Of Happiness (8 page)

“Okay.”

W
hen I’m back in his car my hair is devoid of tangles and clothing is back in its proper place. He folded the convertible top away, leaving our bodies washed in sunlight as we drive. When I’m buckled into my seat, I tug my oversized sunglasses out of my purse and perch them on my nose.

“Any other cars I should know about?” I ask as he steers the Bentley toward the highway.

One hand steers the car and the other stretches across the center console. He nudges back the cotton of my skirt and rests his hand just above my knee, curling his fingers around my thigh. A blast of heat sends sparks of energy sizzling through my body, trying to distract me from the task at hand.

Gently he squeezes my skin. His voice is low when he speaks. “After today you’ll know it all. But this is my only other car, I promise you.”

Sinking back into the decadent leather seat, I close my eyes briefly and soak up the moment, Harris’ grip on me emotionally and physically. The rest of the day promises to be difficult, but for now I indulge in the pleasant sensations. Harris releases my leg and I follow his hand with my eyes to the control panel where he begins pressing buttons. “Timekeeper,”
the first song I performed at Rusty’s open mic night, fills the air around us.

“Nice song,” I comment drily.

Harris flashes me a wicked grin, though I can’t see the emotion in his eyes because they’re hidden behind his shiny, mirrored sunglasses.

“My supremely talented girlfriend introduced me to this band.”

On impulse I reach down and cover his hand with mine, squeezing lightly.

“When you’re in the audience at Rusty’s, it makes performing in front of a group much less daunting,” I murmur. When my hand drifts away, he begins lightly drumming his fingers against my bare skin in time to the music.

The ride southeast mostly remains quiet, though occasionally Harris catches me studying his profile and offers his playful smirk. Harris hasn’t told me where we’re going in Michigan, but instinctively I know it’s the town where his brother died. Despite what looms ahead of us, I’m comforted by his reassuring presence.

A little over an hour later, he exits the highway, navigating the streets like he’s done it many times before. We pass by a large, white sign welcoming us with cheerful green letters to New Point, Michigan. The route takes us through the main drag of a quaint beachside town. There are boutiques, restaurants and bars, a school, library, and town hall.

Not long after we exit downtown New Point, Harris turns the car into a narrow, tree-lined road. A massive, shingled house with a four-car garage stands proudly at the end of the driveway. He turns the car around the circular drive and puts it into park outside the two story entryway. With the car turned off, the music disengaged, it’s silent. Harris watches the house with his lips pressed into a flat line.

“Beautiful home,” I say softly when he doesn’t make any comment.

Reluctantly, he pulls his sunglasses off his face and places them in their case. Harris’ eyes flutter closed and he inhales a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

“I won’t go inside,” he informs me gruffly.

My chest aches at his tremulous expression. The immensely painful memories that this place evokes are obvious.

“Whatever you want, Harris.” In a mirror of one of his gestures, I tug his hand into mine, so I can brush my lips against the back of his hand. At the sensation, his eyes pop open, revealing raw emotion.

“Walk with me?”

“Anywhere,” I agree, unbuckling my seatbelt and climbing out of the car. When I meet him outside the driver’s side door, I wind my arm around his waist, letting him lead the way toward a stone path to the left of the front door. He swings an arm around my shoulders, clinging to me. The walk is short. We stop on the side of the home next to a swinging bench chained between two sturdy trees. Harris pulls me with him as he moves to sit in the corner of the bench. He arranges me so his chest nestles my back and my legs stretch out across the length of the cranberry bench cushion. One arm drapes along the length of the backrest and he drops his chin to rest on top of my head. Behind me, he’s rigid.

We sway back and forth silently for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of birds chirping and nature settling around us.

As much as I want to hear directly from Harris why he’s so thrown by being here in Michigan, I wait patiently for him to speak.

“This is the first time in twelve years I’ve come here… since Cooper passed away,” he tells me tensely.

“Must be immensely difficult.”
To say the least.

“More than I can express, ethereal Edith.”

It’s the first time in half a week that he’s used our nickname game. Despite our topic of conversation, I’m reassured by the familiarity.

“I’m no angel,” I reply.

“I disagree,” he insists. “After Cooper died I was stuck in a perpetual state of purgatory. Very little made me truly happy, least of all the bullshit relationships I’ve had with nameless women. I didn’t think I had any right to be happy, not after I lost him. And then I met you.” Harris stops speaking, his voice catching. Swiveling my body, I turn into him, wrapping my arms around his middle and hugging him tightly.

“It wasn’t your choice, Harris; you didn’t want it to happen.”

“No, but it was his,” he responds morosely.

I angle my body so that we are making eye contact. “What does that mean?” I ask with a voice full of dread.

“The story you heard probably went something like this—I took my young, impressionable brother up to the lake house for a college graduation party. It was a raucous affair, wild enough that I got so drunk I thought it a good idea to let my brother play beer pong.”

He lifts a hand to scrub at his short hair. “Well, the party was no more than twenty people. Close friends, not any person in the vicinity who wanted to pop in. Yes, I was drunk, but I’d never let Cooper touch the stuff. He was on medication that didn’t mix well with alcohol.”

My mouth suddenly feels dry. A gnawing anxiety in my stomach tells me that the awful story is about to get much worse.

“He played the game with me, but I drank all the beer. We kept winning, and I kept drinking and drinking. When my girlfriend dragged me to the bedroom, I was too drunk to consider leaving Cooper a bad idea.”

My arms involuntarily twitch, trying to impress comfort and get our bodies closer still.

“He didn’t fall.”

