“Fuck it.” Chip’s lips wobbled, almost a smile. Matt held his breath and wrapped his arm around Chip’s shoulders. Could it be this easy?
“But what about your friend?”
Samantha. He’d watched her hand grip the handle, her back pass through the doorway, the door swing back with a click. His gut twisted. What words could ever make this right?
“This always happens to us. We’re snake-bit.” It was her fault. How dare she accuse his child? Women always wanted everything to be about them.
No, that wasn’t fair. It obviously wasn’t true in Sam’s case. Argument Number One: Chip himself. She’d already given up a marriage – the life she’d planned – for this kid. She should’ve gotten a pass, just for one night, at least, but his little bundle of joy could not be ignored.
He’d screwed it up with Samantha, again. What was it about her? She crawled into his skin, almost before he knew it. Too damn close. She made his blood sing, and it scared the shit out of him. He wasn’t meant for heaven, heaven itself knew that. It was better this way.
No it wasn’t.
Sam would harden a shell around her heart, like she had before. He knew her. She didn’t take things easy. He’d asked her to trust him, and she had. All the way.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I fucked up.”
Matt staring at the door, at the spot on the doorjamb where her head had passed out of his sight. “You’re not alone.” Letting the good ones get away, over and over. They blew out a long exhale in tandem, and then chuckled at the synchrony.
“I know where she lives.”
Matt turned to look at his boy. “What?”
Chip shrugged, carefully, so as not to dislodge Matt’s arm. “You know, in case you want to apologize in person. Girls like the face-to-face thing.”
****
By some miracle, Sam managed to keep the tears mostly at bay until she was safely in the back of a dark taxi. What have I done?
Had she really been blaming Matt all these years for her own lack of a family? It wasn’t his fault, as he’d so ungraciously but accurately put it.
The taxi sped down quiet streets, none of the gridlock of normal times. Federal buildings shone under safety lights, but most of the rest of the buildings were misted in dark. All those brownstones, each a family. A family I could have had, if I’d let myself.
She’d had a family – her parents – and look what she’d done with that. Tossed them aside, the way she felt she’d been tossed aside. But they never stopped loving her.
And I never stopped loving Matt.
But her parents had learned to work around their hurt. Not me. Sam had built a successful life, and a great career, but never once allowed herself to feel she was a complete success. At last, she could see her thinking for the lie it was: by denying herself a family, she wasn’t punishing Matt, or Cecilia, or her parents, or Littletown.
I can only hurt myself.
And here Matt was, offering friendship. He hadn’t come to seduce her – he had his kid with him, for heaven’s sake. She was the one who pushed for more, too much, too fast. Why? To wash him out of her hair? To finish up some old business.
But that wasn’t what it felt like.
The taxi pulled to the curb outside her condo, and the driver waited until she’d unlocked her door. The first light streaks of sun reached across a clear sky. Perfect weather for a mental-health day. She’d wear her new sundress, and take in one of the new art installations. The school kids avoided those.
And maybe, in a month or so, she’d call that painter friend. Tell him I’m on the market, for real.
As soon as she could fake it a little bit better.
****
Matt rang her doorbell at eight, clean, pressed, and just a little terrified. Samantha appeared, tired and wary, and Matt had to gulp down his gasp. She used to be a good Presbyterian girl, never even showing her shoulders unless they were at the pool. This dress was, what? A halter top with a skirt. If she stretched, she might show her midriff to the world. He felt the gut-burn of possessiveness.
“You’re not wearing that to work, are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, could I take you out to breakfast before work? Chip says there’s a great pancake house nearby.”
She looked past him. Was she actually considering the idea? He held his breath. “Where is your wayward son?”
“Promised to stay in our room until it’s time to go to the airport. We’re in the early-departure contingent.”
Her mouth smiled a little, but her eyes stayed sad. This isn’t working. His heart ached, and his gut, as if he’d eaten glass for supper instead of chicken.
“Pancakes sound good. Let me get my purse.” She left him on the stoop, but was back in less than a minute. The coffee shop was two blocks away, and half-empty, and quick to bring him a three-stack of creamy pancake goodness. Just the smell seemed to lift his heavy mood.
He downed some coffee. She still just looked so damn sad. He cleared his throat. “Could we start again?”
She snorted. “Where?”
“Let’s start with you. Really, no boyfriend?”
“I’ve had boyfriends, yes. After the last one.” She let the sentence go. “Nothing. No, really.” She smiled a frown. “He told me I was obviously still stuck on someone and when I ever got unstuck I should give him a call. At the time, I thought it was just a blow-off.”
“And now.” His heart jumped into his throat.
She didn’t say anything. She took a sip of coffee. He couldn’t breathe. Just say something, anything. She took a slow breath in.
“Matt.” She sighed all the air in the room out, and then took half of it in again. He wanted to scream, take my heart, take it, take it. Eat it, if you must. Just get this pain off my chest.
“Matt. I think the world of you, but—”
“No! I was an idiot last night. I didn’t mean it. Any of it. You know how it is; family is crazy in a crisis.”
“I know that.” But he’d made her stop, and she was almost smiling. Or at least not frowning.
