Insipid (23 page)

“She’s a perfect combination of me and you,” he commented quietly, a smile touching the corners of his mouth.

“Felicity means happiness. I named her Felicia because that’s what she was to me. She defined my life, my joyous moments.” I reach for my phone and show him the last picture I have of her, in the midst of one of the feather-related pranks she used to play on me. “Look, she even has that wide-mouth laugh just like you!”

This elicits a heavy-hearted smile from him and he turns to look directly at me, meeting my gaze. “Jae?”

“Uh-huh,” I answer, sinking into deep relaxation as I lay in his arms.

“Can I go and get you something to drink? I’d like to speak to you about what happened after you left. I need to tell you everything.”

I scoot myself up against the headboard and turn my head towards him. “I’m ready. No drink needed.”

He sighs and follows suit, folding his hands calmly in his lap.

I push my knees up towards my face and wrap my arms around my legs. “I’m here, Chris. I’m listening.”

He starts to speak. I feel every word he says, just like I’d never been gone.

“The night you left my apartment, my world just crumbled all around me. I realized that I had lost you right there and then because I knew how much I had hurt you. I didn’t leave the apartment for days. I broke it off with her and was determined to win you back.”

I can’t help myself. I find the need to interrupt. “What was her name?”

My question throws him off. He takes a deep breath and looks away. “Katie.”

“Katie with the blue shorts.” I wink at him before reaching over to touch him with my hand. “Sorry, please go on.”

He starts up again, eager to move on from that moment. “You stopped answering my calls and I often wondered how you managed to do that, after everything we were to each other. Could you imagine my surprise when I came across the newspaper article about your engagement to Joshua? I was angry and confused, I felt deceived. Did you love him all along? Were you attracted to him after all? Why did you marry him one month after you left me? I was too young and selfish to put the pieces together at that time. I went to see Joshua shortly afterwards. We had some words and I worked him over quite a bit right before threatening to kill him. He took out a restraining order on me, which affected my prospects of finding a decent job. After your engagement, I packed up my things and moved away. I drifted from one job to the other until I saved enough money to start my own construction company. That’s how I ended up in Las Vegas for a few years. I came in just when the housing market exploded, right before the recession. I’m not going to pretend that my years were not filled with many women. There was one in particular… her name was Emily. I thought that loving her meant that I was in love with her too. We wanted to get married and planned to start a family together. We were together for ten years. And then I woke one day feeling like my entire life was one big joke.”

“God, I know how that feels,” I interject.

He nods his head and continues to speak. I don’t change my position. I’m still wrapped around my legs, staring straight out in front of me.

“When I saw you the day of the funeral, I decided that I could no longer live this kind of a life. I had to admit to myself that I had never stopped loving you. And so I moved back here, replanted my roots, started applying for coaching jobs in the area, and accepted the assistant coach position for the Wildcats. So far, it’s been great. One part of my life feels complete. The other, well, the other is sitting right in front of me now.”

“Oh, Chris. So many years have passed between us,” I say apologetically. “Joshua reached out to me the very next day after the last time I saw you. I confided in him and told him about my situation. He didn’t care that I still loved you. He wanted to take care of me and the baby. I still went to Stanford in the fall, right after our wedding, and he helped me finish school despite having a little one to care for at home. His medical career was just starting and soon enough, we got caught up in the everyday life of working and raising a child. He was good to her. He treated her as if she was his own.”

“I will always be thankful to him for that,” Chris admits. “But I still hate him for snatching you up so quickly.”

“It’s my fault. I played the game for so many years. I thought I could do it. Cia’s death severed the very fine thread that held us together. He did nothing wrong.”

I start to cry because I know I’ve robbed him of the privilege of knowing his daughter. After all the years of guilt and pain and denial, here I was, face to face with the only person I have ever loved. The one who hurt me, the one who deserves to hear of my suffering. “I’m so terribly sorry for keeping her away from you. You didn’t deserve that. No matter what, you are her father. Y-you deserved to know her just as much as I did.” I pause for a moment, finding it hard to speak through my brokenhearted sobs. “I can’t turn back the time to undo the past. How can you ever forgive me?”

“To be honest with you, I think I’m going to be angry about it for a while. I’m going to seek help so that I can talk through it with someone.” He remains calm and focused, brushing away my tears with his fingers.

“I am so sorry, Chris,” I murmur through the tears that won’t stop. “I’ve always been sorry.”

“I know you are. And I’m sorry that you lived through this with Joshua. I’m sorry that he wasn’t able to give you what you needed.”

“I have something else to tell you,” I say softly, clinging to this as a small light of redemption. “She knew about you,” I blurt out. “Felicia. Cia. Your daughter. She was aware that she wasn’t his. After she turned 10, I told her all about you. I told her that she was made with so much love, that I loved her father so much, but it just wasn’t the right time and place for us. She saw pictures of you. She knew she looked just like you and she was proud of it. Out of respect for Joshua, she didn’t want to open up the past until after she turned 21, but she knew where she came from.” I look down at our hands, still clamped together with no sign of letting go. “She asked all kinds of questions about you, Chris—about your personality, about your skills.
She knew
.”

If there were different types of tears for every occasion, these were tears of comfort. He covers his face with his hands and leans towards me so I can hold his head close to my heart. This time, he allows me the privilege of consoling him.

