Full Circle (49 page)

She took a shuddering breath, blew it out,
and bowed her head as tears fell from her eyes. “I’m sorry for what
I did to you, Mark. So unbelievably sorry.”

A weight lifted off Mark’s heart as he
wrapped his fingers around hers. “I’m sorry, too, for my part in
all this. I never listened to you. I stormed into a future without
taking you into consideration. I planned our whole life without
asking for your input. No wonder you left. I didn’t let you have an
equal say.”

She shook her head. “No, Mark. What I did was
wrong. I never should have let things go as far as they did.”

“I pushed you away. You didn’t know how to
tell me it was over, because, like you said, would I have really
listened?” He’d been so one-track-minded back then—in a lot of
ways, he still was—he wasn’t sure he would have listened had Carol
tried to tell him she didn’t love him. He was the kind of man who
listened more to actions than words, and Carol knew that. Sure, she
probably could have communicated her actions sooner than on their
wedding day, but she probably hadn’t known how. “You were young,
Carol. We both were. We both made mistakes.”

“But I ruined your life.” She dabbed at the
corners of her eyes again. She’d always been an elegant crier. “I’m
not so out of touch that I don’t see what I did to
you . . . that I don’t know how my actions affected
you.” She sniffled and placed her hand back in her lap. “I was
beginning to think you would never allow yourself to fall in love
again, Mark.”

He hung his head. Guilty.

“Yeah, me, too.” Where was his sweet Karma
now? He met Carol’s gaze again as he released her hand. “But that’s
why I’m here.” He dug inside his pocket and pulled out the rings
and the necklace then placed them on the small, round coffee
table.

“What’s this?” Her blond, daintily arched
eyebrows crinkled.

“Our wedding rings and the gift I was going
to give you on our honeymoon.”

“Mark . . .” She held up her
hand and gave a tight shake of her head.

“I need you to take them.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s time for me to let go of the
past so I can have a future with Karma. I can’t do that when I’m
still holding on to what happened and letting it control me.”

The rings and the necklace were symbolic.
They represented who he’d let himself become. They also represented
his fierce desire to maintain control. It was time to be reckless
again. Spontaneous. Time to let go and let someone—or
some
thing
—else control his destiny. Time to loosen his grip
on every aspect of his life and put it in Karma’s hands.

“I don’t want them, Mark.”

He pushed them closer. “Then sell them and
donate the money . . . or put it in a trust for your
baby.” She’d had a baby last year, right? She could use the money
for her child’s future.

She studied his face for a long time. Then
she turned her gaze to the jewelry. “Are you sure?”

“Carol, these items have been sitting in a
chest on my dresser for eight years. They weren’t made to be boxed
up. Let someone else give them new life.”

After a brief hesitation, she finally said,
“Okay. If it will make you happy, I’ll sell them and put the money
away for Krissy’s future. I can do that.”

“Krissy?”

She smiled. “My daughter.”

He’d never heard whether Carol’s baby was a
boy or a girl. “You had a daughter?”

She nodded. “You want to meet her?”

They were over. He and Carol were finally
done. He finally had the closure he should have sought eight years
ago, and the lightness in his soul confirmed it. All it took was
the two of them sitting down like adults and talking things out.
For him to see her as human again. To see that she’d been hurting
as much as he had all these years. For them both to say they were
sorry.

“I’d love to meet her,” he said.

She stood and held out her hand. He took it
and stood. A moment later, she stepped into him and hugged him.
“I’m so happy for you, Mark. Thank you for giving me this
opportunity to unburden myself.”

He couldn’t believe he was hugging his ex and
not having a panic attack. That he wasn’t on the verge of throwing
up his breakfast. He hadn’t even been able to eat all his lunch at
Rob and Holly’s earlier, for fear he’d only revisit it once he got
here.

