The Space Between Us (28 page)

   “Much like the last thirteen years of my life, I have no idea where she is.  Good luck finding her.  You’re the reason she’s hiding.”  Her words pushed me backward, out of her doorway, and she slammed the door in my face.

  
Well, fuck.  I was no closer to finding Charlie as I was before I spilled my guts to Reeve.  I groaned in frustration and walked back to my car.  I slammed my fist into the steering wheel a few more times, trying simply to calm down.  It had been a long time since I purposefully remembered everything that happened between Charlie and me.  After a few deep breaths I was feeling less antsy, but I was still at a loss as to what I was going to do next.  There really was only one more place to go and I hadn’t been there in weeks.

  
A half hour later I was parked outside of Mr. McBride’s house.  That house was bittersweet for me.  It held some of my favorite memories.  Some of the best times we had together were in that house.  But the best memories were also the worst.  I can recall sitting on her couch watching movies on Saturday night, wanting so badly to put my arm around her, not being able to pay any attention to the movie on the screen.  I was consumed with the thought of just reaching behind her and gently wrapping my arm around her shoulder, pulling her into me and holding her.  I wanted to inhale her perfume, run my fingers through her long hair, to feel the warmth of her pressed up against me.  But I never could muster enough courage to just do it.  I missed the plot of many movies that way.

   I was so afraid to lose her friendship, s
o worried that if I told her how I felt that I would scare her away or ruin things somehow.  I put our friendship ahead of all of my feelings for years.  She was so pure and inexperienced that I was convinced she didn’t feel the same way for me, or that there was no way she would want me.  There was no way I was lucky enough that the one girl I had feelings for shared them for me.  It was truly the summers apart that solidified the real us.  Everyone always talked about distance making the heart grow fonder.  No one ever told you that royally fucking up and pressuring the one person you love more than anything in the world to get an abortion makes her heart break into thousands of pieces. I guess that reality was implied.

  
Even though the McBride house was filled with memories of Charlie, there were an equal amount of memories of her father there too.  He was a good man and some part of me would miss him.  He’d been kind to me when he really had no reason to, when he probably shouldn’t have been.  But that was the kind of man he was.

   I stared
at the house for a good ten minutes and I hadn’t seen any indication that anyone was inside.  There was no car in the driveway and no car parked on the street nearby.  No lights were on.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if Charlie had decided not to stay there.  Not only was it the house that held all the memories of her father, it was also just down the street from my childhood home.  If Charlie wanted to avoid me and any thoughts or memories of me, this house was not the place to be.  But it was my last hope.  I figured, as difficult as it might be, she would have to come back at some point to handle the business of the house.  I hoped I could be here when and if she decided to make an appearance.

Chapter Seven

Charlie

   I stood in front of the fogged up mirror of my cheap motel room.  My hair was wrapped up in a towel, twisted up on top of my head, another towel wrapped around my body.  I reached out and used my hand to wipe away the condensation from the mirror an
d saw someone staring back who I didn’t entirely recognize.  I was thinner than I had ever been, my cheeks hollowed and gaunt.  My collarbone protruded and my ribs could be counted.  I didn’t like the way my body was rebelling against me.

   I hadn’t been able to eat for a week.  My appetite was non
-existent and if I tried to force something in my stomach, it was rejected.  I was surviving on coffee and oxygen.  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to continue this way; something had to give.

   After the reading of the will, after my eyes had seen him, I fell into a darkness that I wasn’t sure I was fully out of yet.  I was
caught completely off guard seeing standing just a few feet in front of me.  I’d imagined that moment a million times in my mind, but when it came down to it, I froze.  I panicked.  My heart betrayed my mind by wishing that he came there to comfort me, hoping that he rose above the silence we’d condemned ourselves to so long ago, thrown all the rules of heartache out the window, and just came to
be
with me.  My mind berated my heart, reminding me of what he’d done, what he hadn’t done, what he’d wanted me to do.  I was in the worst kind of purgatory because I was battling with myself.  I felt guilty for still wanting the old Asher to comfort me and I felt weak that I couldn’t grasp on to the anger and move on.  I had grown weak in more ways than one, it appeared.

   Perhaps the worst part was that when he saw me, when it became apparent that he had wrapped his mind around the fact that I was, indeed, standing in front of him
, all he could say was that I wasn’t supposed to be there.  I didn’t really belong anywhere any more.  I made the decision to sell my father’s house; I didn’t belong there.  I would sell it and take all the money I had been given in exchange for both my parents, and find some way to fit in somewhere.  The first step to disappearing was forcing myself to go to my father’s house.

   I turned away from the woman in the mirror and forced myself to
prepare to see the house that held memories of my father, and also of Asher.