“The other day at the park, you kept on saying that you weren’t good enough for me, when the truth is that it’s me who doesn’t deserve you,” I say sorrowfully. “The lie I lived, the people I’ve hurt… I’m not worth your love and I don’t know to prove to you how much I regret what I did. But when I told you that nobody else would have my heart, I meant it.”

No matter what happens, he needs to know the role that he played in my life.

“Show me, Jae,” he hushes as he aligns his lips with mine and kisses me. “Show me that you never left me.”

I DRIVE BACK
home the next day, after leaving Chris and with a promise to call him as soon as I arrive back in Chicago. We spent the rest of the night reminiscing about our past. I overloaded him with memories of Cia; we laughed and cried together. In the end, we both agreed that he would have to work through his anger at not having been a part of her life, and I accepted full responsibility for whatever feelings may emerge out of this new revelation for him. I’m going to be there for him, and as I process all these feelings, I’ll figure out what that means. Whether as a friend or more than a friend, I realize that we have a lot of work to do.

We’re both grieving for the loss of our child. I don’t think it matters whether I had her in my life for eighteen years or whether he’s only known about her for two weeks. It’s a mourning for a life that was cut short, for a bright light that suddenly burned out, for the waste of a precious heart and soul. She could have changed the world, made it a much better place to live in.

I’m exhausted by the time I pull into the circular driveway of my parents’ home, fully aware that I have a flight to catch in four hours. I lean over to the passenger seat to retrieve my purse when I notice a black Mercedes E350 parked on the sidewalk from my rearview mirror. As I approach the car, I realize that it’s Lucas. He’s wearing sunglasses and is leaned back on the driver’s seat, fast asleep. I tap lightly on the window before opening the door and slipping into the passenger seat. He is casually dressed in jeans, his trademark button down shirt, and Converse sneakers. His chair is almost fully reclined and his legs are stretched out on top of the steering wheel. I lightly caress his arm with the very tips of my fingers. “Luke?”

“Jesus, Jade! You scared me!” he says, bolting upright and adjusting the seat back while removing his sunglasses and furiously rubbing his eyes.

“Sorry. When did you get here? Why did you sleep in your car?” I ask, my voice tinted with humor. “Are these leather seats all they’re made out to be?”

“Very funny. What does it look like? Yes, I slept here—I’m on a stakeout. I knocked on the door and your parents told me you weren’t home. And the leather seats? I don’t know, I haven’t been able to test them yet,” he bounces back quickly. That’s Lucas for you.

“Secret agents don’t fall asleep during stakeouts,” I joke. I see him suppress a smile. “When did you arrive in Chicago?” I ask, keeping a light hold on his arm.

“Yesterday morning.”

“You’re kidding. And you flew here shortly after that?”

“Yes. I asked Taylor to call Noelle and pretend that we had to set up a meeting with you.”

“More covert operations. You’re getting so good at it.” I smirk. But truth be told, I missed him terribly. My heart is doing somersaults at the fact that he’s here to see me.

“It’s not funny anymore. I’m done with it,” he snaps, his eyes penetrating mine, squinting, reprimanding. “We’re going to talk about this today. Now.”

“Okay. But let’s talk in Chicago. I have a flight to ca—”

“Cancel it. We’re spending more time in San Francisco. Just you and me. Lucas and Jade. Not Ms. Richmond or Mr. Martinez. Not MT Media or Warner Consulting.”

I pause for a moment to take it all in. “Okay. But let’s go in to have some breakfast first. My mom and dad are going to be wondering what happened to me.” I laugh. “Look at me, still having to check in with them at my old age.”

My mother opens the door with a wary smile.

“Mama, this is my friend, Lucas Martinez.” I lead him inside by the hand and he immediately lets go of me to give my mother a kiss on both cheeks.

“Very pleased to see you again, Mrs. Albin.”

“Jade? Is that you?” My father bursts in from the dining room with outstretched arms, a cup of coffee in one hand and his glasses in the other. “So, I see you’ve found her,” he comments somewhat sarcastically.

“Dad, this is Lucas. Lucas, this is my father, Francis Albin.” I walk right into his arms.

“Yes, we met him last night.” My father glances at my mother, who shakes her head.

The men engage in small talk while my mother pulls me aside. She doesn’t say a word, just gently takes my face in her hands; I silently close my eyes as she rubs her forehead against mine. It’s her trademark gesture to pull me out of my shell, my pajama moments. “Come back to me, Jade,” I imagine her saying.

I take the silent pause in conversation as a sign that we need to keep moving on. “Is there any breakfast left? We’re starving.”

ONE HOUR LATER
we’re in his car driving along the coast towards Half Moon Bay.

“I’ve made a reservation at the Ritz Carlton, if that’s okay with you. We can even get separate rooms if you prefer,” he says impassively, keeping his eyes straight ahead on the road.

“Okay,” I answer, waiting for a reaction from him. There is none. “I said okay. No separate rooms.”

His face breaks into a wide smile. He reaches his right hand over and rests it on my thigh. I cover it with mine and we continue the drive in silence.

The hotel is nestled on a cliff overlooking the expansive Pacific Ocean. The check in process is quick, especially since there’s a special concierge that caters to guests staying in the luxury suite. He gathers me into his arms as soon as we enter the room. It feels like forever since I’ve stood this close to him. The smell of his cologne, the feel of his skin—these are things I will never again take for granted. My friend, my confidante. My almost lover.