Always and Forever

by Soraya Lane

“Maybe we should have bought a more practical car. Like one with cup holders,” Matt said, taking another swig of his soda before balancing it between his thighs and firing up the engine.

  Lisa drank some more, not even bothering to feel guilty. She’d done so well with her special cancer diet of no sugar or dairy, but the sugary bubbles were definitely worth it.

  “Where are we stopping tonight?”

  “Anywhere we like,” Matt replied.

  She got the map out, a real one instead of the app on her phone. It was like trying to read Braille, but she squinted at it and turned it a few times and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. They’d talked about where they wanted to go but she’d been so anxious packing and worrying about the dog and her shop that she’d left it to Matt to figure the rest out. He was better at working out distances and stopovers than she would ever be. Lisa put down the map and angled her body so she was facing him.

  “Do you ever think about how different your life could have turned out if we hadn’t met?” she asked.

  “Hmmm, not really,” Matt said through a mouthful of chips. “If we hadn’t gotten together, maybe I would have moved away from Redding, closer to the beach maybe so I could have surfed whenever I wanted.”

  She put the map down and stared out the window at the Californian landscape as it whizzed past. “Would you be playing football still?”

  Matt chuckled. “Baby, we both know I wasn’t cut out to go pro, and I sure as hell wouldn’t still be playing now, not at almost thirty.”

  “How do you know you weren’t good enough?” she asked.

  “If I was, I’d have done it regardless of whether I was with you or not. Are you asking me all this to avoid having to read the map?” he joked.

  She bit down on her lower lip and gently chewed on it, ignoring the map comment. She’d always wondered if Matt felt like he’d sacrificed anything for her, whether he had dreams he wished he’d followed that didn’t include staying in their hometown. Suddenly she needed to know the answers to questions that she hadn’t bothered asking before, didn’t want to take for granted how he felt. Because now it wasn’t just all that stuff; it was the fact that she couldn’t give him a family, too. That she might have made him sacrifice something else. Would he have married her if he’d known? She tried to push the thoughts away but they were hard to shake.

  “I was a damn good high school quarterback, but I was never pro kind of good. Not good enough to make a career from it. You know that, Lis.”

  “You would have been picked up by a college team.” She wasn’t trying to pick a fight or dredge up the past, but suddenly she couldn’t stop, needed to know.

  Matt glanced at her before quickly looking straight ahead again. “I was, actually.”

  She had to stop her jaw from dropping. “You were?”

  “Yeah, I was,” he said softly, eyes firmly fixed on the road as he spoke. “But that was a long time ago, and it wasn’t what I wanted. Life was kinda rough then.”

  Lisa was silent for longer than she meant to be, but she couldn’t believe what he’d just told her. They’d been together so long and the fact he’d never mentioned it seemed weird to her. Why hadn’t he wanted her to know back then? Why had he kept it from her all this time?

  “Look, I knew what I wanted, and I’m happy. I made that decision for me, and it was the right one. I just wasn’t in the right head space to be part of a new team. I couldn’t have focused and it would have been a disaster.”

  Matt was three years her senior, which meant that he’d made the decision before they were officially together. But still. The what ifs in life had been bothering her since her surgery.

  “You know I’d have told you to go,” she said wistfully. “We weren’t even dating then.”

  “Like I said, I knew what I wanted. I didn’t have to tell anyone because my mind was made up.”

  “I often wonder who I would have met, what I would have done differently,” Lisa told him, finding it hard to consider another life, a different path. “I can’t imagine being with another man, not now, but it’s crazy to think how different our lives could have turned out.”

  Matt took her hand and looped his fingers through hers. “I’m happy, Lis. I always have been and I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.”

  She stared at him. “Really? Even knowing how much pain there was to come, you’d still have asked me to marry you?”

  His smile was slow as he glanced over at her. “Even knowing the future, I’d still have kissed you behind your parents’ house when you were sixteen.”

  Lisa clamped her hand over her mouth, remembering. “I can’t believe we did that! And then waited so long for a rematch.”

  “Hey, you didn’t see the look on your dad’s face when we snuck back around and he was walking out of the garage! It was enough to scare me off a rematch for a while.”

  Lisa smiled, the memory like a flash of color in her mind, thinking about her old family home and having all her family together. Even though Kelly was only a few years older than her, she was more the mother figure in her life now as well as being her best friend. She’d kind of picked up where their mom had left off when their folks had moved away for her dad’s work, and Lisa had missed them so badly when they’d first moved. Her little sister, Penny, was working in New York near their parents, but she was moving back to California sooner rather than later, and Lisa couldn’t wait to spend more time with her.

  “So you’re happy? I mean, you’re happy with the decisions you made in the past?” Lisa asked.

  “Hell, yeah. Aren’t you?”

  Lisa sighed. She seemed to do it all the time now; it seemed to be the only answer she was capable of sometimes.

  “I’m happy with you, with everything we have, but sometimes I wish I hadn’t dragged you into all this,” she said. “That I’d taken a different path so I didn’t have to cause you so much pain. I know I’ve been hard to live with, impossible during this treatment, and I keep forgetting how hard it must be for you. We’ve never really talked about your mom either.”

