I loved her too much to put her through it. Better to disappoint her in the short term than sentence her for life. But fuck—fuck—it hurt me, too.
I grabbed the pillow from behind my head and put it over my face. It smelled like lavender.
My throat closed. My chest tightened. My heart ached at the thought that I’d never kiss her goodnight or sleep next to her or wake up with her again—and someone else would.
But that was the price I had to pay.
I landed in Boston around one o’clock the following afternoon. I hadn’t slept well, the flight had been bumpy, and my stomach was upset, probably because of the Depakote combined with the lack of food. To say I was grumpy was an understatement.
I barked at someone in baggage claim for standing too close to me, I was a dick to the guy at the rental car agency when the SUV I wanted wasn’t available, and I ignored Finn’s texts asking if I was on my way. I’d never even told him which flight I was on or when it would arrive.
Instead, I put his address into my GPS and drove to his house, cursing and grumbling the entire way that I should have stayed in a hotel. How the fuck was I going to even breathe with four people in my face all the time?
Bree answered my knock on the front door, and her face lit up when she saw me. “Hey, Dallas!”
“Hey.”
She held the door open for me, and as soon as I was inside, she let go and threw her arms around me. “It’s so good to see you.”
The hug felt good, and I found my temperamental mood easing up a bit. “You too.”
She released me and stepped back, eyeing me at arm’s length. “You look good.”
“So do you.” My brother’s wife was pretty and petite, with shoulder-length dark hair that was pulled off her face and a generous smile. It was a warm day, and she was dressed in cut-off shorts and a tank top smudged with dirt as if she’d been working outside.
“Oh Lord, I’m a mess. I’ve been in the garden already this morning. But come on in. Finn’s at work—I don’t think he knew exactly when you were arriving—but the kids are running around here somewhere. Oly! Lane!” she called out. “Uncle Dallas is here.”
A second later, they came barreling toward me, Oly flying down the stairs in a bathing suit and Lane zooming in from the direction of the kitchen. “Yay!” one of them cried as both of them wrapped around my legs like monkeys. “You’re here!”
“I’m here.” The sight of them lifted my spirits even more. “And I have presents for you somewhere in my bag.”
The kids cheered while Bree parked her hands on her hips. “You send them too much stuff already. They’re still eating all the Easter candy you shipped here.”
“What are uncles for?” I ruffled Lane’s hair and tweaked Olympia’s ear.
“Want to go swimming with me?” she asked. “We have a pool now.”
“I know, I heard about it. I’d love to. Got a diving board?”
My niece nodded happily. “I can dive off it.”
“I’ll teach you how to do a backflip,” I told her.
“Dallas Shepherd, don’t you dare.” My sister-in-law swatted at my shoulder.
I smiled. “Let me take my bags upstairs and I’ll find my suit, okay, Oly?”
“Okay.”
“Are you hungry?” Bree asked. “I have some pasta salad and some deviled eggs.”
“That sounds good. I haven’t eaten yet today.” My stomach was feeling a little better, and food actually sounded good.
“I’ll fix you a plate. You can take your things upstairs. You remember where the guest room is?”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
Upstairs in the guest room, I dug my swimsuit and the kids’ gifts out of my bag. The Tigers merchandise reminded me of being at the game with Maren, and a pit opened inside me. How was she today? I’d had no calls or messages from her, which surprised me. Was she too hurt and angry? Or was she trying to forget me already?
It doesn’t matter. A clean break, remember?
I did my best to put her out of my mind and spent the afternoon with Bree and the kids, who loved their Tigers gear and had fun showing off their swimming and diving skills. I dazzled them all (plus some other neighborhood urchins) with my backflip and thunderous cannonball off the diving board, participated in underwater tea parties, diving for pennies, and about a million games of Marco Polo.
For dinner, I grilled cheeseburgers and hot dogs, and Bree brought out corn on the cob and broccoli salad, which the kids complained about but ate after their mother told them there would be no ice cream if they didn’t.
Finn arrived home while we were eating on the patio, kissed his wife hello, ruffled each of the kids’ wet heads, and offered me his hand. I thought for sure he’d make a comment about my ignoring his texts or failing to let them know when I would arrive, but he didn’t. “Glad you made it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He changed clothes and joined us at the table, and I found myself looking at him differently as I watched him interact with his family. I wasn’t sure why. Was it because I knew he was seeing a therapist? Or because I kept waiting for him to harangue me about the surgery and he wasn’t? Was he different somehow, maybe a little less intense and more relaxed? Was it because I knew he was interested in mending our relationship, maybe hearing me out before he dismissed my side of things as irrational or foolish or reckless?
Whatever it was, it helped to put me at ease. I didn’t feel as on guard or defensive as I usually did around him. I liked watching him with his wife and kids, and for the first time, I envied what he had. Home. Family. Security. Belonging. I felt a part of it too, which was nice, but it wasn’t mine. It never would be.
Later, after the ice cream had been eaten and the dishes were cleared and the kids had been dragged off to the bathtub by Bree, Finn asked if I wanted to have a beer with him out by the pool.
