He stops there, but he doesn’t need to finish the sentence. A wave of sickness washes over me. I sit up and slide to the edge of the bed, facing away from him now and reaching for my clothes. “The baby is yours,” I say.
“I don’t know how that can be,” Klein says. “She told me she—”
“But she actually didn’t.”
“Why would she do that?” Klein says, his voice razor-edged with agony.
I’m not sure if he’s asking the question of himself or of me. “I cannot imagine.”
“I thought the choice that she made was her way of getting back at me, but was this actually it? For her to have the baby and not allow me to be involved?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.”
“You have to go back,” I say. “You have to go to the hospital.”
He’s quiet now, and I can feel his agreement. Even if he hasn’t voiced it out loud, we both know that there is no other option. If the baby is his, and there seems to be little doubt, he needs to make his presence known now.
“You have to go,” I say again.
He turns then to look at me, and I can see in his eyes regret for what is about to happen between us, and the realization, too, that our time here might have been all the time together we’ll ever know.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is not how I wanted this night to end.”
“This is your baby. You have to be there.”
“Yes,” he says, standing. “When will you come back?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, realizing I really have no idea. It’s clear to me then that I haven’t been thinking beyond our stay in France. It’s as if I’ve been holding my breath, waiting to see what would happen and how that would affect where we went from here.
“Can I see you when you get back?” he asks.
I want to say yes. So very much. But. “What’s probably best for both of us is for you to see this through. Do what you need to do. And I don’t want you to factor me into any decisions you make. That’s not really fair to either one of us, and I understand that what’s happening with you now was before me.”
He starts to say something. I can see that he wants to disagree but realizes that I’m right. Not that I want to be, but I know that I am.
“I’ll go back to my room and let you book a flight.”
“Dillon, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “It’s been an amazing few days. I won’t ever forget them.” I start to leave then before he can try to stop me. It wouldn’t take much.
“Dillon,” he calls out. But I keep walking. I let myself into my room, close the door, and lock it.
~
I HEAD STRAIGHT for the shower, shucking off my clothes and stepping under the cold spray, hoping it will wash away the memories of this night.
I have no right to cry, but somehow I find myself doing it anyway. Tipping my head against the shower wall, letting the water sluice across my face.
It’s not as if I hadn’t known all along that we were living a fantasy, that it would have to come to an end eventually. I had known this on some level, and maybe I had just closed it out a little too well.
I have a life to go back to. A life to finish closing up and figuring out. And with the reality of that phone call a few minutes ago, I know that Klein does as well.
I hoped this would go somewhere. I can’t deny that deep down, I had imagined what it would be like to continue what we’ve started when we got back to Nashville. But Klein has a child, a newborn baby, and a connection to his or her mother, whether I want to admit it or not.
He’s a good guy, and good guys do the right thing. I know in my heart that he will offer to be there for Riley. If he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t be the man I know him to be. It’s not as if I can even resent this or wish for it to be different.
What we’ve had here has been a lovely respite from reality. It’s the best thing for both of us that the phone call came when it did. There would only have been more to regret, and I’m not going to need that, for sure.
There’s only one choice, and that is to let him go. No strings attached. I don’t want him to feel that he owes me anything, because he doesn’t. I got from this experience as much as I gave, and that is all that matters.
He texts me a few minutes after I get out of the shower, and says he has booked a flight for seven A.M. out of the Marseille Provence Airport.
I text him back and tell him I’ll be glad to drive him, which means we’ll have to leave in thirty minutes or so, but I’m not going to sleep anyway. He says he’ll be happy to go by car service, but I tell him there’s no need, and we leave it at that. I arrange to meet him downstairs in a half-hour, and wonder even as I do if this is the last time I will ever see him again.
Klein
“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”
―Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
I FEEL AS if someone has inserted a knife in my back, and I’m being ripped apart down the middle.
We’re in the car, twenty minutes or so from the airport. We’ve said very little since leaving the château. Everything has changed between us. I feel it like the shift in barometric pressure before a hurricane. We may not be able to see what is coming, but we both feel it, and there is no escaping it.
I want to reach out and put my hand over hers, but it’s clear that I no longer have any right to do that. I want to tell her that somehow, someway, we’ll get back to this. But again, I have no idea whether that is true or not, and I know that I cannot lead her along and make her think something might be when I have no idea whether I can give her that.
We’re almost to the airport exit when I finally find the words to say what I’m feeling. “Dillon—”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice deliberately light.
“I need you to know exactly what being here with you has meant to me.”
“Klein, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do have to. You’ve made me want things again that I thought I no longer wanted. With my music and my life in general, you’ve made me see it in a completely different way, and I will forever be grateful to you for that.”
