I lean over and give her a big hug. “Thank you. This means so much to me. I’m sorry I don’t visit so often. Ever since I met James, I feel reborn. I look at my life so differently, as if I can finally see in color. Everything was black and white and completely boring before him. Now everything is vibrant and exciting. I look forward to my future and what is beyond my residency. I have taken too many things for granted. For starters, spending time with my family. I promise I’ll make a better effort in the future. You and Dad should visit me as well.”
She holds me tight and then stands up and walks back to the counter.
“I need to finish some side dishes. You girls go somewhere and talk. I’m fine finishing up here.”
Tina looks at me and motions for me to follow her. “We’ll be right back. Call us when you need our help.”
“Take your time. Everything is under control here. Take some of the appetizers with you. The refrigerator is already too full.”
Tina and I look at each other and shrug our shoulders. “Sounds good to us,” we say in unison. We fill our plates and head on up to Tina’s old room.
Chapter 37
James
I scan the basement layout. It’s the size of the entire first floor. The walls are muted white, with a light-tan carpet. There are two windows at the other end; rays of sun pour natural light into the dim space. There are two wooden vertical support beams in the middle of the room. The adjacent wall near the TV has a bookshelf with large model cars displayed.
“So this is what a man cave looks like? It’s huge.” I look around, impressed. “I think I will need one of these for myself one day. It’s a bunch of rooms mixed in one.”
We place our food on the table in front of the huge TV hanging on the wall. “When Beth wants to watch her lady shows, I’ll come down here to watch my shows. That’s why I have a large flat-screen TV and nice brown leather recliner in this section of the basement. Every man needs a good recliner.” He slaps the top of it with his hand. “I bought that small sofa to go with it for visitors. This part of the room is under the living room.”
We move along the floor to the middle of the long rectangular room. “We don’t have the space in the living room for a liquor cabinet, so we keep all the alcohol down here. Here’s a small refrigerator to keep wine and beer cold.”
Pictures and paraphernalia of the Mets and NY Giants hang on the wall. I notice a picture of Lisa and Mike with Mets caps on. Both have big foam fingers on their hands, with huge smiles on their faces. She looks so happy.
I point to the picture. “When was this picture of you and Lisa taken?”
“I believe Lisa was thirteen. Every once in a while we would go alone to a game. She enjoyed the games more than Tina. After Felicia died, we never went to a game together again.”
He claps his hands together. “How about a beer?”
“Sounds great.”
He walks back to the refrigerator. “I have Budweiser and Heineken. What’ll it be?”
“I’ll have a Heineken, please.”
“Good choice. Me too.” He pours our drinks into cold beer mugs and leads us back to the TV area.
Her father is relaxed and down to earth. He’s wearing light-blue jeans with a casual long-sleeved gray shirt. He seems to be in good shape for his age. I don’t feel the need to impress him because I’m dating his daughter. I hate to compare him to Jessica’s dad, but I never felt quite this relaxed with him. Her dad always dressed in crisp black pants and stiff white button-down shirts. Never jeans or more casual attire. Then again, I wore the same kind of clothes at that time. It dawns on me I was just like Jessica’s father. I’m not that person anymore. Is it wrong to be happy about that?
We lift our beers and take a swig. “There’s nothing like an ice-cold beer.”
“I second that.” I take another long swig.
“I’m glad you were able to spend time with us. We don’t see Lisa very often. Maybe it will be different after she finishes her residency. Granted, that’s still years away. Was the drive down okay? Is she still nervous when she’s in a car?”
“Yes, but I was able to distract her for a while. It’s amazing how afraid she still is after all these years. It’s a good thing the drive down here isn’t too long.”
He motions for me to take a seat on the sofa, while he sits down in his recliner. I notice he hasn’t turned on the football game. Maybe we aren’t really going to watch the game.