I hesitated. “The meds.”
“No pressure, but I think one beer is okay.”
“Okay, then. I’ll have one with you.” I was feeling better than I had this morning, at least physically.
Finn brought out two uncapped bottles and handed one to me, and we stretched out in two adjacent deck chairs. The sky was streaked with pink and orange, and the crickets were chirping noisily. From an upstairs window I heard Lane protest, “But I don’t need to wash my hair! I washed it three days ago!”
Finn chuckled. “That kid never wants to wash his hair.”
I smiled, tipping up my beer. “They’re getting so big.”
“They are. And I’m getting old.”
But you’re lucky, Finn. So fucking lucky.
He drank too. “Nervous about tomorrow?”
“Should I be?” I looked over at him.
He shrugged. His shoulders were less broad than mine, but we had similar builds and coloring, although he wore his hair shorter and was slightly thicker through the middle. “I don’t think there will be any surprises. He’ll just go over the surgery with you.”
I nodded, and we were both silent for a minute.
“I want to ask you what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to pressure you.”
“You can ask. I don’t have an answer, though.”
“Fair enough.” He paused. Drank. “How was your weekend in Detroit?”
I crossed my ankles. “Fine.”
“You said you saw Maren Devine?”
“I did.”
“How was that?”
“It was…” The muscles in my lower body clenched. “Interesting.”
“Oh? Care to elaborate?”
I sipped my beer and gave it some thought. Fuck it. Might as well. “I went there to apologize for leaving without saying goodbye when Mom and Dad sent me away. It was a shitty thing to do to her, and I only did it because I was embarrassed. I hadn’t talked to her since and always felt bad.”
“So you wanted her forgiveness?”
“Yeah.”
Finn nodded slowly, and I knew he u
nderstood why I’d gone. “What did she say?”
“She was pretty frosty at first, but she warmed up eventually. Said she forgave me.” I started peeling the label off the beer bottle. “I asked to take her to dinner that night, and she said yes. We had a nice time.”
Finn paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. “How nice?”
“She came back to my hotel and spent the night.”
“Damn. That’s pretty nice.”
“Yeah.” I inhaled and exhaled, fighting the memory of my body on hers. “So nice I didn’t want to leave when I was supposed to. We spent the next day and night together, and things got sort of intense.”
“Yeah?”
I took another drink. “I told her some things I probably should have kept to myself.”
“What kind of things?”
“That I’d never forgotten her. That I thought of her every day.” I paused and shut my eyes. “That I still loved her.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“What did she do?”
“She said she’d never gotten over me either and made me promise to give us a second chance.”
“And you did? Make the promise, I mean?”
I nodded. “I did. But I can’t keep it.”
“Why not?”
I sat up taller in my chair. “Because, Finn. She doesn’t want to be with someone defective like me.”
“You’re not defective, Dallas.”
“I could be. The risks of that surgery scare the fuck out of me.”
“I know, they’re scary. It’s brain surgery, no way around it.”
“I don’t want her to see me like that. And if they didn’t get it all and I needed chemo and radiation …” I shook my head. “No fucking way. I’ve seen the photos. I’ve read the stories.”
“What stories?”
“On the Internet,” I said, getting defensive, because I sensed a scolding ahead. “And don’t tell me those aren’t real, because they are. Chad was real and now he’s dead.”
“Who the hell is Chad?”
“He was a guy with a brain tumor, and he tried to fight it and lost.”
“Oh, Jesus. Look, Dallas.” Finn swung his feet to the ground and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his beer bottle dangling between them. “I won’t pretend this isn’t serious. Yes, you have a brain tumor. Yes, there are risks to the craniotomy. Yes, you may need additional treatment depending on what the biopsy shows. But this isn’t a death sentence. Dr. Acharya thinks he can get it all.”
“If I lost the use of my right hand, I’d never be able to work again. It would feel like a death sentence.”
“Learn to tattoo with your left hand.”
I gave him a look. “You can’t be serious. I’m not the slightest bit ambidextrous.”
“You’re smart and talented. And the human brain is an amazing thing. I think you could learn. You could give me my first tattoo.”
I had to laugh. “With my left hand? Why not just ask Oly to tattoo you? It would probably look better.”
“I want it to be you.”
“Are you serious?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Since when?”
“For a while now. I was going to talk to you about it next time we saw each other.”
“I thought you hated my tattoos.”
He sighed. “I didn’t hate them. I envied them.”
“What? Why?” This made no sense.
“Because they stood for something about you that I’ve always been jealous of. You do what you want and you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
“True.”
“And you get along with everyone. Everyone likes you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, I’m working on caring less what people think as I get older. And getting a tattoo is a step in that direction. I mean, I don’t want it on my neck or anything—I am still a professor at Harvard—but maybe on my back or chest or something.”
“Sure,” I said, amazed by these revelations. Finn envied me? He wanted a tattoo? “We can talk about it. Do you know what you want?”
