Stranded

by Chance Carter

  “Yeah, that too.” Alexander put his turn signal on and headed back onto the road. This was really happening. He was serious about me and this baby. Years of neglect and emotional abuse had led me to expect the worst, and I wished more than anything that I could fully let myself and my worries go. Alexander wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.

  “Want to play a game?” I asked.

  Alexander shrugged. “What sort of game are we talking about?”

  “When I was with Liana last month, she told me there was this quiz that all couples just have to take,” I explained. “Apparently, it’ll help us learn more about each other. I know it sounds corny, but we have a few more hours to go, so I thought maybe—”

  “Lay ‘em on me!”

  I scrolled through my phone to find the email Liana had sent me with the link. I hadn’t ever planned on going through this stupid quiz, but I didn’t wanted to start an argument with a woman in labor. “Ah. Here it is!” I looked through the link and realized that it was more of a questionnaire than a quiz.

  “So how does it work?” Alexander said.

  “Well, I’ll read a question from the list, and we’ll both give our answers to it.” I felt like a senior in high school explaining the rules to a silly game to friends at a sleepover. Lucky for me, Alexander seemed to find the prospect of this game quite charming. He always had a way of reassuring me without saying a word. “Just let me know if there’s anything too personal that you don’t want to answer.”

  Alexander chuckled. “More personal than having a baby together?”

  “I’ll give you that,” I said with a smile.

  The questions started off simple, asking about favorite foods, colors, and singers. The only interesting—and new—tidbit I really learned was that, besides loving Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, Alexander had a soft spot for Elton John. We both loved lasagna, and Alexander preferred oatmeal raisin cookies over white chocolate macadamia. I decided to let that one slide. I could try to convert him later.

  “What are your worst habits?” I said, reading from the screen.

  “Hmm…” Alexander said. “That’s a good one. Let me think. You wanna take this one first?”

  I flipped my hair back over my shoulders. “Sure. Probably my worst habits are overthinking things and procrastinating. I’m pretty last-minute about things. Ok, very last-minute.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing one of my worst habits is being annoyingly punctual,” Alexander said with a laugh. “Also, I’m a big-time pen clicker. All through meetings, click, click, click.”

  “Nooooo! You’re one of those people?!”

  Alexander flashed his teeth at me. “I’m sorry to say I am.”

  Another issue I would have to let slide, at least for the time being. I supposed that, if Alexander’s worst qualities were his cookie preferences and writing instrument habits, we were in good shape.

  “What was your first love like?” I asked. Alexander swooped his hair back, something I had picked up to be a nervous habit of his. I could tell this was something he didn’t want to discuss, and the last thing I wanted was to make him uncomfortable, especially since we were trapped in this car together for another few hours. “Never mind. We can skip this one. What’s your—”

  “Her name was Allison,” Alexander said, his gaze focused on the road in front of him. “We dated for two years while we were in college and had honestly planned on spending our lives together.”

  I wasn’t sure if I felt sorry for him that this had seemingly impacted him so much, or jealous that he’d had such a deep love before me. “What happened?” I asked.

  “I had this big plan for Valentine’s Day, which was also our second anniversary,” Alexander explained. “Since we were juniors in college, we didn’t have a whole lot of money and we lived in dorms. I’d spent days making little love notes to hang all over the walls of her dorm room. You know, things I loved about her, quotes from love songs… that kind of thing.”

  “That’s really sweet, Alexander.” I rested my hand on Alexander’s shoulder as a gesture of understanding. His voice was growing increasingly quiet, but he almost seemed relieved to be opening up. I knew all too well what he must be feeling.

  Alexander let out a loud sigh. “I thought so, too. Her roommate had given me a key to their room, so I just had to wait for the perfect moment. While we were hanging out the night before, she told me she had a meeting with one of her professors at noon, so I decided that was when I’d go.” He paused, and I nodded at him to continue. “Well, when I got to the room, Allison was there.”

  “Uh oh,” I said.

  “Under another guy,” Alexander said.

  Gulp. That was a punch in the gut. I could feel Alexander’s sadness just listening to him talk about it. Of course, it had worked out well for me that he had broken up with Allison, but that was years ago. The thought of Alexander hurt made me sick to my stomach. Allison was definitely the one who’d lost out. Alexander was everything a girl could dream of. “I’m sorry.” I knew that sounded lame, so I searched desperately for words to make him feel better. “If it’s any consolation, she missed out on an incredible guy.”

  “Thanks,” Alexander said, the frown slowly fading from his face. “I found out she’d been cheating on me for months with some guy from her lit class. Broke my heart. Bet you’d be shocked to know that big macho CEO over here couldn’t leave his bed for three days because he was so devastated.”

  “Wow.” He was wrong about that, but now wasn’t the time to tell him. I was shocked the first time I saw the emotional, sentimental side of Alexander, but now it was just another facet of him that I loved.

  “It was a long time ago, but it still hurts to think about it. It took me a long time to trust again,” Alexander said.

  “I get it,” I said. “Just know that you can always trust me.”

  Alexander squeezed my hand in his. “I know. Damn lucky, too, because I’ve fallen pretty hard for you.”