  
An hour later, I checked out of my motel, had my one suitcase in my hand, and I was staring at the front door of my father’s house.  It was still early in the day, not yet noon, but I knew I had to go in because there was a lot to do.  I put the key in the door, a key I hadn’t used in years, and pushed the door open.  I stood on the porch looking in, trying to decide if I was going to freak out or not.

   The house was quiet and empty, the only light flooding in from the windows.  My father never bothered with blinds or curtains
, claiming that if the neighbors could see into his house at all times it forced him to keep it clean.  And it always was.  He had been one of those ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’ kind of people, very organized. 
He was even organized in death apparently.
  I chastised myself for thinking something so insensitive and crass about my own father’s death.  I was still trying to deal with the fact that my father planned his death, planned everything about it, right down to having pre-ordered the flowers that he wanted at his memorial service.  And yet, he couldn’t call and tell me about it – wouldn’t allow me to be there for him.  Angrily, I walked into the house.  When had I let other people start making decisions for me?  When had I given up that control over myself?

   I closed the door behind me and headed towards the laundry room.  Everything I’d
brought with me to Willow Falls was dirty and if I was going to go through with my plan to go it alone, I would at least need some clean clothes.  Just as I plopped my suitcase up on the dryer, I heard that damned doorbell ring.  I froze, knowing exactly who was ringing it, but hoping I was wrong – kind of.  It went on and on forever, just like I remembered.  I stood incredibly still, trying not to make a sound.  I wanted to disappear.  I wanted to melt away.  I wanted to hide.  It rang again and I rolled my eyes at his persistence.  In reality I knew that Asher wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted, I was just afraid to find out what that was exactly.  I waited for a minute or two after the doorbell ended its chiming, and I relaxed a little, feeling like I could breathe a little easier.  I unzipped my suitcase and started sorting clothes into the washer when I heard the front door open.

   “Charlie?”  His voice floated through the ho
use.  “Charlie, I know you’re here.  I saw you go in.”

   My hand came up to cover my mouth.  I didn’t know if I was planning on screaming or crying, but the sound of his voice hurt and soothed me
at the same time.  I craved it; his voice was like a salve.  But it was impossible for him to heal the wound he inflicted himself.  Wasn’t it?  I heard footsteps and the door latching closed.  He was coming to find me.  I had a choice.  I could confront him and be strong, or hide and let my lack of strength make another decision for me.  I took a deep breath and swept my hair from behind my neck to the side, cascading down the front of my chest. I had been pretending for thirteen years that everything was fine; I could do that for another five minutes, surely.  I took one last moment to make sure that my necklace was hidden beneath my shirt and then stepped into the kitchen.

   We stood, for one eternal moment, in a darkened kitchen, and stared at each other.

   He wasn’t wearing the three-piece suit from the other day, but he still looked good – jeans and a sweater.  The blue sweater made his gray eyes shine.  His hands were in his pockets and he seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

   “Hello, Asher,” I managed.  The words stung my throat.  My body wanted to cry at
the mention of his name.  For so long I tried not to say his name, tried not to think of him, or picture his perfect face.  In that moment, standing in my father’s kitchen, everything I had been avoiding all those years was being thrust at me and I was drowning in the need to push it all away.  I couldn’t see his face without imagining how my baby might have looked with his freckles.  Had either of my babies been a boy?  Would he have looked like Asher?  What would we have named him?  Them?  It was taking everything in me not to run out the door, get in my car, and drive away forever.  There were days I was sure that in some other dimension Asher and I were happy with our 12-year-old twins.  Perhaps a boy and a girl, they were happy and healthy.  Asher and I were happily married.  Everything worked out perfectly for us.  It was a tough road at first, but our love got us through.  I, however, was stuck in this reality where everything I had ever loved was taken from me.

   “Charlie.”  He paused, looking like he wasn’
t entirely sure what he came here to say to me.  “How are you?”

   His question struck me as funny so I laughe
d, not a real laugh but an ‘I can’t believe you just asked me that’ laugh.  “I’m great.  You?” He ran his hand through his hair.

   “I’m so sorry about your father, Charlie.”

   “What part are you sorry about?  The part where he got sick?  The part where he didn’t tell me?  The part where he died?  Or the part where you knew all along and still kept it to yourself?”

   “I understand why you’re upset.  But, Charlie, he didn’t want me to tell anyone.  As his lawyer, I couldn’t.”

   “Did you want to?”

   “Did I want to what?”

   “Did you want to tell me?  Did you try to convince him to call me and tell me?”  I don’t know why all of a sudden I had so much to say, but part of me wanted to figure out what happened that brought us both to this point.

   “Until the very end, until it was clear he wasn’t going to make it, we never discussed you.  I never brought you up and neither did he.”

   “What do you mean by ‘until the end’?  How long had you been in contact with him?”  He looked down at the floor and my heart dropped.  “Asher, answer the question.”

   “I’ve alw
ays been in contact with him, ever since you disappeared.” 

