Heart in a Box

by Ally Sky

  "So that's what he does?" I motion my head toward my father, who is behind the wheel.

  "From the moment he finishes work until I go to bed," she replies indifferently.

  "Where does he live?"

  "Rumor has it he rented a hotel room." I'm sure my mom knows exactly where he lives. Her gang of gossips must make sure she stays up to date.

  "Are you not going to forgive him?"

  "Not soon." She doesn't seem impressed by her husband's stubbornness.

  "You asked him where he had the money to pay the bullies?" I'm interested.

  "An old savings plan that I didn't bother to check." She shrugs. "He was the one that handled our funds. I really don't care about the money, I would pay them myself if I knew Colin was in trouble. "

  "Colin's father was in trouble," I correct her.

  "And his problems have become a problem for all of us. I heard he's dead."

  "Four months ago," I nod, "Colin is not talking about it."

  "His liver decided it was fed up." She knows more than I do, in a way that doesn't really surprise me. "Do you know they asked Colin for an organ donation?"

  "I had no idea."

  "He wasn't a match." She shrugs again. It seems that ever since she threw my father out the door, she's been more indifferent. Her feelings have been dulled overnight. Like me, she must feel that she doesn't know who to trust. I'm surprised that Colin agreed to be tested. I would think he would just wait for his father to parish, but he tried to save him despite everything he did to him. Maybe he didn't change after all. Maybe deep inside he is still the same man I loved?

  "He's going to lawyer up," I update her with the last correspondence. "He'll try to portray me as an incompetent mom."

  "He won't." She sounds much more confident than I do.

  "You should have heard him, he's aggressive, he's—"

  "Desperate?" She chooses the word I didn't mean. "Elizabeth, you forget who he is, what he's been through, Vivian is all he has left."

  "He didn't have to leave." This mantra is beginning to wear thin.

  "He's fighting, pleading for his life, for his family, and you keep pushing him away, slamming the past in his face."

  "Only thing I'm slamming is the truth."

  "It's not the whole truth. He knows he was wrong and he's ready to make up for it for the rest his life, but he won't be your punching bag, he's not the only culprit. He was faced with an impossible situation, and both of you will have to learn to live with what happened. He's changed and you know it."

  "What I know is that he took a break from his life, made tons of money and came back here as if he were some knight in shining armor come to save me."

  "He was willing to die in Afghanistan to be worthy of you." Once again her words make me think of the desert and the boy I loved, lying on some field bed or imprisoned in some bunker under bombardment.

  "Don't side with him," I lower my voice and struggle with my imagination.

  "Don't be blind. He risked his life to become the man he is today." She leans forward and sets the coffee cup on the table. She strokes my forearm with her fingers and adds in a soft, compassionate voice, "He didn't have to leave, but that child suffered loss after loss, and now you want to take away the only thing he has left. You do not have to love him, but you have to let him be a father."

  I don't have to love him. Since when do we choose whom to love, who to hate? Where is the line, where does hatred end and make room for something else, for forgiveness? And what if the one we once loved, wasn't really forgotten, wasn't really out of our hearts and is still there, hiding and waiting for the right moment to emerge? The thought frightens me. I pull my hand from under her fingers and get up quickly from the swing.

  "I have to move."

  "You're running away," she sighs as I gather my bag urgently, "and you'll find yourself facing a pack of lawyers instead of solving the matter between the two of you."

  I don't stay to listen to her anymore. I go down the stairs to the driveway, take a last look at my father, who hasn't moved, get into my car and get out of the driveway.

  Never.

  Is he going to fight me with everything he has? And for what? The right to be part of Viv's life, mine? He would forever be an inseparable part of them. He's a part of my heart, and I can't do anything to change it. No one took his place, no one filled the space he left. Everything was waiting for him.

  His leaving wasn't his fault, he ran away because of the man who sits in front of my mom's house in his car and watches life continuing without him. He left because the thought of someone chasing me was too frightening, threatening. He never stopped loving me.

  The line is blurring, fading, and I'm not able to notice it anymore. I don't know if I hate or love him, want him to leave or stay forever and in another moment he could hold me hostage again, captivated by his charm.

  "Please don't take me to court," I sob on the phone, standing on the balcony praying that Vivian will stay in front of the TV and not go looking for me.

  "Where's Viv?"

  "Inside." I sniff. "She'll see that I cried, and I don't want to explain to her, I don't know what to say."

  "Let me get her out of the house," I hear a door slam, "I can be at yours in a few minutes, I'm not far away."

  "I don't want lawyers," I whimper.

  "Elizabeth, please, I plead, declare a cease-fire, I don't want to fight anymore, I can't fight you."

  "I'm terrified, can you understand that at all?" I confess in a burst of emotion that washes over me in a surge.

  "Yes, I can understand."

  "You broke me to pieces, there was nothing left of me. I gave up my dreams, for you."

  "Let me help, dammit."

  "I don't know what I need." I need stability, confidence and a new job. I need someone to lean on when my world crumbles. Could he give it to me, the guy who made me like that?

  "I'll take Vivian to the movies and bring her back at eight," he goes on, "and I'll come back tomorrow morning, and we'll talk about it. Okay?"

  I don't know what to say and I can't even say a word through the tears anyway.

  "Elizabeth, I'll come over tomorrow morning, we'll have some coffee and talk."

  "Okay," I give in and hang up the phone.