“Thank you for helping Lisa during the car accident. It feels like yesterday when it all happened. She was a mess for a long time. We all were.” He replays what happened and says things I already heard from Lisa. I let him talk because maybe he needs to.
He becomes animated. “Now you are in our house. The chances of something like this happening are almost zero.” He takes another sip. A little bigger this time.
“Mike, can I ask you a question? I know we don’t know each other, but we both have something in common.”
He holds up his hand. “I know what you are going to ask. You don’t have to. But before we go in that direction, I want to say how sorry I am about your fiancée and son. No one deserves such heartache. It’s one of the worst, if not the worst.” He rubs his mouth and puts his beer on a Mets coaster on the table.
“I know what you are going through. As you know, it happened to me. I lost Felicia that day and almost lost Lisa. It was a horrific nightmare. I blamed myself because I made her take that bloody old Chevy out in horrible weather. I’m a mechanic. Why the hell did I even keep that hunk of shit? It was so old there were no airbags, and the seat belts in the back had no over-the-shoulder straps. What was I thinking? It should’ve been scrapped long before the accident. I’ve asked myself why for years!” he exclaims as his voice gets higher.
“She was pissed at me she needed to drive that car in such bad weather. The last time I saw her, she was angry with me.” His hands squeeze into fists. “If I’d just told her to stay home and forget about grocery shopping, she would have been safe at home. That very day we had an appointment to go look at a new car for her. I should have taken Tina to work. But I didn’t. It made me crazy thinking about it constantly. Why did I do this? Why not that?” He scratches his chin in frustration.
I feel your pain. “We can talk about this another time, if you would like. Believe me. I would completely understand.”
He shakes his head. “I need to.” He sits on the edge of the recliner with his elbows on his knees and says, “I know the gut-wrenching pain. It does get easier after time. It never fully goes away, but I promise it’ll get better. Felicia was my high school sweetheart. She was the love of my life and soul mate. I’ll always cherish the time I had with her. Every moment, every memory is a gift. Every time I look at Lisa, I think of her. Lisa has her eyes and is petite like she was.”
“I’ve never seen a picture of Felicia, but Lisa said they look alike. It’s funny how Tina looks just like you. The dark hair, eyes, and height.”
He smiles in response, then continues. “However, I needed to move on with my life. There came a time when I knew I had to let go and move forward. It hit me that I had two daughters who needed me more than ever. I wasn’t there for them for a long time. A lot fell on Tina’s shoulders. She took care of us.”
He turns his face in my direction. It looks like stone. “You need to move on, James. You are the one living; you’re not dead. Don’t waste your time being miserable, like I did. It will never change the past. Do you think she would want you to live like this? I’m sorry—what was your fiancée’s name?”
It’s hard to say it. “Jessica.”
“Do you still want to live like this? Or let me reverse it. If you were the one who died, would you want her to live the way you do? If she found a great man to love her and who she loved as well, wouldn’t you want that for her instead of being miserable?”
Did he just say love?
“You appear to be very happy with Lisa. But to be truly happy, you need
to relieve yourself of the guilt of what happened and the guilt you feel being with Lisa.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry for being so direct. I don’t want to see you waste your life like that. You need to be strong.”
“It’s okay. I need to hear these things, even if I don’t want to. It’s good to speak to someone who’s had the same experience.”
“I felt so guilty and unfaithful when I was with Beth those first months. I never thought I would look at another woman, let alone touch one. As time went on, I saw how Beth was pulling me out of my darkness. The hole I had in my heart was mending because of her. I felt happiness for the first time in a long time. She was very patient with me, but a woman will only wait so long. She didn’t want to be second best and knew the turmoil going on in my head. She is different from my first wife…in a good way. I would never want a replica of Felicia. She was one of a kind.”
I start to fidget and stand up. “Mike, can I interject for a second?” I sound like a lawyer.
“Please. I need a break from talking anyway.” He relaxes in his recliner.
