by Sarah Ready
Tears fall from my eyes and I wipe them away.
I think of how I was the exact opposite of fearless with Sam. I’m so scared of what might happen, of him being Frederick Knight, that I rejected him, full stop. I ran. Just like I’ve been doing from the first. I’m not brave at all.
“She will,” I say. “She’ll get out of here.”
Chloe wraps her arm around my waist and leans her head on my shoulder. “I know,” she says. “She has a lot to look forward to. A daddy who adores her. A mom who loves her to bits.”
“A godmother who is going to spoil her rotten.” I smile. “It’s going to be okay,” I say. “I’m here. Anything you need.”
“I’ve been illustrating like crazy since Ava was born. I’ve got an idea for a preemie line, NICU crib art,” she says.
I look at the picture on the crib. It’s a drawing of a cat, a dog, and a baby bird and it says Be brave, little one.
“Good idea,” I say. “I’ll take care of everything at work. You take as much time as you need.”
I’ve only had a day of recovery, fluids, food and rest. I’m still exhausted, but I’m ready to move on and get back to work.
The thought, you’re running away, flashes through my mind.
“Thank you,” says Chloe. “What did I do to deserve a friend like you?”
I tilt my head, try to lighten the mood. “I don’t know, I think it was when we were three and you shared your juice box with me. Or it could’ve been when you let me dress your Barbies in tomboy clothes and take them on hikes.”
We sit quietly for a moment. I think about how twenty-five years ago, I never would’ve guessed that Chloe and I would be sitting here together. I wiggle my finger and Ava’s grip tightens on my hand. She has dark, nearly black hair, just like Nick’s, but her rosebud mouth is a replica of Chloe’s.
“I love her already,” I say.
Chloe nods. Then she smooths her hands over her dress. I smile, leave it to Chloe to be four days post-delivery and dressed in a lacy yellow sundress with her curly hair barely restrained by a matching yellow scarf. I look down. I’m in my usual too. Khaki shorts, a tank top, hiking boots. Chloe calls it my Tomb Raider look. We’re quite a pair.
Opposites in nearly every way, except for one thing—how much we care about each other.
My mind turns back to Sam. The world would see us as opposites too, but…
Last night, while I was sleeping, something woke me up. The room was pitch black. I didn’t know where I was, I thought for a moment I was still in the cave. Half-asleep, confused and scared, I reached over and tried to find Sam. For thirty seconds I scrambled over the bed, flinging my hands about, searching for him. My heart beat in my ears because I couldn’t find him. Then, my mind cleared and I realized I wasn’t in the cave, I was in bed, and Sam wasn’t with me anymore.
I wonder how many times I’ll wake up in the dark expecting to feel him next to me.
“Veronica?” asks Chloe.
“Yeah?”
“You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”
My shoulders drop and I watch the rise and fall of Ava’s breaths. I should’ve known that Chloe would address this. She may be a new mom with a baby in the NICU, but she’s still my best friend, and the world’s biggest romantic. She’ll want to make sure I’m okay.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “You just need to concentrate on Ava.”
“Does he deserve you?” she asks. “I want to know if he’s a good enough guy for my best friend. If not, Nick’s company is doing really well, he can send one of his guys over to pull a rough up job.”
I laugh. “I thought Nick had a security company. Not the mafia. What’s wrong with you?” I laugh at the wicked glint in her eyes.
“Well, you once offered to tie Nick up and dump him in the woods if he hurt me. I thought I’d return the favor.”
“In my defense, that’s before I realized Nick is actually a hard shell with a gooey, soft center.”
“And so is Frederick Knight? He’s not actually a player?” she asks hopefully.
I fiddle with the drawstring on my shorts, not sure how to answer her question. “I don’t know,” I say. “When we were in the cave together, I would’ve bet my life that he wasn’t. But I don’t know how to reconcile that with how the media portrays him.”
She nods, “You’ll figure it out.”
