

“Did he?” she asked.

“Yes. I got one this morning.” I realized I was picking a thread on the hem of my skirt that might be vital to overall construction. Probably I should stop doing that, I thought, moving on to a hangnail I noticed on the thumb of my left hand.

“So what’s the problem, Zoë?” I could hear the puzzlement in my mother’s voice, and I really couldn’t blame her. After all, even I was growing confused by my reaction. I stopped picking my hangnail and folded my hands together in my lap.

“I don’t know, Mom. I guess I just hoped for…more? There’s really nothing wrong with the e-mail. I mean, it’s
polite
. There isn’t anything in it like annoying spelling mistakes, but…It’s polite,” I said again.

“And there’s something wrong with polite?” I could hear a hint of the laughter she was trying to resist. “You sound like you’re complaining!”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head and wondering if I was really going to be able to explain. “There’s nothing wrong with polite. But it just seemed so…so…
Sterile
. Do you know what I mean?”

I imagined her staring at me with an eyebrow raised and a look of grave perplexity on her face. No one sane would know what I meant, I was sure.

“Yes. And if I may venture a guess at why you’re so frustrated right now—You were hoping that he would send you an e-mail that would just completely sweep you off your feet and restore your faith that not all the good ones are married or gay or dead. Instead, you got something that seemed impersonal and flat; and that just completely killed all those ideas you’ve built up in your head,” she said.

I wondered how she’d known, how she could so quickly diagnose the situation.

But she was right.

I’d fabricated ideals about this man I’d never laid eyes on or even had a conversation with. I’d taken bits and pieces of details and strung them together to make a “replacement” for the man I’d lost. Neil was safe because he was so far away. Because he was an unknown. Because I’d unintentionally gotten comfortable with the idea that I would never know him. As curious as I was about the man, I had become sure that contact between us would never happen, so idealizing him was harmless.

Until it wasn’t.

“So what do I do now?” I wondered out loud.

“You don’t have to
do
anything, Zoë. Just be aware. And there’s nothing wrong with writing to him when you want to write. He’d probably like knowing what’s going on there, and I doubt Ray keeps him very much in the loop. Men don’t do that.
So write
. Maybe he’ll become less ‘polite’ the more he gets to know you. I’m sure there’s a reason that he and Ray are such good friends, so find out what that is. Now, I have to get off the phone because your father is staring at me and pointing wildly at his mouth,” she laughed. “I guess I need to go feed him.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, grateful to have a mother who seemed to understand me so completely, even when I didn’t really make sense to myself.

“Anytime, hon.”

Chapter 12

To: Zoë Trent

From: Sam Fleming

Subject: One Year

Zoë-

This is not something that’s easy for me to write. Actually, this is something that I kept putting off because I dreaded it so much. Days of promising myself that I would write tomorrow became weeks. Weeks became months, and now months have become a year.

A year.

It sounds so inept. Such a tiny word to encompass so very much.

I know you probably don’t believe me, but I’ve thought of you over and over in the past year.

Wondered how you were doing, wondered if you blamed me the way I blame myself. I know you must be reading this and feeling as though I don’t deserve a moment’s thought, since I pretty much disappeared from your life after Paul died. It wasn’t something I planned—It was something that kind of just happened.

It seemed easier. I know it sounds like the coward’s way out, but it’s the only explanation I can give for it. It doesn’t excuse me, but I’m not looking for excuses. Just forgiveness.

It’s been a year, Zoë, and we’re both living lives that have been changed by that one moment, one loss. I’ve healed much more in the past year than I thought I ever would be able to, but at the same time, I know I can’t fully heal until this one thing is done.

I need to see you again. I need to know that you’re doing alright.

I know it’s a lot to ask, but please think about it.

Yours very sincerely,

Sam

The computer screen seemed to be an incomprehensible blur of words as I sat at my desk, staring at the e-mail and trying to make sense of it.

I couldn’t help but keep staring at the date.

July 12.

It was one that loomed largest in all the occasions of my life, a day that had changed everything. Every decision I made, every thought that crossed my mind. Every thing in my life was viewed through the filter of this one day.

I took a deep breath and blinked, trying to regain focus on the e-mail that had been so long in coming.

Sam
.

Paul’s Sam.

Sam, who had seemed such a presence in Paul’s life.

Sam, who had disappeared like steam on a window when Paul died.

I wasn’t quite sure how to feel as I sat there, reading his message. Angry? Betrayed? Understanding?

I knitted my eyebrows together. Why should he be deserving of understanding when he had retreated like a coward? Paul was dead, and I’d been left alone to pick up all of the pieces. Yes, he’d lost his best friend, but I’d lost the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.

We were both in pain, but he had taken his and run away from anyone who reminded him of Paul.

He hadn’t even come to the memorial.

I swallowed the derisive laugh that burned the back of my throat and closed my eyes.

A memory flashed across my eyelids like scenes on a projection screen, sounds echoed in my ears with vivid resonance. Paul and Sam walking out the door of my apartment that one last time and pulling it shut behind them, a bark of laughter escaping Sam’s lips as the door clicked shut. The last time I saw Paul alive.

I opened my eyes.

He felt guilty.

It was so clear that I wondered why the realization had taken so long.

It’s because you’ve been so wrapped up in your own pain, Zoë.

