Sound of the Tide (20 page)

Holy shit!

I started trembling and pressed my hand against my mouth, which was still tingling from the aftermath of his kiss.

Holy, holy mother of shit!

“Piper, wha
t . . . 
?” He seemed confused and reached his hands out for me, but I pulled away.

“No!”

I was struggling with my key, which just wouldn’t fit the keyhole.

“I’m sorry, Ewan!
I . . .
I’m screwed up, an
d . . .
and I don’t think that I’m the one you’re looking for!”

I admitted defeat with the damn key and desperately rang the doorbell. I needed to get away from him—and quickly!

“I can’t do this!” I tried to explain and could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks. “You’re a great guy, but m
e . . .
Jesus, just look at me! I’m a total psycho!”

Why the hell wasn’t Jenna opening the goddamn door?
I rang the bell again. Longer this time, even if it meant that I was waking Amber.

“Jesus, Piper! No need to get all hysterical! I’m sorry, but I though
t . . .
”

The door opened, and I dashed inside, pushing Jenna aside without saying a word. Then I turned around to him one more time.

“It’s not you, Ewan!” I reassured him, wiping away my tears. “It’s me. I’m not ready fo
r . . .
for you and for this world. I’m sorry.”

With that, I shut the door and, with my back against it, let myself slide down to the floor. I pulled up my knees, and cried.

N
OT
N
OW,
N
OT
T
OMORRO
W . . .
N
OT
E
VER
!

April/May

G
ood heavens, Piper! What happened?” Jenna asked, shocked, and knelt down beside me. She caressed my shoulder, and her eyes were wide open as if she had just stepped from the title page of a manga comic.

“Did he hurt you? Was he coming on too strong? Do you want me to beat him up?”

I heard her chattering and felt how worried she was, but none of it was really getting through to me. I was almost choking from crying so hard, and my tears were hot to the boiling point. My lungs were on fire, and in black despair I jumped to my feet.

Enraged, I pushed Jenna aside and ran into the kitchen where the photo album was. With trembling fingers I combed through the pages until I found an image of Daniel and me on the beach. I pressed the album against me, the picture right against my heart, wishing it would suck me into its pages and allow me to relive this feeling of sun, sand, and Daniel’s kisses on my skin just one more time.

“Piper?” Jenna followed me at a safe distance.

“Why?” I yelled at her. “Why, Jenna? Why is this happening to me?”

It was like a dam breaking. All the pain I had bottled up these past months, that I had swallowed and pushed to the back of my mind in a worthless attempt to prove to the world how strong I was—all this pain was now boiling over.

“Why did he have to die? Why him? Why not me? I don’t want to live! I don’t want to be without him, Jenna! I
can’t
be without him!”

I was screaming so loud that Amber woke up and started crying in her crib upstairs, but this time I couldn’t get myself back under control. I couldn’t pretend that I was composed, and I didn’t want to cram my anger, my fears, and my desires back into the box.

I couldn’t care less that tears and snot were running down my face, or that all of Mellos Cove could probably hear me.

“Jenna, you have got to help me! Please!
I . . .
I don’t know what to do anymore!” I screamed my fears out into the world. I didn’t know what I was so scared of, but I was about to lose myself in a vortex of panic and desperation.

She took the album from my hands and shook me.

“Piper! Stop it right now!” she yelled at me, equally loud. “Put that away and stop, just stop!”

She took me into her arms and held me tight—and I clung to her like she was the only person who could save me.

“I don’t know what happened, Piper, but you have
got
to calm down!” she murmured into my ear, much softer now, but I just shook my head in stubborn disbelief.

“No, I don’t. Daniel’s dead. I don’t need to calm down. I don’t need to go on living my life without him, and most of all I don’t need to go out with someone new! Do you hear me, Jenna? I will never go out with Ewan again! I will never go out again, period!”

“All right, all right, we can talk about this later. None of this stuff is important, Piper. Whether or not you want to go on living, hell, nobody gives a shit.”

She took my face between her hands and wiped away my tears.

“You see, sweetie, you don’t have a choice. Because upstairs your baby daughter is screaming her head off because she doesn’t understand what’s going on down here. Go to her! Everything else is bullshit! It can all wait, and—when it comes down to it—it’s all completely irrelevant. You don’t want to go out? Fine, don’t go out. You want Daniel back? I’m sorry to tell you this, honey, and you know it’s killing me to be so brutally honest about it, but it ain’t gonna happen. Not now, not tomorro
w . . .
not ever! Not even if you call for him at the top of your lungs. He’s dead!”

She pushed herself away from me, and there was so much pain in her eyes, but never before had I seen her so determined.

“The heart is a crappy place, Piper. It hurts, and it bleeds, and with every beat it’s pumping pain and anguish through your veins. I can see that, and I was hoping that the good doctor could heal you, or at least ease your pain. I am sorry. You think you’re all alone but, sweetie, the truth is you’re not. That’s what I wanted to show you. You might not want to allow new people into your life, but you still have me. And Amber, of course. And you know that she can make the bleakest, most desolate place in your heart bloom with flowers again.”

She tried a smile, and tightly wrapped me in her arms again.

“Men. Who needs them, am I right?” she muttered, and I laughed a painful laugh that made me realize just how tight my throat was and proved that there was a lump in it that still needed swallowing.

I kissed Jenna’s cheek and nodded. I didn’t have the strength left to say anything. Exhausted, I climbed the flight of stairs up to the nursery, took Amber from her crib, and breathed in her scent. She immediately stopped crying, and I kissed away her tears.

“It’s all right, my angel, it’s all right,” I whispered, quietly wondering if I meant those soothing words for myself, too. Would things ever be all right again? Amber dug her fingers into my curls, and I quietly hummed a song until she drifted back off to sleep.

