Oceans Apart

by Karen Kingsbury

  He brought his lips together and exhaled in a sharp burst. “Michele …” His eyes stared at something on the ceiling, and he ran his fingers through his short hair. When he looked at her, his eyes were deeper, more honest, than she'd ever seen them. “We need to talk.”

  “Okay.” She crossed her arms, her heart tense and unmoved within her. No matter how he looked, she knew what he was doing. This was his attempt to change her mind, to convince her they could take the boy, after all. That she would grow to love him. But nothing he could say would make her see the boy as anything other than what he was.

  The son of a woman who had slept with her husband.

  Connor walked past her, and she followed him into the living room. He sat on one side of the sofa and motioned for her to sit beside him.

  Every ounce of her wanted to refuse him, to take a chair on the other side of the room, but she wanted to be near him, wanted to hear what outlandish argument he was going to make about the boy. Because of that she sat down next to him and turned to face him.

  He watched her, and the look in his eyes told her that she seemed more a stranger than the wife he'd married. The look fell away, and he knit his brow together. He looked even more handsome than she remembered.

  “Michele, there's something I have to tell you. Something I should've said a long time ago.”

  A war was taking place in her heart, half of her wanting to throw her arms around his neck and tell him whatever it was, they'd work through it, they'd find a way to survive and come out stronger on the other end.

  But the other half was winning, the part that hated him for what he'd done to her and the girls.

  “All right.” She kept her face free of expression. “What is it?”

  The lack of love in her voice took even her by surprise. Why was she talking to him like this? Hadn't she missed him, hadn't that been at least part of the reason why she had to get home? And couldn't she simply have hugged him when he walked in from the yard, his face lit up at the sight of her?

  The answer to every question was a resounding no, because Connor didn't even understand what he'd done. Couldn't see past his desire for the boy long enough to realize what his unfaithfulness had cost her.

  “You're not making this easy.”

  “You haven't made it easy, either.”

  He looked down for a moment, and she watched him work the muscles in his jaw. When he lifted his head again, the remorse was back. “Michele, what happened in Honolulu that August was my fault.” He rushed ahead as if she might stop him. “It was my fault that I wasn't seeing you as often as I should, and my fault that I was in trouble with the FAA, my fault that I agreed to spend a stormy summer night at the house of a flight attendant I didn't even know, and my fault the situation resulted in an affair.”

  Michele stared at her husband and felt her mouth fall open a bit. She couldn't remember Connor ever saying those words, “It's my fault.” She bit the inside of her cheek and waited.

  “It's all my fault, and I want to ask your forgiveness.” He ran his tongue along his lower lip and searched her face, desperate for some kind of response. “I should've told you the truth when I came home from Los Angeles, but I told myself it was one of those things, something I couldn't have helped. I thought it would be easier on both of us if you never knew.”

  “Yeah, well, you thought wrong.” The acid reply was out before Michele could stop it.

  Connor jerked back the slightest bit and stared at her. “I know.” His face was a study in control, his tone less desperate than before. “That's why I'm telling you this.” He sat back. “What I'm trying to say is, everything that happened is because of me. But since I found out about Max, all I've done is think about myself and how much I owe that child, how much I owe—”

  “What?” The word was a shriek, a cry that came from the most wounded part of her heart. She pointed toward the backyard. “How much you owe him?”

  An exasperated huff slid through Connor's clenched teeth. “Not just him, you didn't let me finish.” He shielded his eyes with his right hand for a moment, and then snapped it back to his side. “Michele, you're not hearing me.”

  “I hear you loud and clear. I knew what this was as soon as you told me you wanted to talk. It's some sort of build-up … tell the wife you're sorry so you can convince her to keep the boy.” She stood up and glared at him. “Can't you just say you're sorry, Connor? For once can't you just leave it at that?”

  Without waiting for a response, she rushed out of the room. She grabbed her bags and made her way up the stairs before she heard him get up, stride across the kitchen floor, and return outside to the backyard where the kids were waiting for him.

  The hurt came the moment she slammed the bedroom door behind her. Up until the point where he talked about what he owed the boy, she was tracking with him, believing that this time maybe he understood the gravity of what he'd done.

  She wanted to forgive him, really she did.

  But not when he was only using it to convince her of his ultimate goal—his desire to keep Max, and never send him home again.

  She yanked shirts and shorts and pants and underwear from her suitcase, tossing them either in the dirty clothes hamper, or putting them away where they belonged. When she was finished, she stared out their bedroom window, then took slow steps toward it.

  The window overlooked the backyard, and from her position she could see all of them. Connor and Max and the girls were playing Frisbee now, jumping into the air to snag the disc, and high-fiveing each other after a particularly difficult catch. Angry sorrow choked her throat and her heart and her ability to see straight.

  So much for his apology.

  Their argument hadn't meant a thing to Connor, hadn't made him lose a step. She'd been right all the time, his reason for talking to her had been clear-cut from the beginning. He wanted the boy. And the longer she stood there watching the two of them laughing and playing together, the more she felt inclined to let him have what he wanted. To put her things back in the suitcase and head back out the door.