  “They’re crazy words,” Matt said straight back, shaking his head and frowning over at her. “There’s no one I’d rather have by my side than you. We’ve had ten awesome years together, and a tiny part of that time has been crappy.” He was silent for a beat. “My mom died and I survived it. You’re not the same as her, and what happened to you was not the same as what happened to her.”

  Crappy was a nice way to put what they’d been through, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he hadn’t seen parallels between her and his mom. She’d just been so preoccupied with what she was going through that she hadn’t asked him, or maybe she hadn’t been emotionally available enough to deal with anyone but herself.

  Lisa leaned back in her seat as her husband stroked her leg. She knew how lucky she was to have a partner who had been her best friend for so long—they loved each other’s company and nothing had changed that over the years. Cracks had shown in so many of their friends’ marriages, but maybe having kids had added stress to their lives. Perhaps it was time to feel fortunate that she’d been able to enjoy every second with Matt, that they’d been able to spend so much time together, just the two of them. What they’d been through had tested them, hurt them both, but she was ready to fight, to start over as best she could.

  “It feels good to have nothing to do. Nowhere to be,” Lisa admitted.

  Matt stayed silent a while before answering. “You’re not already missing the shop?”

  Lisa shrugged and stared out the window some more. “Yeah, I am. But I can’t hide away there forever, can I?”

  Her store had been her focus for the last six years, something she’d built up from a tiny shop selling her own designs, to a little fashion powerhouse for her creations and more. And then she’d added her online store, which had seen her workload double, but she loved it.

  “I’m so pleased you never sold the shop, once we found out you were pregnant,” Mat
t said, glancing over at her.

  “Me too, but the break will be good. It’ll let me focus on refilling the creative well and working on some new designs.” Her design book was packed in the bag at her feet, and she planned on doing lots of sketching and keeping her designs fresh and fun. Even if it was just a few dresses, a pretty skirt and some fun necklaces, it would be good to add to her next collection.

  “You do realize that I expect to trawl through vintage markets and look for beautiful fabrics, right?” she asked Matt. “I want to be inspired, to think about what I could design next. I don’t want to be a victim; I just want to be the old me again. To feel everything and love life.”

  “Lis, I’ve been your husband for a while now. I fully anticipate being tortured at markets on this trip.” Matt’s words were soft, gentler than usual. “And I want the old you back again, too.”

  “Me too,” she whispered, reaching for his hand again, holding it tight. “I really, really want that, too.”

  They rode in silence awhile, the scenery whizzing past. Matt felt relaxed, enjoyed just staring out the window and listening to whatever country music the radio station was playing.

  “You haven’t told me where we’re going yet,” Lisa said.

  He glanced over at her, one hand on the wheel as he settled back into the seat. The Caddy wasn’t as comfy as the Chevy, but he wasn’t about to complain. Driving it with the top down on a picture-perfect day was good enough for him, and the way they were just chatting was making him feel like he could actually get the old Lisa back. Kelly had been right when she’d told him to make more of an effort.

  “Sacramento,” he told her. She’d been so busy getting ready to leave that he’d figured it all out himself.

  “So you need me to find that on here?”

  Matt laughed when Lisa turned the map around, squinting as she stared at it.

  “You do realize we’d never have won The Amazing Race.” He grinned when she dropped the map, clearly exasperated. “You’d have let us down. But Sacramento isn’t far and I don’t think you need to navigate.”

  “Me? I’d have let you down?” She made a humph kind of noise. “I could have been the driver.”

  He chuckled as she picked up the map again, looking like she was about to kick its butt for pissing her off. “Hey, we’d have come out of it smiling. I just don’t think we would have had a shot at actually getting to any of the destinations ahead of the other contestants. And I’d never have let you drive.”

  Lisa let out a big sigh. “Okay, I admit it. I’m a bad sidekick. Maps just don’t make sense to me. I mean, ugh.”

  Matt reached for her hand, linked their fingers together so their connected hands were resting on her thigh. “I didn’t marry you for your map-reading skills.”

  She started to stroke his hand, tickling gently across his skin, and it felt good.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Just a few hours. I thought we’d head to Sacramento, stay the night there before going on to Napa Valley in the morning. Sound okay?”

  He took his eyes off the road for a second again, caught her eye. He knew just the mention of Napa would make her smile. Or at least he hoped it would, because deciding to take her back there was about as romantic as he’d ever been.

  “It sounds perfect.”

  They’d always talked about taking a trip back to Napa. It was where he’d proposed, amongst the vines on a balmy summer’s evening after way too much wine, and where they’d gotten married since it had been their special place. He’d checked them into the same room again, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when they pulled up outside. He was desperate to tell her, but the surprise factor was too good to miss out on. And he had her gift too, the design book he’d thought about that day he’d been parked outside her shop. She might have shot him down on his lunch offer, but he’d still sent Savvy an email to ask her to look for the perfect book and to fill it with pieces of Lisa’s favorite fabrics. He couldn’t wait to surprise her with it when the time was right.

  “You tired?”

  She yawned in reply. “Yeah. I’m exhausted. I’ve been spending way too long in the shop lately, and then designing into the small hours.”