With reluctance I pull my hand from Ava’s grasp. She waves her arm, like she’s trying to reach me.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say to Chloe. I put my hand on the plastic of the incubator. “Bye, baby girl.”
Be brave.
Six weeks later, my life is back into a semi-normal routine. I visit Chloe and Ava at the hospital in the mornings. Ava is getting stronger every day, and the doctors say she could go home soon. I bring Chloe a caramel latte and pick up any illustration concepts she’s conceived, and then I update her on the freelancers covering the creative aspects of the company. I’m going to have to implement the plan Sam and I came up with to expand staffing. Our business has grown far beyond the capabilities of two partners and a couple freelancers.
All my bruises and scrapes have healed. I’m rested and have completely regained my strength. The only thing that hasn’t healed is the hollow ache in my chest. It’s as if a part of me has been cut out and I don’t have the piece needed to fill the emptiness.
I still wake up in the dark expecting to find Sam there. When he’s not, I make myself close my eyes, breathe deep and fall back asleep.
The reporters left town long ago. After a few days of hounding me for an interview they gave up, packed into their vans, and went in search of more salacious news.
Sometimes I see Frederick Knight on the TV. But it’s old pictures, old footage, and they’re speculating about what he’s doing now, who he’s seeing, where he is. Why he’s been out of the limelight for more than a month. No one has seen him since the clearing and he’s not giving interviews. For a few weeks they played the footage of him in the clearing. They loved to zoom in on his bruised face as a reporter shouts, “Are you and Veronica Diaz dating?” and then he swings to the camera, his expression bordering on violence as he snarls, “No comment.” The tabloids and entertainment industry loved dissecting that clip. Most finally agreed that The King of Players and the “hiker woman” had nothing between them but survival.
After watching weeks of news about him, I realized that the woman he hugged as if he loved her was his sister. And I know from what he told me that he does love her, they’re a close-knit family and they care about each other. The woman in the helicopter was an ex-girlfriend, angling for a media spotlight. What I saw wasn’t what I thought it was.
Every time an image of him comes on TV, or I see a picture of him in a tabloid, I don’t feel scared anymore. Before when I realized who he was and saw his face, I was terrified. Now, when I see a picture of him in a tuxedo, or on a yacht, or climbing down from a helicopter, I try to see his eyes. I try to see him. To see the truth.
So now, when I see pictures of Frederick Knight, I look for the truth. I look for him.
I walk down Appleseed Court, the street I grew up on. I step over a large crack in the sidewalk. The same crack my bike tire used to hit every time I rode to and from school. I look at the colonial house in front of me. It’s painted light bluish gray, with red shutters. The flower beds need weeding, but the grass is trimmed. I stand at the edge of the lawn and put my hands in my pockets. The light in the kitchen is on and I can see my mom through the window. She’s at the kitchen sink washing dishes.
A sprinkler comes on at the neighbors’ and a dog barks. I rock back on my heels. My feet itch to turn around and walk back to my car. It’s been ten years.
But I’d promised Sam, I’d promised myself that I was going to talk to my mom. When I thought that I was going to die, there were only a few things I’d wanted. To see my mom, to meet my goddaughter, and to meet Sam in the outside world. That hollow spot in my chest
clenches. I’ve met my goddaughter, now it’s time to see my mom.
I walk up the sidewalk to the front door. It’s painted dark blue now. The last time I was here it was white. There are new ceramic flower pots holding bushy plants and bright flowers. It’s familiar, but different. Ten years is a long time, plenty more than flower pots and door colors can change.
I ring the doorbell and then put my hands behind my back.
What will she think? What will she say? Will she even want to talk to me? The last time we spoke I said some ugly things. I told her that she was the weakest, most cowardly woman I knew and that I hoped I was never like her, letting love make me weak. I was eighteen and so sure I knew everything there was to know about the world.
I hear her footsteps on the wood floor, and there’s a funny feeling in my stomach and I realize it’s fear.
The door swings open. “May I help—” My mom stops, she drops the dish towel in her hand, stares at me in shock.