  I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “Good to know.”

  “Tallahassee,” Alexander said, reading a green sign on the side of the road. “Your neck of the woods.”

  “Want to see where I grew up?” I asked, following a newfound confidence inside of me. Alexander jerked the wheel to the right and took the next exit.

  Chapter 18

  Alexander

  Today was Casey’s day, and it was all about letting her take the lead. After all, I was surprised—and thankful—that she was letting me into her world. I was sure it had to be painful reliving some of the memories that would undoubtedly surface with this trip.

  “So where are we off to first, boss?” I asked, a mixture of curiosity and sarcasm in my voice.

  “I was thinking we’d start with a tour of some foster homes I visited,” Casey said. “Four or five of them are within a mile of one another. Sound good?”

  I nodded. “Just give me an address so I can get the GPS started.”

  “No, no, no,” Casey grinned. “You’re going to see the town how I saw it when I was young—from the passenger seat.” With that, Casey grabbed the keys from my hand and opened the passenger side door. We switched seats without another word.

  This was the first time Casey had ever driven when we were together, and I had to admit that her braking skills were subpar. She made sharp turns, one after another, and I hoped this was attributed more so to her lack of direction than to her driving skills. She slowed down as we neared a school.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “This is the school I was at when my mom died,” Casey said. She stepped out of the car and I silently followed her lead. “See that classroom over there?” She pointed to a window right next to the mulch-covered playground.

  I nodded. “Mhmm.”

  “That’s where I was sitting when I was called to the principal’s office to be told my mom had been in an accident.” Casey gasped for air as she sobbed, and, despite her objections,
I took her in my arms.

  It was starting to hit me that I was seeing a part of Casey that she had bottled up for so long. “I’m sorry, Case. I wish I could take the pain away.”

  “Me too,” she mumbled.

  Casey drove about a half-mile down the road before pulling over at the intersection of two busy roads. “Uh… Casey,” I started. “Why’d you stop?”

  The tears reemerged as Casey buried her head in her hands. Bits of eye makeup made their way down her cheek and onto her shirt. She pounded her fists against the dashboard and yelled, “It isn’t fair!”

  “Is this where your mom died?” I asked as delicately as I could. As soon as Casey nodded, I unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her onto my lap. I put the flashers on, cradled her in my arms, and let her cry on my shoulder until she had no tears left. I couldn’t begin to know what it felt like to visit the site of a loved one’s death, but, based on the amount of pain I felt even thinking about the prospect of my parents dying someday, I knew it had to cut deep. “Case, we can get back on the highway to Tampa if this is too painful for you.”

  “No,” Casey said, wiping her tears on the back of her hand. “I still have a few more places to show you.” She kissed my cheek and hopped back over to the driver’s side.

  Our next stop was something a bit less dreary: the high school she’d graduated from. After explaining her situation to the school secretary, we were granted a hall pass to—literally—walk through her past. “I went to this school for my junior and senior year,” Casey said, guiding me to the auditorium.

  “What about your first two years?” I asked.

  Casey sighed. “I went to another high school across town. When a foster family from this side of town was interested in taking me, my social worker at the time promised that I’d stay on this side of town until I finished high school.”

  The auditorium had rows of theater seats and banners covered in blue and white. From the look of the décor, I guessed they were having some sort of Christmas or winter performance. “Did you do any activities here?”

  “Not really,” Casey said. “I went to a few meetings of the community service club, but I never really fit in here. Most of my friends were still across town.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said, shaking my head. Trying to lighten the mood, I added, “If it’s any consolation, you would’ve been the best-looking girl at my high school.”

  That brought a smile to Casey’s face. She walked up the three steps to the stage and showed me with precision where she’d sat on graduation day. “You know, I was valedictorian.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” Casey laughed.

  Though I knew she was kidding, I hoped I hadn’t come across as thinking she was anything less than brilliant. “I didn’t… I just didn’t know. That’s all.”

  “I know. So, how’d you do in high school, Mr. CEO?”

  “Good grades,” I said. “Good, but not great. I got into Emory by the skin of my teeth. Lucky for me, I had great SAT scores, and I can be quite charming.” Casey giggled. “Can I ask you something?”

  We slowly paced around the stage in straight lines. “Shoot.”

  “At the risk of sounding like an asshole…”

  “Ok, nothing good ever comes from a sentence that starts that way,” Casey said. “What’s on your mind?”

  I hesitated and searched for the right words. “I was just wondering if you ever regret not finishing school,” I said.

  “Every day.” Casey stopped pacing and looked directly at me. “It was originally only supposed to be a temporary break. You know, just until I could save up enough money for tuition. I kept waiting for the right time, but then I got the job at the clinic, and…” Her voice trailed off.

  “The right time never came,” I said, finishing her sentence.

  “Exactly.” As we walked back to the car, Casey told me that she had been majoring in business before she dropped out of school, hoping to find a job in the business or marketing fields. I wanted greatly to offer her a job there on the spot, to make her dreams come true, to have her near me all day long at my company, but I knew better. Besides the fact that Casey wasn’t the type to take anything she viewed as a handout, we had to see how Christmas went first.