“I can say the same thing about you. Maybe we were meant to spend this time together to give each other a new perspective, a new outlook.”
I consider my words carefully. “I want it to be about more than that,” I say.
“Klein, don’t. It can’t be, and we both know it.”
I start to deny it, but I respect her too much for that. She deserves better.
We’re a mile or so from the airport now, and my heart rate kicks up. I feel sick at the thought of leaving.
“The truth is, Klein,” she says now, “I have things I have to take care of in my life, too. And I’ve been kidding myself here, putting it off when I know I can’t do that.”
“You mean with Josh?”
“Yes,” she says. “I mean, he wants us to try again, and I don’t know. Maybe I need to give it a shot.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, a little stunned. She won’t look at me, and in the near dark of the car I can’t read her expression.
“We were married a long time,” she says. “Maybe that’s not something I should just throw away.”
I feel floored by this, wondering if she’s just saying it because of what’s happened tonight, or if it’s something she’s really considering. “I thought you were over him,” I say.
“He’s asked me for another chance,” Dillon says softly.
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
We drive the last half mile or so to the departure gates in silence. Dillon pulls the car to the American Airlines entrance, and we sit for a moment, awkward.
A traffic security guard waves for us to move along, and I look at Dillon and say, “This isn’t how I wanted this to end.”
“I know,” she says. “But it’s probably for the best, do
n’t you think?”
“When will you be coming back?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I may stay at the château another day or two, try to write a few things I have in my head.”
“Will you let me know when you’re back in Nashville?”
“Sure,” she says, and I hear in her voice the unlikelihood that this will actually happen.
I get out of the car, open the back to pull out my suitcase and guitar. I walk around to the driver’s door. Dillon has rolled the window down and looks up at me with a forced smile. I feel a deep and immediate grief for what I know has been lost between us, and yet, I don’t have the ability or the right to fix it. “Dillon—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Just go, Klein. Be well and happy, and I’ll listen for you on the radio.”
I shouldn’t because it will only make things worse for both of us, but I lean down and kiss her softly. I feel her give and realize that she’s doing what she thinks she needs to do in letting me go. She’s doing this for me.
A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t seem to swallow past it. My eyes sting with tears. I am not going to let myself lose it in front of her. I step back, pick up my belongings, and walk into the airport.
Dillon
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
―Arthur Miller
WHEN I GET back to the château, I barely remember the drive from the airport here. Suddenly I’m parked in the lot, where we left the car when we first arrived, and the sun is coming up behind the estate.
I get out of the car, take the path that leads to the orchard, putting one foot in front of the other without letting myself think beyond the physical movement.
When I reach the edge of the orchard, I stop for a minute, staring at the beautiful fruit-laden trees and feeling the loss of Klein here, as I would a death. I know this because the hole in my heart is so like the same kind of grief I had felt after losing my mother, my best friend in life, someone I knew I could never replace.
I can’t deny that this glimpse of happiness I experienced with Klein during our time together in France feels like something I’ve never found before him, and very likely will never find again.
I walk further into the orchard, sit down on the dew-moist grass, and listen to the morning sounds of the countryside around me. The birds chirp back and forth, busy and happy. I picture Klein and me here, kissing under the warm sun, the smell of ripening fruit abundant all around us. The tears well in my eyes now, slide down my cheeks, and I don’t bother to deny them or stop them. I know enough about emotions to know that there is only one way to get past them, and that is to go through them, to feel them.
The sounds of my heartbroken sobbing quiets the birds, as if they respect their interpretation of my language. Once my sorrow is spent, I sit for a while, letting myself absorb this place and its beauty, neither of which I ever want to forget. And when the birds start their singing again, I stand and walk back to the château.
Life does, after all, go on.
~
I STOP FOR a cup of coffee at the front door, the smell drawing me into the enormous foyer. André is standing by the coffee setup and glances at me in surprise.
“Hey,” he says. “Good morning. What happened to you two last night?”
“We just decided to head back. It was a lot of fun, though. Thank you so much for inviting us.”
“What did you do with Klein this morning? He is not up this early?”
“Actually, I just dropped him off at the airport. He had an emergency back home. He had to leave.”
“Oh,” André says, looking surprised. “You’ll stay with us a bit longer, then?”
“I’m actually not sure yet. This all came up kind of suddenly, and our plans got changed. So I need to figure out what I’m doing.”
“Yeah. I understand that,” André says. “But if you’d like to get dinner tonight or something, Elizabetta and I would love to do that.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s really nice.”