  “Just shut your eyes and chill. You don’t need to stay awake for me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured, but when he looked at her, she was smiling.

  It was his job to take care of her, to protect her. He’d already failed big time, hadn’t been able to do anything when the doctor had given them the sucker-punch news, and instead of stepping up, he’d just kept on cruising, expecting everything to be okay, not realizing how tough she was going to find the other side of things, coping with what she’d lost. If it had been cancer of another kind, he knew she’d have been so strong, so determined, but losing the baby had knocked the stuffing straight out of her and he needed to find a way of slowly getting it all back.

  After a while he saw she was asleep, and he decided to call his dad. He’d told him they were going, but hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to chat before they’d jumped in the car and headed out of town. The night before, when Lisa had been asleep and he’d been lying there, all he could think about was his mom. They were memories he hadn’t been able to shake since Lisa had been diagnosed, and the way he’d treated his dad always played heavily on his conscience. Would their own son, had he lived, have behaved toward him that way if Lisa had died? Would Matt have ended up taking the blame? Matt clutched the wheel tighter with both hands, thinking back to what a shit he’d been.

  He dug his nails into his palms and stood taller, forced himself to walk into the church with his head held high, not about to be a jerk when it was his final chance to say goodbye to his mom.

  He saw his dad, sitting in the front row with his aunt on one side. Matt gritted his teeth, forced himself to move closer.

  “Matt, come sit here,” his dad said.

  Matt stopped at the head of the row and sat alone instead, staring long and hard at his dad. He hated him. He hated him so badly that he wanted to hurt him. But instead he sat, kept a lid on his anger, sucked in a breath as his eyes fell on his mom’s coffin. He wondered who’d chosen it, who had decided what his dead mom was going to lie in to be put into the ground.

  Then the music started to play, just a piano that sounded haunting in the otherwise silent church. It was full, except for the two front rows. Full of people who’d loved his mom, people he knew and people he didn’t. Family who had traveled from he couldn’t even remember where. And still all he felt was pain.

  His dad hadn’t fought hard enough. His dad hadn’t cared enough. If it had been Matt’s wife, he’d have saved her. He would have found someone to help her, he wouldn’t have given up, he wouldn’t have stopped until he’d managed to make her better. If they’d only been honest with him, told him that she was going to die that soon. Because he didn’t believe for a moment that his dad hadn’t known, and they shouldn’t have kept it from him. They should have given him the chance to say goodbye.

  “We are gathered here today to remember Candace Williams.” The words washed over Matt, made him reel. He doubled over, thinking he was going to be sick on his shoes. The pain was so bad; the pain was . . . He sucked back a breath, fisted his hands tight and pulled up so he was leaning against the uncomfortable wooden pew again.

  “Candace was a wife and most importantly a mother, and I would like us all to acknowledge that she has left behind a son whom she was so proud of. A promising quarterback with the world at his feet. I know that Candace would want Matthew to grieve and then live his life knowing that she will always be looking out for him.”

  “Screw this,” Matt muttered, jumping up, the inside of the church suddenly spinning as he clutched the back of the pew. He thought again that he was going to be sick, but he forced it down, refused to give in to the nausea.

  “Matthew, we feel your pain; we know how badly you hurt. Please don’t go,” the minister said.
r />   “Matt.” It was his father now, on his feet, pleading, holding out a hand to him.

  “No,” Matt choked out the word, blinded by a blasting pain that consumed him, that made it impossible to even breathe. “You have no idea how hard this is or what she wanted, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to someone who didn’t know my mom speak a whole lot of bullshit about her.”

  “Matt!” His father scolded, taking a step closer.

  “You should have fought harder, Dad. You shouldn’t have let her go,” Matt yelled, oblivious to all the people gathered around them. “You should have saved her!”

  “Matthew, please.” The minister came closer, but Matt started to walk backward, tripping down the aisle.

  “You want to know something about my mom? The truth?” he asked as tears streamed down his cheeks, clogging his throat. “She was the best mom in the world, and she didn’t deserve to die.”

  Matt turned and ran out, needing to get away. I’m sorry, Mom. He whispered the words inside his head, hoping she could hear him. But she was Mom. She would understand. She was the one person in the world who always got him. They could sit in the same room for hours and she’d never push him, never grill him for information or try to tell him what to do. And when he was ready to talk, she was always waiting, happy to listen and give him a hug, to drop her head to his shoulder and tell him he’d always be her baby. She’d ruffle his hair and he’d laugh and push her off, and then she’d fix him something to eat. She’d been at home waiting for him every day after school, or cheering him on at practice. She’d put little notes in his lunch when he’d gotten his first real job over summer vacation, and even though he’d been red-faced from embarrassment, she’d managed to make him laugh.

  But she was gone now. And that meant there was no one left to talk to, no one to laugh with and chill out on the sofa with at home. No more stupid notes.

  Matt gasped in fresh air as he ran down the road. His legs wouldn’t stop, feet pounding the pavement. When he finally stopped, doubled over and trying to breathe, the nausea came back and he vomited, over and over. His body shook, stomach heaving.