by Claire Adams
Epilogue
Abby
Two Years Later
Something I always thought would make me love Lanai even more than I already did was being able to see the sun rise over the water instead of setting. The morning sun had just begun illuminating our bedroom.
I was awake, just sort of slipping in and out of wakefulness, enjoying the feel of the sun on my naked body and the sound of Nate's playing infiltrating the rest of the house from the living room.
The wall facing the water in our bedroom wasn't a wall at all. It was all glass, with a sliding door that opened onto a balcony. He had asked for it just for me, knowing how I felt about mornings. We had gone back and forth about the design of the house for months before agreeing on something that was small enough for me to be comfortable in, and grand enough for Nate to feel like he was giving me a gift by having it built.
I had been a little sad about leaving my beachside hut near the Four Seasons, but this place was nice, too. We had designed it from the ground up, and Nate had called it my present for our one year anniversary when we had moved in. I had wanted something small and cozy for two people to live in that didn't feel cold and empty. He had drawn inspiration from a beachfront villa he and his parents would stay in when they would come to Hawai'i when he was a child.
The compromise had been a scaled down villa on the eastern coast of the island overlooking the beach. It was secluded, but not isolated. We had our privacy, but the city was less than twenty minutes away when we really wanted to go.
I stretched in the sunlight like a lizard basking on a rock. Nate often played in the morning. His inspiration hit at the strangest times, but I loved when the sun was just creeping up the horizon and his playing infiltrated my fading dreams. I could hear his voice, too; he was singing. He composed and wrote more than he sang, so it was always a treat when he did.
It was time to get up. I wasn't even tired anymore; I was just being lazy. I had graduated a while back, and the summer peak season had just come to an end. I was enjoying my days off after a busy season. I climbed out of bed and walked to our split closet. I pulled on a pair of panties and grabbed one of his worn old t-shirts to go downstairs in.
I walked down the stairs, following the music. The closer I got, the clearer I heard the song. I recognized it. It was the one he had written for me his first summer here. He tended to play a lot of the old stuff he had written with Remus, too.
He had distanced himself from the band since he had ventured out on his own solo career, but since he had writing credits on so many of the band's songs, people were constantly finding out about Nate through the band anyway.
If the balcony upstairs was for me, the recording studio basement was for him. I had felt he needed it to make up for the fact that we lived so far from Los Angeles where the people he collaborated with lived. Having a studio at home meant he didn't always have to leave when he needed to record. The times he did have to travel for shows were bad enough, especially when I couldn't join him.
His beautiful grand piano was in the living room. I walked into the room seeing him, but stopped. It was starting to get light outside, but the room was illuminated with soft yellow light from candles on the mantle and coffee table. A sea of blood red rose petals covered the floor between me and Nate at the piano. The scene was soft and romantic, but we’d already celebrated two years a couple weeks ago. I didn’t know what this was for.
"Nate?" I called carefully, walking into the room, feeling petals beneath my feet. The playing stopped, and he looked over his shoulder at me. He didn't have a shirt on. He was on the bench in just a pair of pajama pants. He smiled seeing me and waved me over.
"Morning, babe," he said, grinning.
"Hey," I said smiling, walking up to the bench. I sat next to him with my back to the piano so I could face him. He kissed me sweetly. "What happened in here?" I asked.
"Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful, but I don't know what we're celebrating."
"Do I need a reason to do something nice for you?" he asked, smiling.
"This is for me?"
"Everything I do is for you, Abby," he said.
It had been two years of hearing him say things like that to me, and they still never failed to fill me up with insane pleasure. He was a songwriter; he knew how to say things to make them sound the sweetest, but that wasn't even where it stopped. I believed him when he said things to me because he was generous with his words, his heart, his body, his money. He gave me everything.
"I love it," I said. "Thank you."
"I love doing things for you; don't mention it. I should be the one thanking you," he said.
"Me? What for?" I asked.
"For all the delicious food you make me, for coming with me on tour, for being my biggest supporter," he said making a list.
"I do those things because I love you, Nate. You don't have to thank me."
"I wouldn't be able to do anything without you, Abby," he said.
"Oh, come on. What were you doing before we met?"
"Nothing," he said seriously. "Nothing good. I wasn't making music, I was high all the time; I was a junkie."
I sighed. I remembered. The more distance we gained from the time, the more dire it seemed in my remembrance of it. We were both here on the other side of it, in love and stronger than ever, but when we had met, this man that he was today was somewhere obscured behind the pain of a broken dream, a failed marriage, and addiction. It was hard to think sometimes that he was the same person.
His left arm was covered in beautiful, dark tattoos instead of track scars now. He was inspired and healthy, and through it all, he was still the creative, beautiful soul I'd been drawn to when we met.
"All that happened in the past. You aren't that person anymore. You got better, and you took your career back."
"I didn't do shit, Abby. You're the one who got me here."
"I just didn't let you ignore me," I said, smiling.
