by K Larsen
MISSED CONNECTION
Copyright © 2015 by K. Larsen & Mara White
Cover by: Cover Me Darling
Editing: Indie Edit Guy
Formatting: Integrity Formatting
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This story was inspired by a real Craigslist missed connections post.
Missed Connection
A Novel by K. Larsen & Mara White
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About K. Larsen
About Mara White
May 2016
Alarms beeped. Machines chirped. He couldn’t quite place why the noises were familiar. His throat was dry and his body ached in the worst way possible. When he tried to open his eyes, he panicked. They seemed to be sealed shut.
“Mike,” a voice called out. Something squeezed his hand. “Mike, you can do it. Open your eyes.”
He struggled to do it. Mike forced his eyes open. The room swirled with light. Blurry shadows appeared before they sharpened and focused. Doctors, nurses and his sister.
“Oh, thank God!” Kim, his sister, leaned over and rested her head on his hand, which she was also still holding.
“Mr. Blackard, I’m Dr. Hemphill, do you know why you’re here?”
He shook his head, he thought, no. There was a great weight resting on his chest and he wanted to bring it up to the doctor but the man just kept speaking. “You were hit by a drunk driver, and Life Flighted here to St. Mary’s Hospital in critical condition. During surgery, you suffered a massive heart attack but you’re a very lucky man, Mike. A heart became available and we were able to transplant it in you.” Mike blinked three times. He was sure he’d misheard the man. The steady rhythm in his chest was his. It couldn’t be someone else’s. “You’ll remain in the hospital for a week or two, and then you’ll be closely monitored at an outpatient transplant center for about three months. We can talk about all of this a little later. Right now, just rest while we check your vitals.”
“Kim?” He croaked out. His sister lifted her head. Tears streamed down her face.
“I thought I’d lost you.” Sadness filled him. He didn’t want her to worry. She had kids and a husband at home who needed her. She should know that he’d never abandon her. His throat felt too dry to speak. He patted her hand and looked at the ceiling. Someone else’s heart. Inside him. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of it. Mike believed that the human heart was where the soul lived and not all souls were good. He closed his eyes. He had, apparently, plenty of time to feel out this new heart during his months of recovery. As his sister stroked his hand and softly spoke encouraging words, Mike drifted to sleep. Tiny anchors and azure eyes filled Mike’s dreams.
While she’s in the bathroom, I chug one last bottle of water before we head out, per Bridget’s request. I’m happy and feeling good. Bridget and I had a great time tonight at our engagement party. She’s laughing up a storm as we get into the car. As we pull out to make the hour drive home, she cranks the radio. “Regulate” is playing. We both sing along and laugh. Bridget holds my hand between good songs. Her new engagement ring sparkles every so often and makes me feel proud. Snow has started to drop down from the sky. The back roads are dark and twisty and unlit but it’s the fastest way home, which is still another ten minutes out. The moment I hit the brakes, I know something is wrong. It’s like my brain isn’t talking to my leg fast enough or maybe the road is too icy. I stomp down harder on the brake. I stomp down. Bridget screams next to me.
I gently hold the matchbook between my thumb and index finger in my pocket. It’s worn and frail now, but it still anchors me. I’m standing next to the truck in the driveway. I blink twice.
Doctor’s appointment.
Groceries.
Unloading.
Right.
I hate it when I zone out like that. I’ve been fatigued lately.
“Hey, Dad,” my son says, as he brushes past me with bags of groceries. I grab an armload and follow him in.
“Luke—” I say, as he sets them on the counter. He turns and pushes his too long hair from his eyes. I need to remember to get him to the barber.
“You ready for a night of fun, old man?”
I laugh and shake my head no. “It’s just a birthday. No need to get crazy.”
“Yeah. Well, a birthday means cake, at the very least. Oh, can I have twenty bucks? Dillon and Max and I want to go to a movie later.”
“Who’s driving and what movie?” I ask, while putting dry goods away.
“Dillon’s mom is going to drive us and I don’t know yet.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “You don’t know yet?” I wait expectantly for his response, even though I know it’s not worth it. It’s rare that teenagers have answers to anything these days.
“What? We’ll just decide when we get there,” Luke shrugs. If I try really hard. If I dig down to the recess of my forty-five year old brain, I can almost remember what it was like to be a fifteen year old boy.
“Okay,” I tell him.
Luke puts groceries away with minimal complaints, while I start dinner. It’s just the two of us now and although he misses his mom and God knows I do, too—she was much better at parenting than I—we do well together. Then again, we’ve had the last five years to get our routine just right. When he’s finished with the groceries, he sets out two place settings at the kitchen island. It is rare for us to use the dining room anymore. It seems too formal for us. It’s reserved for Friendsgiving and Christmas Eve. I dish out the chicken cacciatore to each plate, before joining him.