She’s older. Somehow, I never thought that she’d look any different than I remembered her. I never thought she’d age. She has gray hair now and there are lines on her forehead.
“Mom,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Then she cries out and rushes to me and pulls me in her arms. She’s crying and hugging me. And I throw my arms around her and all that fear that she’d be upset or not want to see me vanishes. All those years of blaming her, trying not to be like her, they fall away. Even the shame of holding it all against her, it falls away as she squeezes me to her.
“I was so worried,” she says. “I was so scared for you. My strong girl. My fierce-hearted daughter.”
She pulls back and takes my face in her hands. Tears fill her eyes.
“Oh Mom,” I say. “I’m sorry for blaming you. I…”
“Come inside,” she says. She pulls me into the house. In minutes I’m settled on the living room couch, and my mom brings out a dish of fresh cinnamon rolls and two mugs of coffee.
“Your favorite, extra frosting,” she says as she dishes out the cinnamon roll onto a plate and pushes it to me.
I take a sip of coffee. My mom watches me like I’m about to disappear again and she won’t see me for another ten years. I feel so stupid. So…wrong. I ran from Sam, but I’ve been running from my family for ten years. I thought I was brave and strong, people said I was, but when it comes down to it, I’m not. I’ve been a coward.
“I was at the search,” my mom says. She runs her fingers over the handle of her fork.
“You were?” I didn’t see her there.
She nods. “As soon as it was organized I was out there looking for you. Praying. I saw you come back, I made sure you were okay. Then I left. I didn’t think you’d want to see me there.”
I close my eyes against the sting of her words. Then I choose to face them. I’ve acted poorly.
“I would have,” I say.
She looks up in surprise.
“When I was lost, I realized that the one thing in my life that I wished I’d done was tell you that…” I pause and she looks up.
“Yes?”
“That I love you,” I say.
She wipes at the tears in her eyes. “I know,” she says. “I love you too.”
I think about how much Chloe loves her daughter and I can now see that love in my mom.
“I’m sorry for blaming you for staying with Dad. I know that you loved him and sometimes it’s hard to leave people you love, even when they hurt you—”
“Veronica,” she interrupts.
“What?”
“I didn’t stay with your father for love,” she says.
“You didn’t?”
She shakes her head. “I tried to divorce him when you were three years old.”
“What? I didn’t know this. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighs and looks down at her hands twisting in her lap. “I wanted you to have a happy childhood. To feel loved.”
“But…” I don’t understand.
“Your father had more power than me. More money, more prestige, more connections. He promised that he would take full custody of you and make it so that I would never see you again. That I would never see you, the daughter I loved, if I dared divorce him.”
Her words fall like jagged rocks and all my ideas of the past are shattered. One thing is clear.
“You stayed with him for me?”
She nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I cry.
“I didn’t want you to think poorly of him. Or to feel bad for me. That’s too much for a child to carry. I had you, a home, a life. I didn’t want you to think that you were the cause of any unhappiness. Or to think that I regretted my choices. I never regretted them. The pain of marriage, your father’s cheating, I’d do it all over again. Because I got you.”
“But I blamed you,” I cry. “I didn’t speak to you for ten years.”
She nods. “I should’ve told you. After his funeral, after our argument. But I was scared. I didn’t want you to think I was weak for staying with him. You wouldn’t have let yourself be bullied. I see how you’ve grown up and I’m so proud of you.”
“No, that’s not true,” I say. I think of how much courage she had to stay in a marriage full of betrayal. How much strength she had to face each day so that she could stay in my life. I can’t imagine how much worse my childhood would’ve been if my dad were actually a single parent. I would’ve been his player-bait for years longer. “I don’t think you’re a coward at all. I think you’re strong.”
All these years I thought that my mom was made weak through loving my dad. I thought she stayed with him because she was weak. But that wasn’t it at all. She stayed with him for me. And loving me made her strong enough to do that.
Love made her strong.