  We drove through a neighborhood a few blocks from the school that contained three foster homes she’d lived in. As we passed each one, she told me something memorable about the families that lived in them. The first house was where the “health nuts” lived, the second house belonged to a serial foster mother, and the third, she said, was one of her more pleasant stays.

  “What time is it?” Casey asked.

  “Almost 4:30,” I said.

  “We should get back on the road soon if we want to get to Tampa before dark,” Casey said. “There’s just one more stop I want to make.”

  This was only my second time at a cemetery in my entire life, and I wished for a moment that I had been to cemeteries more often so I was more familiar with the etiquette. “I come here every year on Christmas to see my mom,” Casey explained. She led me down a gravel road, through rows and rows of graves, until we finally stopped at one that had weeds growing around it.

  “Joanna Donohue,” I whispered, reading the name etched in stone.

  “That’s her,” Casey said. She recited the words from the gravestone as if they were carved into her mind. “Joanna Donohue. Beloved mother and daughter. Strong in love, brave in spirit.”

  I pulled a tissue from my pocket and wiped the tears that fell down Casey’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Case.”

  “Don’t be. This is the first time since I turned eighteen that I haven’t come alone to see my mom.”

  The words I was searching for never made their way to my tongue. I wanted more than anything to take Casey’s pain away, to tell her that her mother would be proud of her and that she should be proud of herself. Instead, I stood there quietly as Casey knelt over the gravestone.

  Sniffling, Casey got up and walked up and down the pathway, collecting pebbles and stones. She softly places them on her mother’s grave. “Can I ask what that’s for?” I said, wanting desperately to take Casey’s mind off her pain, if even for a minute.

  “It’s a Jewish tradition,” Casey said, her voice barely above a whisper. I gave her my hand and helped her up. “In the Jewish religion, people put stones instead of flowers on graves, because flowers die and rocks live on forever. I’m not Jewish, but a friend of mine in grade school was, and she told me about the tradition. I thought it was a really beautiful idea, and, since I don’t make it down here much and don’t want a bunch of dead flowers on my mother’s grave, I’ve kept up with it.”

  I said exactly what I was thinking. “That’s beautiful.”

  “Are you ready to go?” Casey asked. “I’m done here.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if I could have a minute alone… with your mom.” The words hung there in the air, and I wondered if Casey knew that I was serious.

  Without a sound, she took a few steps back and left me standing at Joanna’s grave. I crouched down and sat with my legs crossed. I had never actually talked to a person who had died, but my grandmother died when I was young, and my mom always said that she got some of her best thinking done at her mother’s grave.

  “Hi Joanna…uh…Miss Donohue,” I whispered. I cleared my throat and spoke a bit louder, feeling slightly ridiculous for talking to a piece of rock. “You probably already know me, as I bet you’re looking down on Casey right now, but I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Alexander, and I’m in love with your daughter. I’m not sure if she knows it yet, but I promise that she will. She’ll know because I’ll treat her like a queen every day of her life. I just don’t want to scare her off yet, because we’re still pretty new. I can already tell you that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  I paused to look over at Casey. She was fidgeting with her shirt and watching me from afar, a
curious look on her face. I let the words flow from my mouth without thinking twice about them. “You probably already know this, too, but you’re going to be a grandmother. Casey’s pregnant. Being a mother and all, you probably wouldn’t approve of how it all happened, but that’s a conversation for another day. I just wanted to let you know that you can count on me. I’m going to be here for Casey, and I’m going to be here for this baby. Casey tells stories about you all the time, about you and her getting dressed up in pearls to go to a tea party, about your summer trips to the beaches. I know you’ve been gone a long time, but you’ve never left her. She made it through foster care as a warrior because of the courage you instilled in her.”

  The relief I felt from talking to—or at—Casey’s mom’s grave was surprising to me. I had never felt closer to Casey or her past. I knew that I probably looked silly sitting here, but that didn’t matter to me. Casey mattered, and understanding her past was an important part of understanding her. I held up my pointer finger to Casey, as if to say, “One more minute.”

  “Anyway, before I go, I just wanted to ask you for something,” I said. “I’m hoping you can send Casey some confidence and courage. I know she’s going to be an amazing mother. I can tell from how kind and caring she is, and how she lights up when she talks about this baby. I just want her to see that. Miss Donohue, I promise that I’m going to take care of your little girl and your grandchild. I’m going to love them both for as long as they let me. Thank you for raising the woman of my dreams.”

  I placed a pebble on Joanna’s grave and wiped the dirt from my pants as I stood up. Silently, I walked over to Casey. She reached in for a hug and held on like her life depended on it. When she finally let go, I intertwined my fingers with hers, and we started our walk back to the car together.

  Chapter 19

  Casey

  I was in love with the man behind the steering wheel. The realization had hit me slowly, slowly, then all at once. Here I was, sitting next to the most wonderful man I could imagine, and I was carrying his child and falling in love with him. My world had done a complete 180-degree turn over the past five and a half months. A few weeks earlier, I had thought that nothing would come of this whole dating thing, but Alexander had proven me to be wrong. I’d never been so happy to be wrong.