“Did you post it yet?” he asks, between bites. He sounds like a savage beast when he eats. His mother would be horrified. I really need to remember to chastise him more about that. What happens when he takes a girl out for dinner and eats like that?
“No. And chew with your mouth closed.” Luke gives me a lopsided grin. Never mind. If girls run for the hills over his poor table manners, it saves me a world of stress over worrying about him knocking her up by mistake. Chew away, son, chew away.
“Dad, come on. Just post it. Seriously, it’s
like a one in a gazillion chance that anything will come of it.”
I finish chewing my bite; mouth closed. I think dinner needs more pepper. “I know. I know,” I answer. He’s right, though. I could put it out there into the great interweb and it may never even be seen. The odds . . . well the odds are not in my favor at all. I’m not sure which is more comforting—knowing that nothing may come of it or the fact that it could find its way to her.
“I mean, just, you know, time and all that. Plus your birthday is a good time to do something like that. Mom always said . . .”
“Birthdays are good luck,” we finish in unison, which makes Luke grin again. The kid has the easiest smile I’ve encountered.
It looks just like his mother’s. Wide and genuine and kind. He’s a good kid, with a lot on his plate. Rory’s death hit him hard. I don’t want to think about his mother. Not right now anyways. And I don’t want to think about time. “What time is Edie picking you up?”
“Seven thirty,” he answers. I nod my head and clear the dishes, while Luke cuts two massive slices of birthday cake for us. He stabs a candle into the center of one slice and licks the stray frosting off his fingers. He pulls something out of his pocket and slides it across the countertop to me.
I unwrap the newspaper wrapping and smile. A matchbook from Sloane’s. How he managed this one, I have to know.
“Thanks, Luke! This was the missing one.” I run my free hand across my salt and pepper hair. Life’s funny like that, sneaking up on you, adding lines and colors to your body that didn’t used to be there. Forty-five. I’ve already loved and lost and loved again and lost again, but still feel like I have lifetimes left to live but I don’t want to do it alone. Dating scares the pants off me. I haven’t done it in so long, I’m not sure I can anymore. There’s too much baggage. Too much history to share. Too much hassle.
“I know. I had to mow the guy who hadn’t done his lawn for three weeks to get that, but it was worth it, to complete the collection.” Luke’s smile is shy and he won’t really look me in the eye. He’s going through the I-don’t-really-do-touchy-feely-talk-about-my-emotions stage. It’s been an adjustment from the mama’s boy Rory left me with, but we’re making it work.
I’ve collected matchbooks for the last twenty years. The goal started as one from every diner in the great State of New York. After Luke was walking and talking, we decided to collect them from anywhere we travelled. But the Sloane’s matchbook was the very last diner in New York that we needed. People don’t really make matchbooks to give out anymore. It’s a shame. They’re like mini postcards. Memories. I put the matchbook aside for the moment. Luke lights the one candle and sings terribly and loudly the Happy Birthday song for me. I blow out the candle and this year, I make a wish. But I can’t tell because then it might not come true.
Luke finishes his cake just in time for his pick-up. Dillon’s mom, Edie, honks the horn and Luke leaps from his chair. He slaps me on the shoulder and yells happy birthday on his way out the door. I sigh and lean back in my chair. The house is still.
Quiet.
Lonely.
I put the radio on the Nineties station. I rinse all the plates from dinner and dessert and load them into the dishwasher. “Regulate” comes on. A chill runs through me and I shudder. I touch my hand to my pocket. To the matchbook and then I resolve to make my birthday wish come true.
It’s time.
New York >Fairfield >personals >missed connections post
The last day of 1995—m4w
I met you in the snow on the last day of 1995, the same day I decided to kill myself.
One year prior, I’d killed my fiancé, and a mother, a father and a daughter. We were at a party and I was intoxicated when I drove my fiancé and me home. Only I was the only one who ended up making it home. The lives and families I’d destroyed in that accident, haunted me. They still do.
On the morning of that New Year’s Eve, I found myself in a desolate house with a fifth of Jim Beam and the pangs of guilt and shame and grief permeating the recesses of my soul. When the bottle was empty, I made for the door and vowed, upon returning, that I would retrieve the Glock from my nightstand and give myself the sentence I deserved.
I walked for hours. I looped around the town before roaming through the riverside park.
By the time I reached the riverfront, the whitewashed sky had begun to drop snowflakes, which soon became a blizzard. While the other people darted for homes and restaurants to keep warm, I trudged into the onslaught of snow. I hoped that it might wash away the sludge of guilt that had congealed around my heart. It didn’t, of course, so I started back to the house.
And then I saw you.