He pushed on. “It’s like this. I’ve wrecked things for us, so many times over. I know you shouldn’t listen to me, but please.”
“I’m listening.” Funny thing, she actually was.
“So, I was the world’s worst shithead when I was eighteen. That was half a lifetime ago. It’s just….” He couldn’t think of the words; he was always an action kind of a guy. But Sam, sitting there, head down, her hands all twisted together like that, she deserved words.
It spilled out of him. “It’s just, I’m scared.”
“And angry.” She looked up at him. She sees everything.
“And a little angry. OK, a lot. Not at you; never at you.” He gulped some air and dove in. “It’s just, I love you. I always have, always. I don’t deserve you, but I want nothing more than to try to deserve you. Please, just say you might consider it.”
Out of breath, Matt had to stop. He was afraid to move in until she’d said something. She looked away, toward the door. “Looks like it’s time for the check.” Her voice was calm. Too calm.
Matt closed his eyes. She wasn’t going to go for it. Why would she? He was bad news for her, all the way round. He stood. “I’m gonna hit the head.”
****
Sam watched his progress toward the back and out of sight, and then closed her eyes in relief. His wanting was too much to look at. Too much like mine.
Last night had been heaven. Well, the first part of last night. But what could it mean? Did Matt think to come visit her twice a year for tickles and giggles? She couldn’t just pick up and move back to Ohio.
Or could she? She might be a regional liaison for lakes, at least as long as that federal program stayed in the budget.
But it wasn’t the job, it was her. Sam absolutely did not want to go back home. She’d been there, sure, a couple times. The house she grew up in was gone, replaced by a lookalike condo with a two-car garage. There were no bike lan
es. She’d have to buy a car and drive everywhere.
But these arguments, as familiar as they were, for the many times she’d chanted them at her dearly departed parents, somehow today didn’t feel as strong. As for the idea that the whole town blamed her for breaking off her engagement with its latest baseball star, well, she was old enough now to see that the people who cared about that were juvenile, indeed.
So where did that leave her?
What if she said yes, and it went south? She couldn’t lose him again; it would more than break her heart. She just wasn’t that brave, resilient teenager anymore.
But she had to try. Life was motion, after all. Experiment. And she loved life. And she loved Matt. She always had, from the first time he invited her to play Planet of the Apes with him and the guys during recess.
So where did that leave her?
Matt returned before she could admit she already knew the answer. She stood. “Do you want to go somewhere? When do you have to go back to the hotel?”
He hesitated, and then sat down on the bench, and pulled her in beside him. “Have you thought about what I said?”
Yes, she meant to say, but what came out was, “I don’t know.”
“Chip blames himself, you know. He wants to make it up to you.”
“He doesn’t need to. Especially him.”
“No, not the birth thing. The hooker thing.”
She had to laugh. “That, too.”
“He wants you to come to his graduation, you know, because we blew off our own. Closure, or some such. Before you say no, know that his mom isn’t coming. So no pressure there.”
Go back to Littletown? She shivered involuntarily. “Why?”
“Why? Because I love you. Chip’s graduating is huge for our family, and I want to share it with you.”
“Why?”
“In case, you know.” Matt, this truth-telling Matt, who’d emailed out the blue, and pursued her, and hurt her, and sent her to heaven, and cast her back out, stared at the floor.
“In case…” she said softly.
“In case you’d consider, sometime, spending the rest of your life with me. Only me, no more Cecilias. No more disappointed boyfriends. Just us.” His gaze was soft, and sharp, and terrified, and determined.
A second chance. Should she take it? Was it ever good to go backwards, take up a rope that had been dropped and dragged in the dirt?
“My work is here,” she said, voice tentative. Was she really considering this? Pain and loss and love and forever and ever and ever?
Yes.
Before she could tell him, he pressed on. “I’ve already been looking into elder care facilities here. There’s at least two that are dying for a guy like me. So to speak.”
That floored her. “You’d come here?”
He shrugged, but something in the way he was looking at her told her her question meant something to him.
“The kid’s grown. He’ll be in college in the fall, maybe Boston. My work is more transferable than yours. You’ve certainly given up more than I have in the past. It’s only fair.”
This was a different Matt than high school. Sam leaned back against the bench, crossing her arms.
“So, a visit back home, and if all systems stay go, you move here?”
Why not?
Matt must have seen her change. He took her hand, warming it with his. Then he turned it over, and kissed the palm. He looked up at her, and her alone. “All systems go?”
She reached for him. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers pressing into the bared flesh on her back, and she sank into the sensation. His kiss was quick but thorough enough that he needed to readjust himself before standing, she was pleased to note. He held his hand out to help her up.
She smiled, suddenly shy. “The protocol seems sound.”
“And the outcomes?”
“Seem very positive, indeed.”
He pulled her closer, into a great bear hug. “I love you when you talk science, Dr. Dobler. And all the rest of the time, too.”
“I concur in your opinion, Dr. Greenleaf.” She smiled into his chest, hers now. “Forever more.”
The End
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Other Books by Nicky Penttila:
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The Science of Second Chances (Romance on the Go) Page 5