I could feel Jenna’s presence behind me. She was leaning against the doorframe, but without saying a word.

And I didn’t feel like speaking either. I didn’t want her to leave, but I also felt incapable of turning around. It was good to hear her breathing, but any piece of advice would have been too much. Sometimes I just couldn’t handle her bluntness.

Like right then, when everything inside me refused to accept that everything she’d said was the truth.

Daniel is not coming back. Not now, not tomorro
w . . .
not ever!

For a few days after the disastrous ending to my date with Ewan, I was hoping he’d get in touch. But he didn’t. Maybe I should have called him, explained my behavior, but frankly I was too much of a coward. He had organized a great night out—and I had lost it, completely and utterly lost it over a kiss.

If I were Ewan, I definitely wouldn’t call me either.

April had turned to May, and the roller skate date had happened almost three weeks ago. I was enough of a realist to admit that the Dr. Palmer affair was now through. After all, there were plenty of women who’d bend over backward for a fantastic guy like him, and who weren’t carrying around so much baggage. Sometimes I saw these women when I went to fetch my newspaper, as they scurried to their cars in the morning. But it didn’t really bother me.

Meanwhile, I even had the impression that my outburst had triggered something and had helped reduce my very own pile of emotional baggage. I wasn’t sure whether it was Jenna’s resolve to give it to me straight that night, or whether it was simply the fact that I had no other choice but to accept what I should have accepted a long time ago. But as I was browsing Daniel’s parents’ bookstore, letting my eyes wander over the many books, I realized with painful clarity that there would never be another Daniel and Piper chapter in the book of my life. There was no happy ending to our story, no matter how much I browsed through my memories, forever hopin
g . . .

It really was time to find closure for this story once and for all, and perhaps then I’d be ready to turn a new leaf, to take a blank page and fill it with new life.

I was nervous when I climbed the stairs up to the kitchen to face Cat and what would be an important part of my final Daniel chapter. I needed to collect the rest of my belongings from his apartment and decide what things I wanted to keep for myself, what I wanted to keep safe for Amber—and what would ultimately make its way to various charities.

To help me with my project, Cat had tied an apron around her waist, and Marcus had provided us with countless moving boxes.

“Shall we?” I asked curtly, wanting to put the unavoidable behind me as quickly as possible.

As I stood in the hallway with Amber in my arms and took a good look around, the apartment seemed smaller than I remembered it. Hesitantly, I proceeded. What exactly was I expecting to find here?

But instead of gruesome monsters and dark, shadowy creatures, nothing particularly dreadful waited for me in Daniel’s apartment except dust bunnies. It was quiet—and peaceful.

I took a deep breath and waited, but no unasked-for longings or memories came pouring down on me. A messy apartment was all it was. No ghosts, no demons—and no Daniel. I exhaled, feeling relieved.

“Guess we have our work cut out for us,” Cat noted matter-of-factly, breathing heavily as she tried to balance the bunch of boxes she was carrying into the small living room. She smiled, and it was almost as though today we were helping one another ease the pain of our loss.

A few closets and shelves were already empty because I had taken some things when I moved out. Still, we spent all day examining everything, and organizing and distributing it appropriately.

Contrary to what I had expected, I didn’t find it particularly hard to make levelheaded decisions about the items Daniel had left behind—his legacy. This was mostly thanks to Amber. She was the one carrying on his legacy. She was the greatest achievement of his life, and in the end she was the only part of him I wanted to preserve. My own little happy ending to the Daniel and Piper story.

His heart, his laughter, and his soul weren’t living on in objects that were as dead as he was. I understood that now.

I collected all the photos I wanted to keep, and pressed one of his blue fire station T-shirts against my chest. He had always looked nice wearing them, and I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. I put everything into a box, together with a few books and the Madonna album that was making me smile. I remembered his off-key version of “Like a Virgin” and hoped that Amber had not inherited her dad’s musical abilities.

Later on that afternoon I was hungry, exhausted, and deeply relieved that I had mastered this task without having a nervous breakdown. I felt like a champion when I carried Amber in one arm and the box with Daniel’s things under the other to my car.

I put Amber into her car seat, buckled her up, and hugged Cat good-bye. Without her help, I wouldn’t have managed many things these past months, and I was starting to wonder whether her pain wasn’t considerably deeper than mine was. I found it hard to keep holding her past behavior against her, now that I had become a mom myself.

“Are you coming for dinner on Sunday?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Would love to. But I’m warning you, it won’t be long now before Amber is going to want to eat with the grown-ups. She’s been getting very excited whenever she sees me eat. I think our little darling will be ready for her first solid food soon.”

Cat touched my arm, and very briefly her eyes darkened before she offered me a smile.

“Piper, you know you can tell us anytime if you have other plans.”

I wrinkled my forehead.

“I don’t have other plans. What do you mean?”

She seemed uncomfortable.

“It’s not good for you to be alone all the time, Piper. Please don’t think we wouldn’t understand if you wanted t
o . . .
see someone.”

Jesus, that knocked the breath right out of me. Was Daniel’s mom just handing me a get-out-of-jail-free card so that I could get involved with someone new?

Now
I
was the one feeling uncomfortable!

“Don’t be silly, Cat,” I reassured her. “I enjoy being alone. And besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got Amber.”

“A child is not a partner. You’re a strong woman, Piper. You loved our son very much, I know that, but you are not betraying his memory if you decide to find happiness again.”

She rubbed her hands together nervously.

“We just wanted you to know that. You are like a daughter to us—and we want to see you happy. It was hard for us to process Daniel’s death, and it was hard for us to leave you to your grief without being able to help and comfort you. If love finds its way back into your life one day, then by all means grab it—and I pray to God that next time you can hold on to it for the rest of your life.”