Relativity (23 page)

“Knox,” I yell after him because he is several feet away from me. What in the world is he doing here? Has he come to tell me that he won’t let anything come between us no matter how horrible it is? Maybe his dad told him the horrible secret about his affair and Knox doesn’t care. I start to jog after him, not willing to lose him again.

“Knox,” I shout, even louder this time. He stops and turns toward me, I’m practically right behind him now.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” he asks, but the face asking isn’t the face I love so desperately. I jerk back, assaulted by my stupid mistake. He actually doesn’t look like Knox at all, my mind was playing tricks on me.

“I thought you were someone else. I’m so sorry,” I tell him then bolt out the front doors. I don’t stop running until I get to a deserted tree where I collapse and sob my eyes out.

I was so stupid to think that coming here was going to solve everything. Who am I kidding? I’m more miserable than I ever was in Jasper. How in the world am I ever going to navigate the rest of my life without Mom, Knox, and Natalie?

My phone chirps and it’s Dad telling me he’s here. Shit. I try to pull myself together because I don’t need him seeing me like this. I wipe my tears on the back of my hands and start back toward the parking lot. When I get there I see him leaning down outside the car pouring bottled water into a water bowl for Daisy. She steps in it instead of drinking it and I laugh. Just seeing her makes me feel better.

“Hey, stranger,” I say, sneaking up on him. He turns around and grabs me around the waist and spins me around.

“My God, I’ve missed you,” he says, setting me down after noticing a few strange looks from kids walking by.

“It is so good to see you,” I say, bending down to meet my new sister. She jumps on me covering me with stinky puppy kisses. “Hello, Daisy. I’m your big sister.”

“I should probably find somewhere for her to do her business,” Dad says, looking around.

“Grab her leash and we’ll go for a walk. There are some great trails around here,” I say, leading him toward my favorite path.

He hooks Daisy onto her leash but she doesn’t quite get the hang of walking on it yet so she keeps going in and out of our legs for a while until she gets curious about sniffing new smells along the way. After a few minutes, she is walking ahead of us reveling in her new position as leader of the pack.

“You’ve lost weight,” Dad remarks, looking concerned.

“I walk a lot,” I admit. “It helps me clear my head.”

“I know you probably don’t want to hear this but I have missed you so much.”

“I know, Dad. I’ve missed you, too.”

We walk through the woods, the afternoon sun shaded by the giant green canopy of leaves above our heads. We don’t talk for several minutes just enjoying watching Daisy stop and pee every couple of seconds, leaving her mark so the other animals know she’s been here. Even though I know Dad is still struggling, especially with me leaving, this little creature has really helped him start to heal.

“She’s amazing,” I tell him. He smiles proudly, the same way he would every time I brought him a good report card.

“She’s very good company. I don’t have a lot of time to sit around feeling sorry for myself anymore.”

Daisy starts to slow down and eventually starts jumping at Dad wanting to be held. We find a bench and sit down. Dad cradles Daisy in his arms like a human baby and she promptly falls asleep with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

“Ruff life,” I tease, feeling a little jealous of her for the first time.

“How are you really, Ripley?” Dad asks, startling me by looking concerned.

Something inside me unknots as I decide to be brutally honest. Maybe it’s a mistake but I can’t put on this Susie Sunshine act any longer.

“I like it here. I really do.”

“But?” he adds.

I stretch my legs out in front of me as I decide how much I can get away with telling him to relieve myself without jeopardizing Mom’s secret. “But…I miss Natalie. I’m sure it didn’t escape you that we didn’t part on good terms. She’s been my friend for over seven years and I’m just trying to figure out what life is like without her. I mean, we would have been separated once we left for college anyway, but it wouldn’t have been this deafening silence. We still would have been texting each other a million times a day.”

Dad nods, appreciating my honesty. I’m sure he’s been wondering for weeks what happened between us but respected me enough to allow some boundaries. “If it helps, she misses you, too. I saw her last night at Mozzarella and she hugged me so hard I think she might have bruised my ribs.”