“Absolutely,” he says. “And if you decide you’d like to go for a ride this afternoon, come to the stables.”
“Thank you again,” I say, and head toward the elevator with my coffee.
Once I get to the room, I close the door and stare at the furnishings, realizing how empty the place feels now without Klein. Suddenly, I can’t imagine staying here without him. And I don’t want to.
Riley
“I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them. . .”
―Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
THINGS HAVE NOT worked out as I imagined they would.
The baby is two months early, and I am filled with an unreasonable terror that I will be left with no cards to play. Even in my current state of agony, I realize how callous and cold this sounds, but I’m nothing if not realistic. Without this baby, there is no chance of me ever having Klein.
Dagger-sharp pain stabs through the middle of my body, and it is all I can do not to lunge from the bed and grab the sympathetic-looking nurse standing beside the IV pole and shake her until she adds something to the plastic bag cocktail that will take away this agony.
Through clenched teeth, I manage to say, “When will the doctor be here?”
“As soon as you are dilated a little more, he will come in to check you.”
“And the epidural?” I almost scream.
“I’m so sorry, my dear. It’s way too late for that.”
“What? What do you mean, ‘It’s way too late’?”
“You’re too far along,” the nurse says, and some part of me wonders if she’s taking a little too much pleasure in this announcement. Her sympathy seems to have faded and been replaced with an awareness of how close I am to strangling her. If I thought I could get away with it, I’m pretty sure I would, simply as a release for my own despair.
“I’m afraid there’s no possibility of rowing backward from here, my dear. You’ve got to row upstream now,” she says in her cheerful nurse voice.
I now know for sure if I had the means to do so, I would gladly strangle her. But another slice of pain sears through me, and it is all I can do not to scream, grappling for self-control.
I have always prided myself on being able to suffer through what others could not seem to. When I was twelve, I was having a tooth filled when the novocain wore off. I forced myself not to tell the dentist because I wanted to see if I could actually bear it, and I did.
But this was something altogether different. The pain feels as if it starts at the top of my head, boring through me with the ferocity of a lightning bolt slamming through an oak tree.
It’s then that I realize I’m not afraid for the baby’s life; I’m afraid for my own.
Klein
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
―Mark Twain
MY FLIGHT TO Nashville goes through Atlanta, and by the time we touch down, it is a full eighteen hours since I received the call from Curtis. I had grappled with the thought of texting Riley, but I’m afraid to give her a heads-up. I don’t want her to know that I know anything. Given the fact that she lied to me, I have no idea what to expect when she finds out I know.
I get an Uber from the airport and go straight to Vanderbilt. My suitcase and guitar are still with me. The Uber driver lets me out at the hospital’s front entrance. I walk up to the information desk, the woman working behind it looking up. “I’m wondering if you would mind holding my guitar and suitcase here while I go upstairs and visit someone. And if you promise not to let on that I’m in the hospital, I’ll give you two front-row tickets to my next concert.”
She smiles at me and says, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. Your secret’s good with me, Mr. Matthews. I’m a big fan, and I’m happy to do that for you.”
I take note of her name tag so I can send something for her later, and give her a sincere, “Thank you,” before heading for the elevators.
The elevator doors open, and I step out into the hallway, looking left then right and following the numbers on the wall to Riley’s room. The door is cracked, and I stick my head around the edge before knocking.
She is asleep. There’s no one else in the room, so I step quietly inside. I walk over to the bed and stand there, looking down at her. She looks peaceful and exhausted, even in sleep.
I wonder how things could have gone so wrong between us, how we’ve arrived at a place where we’ve failed each other so miserably.
Riley opens her eyes wide as if she has heard my thoughts. She stares at me for a couple of seconds before saying, “Klein? What are you doing here?”
“Curtis called me and said that you were in the hospital having a baby.”
Her eyes go wider, and she has the look of someone who’s been caught in an awful lie. Which she has.
“Did you have the baby, Riley?” I’m holding my breath for her answer, part of me desperate to know and another part terrified of the answer. That something will have gone wrong.
Shock is replaced with something much more like anger, and she says, “Yes. But I owe you nothing, Klein, much less an explanation.”
“Yes, you do owe me an explanation, Riley. You told me you’d—”
“Because you didn’t want me,” she interrupts, trying to sit up in bed, and suddenly I feel guilty for upsetting her when she’s obviously worn out.
“I don’t want to know anything right now except whether the baby is okay or not.”
I watch as she wrestles with an answer. I’m guessing she knows there’s no point in lying since all I have to do is walk outside and find the nurse to discover the answer for myself.
That Weekend in Paris (Take Me There(Stand-alone) Book 3) Page 18