“Besides guilt, aren’t you afraid of losing her like you lost Felicia? After everything happened with Jessica, I vowed to never love another woman. With Lisa, I’m second-guessing that vow. It scares the shit out of me. I couldn’t survive losing her too.”
“Like you, guilt wasn’t the only problem I was dealing with. I’m terrified to lose Beth like I lost Felicia. To go through that again makes my stomach turn to even think about it. Beth says I’m a little overbearing sometimes. I’m Mr. Safety now. Always making sure she’s okay.” He stands up and bends over the table to look at the food we brought down. I haven’t even noticed how hungry I am.
We eat in comfortable silence. Once he’s finished, he stands up and walks over to a wall with several framed pictures hanging from it.
“Do you have any pictures of Felicia hanging in the house?” I ask as I follow him. I look at other pictures on the wall. One of them is a picture of Lisa and Tina skiing. They are maybe ten years old. Another is of Lisa graduating high school, with her big Jersey hair and a Mets T-shirt on under her graduation robe. I laugh to myself.
“There are no pictures hanging, but I still have them. I put them in boxes or gave them to Lisa and Tina. You should ask Lisa to show you some pictures. You’ll see how much they look alike.”
“I’ll do that. Lisa doesn’t have any pictures displayed in her apartment.” I pause for a moment. “I don’t have any pictures out anymore either. I have one picture I look at sometimes. It brings me so much heartache to see photos. I won’t get rid of them because they are a part of me, but I don’t want to look at them either.”
“Beth understood why I couldn’t get rid of them. Actually, she never asked me to get rid of them. She’s such a blessing to me. I’ve realized there is more than one soul mate for everyone. Life is strange and complicated. We can’t plan our future down to the minute. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We can only live one day at a time.”
“It’s funny. I was always organized and a planner. To be honest, I started planning right after the car accident. My goal was to become a doctor. I was never flexible. Once I had a goal, I stuck to it. When I met Jessica, I rearranged my plans but never deterred from them. I should have enjoyed my life more during those years with her.”
He walks over to the refrigerator to fetch another beer. “Want another Heineken?”
I shrug. “Why not? I’m not driving.”
“No, you are not. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”
“What is hard for me now is I don’t have a plan anymore. I’m not that driven, organized planner I used to be. That part of me is long gone. I’m not sure I even want to be that person again. Is that wrong? It makes me exhausted when I think about what I used to be like.”
“In a way, that’s good. Your life is a blank piece of paper. You decide what to do next—no one else. All I can suggest is, follow your heart and learn from your past. It’ll tell you what to do, if you don’t already know. Face your fears.” He sits back down on the recliner.
“Beth and I were shocked to hear you were the one in the ski accident. It’s a great story to tell people how you both met years later again. Your lives collided at this moment in time for a reason. Why now? Who knows. Maybe you can both heal each other. When I look at Lisa today, she has changed for the positive. She’s happier and more confident. I think that has a lot to do with you.”
A warm sensation fills my chest.
“How about we take a break from this serious conversation and watch the game. We still have time to watch the second half.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the talk. Now let’s see what the score is. I bet the Giants are winning,” I say with a sense of relief that my anxieties are justified.
Chapter 38
Lisa
“Did you see how awesome Beth redecorated my old room?” I ask as I trip up the stairs, almost dropping my food.
“You are cut off from the alcohol, young lady.” Tina giggles as she stops short before she bumps into me.
“Whatever. I’m not drunk. The last time I was even close to getting a buzz on was at Cloud Nine.” I stop in front of Tina’s bedroom. “Now, two months later, I’m introducing James to Dad and Beth.”
Tina opens her door and I stand in the doorway with my eyes wide open. “Is Beth taking interior design classes? Your old room looks just as pretty as mine. It’s so lovely and feminine. Did she redecorate the office downstairs as well?” This room has white crown molding with light creamy-beige walls. The carpet is the same color and just as plush as the one in my room. The oak wood bed is decorated with a solid dark-beige luxuriant comforter. Draped over the end of the bed is a white filigree blanket with powder-blue flowers. Powder-blue accent pillows are spread across the comforter.