I start laughing hysterically picturing Natalie grabbing poor Dad in one of her infamous bear hugs that I nicknamed the bone crusher.

“Is it something you can work out?” he asks.

I shake my head no vigorously, wishing we could, but knowing there is no way.

“Does it have to do with you and Knox being madly in love with each other?”

I nearly choke on my spit as his question registers in my brain. “How did…”

He throws his head back and laughs while gently rubbing Daisy’s belly. “Ripley, come on. That kid’s had the hots for you for years. I never thought it was mutual until prom though and I could tell how miserable you were to be with Tate after you had crushed on him for so long. Then I saw the way you looked at Knox one night at Mozzarella. That’s when I knew you were in love with Knox.”

“Wow,” I respond, unable to think of a witty comment.

“I hate to tell you this, but he re-enlisted. He’s somewhere in Texas,” he says tenderly.

His words hit me like tsunami. I guess I never thought he would actually do it. This whole time I thought that I could just cruise back into Jasper and he would be waiting for me at Mozzarella. But now I know that it really is over. The only thing left to do is pray every day that he stays safe.

Dad touches my arm gently, “You okay?”

I shake my head yes a little too vigorously, making myself a touch lightheaded. I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that he’s gone and that I’ll probably never see him again.

“I’m not going to tell you that there are other fish in the sea or any of that stupid shit because I know from experience that some people never get over their first love. Ever.”

“Way to sugarcoat it, Dad,” I say, laughing.

He doesn’t laugh back and I feel the air change. He glances at me like he’s mentally weighing the consequences of something then I see a flash in his eyes and I realize that he has just made some significant decision.

“Your mother never stopped loving her first love.”

“Duh, it was you,” I remark, feeling a twinge of guilt as Mr. Parson’s face flashes in my mind.

“It wasn’t me, Ripley. I wasn’t her first love. Oh my God, she would kill me for telling you this but something tells me you might already know some of it.” He buries his head in his puppy-free hand as I try to steel myself for what he is about to reveal.

“I thought you two met in high school and started dating then got married. She never told me about anyone else.”

He takes a deep breath and plows ahead. “She dated Chad Parsons at the beginning of our senior year. They were madly in love. They had plans to get married and the whole shebang. Then one night, your mother got the stomach flu and Chad and I decided to go to a party. Long story short: Chad got drunk, had a one night stand, and the girl ended up getting pregnant.”

“Bea?” I ask, shocked.

“Yep. Nine months later, little Knox was here. By then, Chad had done the admirable thing, which back then was to get married. Your mother never got over him, and he never got over her. Bea and I always knew that someday they just wouldn’t be strong enough to stay away from each other. I’ve got to give your mom credit she held out as long as she could, but the night of her accident she was on her way to meet him.”

Tears roll down my cheeks as I try to process all of this. I thought I knew everything. I thought Mom just got bored with Dad and made the deliberate choice to wreck our lives. I assumed the affair had been going on for years. I was so ashamed of her and disappointed that she didn’t live up to my expectations. When I realize that she felt the same way about Chad that I feel about Knox I realize how much restraint she showed in waiting nearly twenty-three years to act on it.

“I just thought…,” I sob, falling into Dad. “I thought she chose him over us. I’ve hated her for the last several months. I was glad she died.” I admit, feeling a weight being lifted off my chest.

“I know, sweetie. I know. That’s why I knew I had to tell you because I knew you didn’t have the whole story. She loved us, Ripley. She really did. She tried to fight it, but sometimes love wins even if it means destroying people in the process. She was always honest with me. I knew she was going that night and we were planning to separate but we wanted to wait until after you graduated.”

“Aren’t you mad?” I wonder. I realize how forgiving Dad has been. Just the fact that he can walk into Mozzarella and not pummel Chad seems like a miracle.

“I knew the day I married her that she would never love me the way she loved him but it didn’t matter because that was how I loved her. We had a really happy life together. It’s not like she was sitting around every minute of every day pining for him. Something just flared back up in the last few months and neither of them could fight it. It doesn’t mean she loved us any less.”