"You treated me like I was someone worth saving," he said. "I wouldn't be alive if you hadn’t driven me crazy the first summer I got here." I smiled, remembering how upset he would get when I'd wake him up in the morning.
"Yes, you would, Nate," I said. "I'm not the one who beat your addiction — you are."
"If you weren't there, I wouldn't have been able to do it. You were it, Abby. You still are. I'm alive because of you, and you deserve every last one of the years I have left on this earth." I felt my eyes well up.
"You don't owe me anything, Nate. Here and now with you is enough." He shook his head.
"I don't want here and now Abby; I want every day." I watched him stand and round the bench. "Abby," he said quietly. He took one of my hands and sunk down on one knee. My heart started pounding as I realized what was happening.
"Every good thing in my life I can trace back to you. I had nothing when we met, and you gave me everything. I didn't know what unconditional love felt like before I met you and when I think of the future, you're the only thing I know I can't live without. I have a life because of you, and I don't want to live life without you."
I wanted to say something, but I couldn't, my throat was closed, and tears were pouring down my face. I saw him reach into his pajama pants pocket and pull out a ring.
"Abby Terrell, I love you, and I don't want to live a life without you in it. Marry me?"
I nodded because I couldn't speak. He slid the ring on my finger and stood up. I looked at it. It was a beautiful pink stone in a rose-gold band.
"I thought..."
"You thought I'd never ask you?"
"I thought you didn't want to do it again," I said.
"I didn't want to do it again with the wrong person," he said. "You're the right person, Abby. You're the only person. Do you want to be my wife?"
"Yes," I said, looking up at him. "Of course. I just want to make you happy."
"You already do, babe," he said. I smiled. He made me happy, too. Happy, excited, passionate...f
ull. He was my missing piece to paradise. Now I had everything.
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CONVICTION
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Claire Adams
Prologue
Ollie
I had told her not to, but she went ahead and did it anyway.
“Of course I’m gonna make a cake for my baby on his eighteenth birthday!” my mother said when I protested. She was having trouble sticking the candles into the cake; the latest round of chemo had left her weaker than I’d ever seen, her bones brittle, her skin papery and translucent.
“Ma,” I said. “Two candles is fine. Really.”
She had that look on her face, though, and I knew she’d press on until all eighteen candles were in place.
“Now, Ollie,” she said. “I don’t want you to be too disappointed this year. It’s been hard for me to get around, you know that, so getting you a birthday present was a bit of a challenge.”
“You don’t need to get me anything.”
My mother coughed, a painful, wet hacking sound. I gritted my teeth so I wouldn’t cringe. Her last round of chemo had been exactly that—her last. At her appointment last week, Dr. Gordon had given her a hug, the look on his face clearly saying he knew this was probably the last time he’d see her. There was no reason to continue the chemo, he’d told us. The cancer, which had started in her lungs, was everywhere. Now it was just a matter of making her as comfortable as we could until she finally decided to let go.
Somehow, though, while I’d been at work over at Garrett Wilson’s ranch, she’d summoned enough energy to bake a cake. From a box, but still. She still had to pour, stir, and measure a few ingredients. Cooking and baking had always been her thing, though, and I knew she still felt that anything from a box was subpar.
“It looks great, Ma,” I said. She sang happy birthday to me, pausing every couple of seconds to cough. I blew out the candles, knowing the wish I wanted to make wasn’t going to come true.
I didn’t feel like eating cake right then, but I started picking the candles out and putting them on a folded up paper napkin.
“So, you’ve had a good birthday?” my mother asked, watching me as I pulled the candles out.
“Yeah, Ma. It’s been good.”
“You worked on your birthday! I would’ve thought you’d at least have taken the day off.”
“Garrett would’ve given it to me if I asked, but I wanted to work.” It occurred to me after I said it that maybe she’d been hoping I would take the day off; this would be my last birthday she’d be around for. “I’ve got most of tomorrow off, though,” I said. “Just have to go over there in the morning. Early, though, and it shouldn’t take too long.”
“What about Carolyn? Are you planning to see her tonight?”
“Not tonight.” I decided to leave it at that, not wanting to elaborate that the next time I saw Carolyn would be to break up with her. We’d been high school sweethearts, and I thought at one point, I probably really did love her, but the feelings had just faded. It’d be better to break it off with her than to keep stringing her along. She didn’t deserve that.
The problem was my mother’s feelings for her hadn’t faded, and if anything, had grown stronger over the months because she liked to imagine the grandchildren she thought we might give her one day.
“And I know Darren should be calling any second to wish you happy birthday!” my mother said brightly. “I can’t wait to talk to him and hear all about the big city.”
I looked at the stove clock, the glowing green numbers. My mother would be asleep soon. He wouldn’t call, I knew that, but I forced a smile.
“He’s just so busy,” she said.
My older brother had fled Colorado the second he turned eighteen, landing in San Francisco, where he promptly came out of the closet and declared himself gay.
