The One That Got Away

by Jamie Sobrato

  She wanted to escape her thoughts. She didn’t want to analyze her conversation with Marcus, what he must be thinking of her now. He must have been freaked out by her admission. She hadn’t planned to tell him like that, but it had just come out. Perhaps she’d been keyed up after her talk with Izzy and the girl’s subsequent meltdown.

  Or perhaps inspired.

  Unlike Ginger, Izzy was busy experiencing her feelings. She was immersed in grief. She walked around with it in her heart every moment of every day, and that had to be healthier than the way Ginger had run from her own grief as a child. Not that she’d had any other option. Like all children, she’d simply been doing what she had to do at the time to survive.

  But she didn’t want Izzy to go through what she’d gone through as an adult, discovering her unexpressed grief so late in life, a wound that had never been allowed to heal.

  Ginger sat in one of the two Adirondack chairs on the deck and propped her feet on the matching ottoman. She poured herself another glass of wine—it would make her third for the night, and she knew she needed to stop there. Any more and she’d risk doing or saying something stupid. Although she’d pretty much dealt with her previous feelings for Marcus, they were still a habit she knew she could fall back into easily if she wasn’t careful.

  Especially after the kiss…

  Footsteps approached from the living room, and she heard the French doors open and close. “Looks like you found the best seat in the house.”

  “There’s another one waiting right here for you,” she said, gesturing to the empty chair next to hers.

  He’d brought out his wineglass, too, and he sat down and filled it, then lifted it in a toast.

  “To you,” he said, his slight smile inscrutable.

  She wanted to know his thoughts and at the same time didn’t want to know them. What did he think of her now?

  “To you and Izzy,” she said, clinking her glass to his before taking a drink.

  “Dinner was great,” he said, sounding just the slightest bit awkward.

  They’d made it through the meal without much tension. Izzy had provided a welcome distraction. She’d emerged from her bedroom, claiming to be ravenous, once the smell of cooking pizza filled the house.

  And true to her word, she’d eaten enthusiastically and appeared to have totally recovered from her meltdown. They’d talked pleasantly, and Ginger had found herself marveling at the ease with which the three of them interacted in spite of the day’s drama…or perhaps because of it.

  It said a lot for Izzy that she could move past her negative feelings. The day before, she’d been a grumpy, sullen teenager. Now it was as if the dark skies had cleared to reveal bright blue sky.

  Maybe it wouldn’t last, but it was refreshing to see a glimpse of the happy girl she must have been before her mother’s death.

  “Can you believe that?” Marcus said out of the blue.

  “Believe what?”

  He leaned in and whispered, “Her transformation.”

  “I’m as amazed as you are.”

  “It’s all thanks to you.”

  She ignored the compliment. “I think she’s starting to relax with both of us.”

  “Just now, in the bedroom, she was asking if we could stay here past the summer.”

  Ginger caught his guarded expression. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I didn’t know what would come next, but that we’d figure it out soon.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here with me as long as you want,” she said, knowing he was too polite to stay longer than the summer.

  “When I left Amsterdam, I knew it was for good. I mean, I knew I was coming back here for Izzy, but I had no idea where we’d be living.”

  “You didn’t give any thought to where you wanted to live?” That shouldn’t surprise her, Ginger thought. Marcus had never been much for long-term planning.

  “I guess I considered San Francisco, or maybe Santa Cruz since that’s where Izzy spent a lot of her life before her mom got sick, but… I don’t know. Other times I thought maybe we’d both need a fresh start someplace new, maybe Seattle or San Diego.”

  “Is your mom still in Seattle?”

  He nodded.

  “It might be nice to have her help.”

  “I don’t know. She’s not really a kid person. Even adult kids apparently, since she hasn’t made any effort to see me in years.”

  “What about Nina? Do you think she has any feelings about custody?”

  “Izzy’s old enough to choose who she gets to live with, and Nina’s fine with that.”

  “So she’s choosing you?”

  He shrugged. “She seems to be for now. Who knows what she’ll think once she’s in the throes of adolescence.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but I think you’re already there.”

  Ginger sipped her wine, glancing over at him to sneak a quick peek at his profile. But he turned to look at her and their gazes locked.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” he said, his voice unexpectedly solemn.

  “Do what?”

  “Raise a teenage girl—alone or even with help. Moments like this afternoon make me realize that it’s going to be hard. And it’s not like I’m equipped for the job.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice, Marcus,” she said carefully, horrified at the notion that he would even contemplate abandoning Izzy after all she’d lost.

  “I hate to admit this, but I wonder every day if she’d be better off with Nina. That’s who Lisette chose to be her guardian, after all. She didn’t choose me.”

  Fury unexpectedly filled Ginger, and she had to fight to keep her voice even. “That’s a cop-out and you know it. She never even gave you the option of being involved in Izzy’s life.”

  “For good reason,” Marcus said, almost to himself.

  Ginger’s hand began to shake, and she slammed her wineglass on the side table too hard, causing it to shatter. She stared at the broken glass and spilled wine as if they made no sense.