“And thank you for hearing me out,” he said.
“And thank you for taking the rings.” He released her, shaking his
head with a bewildered huff. “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

“Because you weren’t ready.” She stepped back
and ran the fingers of her free hand up and down his arm. “And
maybe I wasn’t, either. But we’re both ready now, especially you.
You’ve finally found the woman you’re supposed to spend the rest of
your life with, Mark, and that can be a highly motivating
thing.”

He couldn’t argue with her there.

If he’d known that talking to Carol would
result in such a freeing sensation, as if he’d eradicated all the
dark matter in the universe to allow in only the light, he would
have done it a long time ago. But that’s the problem with fear. It
suffocates you. It shackles your ability to function, reason, and
see the path that’s sitting right in front of you. It’s the snake
that coils around your throat, choking you, squeezing until there’s
no life left.

But all that was gone now. He could breathe
again. Really breathe. And for the first time in nine years, his
future was crystal clear. No shadows darkened the edges of his
mind. No fog obscured the view. All he saw was Karma standing
beside him, in a white dress, holding his hands, taking vows to be
his to love and cherish above all others for the rest of her life.
And for once, the vision filled him with happiness, hope, and
elation. Not panic. Not fear. Just enthusiastic anticipation.

Antonio quietly entered the room, holding two
glasses of red wine, one of which he held toward Mark. He took it
with a nod of thanks. “How’s everything going in here?” Clearly,
he’d been keeping tabs on the conversation from his hidden vantage
point.

Carol slid her arm around his waist and took
the wine he offered her. “Great. Everything’s
just . . . perfect.” She blinked back happy tears as
she nodded at Mark. “I think we’re going to be okay, aren’t
we?”

Mark looked from her to Antonio and back
again. “Yeah, I think we will.”

Carol nudged Antonio toward the doorway.
“Come on. Mark wants to meet Krissy.”

“She’s in the kitchen, in her high chair,
slobbering on a piece of bread.” Antonio took Carol’s hand and led
her out.

As they made their way down the hall, Antonio
exchanged a questioning, intimate glance with Carol. Her smile
widened, and she nodded once. Then he said over his shoulder,
“Mark, would you like to stay for dinner? We’ve got plenty.”

Why did he get the feeling that he and Carol
had planned all along to invite him to stay if things went
well?

“I shouldn’t impose—”

Carol touched his arm. “Please. Stay. It
would make me feel better, and we can talk a little more. The three
of us.”

Mark glanced from Carol to Antonio, who
nodded. “Yes, please stay,” he said. “I feel like I owe you—”

Mark held up his hand. “You don’t owe me
anything, Antonio. It’s me who owes you an apology.”

Antonio appeared to have shouldered a heavy
burden, as well, for his contribution to what had happened eight
years ago.

“And yet I feel like I’m the one who needs to
apologize.”

“Let’s call it even. The past is the past.
Carol ended up with the right man.” Mark grinned. “And I ended up
with the right woman.”

Understanding crossed Antonio’s face as they
entered the kitchen. “We’re even then. I can do that.”

“On second thought,” Mark said, his grin
widening. “You do owe me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“A chance to win my ten thousand dollars
back.”

Chapter 35

A woman can't be alone. She needs a man. A man and a
woman support and strengthen each other. She just can't do it by
herself.

-Marilyn Monroe

Karma sat across from Lisa on the couch in her
parents’ living room. She still hadn’t heard from Mark. She wasn’t
sure if that was a good sign or bad. On one hand, if he wasn’t
calling her, he could be busy unknotting his past and tossing it
out. On the other, he could just be giving her the space she said
she wanted.

“How are you holding up?” Lisa said.

“About as well as I can be.”

“At least your dad has finally come around.”
Lisa and her glass-half-full optimism always knew how to make the
best of every situation.

“True.”

Her dad had finally accepted Mark, more or
less. She couldn’t expect him to be all lovey-dovey right out of
the gate, but at least her dad no longer cursed Mark’s name and was
ready to welcome him into the family. The only problem was, what if
Mark could never move forward? What if he couldn’t get past Carol’s
duplicity and would always hold back a piece of himself? Could
Karma live with that? Could she accept him if he never fully got
over his fear of commitment? Other than that, he was perfect in
every way. Charming, sexy, affectionate. It was only when he had to
face his past that he locked down and became a stranger.