I cut two slices of cake. She picked at hers, and I ate mine in four big bites, the sugar hurting my teeth and landing in my stomach like a big lump.
“This is for you,” my mother said, pushing a rectangular wrapped box toward me.
“Oh, Ma, you didn’t need to go out to the store and get me anything.”
“It was no trouble at all. Marie and I went together and made a day of it. It was the nicest outing I’ve had in a while. I hope you like it,” she said.
I began unwrapping the box. I didn’t even want to think about how long it must have taken her to wrap the thing in the first place. What a pointless waste, wrapping presents. Just to tear the paper off in about two seconds flat. So I went slowly, sliding my thumb underneath the first seam, popping the tape off. I set the paper aside and sat there with the box on my lap for a few seconds, before lifting the lid. There was tissue paper to be moved aside, which revealed a bright pink Scully shirt, embroidered across the torso with a floral design. It was about the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.
“Wow,” I said, pulling it out of the box. “Would you look at that.”
My mother beamed. “I wasn’t sure about it, but I called Darren and he said that you’d love it. He’s got such good fashion sense.”
“He sure does.”
I stood up and slid the pink shirt over the black t-shirt I was wearing. The thing fit all right, and my mother smiled in approval.
“That looks wonderful!” she said. “Let me take a picture, and we can send it to your brother. I bet he’s going to call any second now.”
“No, Ma, you don’t have to take a picture,” I said. “Darren doesn’t need a picture of me in a pink shirt. I’m sure there’s plenty of guys wearing pink shirts out there, anyway.”
“You’ll have to make sure you bring it when you go out and visit him,” she said. A sad look crossed her face. “It’s kind of like I’ll be out there too, since I bought you the shirt… I really wish I had enough time so we could all go out there together…”
“Ma…” We hadn’t had the talk yet. Neither of us had admitted to the other that we knew she was going to die soon, that there likely wouldn’t be another Christmas, certainly not another summer, no more of the Fourth of July celebrations that she loved so much. Every time I’d sensed she was going to bring it up, I veered us away from that. Life was not fair, I knew that, but the whole situation with my mother was so far beyond fair I couldn’t really even think about it without becoming enraged. The doctors didn’t confirm it, but I knew her lung cancer was from breathing in all that secondhand smoke from my father, who had died just a few years earlier in a car accident. He was controlling and abusive, and even a blind person could see the immense weight that lifted from my mother’s shoulders once she was free from ever having to deal with him again. She was able to smile and mean it. She didn’t have to account for her whereabouts every second of every day. She was actually enjoying life. And then she got the news she had cancer, it was incurable, and she was going to die. There was nothing anyone could do about it. I didn’t want to have that conversation just yet. There was still time. It was running out, yes, but there was still time.
She smiled. “I know,” she said. “We can talk about it another time. No need to be a Debbie Downer on your birthday! I better get to bed; I’m exhausted.” She looked at me once more, evaluating the shirt. “But that shirt sure does look nice on you.”
“Thanks, Ma. I love it. I’ll wear it out tonight and show all the guys.” All the guys would give me a gigantic heap of shit for wearing such a thing, but I didn’t care. They’d have a laugh about it, and my mom would go to sleep knowing that I’d gone out in the gift she’d given me.
The Watering Hole was the hangout for all the locals, and because I’d grown up around here and had been working for Garrett Wilson since I was eleven, I was allowed into the bar even though I wasn’t twenty-one yet. And, as expected, there was a whole lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ from the guys when I walked in, wearing that pink shirt.
I went over to the bar and the bartender, Lauren, slid me a bottle of beer. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she said with a grin. “Almost legal.”
“Where the fuck did that shirt come from?” Alan, one of the guys I worked with on the ranch, asked as he came over and slung an arm around me.
“Gift from my mother,” I said. “Told her I’d wear it out tonight and impress you all.”
Alan grinned. “Figured something like that would be from your brother. But I guess it takes a real man to be able to wear pink like that out in public.”
“How is your mom?” Lauren asked.
“Hangin’ in there,” I said.
“Tell her we’re thinking of her.”
“I will.” I took a sip of the beer, cold and bitter as it went down my throat.
Aside from it being my birthday, though, there wasn’t much different about tonight. It was Friday night, so the place was pretty busy, but I recognized almost all the faces—all except for a girl sitting at a table with a couple guys I went to high school with. Her back was to me, but when she turned, I saw her profile, and she wasn’t anyone I recognized.
I sat at the bar and listened to Alan tell me about chasing down a few escaped heifers that almost made it into town. My phone was in the front pocket of my jeans, and I felt it vibrate against my leg. I pulled it out and flipped it open to see who was calling. Carolyn. She’d want to know where I was, and if I told her I was here at the Watering Hole, she’d first give me shit for being at a bar when I wasn’t twenty-one, then she’d come down there and hang out.