After he says the words, I inhale sharply.

“No,” I whisper.

“There was a note.
I’m sorry,
it said,” Harris whispers as his arms fall around me. “And I was fucking some girl when I should have made sure my depressed brother didn’t jump off the roof.”   

His words slice through me. I shut my eyes briefly, my heart beat echoing in my ears. It’s worse than I had ever imagined.

“Harris, baby, I’m so sorry,” I say softly, the words sounding completely inadequate.

“When I called my parents, God, I’ll never forget the sound my mom made. It was like her heart was ripped right from her chest. They trusted me with him. They trusted me to keep him safe, and I let him die.”

At his words, I pop up, placing my hands firmly on his shoulders and staring deep into dark gray eyes. I desperately want to lessen his grief. “Stop. Stop, Harris. You can’t think like that. We cannot control the actions of others. As much as we wish to correct the decisions of our loved ones, force them to make the right choices, we
can’t.
”

He blinks roughly at the liquid that’s formed in his eyes. “That’s what my therapist told me,” he admits. Using the pad of my thumb, I brush at the corner of his eye and wait for him to continue.

“Claire and Cooper were the best of friends since he was born. They’re what’s called Irish twins, born less than a year apart. I wish I could say after he died she changed, but she’s always had trouble telling the truth, among other issues. Clearly.”

“Harris”—my voice is unnaturally quiet—“There’s no way we can move forward without discussing Claire. But here? This place is too sacred.”

The words are just barely out of my mouth when he hauls me closer and captures my lips in a possessive kiss. He slants his head to the side, running his tongue along the closed lips until they part for him. I put all my love into the kiss, release every smothered emotion into this second.  

At the end of the kiss, we keep our faces close, breathing in each other’s air.

“Thank you for listening and not judging,” he says between heavy breaths.

“Whenever you want to talk to me, I will listen without judging,” I vow.

“We didn’t just come here to sit outside,” he says reluctantly, shifting me, so that I’m standing. He rises to his feet and shakes his head like he’s wiping away the memories. “I need to pick up some paperwork. It’s in the entryway.”

“What kind of paperwork?” I ask him as we make our way back toward the front of the house.

“I’m selling this place,” he says shortly, extracting the key from his pocket and shoving it into the lock. He doesn’t allow me to enter, darting in and returning with a legal-sized manila envelope.

“After Cooper was gone, my parents wanted nothing to do with the property and deeded me the house. I’m sure you have more questions about why they left.”

I nod my confirmation.

“That has to do with my sister,” he says. We walk back to his car, he opens the passenger door for me, and I slide into the seat. “Since they gave it to me, I’ve had a caretaker maintaining the property and rented it to different people over the years.”

After he shuts the door firmly, Harris moves stealthy to the driver’s side, climbs into the car, and presses the start button. “You gave me the courage to let go of this place. I’m selling it.”

“Me?” I utter in alarm.

“It happened as soon as I saw you that day in the kitchen; my view of life started shifting. You showed me a chance for something more than just loneliness. But the biggest impact you had was when you told me about your family. I thought how easy it could have been for you to be consumed by depression. But you let go of the things and people that hurt you to make the best of your life. You forgive… your dad, the shitty things that have happened to you. But more than that, you live every day to be a woman that your mother can be proud of. I don’t think Cooper would want me to carry this guilt every day. Like your mom, he’d want me to live.”

He hasn’t pulled out of the drive yet, just left the car humming and my mouth gaping. Harris found a side of me no one else has ever uncovered or cared to discover. There’s no pretense, no need to put up a front. With Harris, he sees and accepts all that I am.

“Harris,” I say when I get ahold of my wits. “For what it’s worth, I believe that Cooper wants you to live your life to its fullest potential, too. With relationships, work, family, he’d want you happy. I saw that picture of all three of you; it’s so obvious how much you loved each other.”

His tense shoulders slacken as he steers away from the houses.

“Are you still in therapy?” I ask gently.  

“After we met, I started going to sessions again,” he answers. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be going. Whenever I need the good doctor, I make a habit of visiting him.”  

This time it’s me who stretches across the car to tangle our fingers.

The rest of the ride happens in silence, but soon enough we pull up infront of a quaint country grocer and café. As usual, Harris dashes around the car to open my door and lends me his hand to help me out. We order sandwiches inside the restaurant and then take them to picnic tables shaded by giant umbrellas outside. Since it’s late lunch on a Wednesday afternoon, the place is mostly vacant.

We situate ourselves on either side of the table. Before either of us says anything, a buzzing from my phone alerts me of a message.

Dad: Back in DC. Will call this weekend… unless you need me now?

At his gesture, I smile to myself.

“Who is it?” Harris asks.

“My dad.”

“I like that seeing him makes you happy,” Harris observes.

Eddie: I’m good right now. Actually with Harris. Looking forward to speaking to you this weekend.

“Him being here was a wonderful surprise,” I acknowledge.  

It would be easy to talk about Dad, avoid addressing the remaining issue blocking the path toward our reconciliation, but I won’t be scared.

“Saturday was pretty horrendous for me.”

He ignores his own meal, capturing my gaze. “I wish you hadn’t run out.”

I frown at his words.
There was no other choice. 

“What did you expect me to do? It was at the very least two against one. But what really hurt was you knew the truth, and you kept your mouth shut. In my eyes, you were choosing your sister over me. In that moment, it felt like you gave up on us.”

Harris instantly jumps in. “Oh, baby, how could I give up on someone I can’t go an hour without thinking about? How could I give up on the woman that brought me back to life?”