As I’m feeling the fabric of the matching curtains, Tina says in her sisterly tone, “I’m not really in the mood to discuss how Beth decorates the house.”
I turn away from the window and look at her.
“How are you really doing? Are things going well between you two?”
I point to my smiling face. “Isn’t it evident when you look at me? I told you downstairs how I feel. I wouldn’t lie.”
Before Tina sits on the bed, I air dive onto it, shooting pillows all over the floor.
“Yes, you do radiate something. Maybe a lot of good sex.” She laughs and sits next to me with her dish of food.
My chin drops.
“Ha! Just kidding.” She bites on a cucumber stick loaded with dip.
“Be careful. We don’t want to ruin this nice bedding.”
“Fine. Let’s sit on the floor then.” Tina slides off the bed and sets her plate next to her. I do the same and stuff two meatballs into my mouth.
“Why don’t you put three in your mouth?” Tina jokes.
I finish chewing and remark, “Hey, I didn’t eat breakfast this morning. I’m starving.”
She rolls her eyes with a smirk. “Sex for breakfast.” She puts her hand up. “Sorry, let’s get serious now.”
“Not until you get the spinach out of your teeth.”
“I have spinach in my teeth?” She immediately covers her mouth. She speed-crawls over to the full-length mirror to check her teeth. I burst out laughing as she turns around and gives me the evil eye.
“I had to do it. Your reaction was priceless. Now, come sit back over here if you want to get serious.”
She lets out a belly laugh and crawls back over.
“What do you want to know?”
“Are you happy with him? Be honest. I haven’t had a good conversation with you since you found out about his ski accident. You’ve been slammed with a lot of information in the last couple of months. Especially since the last time I saw you. That has to make your head spin.”
“Head spin is the simple way to say it. He came into my life more like a tornado. It has been turned upside down, but I couldn’t be happ
ier. It’s bizarre to think about our connections in the past. I told you how freaked out I was at first. He was the calm one.” I rub my eyebrows. “It still feels strange to me, but in a good way now.”
“You never really opened up to me about that night. When we left Alexa’s apartment, you were quiet and didn’t want to talk about it. We haven’t had much time to talk since then.”
“I wanted to tell you, but that night was intense. The first half of the night was full of fun and happiness, and then it turned into a night of sadness and rage.”
“He looks happy today. When I first met him on your birthday, he was more reserved, as if trying to hide something. I noticed how he looked at you. The mood of the evening changed so quickly when Jessica’s parents showed up. His face changed completely to stone, like he was possessed. Do you think it could happen again?”
“That was his first time out on a social level since Jessica died. Give him some slack. He told me how he battled with the decision before he came. His outburst at his apartment helped him get all the pent-up energy out. He told me it was a relief to get it out. Why did he need to do it with me and not his parents or Alexa? I don’t know. What I’m trying to say is he has changed in so many positive ways since his outburst. So, I don’t know if it will happen again.”
I take the hairband off my wrist and put my hair into a ponytail. “I keep asking myself, why did we experience such sorrow and tragedy to meet each other now? But I think we could ask why until we’re blue in the face. I don’t think we will ever find out the reason.”
“Why do you even care? You are together now, and that’s all that matters.”
“It breaks my heart he had to lose Jessica and his unborn son for us to be together. One side of me is happy he’s mine, but the other side knows if she was still alive, he wouldn’t even give me a second glance.”
“Again, it doesn’t matter. The past can’t be changed. You are together now. People experience the death of loved ones every day, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to love again. Look at Dad and Beth. Didn’t you learn how to deal with issues like this in your psychology classes? You’re a psychiatrist, for crying out loud.”
Lives Collide (Collide #1) Page 23