   Well
, fuck.  That stung.

   “I think you need to leave,” I said as I turned from him, trying to go anywhere else in the house besides where he was.

   “I think we need to talk about this,” he said calmly.  There was nothing calm about me, but I tried so hard to pull it off.  I didn’t want his pity or his sympathy.  I continued to walk down the hall, headed for what once was my bedroom.  I planned on avoiding this room, planned on staying away from a room that would bring back the worst and most vivid memories of being with Asher, but at this point I had nowhere else to go.  “Don’t you think you’ve hidden long enough?”  His words were like ice down my spine.  I froze.  Indeed, I felt like hiding, but for the first time in years, all of a sudden, I felt more like fighting.

   “How
dare
you come into my father’s house and talk to me about hiding.  I am not the one who ran the very second we hit a road block.  I am not the one who left my girlfriend for weeks after finding out she was pregnant.”  I marched over to him with every word I spoke and I felt my face reddening with rage, a flush spreading up from my chest.  When we were chest to chest, I pointed a finger right in his face.  “You, of all people, do not get to judge me.  I left because it was time to move on.  My absence didn’t hurt anyone.”  I turned again, set on disappearing, leaving him with those last words, hoping they hurt him even one tiny fraction of the amount of hurt I had acquired due to him.

   “It hurt me,” he said quietly, stopping me mid-stride.
  I knew, deep down in my soul, in the depth of my being, that I didn’t owe him one damn thing.  I should have kept walking, and I should have written him off years ago as the stupid boy in college who broke my heart, but the majority of my self, of the person I was, wouldn’t deny him.

   “I never got the chance to apologize to you,” he continued.  I heard him walking towards me an
d I knew he was getting closer.  I just wasn’t sure how close I’d allow him.  “Please,” he said, not two feet away from me.  “Please let me talk to you.  We can talk about what happened, talk about your father, talk about anything you want.  I just want the opportunity to spend a little time with you.”

   There were so many things running through my head at that moment.  Could I spend a little time with him?  I wasn’t short on time.  In a few weeks I had to be back in NYC for an art show – my art show – but until then I was free as a bird.  Did he deserve to spend any time with me?  Did I want to see him?  What could we possibly do besides talk about painful memories?  Or talk about memories that were so sweet and special that it made them painful?

   “Why?” I whispered.  I heard him move again, and I felt him inch closer to me.  I couldn’t tell if he wanted to touch me, but I knew I’d crumble if I felt his hand on me anywhere.

   “Don’t you think we o
we it to ourselves?”  He paused and I could tell he’d inched even closer.  I could smell his aftershave he was so close and I began to tremble.  “At the very least, we owe it to our child.”

   In the one conversation we’d ever had about our baby, he’d only used the term “it”.  To hear him say “our child” broke something in me I’d been trying to hold together for so long.
  My hands came up to cover my face and I tried to cry quietly as emotions I’d tried to bury were brought to the surface by his words.  Something inside of me needed to hear him acknowledge that there had been a baby, and once I heard it, I couldn’t contain the rush of relief.  But even as I cried, even as my heart tried to put itself back together again, I was nagged by a new guilt.  He still didn’t know there were two.  Two babies.  Two lives that I lost – that we lost that day.

   My father was the only one who knew about the miscarriage – besides Reeve
.  Reeve knew because she was in the room with me, but my father knew because he could see the pain I was in and knew something was wrong.  When I came home after the miscarriage, after one week of realizing that my life was no longer at college, I told my dad what happened.  I told him I’d gotten pregnant, that Asher was the father, and that I’d lost the pregnancy.  I cried and sobbed as I explained there were two babies, that I’d lost his twin grandbabies, and he held me through my cries.  That one tiny piece of information was something I treasured, something I knew that Asher didn’t, something I felt like, at the time, he didn’t deserve to know.  Immature?  Perhaps.  Warranted?  Absofuckinlutely.

   I was
certain that Asher didn’t know there’d been two babies.  One thing I wasn’t sure about though, was whether he knew that I’d seen him with that girl.  I played that scene over and over in my mind a million times.  In my head, I opened the door and saw that girl on top of him, his arm wrapped around her waist, my name staring back at me as his arm held her to him.  But I didn’t make a sound and she never turned to look at me.  And even though that was the worst day of my life, even though I saw him with another woman and hated him entirely too much, I always thought that if Asher had known I was there he would have come after me.  Maybe now was the time for honest conversations and answers – for both of us.

   I wiped the wetness from my face, appreciating the fact that he let me cry without trying to comfort me physically.  It seemed that he at least understood my need for space.
  I don’t know if I was in denial or just lying to myself, but I should have known that if I came to this house he’d find me here.  Maybe even my subconscious wanted me to talk to him.  I turned back to him, trying not to look him in the eye.