Tears stung my eyes as I began to read the e-mail again. My mouth was dry, and I felt kind of like I’d been knocked off my feet. He wanted to
see
me? I narrowed my eyes at the screen, trying to decide whether to delete the e-mail or to reply to it.

Did I owe him a response, now, after all this time? He felt guilty, but did I owe him my forgiveness?

I stared at the screen, lost in my own thoughts, completely unaware of anything else going on around me.

Forgiveness.

It was a funny thing. I’d been granted forgiveness so many times in my life, so often when I didn’t deserve it. Now was my chance to give it to someone who was obviously desperately in need of mine.

The hardest part would be doing it.

Sam Fleming had been a fixture in Paul’s life when we’d met—the friend who was always there, like a shadow. Not that he didn’t know when to make himself scarce, but he was generally a regular part of the scenery. Fortunately for me, Sam had given me the nod early on in our relationship, so Paul had never had to choose between me and his friendship with Sam.

He was the go-to guy, the guy who always seemed to have your back, which had always begged the question—at least for me—
why hadn’t someone snapped him up
? He was handsome, with dark hair he wore cut close to his scalp, just enough length to tousle with a little bit of gel; and brown eyes that were warm to the point of being nearly amber. A sharp, angular jaw and very prominent Adam’s apple were both reasons he’d never been successful at poker, as they reflected any slight change in emotion. His Adam’s apple bobbed ferociously whenever he was nervous or uncomfortable, while his jaw worked overtime in excitement or anger. Sam was just tall enough to make a woman feel protected, compact enough to translate the quick strength he possessed for most of his athletic pursuits. He’d spent time in high school boxing lightweight and running, but he’d given up the boxing after one too many broken bones.

From what I knew of Sam and Paul’s friendship, they had known each other for years, though I could never seem to pin down exactly how they had met. I knew for certain that they’d been introduced in college, at some kind of social club or meeting or something—sometimes it sounded like a frat house deal, and sometimes it sounded as subdued as a meeting of the chess team—depending on who was doing the telling. However it had really happened, they seemed to have a bond closer than most brothers.

Sam was successful, too. Not in the overstated, I-wear-a-suit-and-tie-corporate-guy way, but in an unassuming way that made him approachable and relatable. He’d started his own web design company right out of college and had clients that ranged from a local jewelry designer to a multinational corporation that operated from some obscure city in Maine.

And yet, there wasn’t an ounce of computer geek anywhere in evidence when you spoke to him, nor was there any hint of self-made importance.

All of these things made his lack of any real relationships with women in all the time I’d known him a mystery. He’d had a reasonably steady stream of dates, but none that really seemed to interest him enough to last. I had wanted so badly for him to find what Paul and I had found in each other, because I knew he wanted that for himself. He wasn’t looking to be a playboy or the eternal bachelor, and he wanted a family of his own. He’d grown up without brothers or sisters, and he’d told me many times he’d always wished for a big family growing up.

There were times when I felt I knew Sam better than Paul did, though I never would have told Paul this. It would have made him feel left out, made him wonder why there were things that Sam told me that he might never have confided in Paul. I suspected it had more to do with the fact that I was a woman more than anything else. Most importantly, I was a woman he trusted. I was the sister he’d always wanted but never had, and I provided that little element of womanly intuition that he lacked. His mother had died several years before; otherwise, he would surely have sought advice from her on many of the occasions he came to me. We were close, but our relationship was never one that raised any red flags—not in my mind, at least.

If Paul had ever had any doubts, he had never presented them to me.

Despite all of this, despite all the trust I thought we shared, Sam had sacrificed our relationship when Paul died, without any sort of explanation. It was a cruel blow, losing Sam’s friendship so closely on the heels of losing my fiancé; and I still wasn’t quite sure I knew how to handle the situation. I had been so unprepared for all of it, so ill-equipped. There had been no indication that he was the type to simply cut and run, the kind of guy who would abandon someone who truly needed him for support.

Which I had—desperately. Kate was away, my parents were in another state, Paul’s family was almost entirely out of the picture.

I had needed Sam, and he hadn’t been there.

When I had arrived at the hospital, Sam had been there, looking as though he’d been hit by a bus. He was drawn and haggard and visibly shaken.

And he’d barely looked at me. He acted uncommunicative and sharp, as though my presence was setting him on edge. There was no offer of comfort, no open arms to hold onto. He was a stranger, cold and distant in a cold and distant environment, the man I thought I knew shattered into thousands of icy shards.

Watching him leave the hospital—his head bowed in exhaustion, his shoulders hunched—part of me wondered if that would be the last time I ever saw him. Sam was still Sam without Paul, and I should have been able to watch him walk away and trust that. But something, some small seed of fear, made me doubt.

Maybe somewhere in the recesses of my brain I had known something deeper was going on, but I’d never had the chance to find out.

Until now.

“Zoë?” A voice behind me broke through my reverie and jerked me back to the office.

“Hmmm?” I answered, swiveling in my chair to see Ursula, my supervisor, her head poked around the corner of my cubicle, deep concern registering on her face.

“You okay?” she asked, clearly aware that something was going on beyond even the usual strange mood I carried into the office every day.

I nodded, trying to look somewhat convincing so that she wouldn’t probe for any details. Being the resident “office widow” sometimes made that impossible. She raised an eyebrow but seemed to accept the fact that I wasn’t up for sharing.