“Not yet. Maybe you can help me decide.”
“Okay.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, we were talking about Maren.”
I stared at him another moment and then looked straight ahead again. Time ticked by. “I want her to remember me like I was.”
“I understand.”
“And she deserves better than me, Finn. She always has. I’d be a disappointment to her no matter what, tumor or not.”
“That’s your own self-pity right there, not anyone else’s.”
“Excuse me?” My tone was sharp.
He held up a hand. “No offense, but it seems like that’s a handy excuse not to take a chance on letting her see you be a little vulnerable. You don’t know what would happen in the future.”
“A little vulnerable?” I sat up and pointed at him. “Fuck you, Finn. When have you ever let anyone see you as something less than perfect? As someone weak or vulnerable? Oh, that’s right, never.”
“Not true.”
“Since when.”
“Since Bree had an affair.”
That stopped me cold. My jaw dropped. “What?”
“Bree had an affair,” he said quietly. “Last year.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me. It was someone she’d met through work, a consultant in the school district where she teaches.”
“Did you kick his ass?”
He grimaced. “Uh, no. Number one, because I’ve never been in a fight in my life. Number two, because it wouldn’t have solved the problem.”
“What was the problem?”
“Bree was lonely. I wasn’t listening to her. I was married to my work and took her for granted.”
“Shit,” I said, lying back again. “Is that why you’re seeing a therapist?”
“That’s what prompted me to get one. But the therapist is helping me with all kinds of issues, most of which stem from my need for control and perfection.”
I scratched my head. “What about Bree and the guy?”
“It was very short-lived. I think only a couple weeks. She felt like she was getting something from him I couldn’t give her—not physically, but emotionally—but eventually she felt so sick about it, she couldn’t take it. She confessed to me and begged me to go to counseling, something I’d refused to do in the past, because one, I don’t like talking about feelings, and two, it meant admitting I wasn’t perfect.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a happy place around here for a few months. But we went to counseling, I found a therapist, Bree found a therapist.”
“Did Oly have to get a job to pay for all the therapy bills?”
Finn laughed a little. “Not yet. But when she’s old enough to need therapy, she might have to.”
“Nah, she’ll be fine.”
“I hope so, but no one can fuck up a kid like a parent.”
I looked at him, but didn’t say anything.
He lay back in the chair again. Crossed his legs. “You know, I’ve got plenty of success stories too. To balance the scary Internet ones. If you want to hear them.”
I finished off the last of my beer. “Maybe.”
We lay there in silence for a while before Finn spoke again. “She emailed me last night.”
“Who?”
“Maren.”
I looked over at him. “Maren emailed you last night? Why?”
“Because she loves you.” That was all he said.
I was still processing it when Bree came out of the house and asked if she could join us. We said yes, but because I didn’t want to get into everything about Maren in front of my sister-in-law, I didn’t ask Finn for any more details about the email. But it stayed at the back of my mind while the three of us sat around chatting. When the mosquitos chased us into the house, we sat in the family room for
a while, but eventually I started yawning, and they said they were tired, too. Bree shooed us upstairs and said she’d turn off all the lights.
Finn and I went up, and I waited in the hall while he snuck into the kids’ rooms to check on them. It was the kind of thing that made being a dad seem kind of nice, checking on your sleeping children. That had to feel good, knowing they were safe and sound and peaceful. I thought about how much fun I’d had in the pool with them today and wondered what kind of a father I would have been if I’d ever had the chance. It made me a little sad to think it would never happen.
Finn came out of Lane’s room, leaving the door open a crack. “Out cold,” he whispered. “That kid sleeps hard.”
“Good.” I hesitated, feeling awkward but wanting to say something. Finn had made an effort with me tonight that he hadn’t made in the past. It didn’t fix everything, but it made me feel a little less alone. “Hey, thanks for talking tonight.”
“Anytime. Thanks for listening.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “If you don’t want me to reply to Maren, I won’t.”
Every time I heard her name, it was like a stab to the heart. “You can do what you want. She wrote to you, not me.”
“Would you reply to her if she wrote to you?”
“No. There would be no point. My mind is made up.”
“Do you love her?”
I hesitated, but decided to be honest. “I’ll always love her.”
He exhaled. “Okay. Goodnight.”
“Night.”
He disappeared down the hall toward the master bedroom and I let myself into my room, closing the door behind me. I got ready for bed and slid beneath the covers, exhausted but unable to sleep.
She’d written to him. I swallowed hard. She must have gone into the house last night and looked him up online. What had she said? Knowing her, I could pretty well guess she’d pleaded with him to talk to me about the surgery.
I thought about what Finn said about self-pity, that I was using my feelings of inadequacy, my certainty that I would disappoint her, as an excuse not to let her see me at my worst. But that was bullshit! How could he think that I wouldn’t be a disappointment to her, when I’d been a disappointment to everyone else in my life who’d loved me?
He was wrong.
I’d done the right thing in setting her free.
One and Only Boxed Set Page 43