But she wanted all of him, not just the best
parts. She didn’t want to always be thinking that at any moment he
could have a meltdown or withdraw from her. That something would
spark a painful memory and drag him into a pit of despair where she
couldn’t reach him.

Then again, she loved him. As such, shouldn’t
she accept the bad with the good? To support him when he suffered,
and to be waiting for him once he reemerged from his dark moments
and once more became the man she had fallen in love with?

She could drive herself crazy thinking about
this, because her thoughts kept swirling in one long, vicious
circle.

“You know, things could be a lot worse,
Karma.” Lisa curled her socked feet under her and leaned her head
on her hand, which was propped on her elbow against the back of the
couch.

“I know.” She hugged the throw pillow she was
holding more snugly against her tummy.

She and Lisa had gone around and around,
trying to follow her wicked line of thinking about just how much
shit she should accept.

Lisa tilted her head to one side. “The vows
do say for better or for worse, in good times and in bad.”

“That’s if we can even make it to the
wedding. Mark is so terrified that I’m going to leave him at the
altar the way Carol did that he can’t even set a date.”

“Then you set one. Take control.”

“But I want him to be a part of it. I want
him to want this as much as I do and to have a say.”

Lisa leaned toward her and touched her knee. “I know
you do. Every woman wants her future husband to participate. But
maybe Mark just can’t. Maybe you’ll just need to do this for him.
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you, that he doesn’t love you, or
that he doesn’t want to spend his life with you. I mean, like I
told you last night, everyone can see how much he loves you,
Karma.”

Karma sighed and laid her head back on the
arm of the couch. She didn’t want to plan their wedding without
him, but maybe that was the compromise she would have to make if
she really wanted this to work. After all, weren’t relationships
all about compromise?

“Maybe he’ll get his head out of his ass
while I’m gone,” she said. “Maybe I’ll go home, and he’ll have
miraculously moved on and be ready to get married next week.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Gee, thanks. And here I thought you were the
optimistic one.”

“I am, but I’m also a realist.” Lisa sat
forward. “Hon, maybe you’re expecting too much from him. Maybe you
should be happy with what you’ve got. Most women would kill to have
a man who adores them the way Mark does you. You do
not
have
to worry about his eye wandering. Mark isn’t even the slightest bit
interested in anyone else. He only has eyes for you, even if he has
been a lug-head lately.”

“I don’t know, I—”

Her mom’s scream cut her off. In an instant,
both she and Lisa were off the couch, rushing toward the kitchen.
When Karma flew around the corner, she found her dad writhing on
the floor, his hand gripping his chest. Mom was holding him up.

“Oh my God! What happened?”

“I don’t know! He was complaining of
indigestion, and a few minutes later, he collapsed!” Her mom shot
pleading, terrified eyes toward her as her dad grunted through what
sounded like an enormous amount of pain.

“Heart attack,” Lisa said beside her.

Without thinking, Karma snatched the phone
off the counter and dialed nine-one-one.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“My dad is having a heart attack. We need an
ambulance.” She rattled off their address.

She stayed on the line with the nine-one-one
operator, relaying information as her dad’s condition
deteriorated.

On the outside, she forced herself to keep it
together as the operator told her help was on the way, but on the
inside, she was falling apart. Was she going to lose her dad today?
Was he going to die and never walk her down the aisle? Now that
he’d finally accepted Mark, was he never going to be able to give
his official blessing? Never be there to meet his grandchildren?
Never go fishing with her again or do all the millions of little
things that made her Daddy’s little girl?

The train of chaos in her subconscious could
have sent her into an emotional and nervous breakdown if not for
the need to remain calm and get help. Her mom was disintegrating
into an emotional mess. Dad couldn’t help himself. Lisa was—

She spun around. “Call Johnny. He needs to
know. His number is in my contacts on my phone.”