  Not just a few things to get her through a week or two, but every single thing she owned.

  Connor was more confused than ever.

  He'd worked on his plan ever since Max fell asleep on his chest in the hours after the camping trip. As soon as he saw Michele, he would smile at her, welcome her home, and then ask her if they could talk. Once he had her alone, he would take responsibility for every awful thing he'd done by having the affair. He would take the blame for all of it, and do his best to explain his feelings about Max.

  Michele was wrong about his intentions.

  Not for a minute had he planned to use that talk to convince her to keep Max. Oh, he wanted that, sure. Wanted it more than he wanted his next breath. But he'd already made a deal with God that if she was going to change her mind about the boy, she'd have to do it on her own. If he convinced her, she'd be tempted to hold the decision against him for the rest of their days.

  And neither of them could live with that.

  But right from the beginning, his plan went terribly awry. Like a perfectly sound flight plan that somehow falls apart in the air and ends up with an emergency landing. Only this time they didn't even get that. The conversation crashed and burned long before Connor had time to say even half of what he'd wanted to tell her.

  Now here it was, ten o'clock Tuesday night, and Connor sat alone in the family room, staring into the darkness and wondering what was going to happen next, how either of them could salvage their relationship.

  Maybe he'd been wrong about Michele. Maybe it was too late to save their marriage. If he was going to lose her anyway, then he might as well keep Max. That way when he and Michele had to share the girls, at least he'd always have his son. The boy would never have to grow up with a couple he didn't know, his future as predictable as the seasons.

  He thought back over the night, and the tension that filled the house like a poisonous fog. Michele finally came down
from her room, stood at the patio door, and called out a hello to the kids. Elizabeth and Susan came running, of course, but Max hung back. Poor guy, of course he didn't come running. Even in those first welcoming moments, she made her feelings for him clear. Her eyes never even looked for him in the yard, and once she hugged the girls, she put an arm around each of them and headed back into the house.

  Connor went outside then, found the boy, and played catch with him. But Max wasn't fooled.

  “Mrs. Evans is still mad, isn't she?”

  “Not at you, Max. At me … at something I did.”

  “You?” He flipped the ball across the yard, and Connor couldn't help but notice that he had a great throwing arm. “I don't think so … I think it's me.”

  After a quiet dinner, they spent the rest of the evening apart, he and Max watching a movie together; Michele with the girls upstairs, getting them ready for bed, reading to them, and brushing their hair. She was asleep in one of their rooms now. At least that's what he guessed. She hadn't been down since dinnertime.

  Meanwhile, Max fell asleep against his side, and when the movie was over, he carried his son upstairs to the guest room. As he tucked him into bed, he hovered over him a few minutes longer than necessary. Max had carried his Bible with him on the camping trip, looking over it, reading small passages, and checking the special things he kept inside.

  The Bible was back on the nightstand next to his bed now. A reminder of all he held dear. But after the past week, it wasn't all he held dear, was it? That night as Max read him a book and prayed with him, he hadn't even reached for the special things in his small white book. The reason was as clear as the stars outside his window.

  Max was growing to love Connor as much as Connor already loved him.

  Connor leaned down and kissed Max's cheek, just as the phone rang. He crept out of the room with quiet steps and headed for his bedroom. There he grabbed the phone on the third ring and clicked the on button.

  “Hello?”

  The silence on the other end was long enough that Connor almost hung up. But just as he moved the receiver from his ear he heard a familiar voice. “Connor …”

  He brought the phone back. “Yes?”

  “Connor, this is your father.”

  A hundred other times in that instant he would have been first shocked, and then angry. He'd told his father not to call, that the relationship they'd once shared was over. But now, with his own son's sweet smell still fresh on his sweatshirt, his knees grew weak and he could do nothing but drop to the bed.

  The word that came from his mouth was small and filled with sadness, a sadness Connor hadn't fully understood until just now. “Dad?”

  His father's voice was thick. “How … how are you, Son?”

  Connor had never cried over losing his father, but now his heart was strangled by sorrow. He pictured Max, then pictured the way his own father must've felt about him, regardless of how he'd chosen to show it. And out of the ashes of eight years of silence, a sprig of hope began to grow.

  Connor's words were shaky. “I'm … not too good, Dad. Not too good.”

  “I heard.” He paused. “Michele came by a few days ago.”

  He wanted to be angry with her, but he couldn't be. Couldn't do anything but grip the phone and realize how good it felt to have his dad on the other end. “I messed up.”

  “Yes. We all mess up once or twice.”

  What was his father saying? That he himself had made a mistake by turning his only son away all those years ago? Connor fell back on the bed, and tears blurred his view of the ceiling. “I never thought the affair was my fault.” He pulled his arm across his wet eyes. “Until the other day.”

  “You know why, right?” The man's words were gentler than they'd been before. Gentle and kind and wise.

  “Not really.”

  “Pilot's pride, Son. You and I both have it.”

  “Pilot's pride?” Connor twisted his face and gave a shake of his head. “What's my job have to do with it?”