I’ve been so wrong. About everything. All my life there have been instances of love making people strong. My mom. Chloe and Nick. Ava. Sam and me. I don’t think that we would’ve survived the cave without the love we felt for each other.
I’ve been so blind.
Sam knew too. He asked me to stay with him, to trust him, and I couldn’t. My throat tightens. What if he’s moved on? Written me off? I told him that I could never love Frederick Knight. And he…believed me?
In the cave, he did tell the truth. He loved me, let me see the real him, chanced rejection, something he feared, and I let him down. I’m ashamed of myself. It’s hard to see all the things that I’ve done wrong and all the ways I’ve hurt people and let them down.
“Can you forgive me?” I ask through the lump in my throat. “I’ve been…horrid.”
“No,” she cries. She reaches out and takes my hands. “Horrid people refuse to grow. They don’t acknowledge faults. They stay stuck in the past and refuse to change. You’re not horrid. You only needed some time to grow. That’s called being human.”
I curl into my mom and thank the universe, or fate, or whatever it was that led me to falling into that cave. Because it led me back to my mom. And it gave me Sam.
I hope. I hope it gave me Sam.
“You’re really wise, Mom,” I say.
She shrugs. “Took me sixty years and a lot of pain and mistakes to get here. Mistakes and pain are the best fertilizer for growth.”
I smile at her and she smiles back. I feel warm inside and happy. I didn’t realize how much not talking with my mom had hurt me. How much I’d been hurting myself.
The realization fills me.
I can’t keep making this same mistake.
I jump up from the couch.
“I’ll be back,” I say, “but I need to go. I need to go right now.” I hurry to the door.
There’s an urgency in me. I have to go see Sam. I can’t run away any more. I have to see him now. I have to tell him how I feel. Beg him to forgive me for letting him down. I see him. I do.
“Where are you going?” my mom calls after me, surprise filling her voice.
I turn, my hand on the door hand
le.
“To see about the rest of my life.”
Then I run out the door and down the sidewalk, jump into my car. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not running away. I’m running forward. To Sam. To meet him in the outside world.
Five hours later I stand outside Frederick Knight’s offices on a quiet street in Tribeca. I’m actually surprised at how quiet the street is. There isn’t a single person besides me on the sidewalks. I always thought every street in New York was constantly bustling, but that’s not really the case. There are people on the busy cross street a block down, but here, it’s quiet.
His office is a six-story building, built circa the 1880s, with a brown sandstone exterior.
He’s on the top floor. I know this because the stainless steel placard next to the security desk told me so. Unfortunately, the security officer also told me that I’m not welcome in the building. Unauthorized visitors are prohibited, and he wouldn’t break protocol and call up to Mr. Knight’s offices to check if I could be admitted.
Why would he? I’m in camo shorts, a white tank top, and hiking boots. My hair is down and wind-blown and there’s a sheen of sweet coating my forehead. I’m way out of place compared to the sleek-haired, business-suited, flashy types I saw as I searched for parking.
I probably look like a crazy Frederick Knight groupie aiming for a hookup, or some country bumpkin on a field trip trying to gain admittance to see a billionaire. Or a con artist. He may have thought I was a con artist.
“Please, just call up. He’ll want to see me. I guarantee it,” I said.
The security guard looked me over. “That’s what they all say,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am. Please exit the building. Mr. Knight does not receive visitors. Ever.”
And that was that.
I did manage to learn that he comes in and out of the building through a private entrance and that his driver waits at the door. The private entrance isn’t accessible to the public. I read that tidbit after a quick search on my phone while standing outside this building. It’s on a fan girl blog devoted to Frederick Knight sightings. Apparently, women used to stake out his offices, but gave up after they realized he never used the front door and was never seen on the sidewalk. But thanks to the blog I also know that his desk is in the west-facing corner office of the sixth floor. I crane my neck. The window has a nice eight-inch ledge and… I smile to myself. His window is cracked open. A few inches, but still, that’s enough.