“Listen, Rip. It’s easy to sit here and say I forgive her now, but this shit probably would have gone down a lot different if she wasn’t gone. I just made the decision to cherish the memory of our marriage the way it was, not what it might have been had she lived.”

“She was so lucky you chose her,” I tell him, my heart bursting with love and admiration at the strength he’s shown.

“In spite of everything, she was pretty damn great. Remember how psychotically competitive she was at board games?”

“She was the worst. She couldn’t even let me win at Candy Land when I was four,” I say, giggling. “She always made the holidays so special. I was thirteen and she was still putting down snow in the living room trying to convince me that Santa was real.”

“She used to trim her toenails in the living room though. That grossed me out so bad,” he says, grimacing.

I start to laugh hysterically. I feel better than I have in months with all these secrets out in the open. It isn’t like we can tell the world because Natalie and Knox would still be crushed but at least we can talk to each other about it.

“Guess what I found the other day?” Dad says, his eyebrows bouncing up and down.

“An ear hair longer than your finger?”

“I find that every day. You know what? Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. Maybe I should just save it for myself,” he teases.

“You know I’m just playing. You don’t look a day over fifty,” I tease, knowing he is only forty-two.

“Uh-huh,” he says, giving me a fake stink eye. “Well this old man will just have to polish off an entire pan of lasagna by himself then.”

I stop joking, wondering if he could possibly be saying what I think he’s saying. “She left us a pan of her lasagna?”

“I found it in the deep freeze the other day. She must have made it just before her accident. I thought maybe we could have it for Thanksgiving. I know it isn’t traditional but I’m not sure I could master a turkey anyway. We won’t have the special bread she used to make but at least it’s something, right?” he asks, hopeful.

“She taught me how to make the bread,” I shriek, clapping my hands frantically.

“We’re going to be okay, Ripley,” Dad says, putting his arm around my shoulders. “We’ll never be the same but we’re going to make it.”

I lean my head against his shoulder, basking in how safe I feel. I try to soak up as much as I can, knowing that Dad will be gone again in a few days and I’ll be on my own in a place that is still unfamiliar. Things are going to be different though. I don’t have to carry the weight of the secret alone anymore and I’m so grateful for that.

We spend the rest of the weekend at the hotel entertaining Daisy. Mom was always my go-to if I had a problem or just wanted to talk. I loved Dad but our conversations were mostly about superficial stuff. This weekend changed all of that. We talked about everything and I love how much closer I feel to him.

“So you’re going to ask her out, right?” I encourage him, knowing he has liked Karen for a while.

“What if she’s not a dog person?” he worries.

I scratch Daisy behind the ears and one of her hind legs involuntarily starts thumping up and down, uncontrollably. Her big black eyes look at me with pure adoration.

“How could anyone not love this face?” I ask, knowing he’s just nervous. “It’ll be fine, Dad. You’re asking her to coffee, not to elope in Las Vegas.”

“As for you, how about getting out of that prison cell you call a dorm room every once in a while. Make some friends, go out and get drunk, just not too drunk and don’t walk home alone, always wear one of those rape whistles and never leave your drink unattended. And text me at least once a day.”

I pull him in for one last big hug that will have to last me until November. I kiss Daisy and gently sit her in the passenger seat as Dad slides in the driver’s seat. He starts up the car and waves to me as he pulls slowly out of the parking lot. I wait for the river of tears that I expect to show up promptly as his car drives out of sight but I’m pleasantly surprised that they don’t come at all. I’m going to miss Dad but I’m actually kind of excited about being here for the first time since I arrived.

I make my way back inside the dorm and press the elevator button up to get back to my room. The dorm is particularly deserted tonight as most of the other summer students don’t come back until later tonight. A couple approaches from the opposite end of the hallway. My face reddens when I realize it is the guy I mistook for Knox.

“Hi,” his girlfriend says, smiling sweetly.

“Hi,” I say back, hoping he doesn’t recognize me.

“Hey, it’s you,” he says, making me cringe. They approach me and I expect to see suspicion on his girlfriend’s face but she just looks curious.