  “Everything.” His father took a long breath. “Pilots—good pilots—carry with them a certain kind of pride, an ability to see everything that goes wrong as a problem he can fix and move away from. If a pilot thought himself capable of error, he wouldn't be much good with a plane full of passengers. See, it's a confidence thing that works wonderfully in the cockpit.” His voice fell a notch. “But not so well on the ground.”

  Pilot's pride? Was that his problem? If so, he'd been crazy to let it go this far, to let it get in the way of every person he'd ever loved. “What made you call?”

  “I have a few things to say.” A smile sounded in his tone. “And God gave me the go-ahead.”

  “God?” Maybe this wasn't his father after all. The man had never owned the faith they'd been raised with. That had been his mother's area.

  “Yes. My pilot's pride has faded since our last meeting. God wanted me to wait until the time was right, and after Michele came by I knew. This was my time.” The humor was gone. “Our time.”

  “Is that what you wanted to say?” Connor wanted to keep the conversation going, hold onto whatever chance this was before it slipped away.

  “There's more.” He hesitated. “I want you to know I'm sorry about what happened between us, Son.” His father sniffed, and his voice cracked. “I've regretted it every day since.”

  Connor had to remind himself to breathe. “You have?”

  “Yes.” He seemed to think for a moment. “I still don't think buying the airport would've been a good thing for you, but I could've handled it differently. Spent more time talking to you about it, researched it with you. Anyway …” He took a slow breath, and a lifetime of pain sounded in his tone. “I'm sorry.”

  It was his turn, but after so many years, Connor wasn't sure how to voice his feelings. Instead of apologizing, he sat up and pressed the receiver closer to his ear. “I missed you, Dad. Missed you a lot.”

  “Me, too.” Nothing in his father's voice suggested he was upset that the apology hadn't gone both ways. “I hear I have a grandson.”

  Mention of Max doubled the sorrow welling within him. “Yes. He … he looks just like you, Dad. Exactly like you looked when you were a boy.”

  “Then he must look like you, also.”

  “He does.” Connor stared out the window. “I love him, Dad. I've fallen head over heels for the boy.”

  His father waited for a bit. “That's the other thing I wanted to talk about.”

  “Max?” Connor was surprised.

  “Yes, Son. When Michele first told me about the boy, I thought you needed to find whatever way possible to keep him. I was ready to pray for Michele to welcome him the way you already had. But then God talked to me and told me something I needed to remember, something He wanted me to tell you, too.”

  “Okay …” God wanted him to? Connor stood and paced the room, taking slow steps from one side to the other, trying to take it all in. The changes in his father were almost enough to distract him from what the man was saying. “What's that, Dad?”

  “God's ways are not our ways, Son. That's the message.” His father paused. When he spoke again, his voice was sadder than it had ever been. “You need to send the boy home.”

  Connor stopped and hung his head. He could still feel Max's arms around his waist, still see him looking concerned as they played catch and talked about Michele. Still feel the way he'd all but taken over his broken heart.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought that, too, Dad. Until Michele came home today.”

  “Ah … it didn't go well?”

  “She's become this … this awful person. I don't even recognize her.” He looked up and finished his path to the bedroom window. “I think she's going to leave me.”

  “So you've already made up your mind.”

  A flicker of anger sparked in Connor's soul, and then died. He'd lost too many years with his father to be angry with him now. “Michele made it up for me.”

  �
�Now, Son. What you and Michele have is deeper, stronger, than this type of a test. But there's a problem. You're more willing to let her go because if she leaves, you'll have a reason to keep the boy.”

  Connor placed his arm against the window and leaned against the cool glass. That was it exactly, wasn't it? He'd given it a try with Michele, and since she'd rejected him, he was ready to move on to Max, right?

  “Okay.” Defeat rang in his voice. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Believe that God's ways are the best. And that means standing by Michele, standing by her and loving her and helping her through this time. It means sending Max home, Son. As soon as the two weeks are up.”

  His father was right. He was right and if he followed the man's advice, if he did what God wanted him to do, that meant Max would be gone from their lives in three short days. Three days to love him and bond with him and make enough memories to last a lifetime without him.

  It was the only thing he could do, and at that moment he was sure he would do it. Michele would come around eventually, and one day they could find what they'd lost these past weeks. But only if he sent Max away.

  “Okay, Dad.” He couldn't stay on the phone another minute. “Okay.”

  “So you'll do it?”

  “Yes. He'll go home Friday morning.”

  “You'll never be sorry.”

  Connor didn't know about that. But it wasn't the time to say so. “Thanks, Dad. For calling. It's been too long.”

  “We'll talk again in a few weeks. I want to know how it goes.”

  “Okay.” The irony rattled the walls of Connor's heart. That he would find his father and lose his son all in one week.

  “Oh, and Connor?”

  “Yes?”

  “I wish I could see him. Max, I mean.”

  “Yeah, Dad.” Connor worked his fingertips into his neck, trying to knead out the tightness in his throat. No matter what his father had said about sending Max home, the old man cared. He cared, and in some ways he would carry a permanent ache over losing Max—just as Connor would.

  Connor clenched his jaw and then released it. “I wish you could, too.”