You’d taken shelter under the awning of Hope’s Diner. You were wearing a green gown, which appeared to me royal and ridiculous. Your blonde hair was matted to your face, and a constellation of freckles dusted your shoulders. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
When I joined you under the awning, you looked at me with big, sky blue eyes, and it was obvious you’d been crying. I asked if you were alright. You said you’d been better. I asked you if you’d like to grab a cup of coffee. You said, only if I would join you. I still don’t know why I bothered to ask you. Before I could answer, you snatched my hand and led me into Hope’s Diner. Despite the blizzard and lack of coat, your hand was warm and soft.
We sat at the counter of that diner and spoke like long lost friends. We laughed as easily as we grieved, and you confessed, over cheesecake, that you were engaged to a man you didn’t love, a stockbroker from some line of New York nobility. A Van Buren, or maybe a Rockefeller. Either way, his parents were hosting a gala to ring in the New Year, hence your gown.
I shared more of myself than I could have imagined possible, at the time. When I mentioned the drunk driving, I got the sense that you could see there was a war waging inside me. Still, your eyes offered solace, not accusation, and I loved you for it.
After a little over an hour, I excused myself to use the bathroom. I remember watching my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you, if that was completely ridiculous, if I should return to the Glock that waited for me at home. I decided that I was unworthy of the solace this gorgeous stranger in the green ball gown had given me, but to turn my back on such sweet happenstance would be the real disgrace. My mind was made.
On the way back to the counter, my heart pumped in my chest like a jackhammer, and a future—our future—ran through my mind. But when I reached the stools, you were gone.
A matchbook next to my mug caught my eye. I turned it over, nothing but the diner’s name and number on it. When I flipped it open, the inside top flap had a drawing of an anchor.
That’s it.
No number.
No note.
I can’t even be sure you drew the anchor.
As strangely as our time had begun, so, too, did it end. I was distraught. I went back to Hope’s every day for a year, but I never saw you again. Ironically, the torture of your desertion seemed to swallow my self-repugnance, and the prospect of killing myself was suddenly less appealing than the prospect of discovering what had happened in that diner. The truth is, I never really stopped speculating.
Obviously, I’m an older man now, and only recently did I recount this story to my son for the first time. He told me to post this on Craigslist, I told him I didn’t know anything about Craigslist, and all I knew about you was your first name and that you had lived in New York once. And even if, by some phenomenon, I happened upon you, I’m not sure I would recognize you. Time is unkind that way.
But as I cast this proverbial coin into the wishing well of the universe, it occurs to me, after a thousand what-ifs and years of lost sleep, that our connection wasn’t missed at all.
You see, in these intervening twenty years, I’ve lived a decent life. I eventually fell in love and married a wonderful woman. I’m raising a great son. And I’ve forgiven myself—mostly. And you were the cause of all of it.
You breathed your essence into my lungs one snowy New Year’s Eve night, and you can’t possibly imagine my gratitude.
I have difficult days, too. Sometimes I can still smell the smoke from the burning car in the accident with my fiancé. My wife passed five years ago. And then, a few dozen times a year, I’ll receive a gift. I remember you. Your words, your kindness, your eyes and that dress. I remember the way you got my heart beating again.
So whatever you’ve been through in life, wherever you are now in life, and wherever you’re going in this life, know this: you’re with me still.
This is the worst idea. I read the post a thousand times. Maybe more than that. I’ve written and rewritten it. This is the best idea. I want it to be just right. Or maybe it doesn’t have to be right at all. This is ridiculous. I am a grown man. What am I thinking? The clock reads eleven fifty one. Luke is home and asleep already from his movie and I’m losing steam. I have nine minutes before my birthday good luck runs out. Deep within my soul, I have a need to do this, no matter how ridiculous it is. I hover the mouse over the submit button and close my eyes.
Click.
I hang up the phone gently and let out a deep breath. The wedding planner quit on my daughter, looks like I’m the only one left standing. Am I a terrible mother, if I say I’m not all that surprised? She can’t keep her opinions to herself; she is forthright—to a fault. Angie is the definition of a bridezilla and I’m the one to blame because I created her.
“The Yacht Club,” she said. “I want to make the Times.” “At least two hundred guests, if we want to invite Andrew’s client list.” I should have stopped her. I should have reeled her in and demanded a package deal on some little island. A remote spot where only one in five guests invited would be able to swing it. I am too passive when it comes to my daughter. I chose nurture over discipline, indulgence over rules. Angelina is what I turned her into and I’ll just have to deal with the demands of the bride monster who is my one and only daughter.
I pull up the spreadsheet she’s emailed, while drinking jasmine tea at the marble island countertop. Ten thousand yellow roses shipped in from Ecuador costs more than ten thousand dollars. Of course, it does. I know all too well and so does Angie. My daughter and I are both designers, that’s why she wants the wedding to be “better than perfect.”