  “Hey!” Marcus leaned back from the table.

  “Don’t do that, Marcus.” She could barely get the words out, she was so angry. “Don’t. Do. It.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t run away again,” Ginger said through a clenched jaw. “Don’t do that to her,”

  Shocked by the fury in her voice, he seemed to be struggling not to run away at that very moment. It was what he did when the going got tough, and she saw now why she could never, ever allow her fragile heart to love him as more than a friend.

  “I’m not running away,” he said, sounding too defensive. “I’m just…just trying to work out what makes sense for everyone involved. And you tell me—what makes more sense? A girl being raised by a strange guy who has no experience with kids, no home, no established connections in this country, or a girl being raised by someone she’s known all her life, who loves her and has a home for her and who was chosen by her mother to take care of her?”

  The sound of a slamming door caused them both to jump and turn in the direction of the house. Izzy was standing on the other side of the French doors, staring at Marcus as if he were pure evil.

  “Izzy,” Ginger cried, as she jumped up from her chair and went for the door.

  The girl turned and ran through the house, with both Marcus and Ginger chasing after her.

  At the front door, she scrambled to unlock it.

  “Leave me alone!” she cried as they came up behind her. “Leave me the hell alone! You’re a liar and a fake! You’re just keeping me here until you can figure out a good excuse to dump me off with Nina again! I hate you!”

  Ginger didn’t think it would be safe to let her go out into the night, not now, not in this state.

  “Izzy, that’s not true—you need to calm down,” Marcus pleaded, trying to block the door.

  Before he could do it, though, Izzy had the door open and was tearing across the front lawn toward the woods. Lulu, upset by the c
ommotion, was standing on the porch barking after her, less brave than her owner when it came to dark forests at night.

  “I’ll go after her,” Ginger said to Marcus. “She’s not angry at me.”

  “But…” He stared at the woods, where Izzy had disappeared.

  “Just wait here in case she comes back,” Ginger said firmly, then took off after the girl.

  She ran as fast as she could, taking care not to trip on any roots, and wishing the whole way that she’d brought a flashlight. “Izzy?” she called. “It’s me. Please stop.”

  That was the problem with troubled girls. They ran. They didn’t stick around where they thought they weren’t wanted. They ran away.

  Ginger’s passed a circle of redwoods, and to her surprise found Izzy standing just to the side of the path, staring up at the moon peeking through the trees.

  Ginger stopped, breathing hard. “Thank God. Thank you for stopping.”

  “I heard what he said.” Izzy’s voice was quiet. “The door was standing partway open, and I could hear. I was just coming out to get another glass of water when I heard my name. I wasn’t trying to listen in.”

  “It’s okay. We probably shouldn’t have even had that conversation without you there.”

  “He’s going to leave me with Nina, isn’t he?” she said, her voice thick with grief.

  Ginger swallowed, tried to think of an honest answer that wouldn’t condemn Marcus, but she couldn’t. She was disgusted with him at the moment.

  “He might,” she finally said. “I don’t know.”

  “My mom was right about him. He’s too selfish to be a father.”

  Ginger studied Izzy’s profile. She could see so much of Marcus in it. She bristled at the idea of Lisette saying such a thing about him, even if it might be true.

  She didn’t want it to be true, and neither did Izzy. Ginger wanted to believe something big had changed Marcus, that the death threats and the shooting had jarred him out of his easy life and made him wake up to the possibilities he was missing out on. Wasn’t that what his return to the States was all about?

  Or was it about fear?

  Was it about Marcus running away again?

  Izzy turned toward her abruptly. “Could I stay here in Promise and live with you?”

  Ginger blinked, stunned. “You want to live with me?”

  “You’re the only person I know who understands what it feels like to have your parents die.”

  “Marcus’s father died, you know,” she said gently, trying not to sound as shocked as she felt.

  “It’s not the same. He was already grown up when that happened.”

  “You’re right. It’s not quite the same.” She reached out on impulse and ran her hand down Izzy’s long curtain of hair, smoothing it from her crown to the middle of her back.

  “So can I?”

  There really wasn’t any reason for her to say no. She was already starting to love this girl, and it terrified her. She didn’t want to think of how it would feel to have her leave.

  “I would be happy to have you stay with me for as long as you want, but it’s not my decision.”

  “It’s my decision,” Izzy said, “and this is where I want to be.”

  “What about your school in San Francisco? Won’t you miss your friends?”

  Izzy shook her head. “I wasn’t there long enough to start school. I didn’t have any friends in the city. While my mom was being treated at Stanford and we were staying with Nina, I was doing independent study. That’s what my mom wanted, so she could spend more time with me.”

  “How about Santa Cruz? Do you miss being there?”

  Another head shake. “I don’t want to go back. It would be too sad to be there without my mom.”

  Up above, an owl hooted from a branch. They both looked up and saw the bird in a nearby bay tree, illuminated by moonlight, staring down at them with its strange eyes.

  “Wow,” Izzy whispered. “I’ve never seen an owl before.”

  As they watched, the bird took off, soaring on broad wings away from them into the night. With its departure, Ginger noticed that the rise and fall of the crickets’ song seemed to surround them in stereo sound.

  Izzy was staring at her intently in the dark now. “I don’t care where my dad goes. I’m staying here. This is the first place I’ve been that feels like home.”

  “I’m glad you like it here,” Ginger said gently. “When I first came here, I was really sad, too. I think living here helped heal me.”

  “What were you sad about?”

  “I had broken up with my boyfriend.”

  “How come?”

  Ginger already knew that Izzy deserved her honesty. “He asked me to marry him, and I didn’t want to.”

  “Because you want to be with my dad?”

  “No, not exactly. I was afraid. Just like Marcus is now.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “Getting too close. Losing my parents made me want to keep everyone away, so my heart couldn’t get so hurt again.”

  “But you wanted to adopt a little girl, right? Why weren’t you afraid of that?”

  Ginger shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I saw it as a chance to heal—to love a child the way I’d wanted to be loved after my parents were gone, you know?”

  Izzy said nothing for a moment, but continued to stare at her. “That’s why I want to stay with you, see? You could adopt me instead of some girl from China.”

  Tears sprang to Ginger’s eyes. Of course. That was the way a child would view the matter, and Izzy was straddling the line between child and teenager, still able to see things through the lens of innocence.

  Ginger couldn’t bear to point out all the practical reasons why Izzy’s idea might not be possible. Marcus. Nina. Reality. Not right now. Izzy had had enough disappointments for one night.

  Instead, she wrapped her arm around Izzy’s shoulders and pulled her close, giving her a squeeze. “We should go back to the house. Marcus will be worried.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him tonight,” Izzy said when they started walking.

  “That’s okay. Soon, though, maybe tomorrow, you two need to talk. I can’t keep playing the go-between, because the point of this summer is for you to get to know your dad, right?”

  “I already know everything I need to know about him.”

  The cynical adult comment, coming right after Izzy sounding so innocent, nearly caused Ginger to laugh in shock. She wished she had known the girl before tragedy had struck. She imagined Izzy being a confident, sassy thing who knew how to get what she wanted. She’d probably been one of the popular girls at school, which was a world apart from Ginger’s own awkward childhood.

  But her mother’s death had changed Izzy profoundly, Ginger was sure. She herself had gone from being a bookish but confident girl, secure in her happy family, to a sullen child, never quite in step with her peers, never able to fully join in their carefree concerns. And being raised by her grandmother, a sweet little worrywart who dressed her badly and fed her too much, didn’t help matters. Ginger ate to soothe herself, and she’d gained weight.

  She hoped she could steer Izzy away from the lonely kind of life she’d had, but she also hoped Marcus would find it in himself to give the girl what she needed, too.

  “You know,” Ginger said as they reached the edge of the woods, “your dad might surprise you. Don’t make up your mind about him yet, okay? People never know what they’re capable of until a crisis strikes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Marcus getting shot, and then learning about you—this is his first chance to prove himself.”

  Izzy said nothing, and Ginger didn’t want to make any hollow promises about what she was sure Marcus would do. She wasn’t sure. She had no idea if he’d ever be anything more than the man he’d always been.

  So far, he hadn’t impressed her.

  Marcus was waiting on the porch when they reached the house. He said nothing as t
hey opened the front door to go inside, but he gave Ginger a questioning look. She motioned for him to come in. They followed Izzy to her bedroom, Lulu scampering at their feet. Izzy bent to pick up the dog, avoiding her father’s gaze, and Ginger seized the moment to mime that Izzy was going to go to bed and that they should say good-night and leave her alone.

  But there she was, playing the gatekeeper again. She needed to get herself out from between Marcus and Izzy. Otherwise, they might never truly connect.

  “Good night, Izzy,” she said from the doorway as the girl placed the dog on her bed and slipped off her shoes.

  “Night,” she replied, without looking up.

  Ginger started to close the door, but Marcus stopped her. “I need to talk to Izzy,” he said, and she resisted intervening.

  She simply forced herself to nod and walk away. Izzy was his daughter, after all. Sooner or later he was going to have to learn how to deal with her.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Izzy said, her voice rising to a near yell. “Ginger, I told you I don’t want to talk to him!”

  Ginger sighed and forced herself to go to the kitchen, out of their way.

  This wasn’t her battle. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “GO AWAY.”

  Marcus stepped into the bedroom and closed the door. He probably should have just done as she’d asked, but at least now he had her where he could talk to her, and unless she knocked him down or climbed out the window, she didn’t have any means of escape.

  “I’m sorry for what you overheard earlier,” he said.

  She glared at him, then flopped down on the bed and rolled over so that her back was to him.

  “Izzy, I only said what I said because I’m afraid I don’t know enough about what you need to be a good parent to you.”

  Silence answered him. Lulu let out a soft whimper, then nestled in beside Izzy.

  He had a feeling he was saying all the wrong things, but he was pretty sure there weren’t any right things to say, either.