  A few minutes later, his jeep stops in front of the house with a screech of tires. He leaps out of the car and advances quickly toward the house. One look at him, and I fall to my knees, dropping my head in defeat.

  "Lizzie," he kneels in front of me, "look at me."

  I shake my head. He called me Lizzie. Probably without paying any attention, probably without meaning to. He called me Lizzie and closed his fingers on my heart.

  "Raise your head."

  "Why?" I whisper in frustration, hating the fact he sees me in my despair. "So you can see how miserable I am, how weak?"

  "Don't be silly," he puts his hand on my knee, which only makes me cry harder, "we both know you're the strongest of the two of us."

  "I'm so angry!"

  "I know." His hand climbs to my hair and he caresses my head, reminding me of things that have long been forgotten. Reminding me of other days and nights, good and happy and full of laughter. "I'll fix this without lawyers, okay? I'll fix it, I promise."

  "Don't let her see me like this," I cry softly.

  "Don't worry, go for a walk and come back in five minutes, we'll be gone."

  "Thank you."

  "Go." He stands up slowly and holds out his hand. I hesitate for a moment and then put my hand in his and use it to rise, and in a second I'm too close. His breathing accelerates, his huge chest rises and falls in front of me, and I want to put my head on it and close my eyes and delude myself that he is protecting me. I feel his fingers caressing my palm, refusing to leave. I don't raise my eyes, dare not meet his for fear that I will discover that there are no more lies. Only exposed truth, worry and love that haven't been forgotten.

  "Go," he whispers breathlessly. I don't lin
ger any longer, running away from him into the driveway, into the empty street that gives me a hiding place for a few moments of grace.

  Chapter 19

  "What's happening?" I scream and seize my mom's hand tightly. She runs alongside the doctors who rush me out of the delivery room. "Where are you taking me? Mom!"

  "They know what they're doing," she can hardly keep up, "breathe. Just breateh."

  "Don't let her die!" I cry hysterically, which makes it hard for the air to enter my lungs, only contributing to the situation.

  "We're almost there, Elizabeth," the doctor in the white robe tries to calm me down without success.

  "Get her out!" I can't control myself.

  "You have to relax."

  I feel something fluid between my legs, reach out my hand and touch the wetness. When I pick it up, it's red.

  "Colin!" I scream without thinking, without remembering that I can scream until tomorrow. He's not here, and I'm going to lose the only thing left of him. "Colin! I need you!"

  "Your eyes are red." Colin doesn't take his eyes off me as we sit at the small dining table in my miniature kitchen and drink coffee quietly. We both find it difficult to find the right words. Through the accusations and the insults that we have gone through in recent weeks, I wonder what remains of us.

  "I cried all night," I admit. After seeing how I looked yesterday, I don't think anything will surprise him, and I have nothing more to hide.

  "I make you so sad." He looks down at the cup of boiling coffee. "You used to be happy, you smiled, lit my day. You're not happy any more, you're off, and it's my fault."

  "I feel like I have nothing. I don't have a job, I have a child to support, and I don't know how to do it. How many years can she sleep in my room?" I look up. I know his look and the honesty that comes from him. "She needs a space of her own, and I can't give her what she needs. What kind of mom am I?"

  "I repeat my offer. Do you want me to help you find a house that will suit your needs?"

  "If you leave, I'll be left with a house I can't afford." That will get me into bigger trouble.

  "I'm not leaving." His safe voice repeats the words he has said from the moment he returned.

  "I want to believe you." I lower my head and close my eyes, the thoughts rushing through at a dizzying pace, from present to past and back to here and now. Only, the future is foggy, and I can't predict what tomorrow will bring.

  "Elizabeth, I'm not leaving," he insists. "Look at me."

  Don't! Don't you dare raise your head and sink into dreams that may fade like smoke in the air.

  I can't resist. It's the pleading in his voice, or maybe his honesty, but like the seventeen-year-old girl I was, I yield to his request and look up into his familiar blue eyes.

  "I won't leave," he emphasizes every word.

  "I have to find a job." I swallow and pray that I won't say the wrong thing. That I won’t give in completely and go after the words I have been waiting to hear for years.

  "Why do you insist on not returning to the store?" He tries to hide the frustration in his voice without success.

  "I don't want to be a saleswoman anymore," I sigh.

  "And you don't want to work for me."

  "Not really, but my options are limited. I have a high school education and the hours I can work are very restrictive."

  "You should learn something, Liz." Again he is pragmatic, solving problems. If only he hadn't caused them in the first place.

  "And how will I pay for it?" I laugh bitterly, and in response he raises an eyebrow as if the question was stupid. "Forget it, I don't need handouts."

  "Would you rather be a cashier or a cleaner?" He touches a sensitive spot, hitting on exactly the work I was looking for.

  "I'm a single mom, I don't have time to study," I dismiss the idea.

  "I'm not saying you'll enroll in medical school," he doesn’t give up, "but there must be something else, evening classes you can try. You're good with numbers, maybe accounting?"

  "Really, Colin?" I roll my eyes.

  "I, personally, hate accounting and pay someone to do it for me."

  "You've always hated numbers." I smile a little.

  "All the reports that need to be submitted, and keeping invoices." He laughs loudly. Don't you keep invoices? Is it just me who thinks it's not funny?

  "Colin!"

  "I'm bad at it, balance sheets, statistics."

  "You can always start a modeling career if you have no other choice." I regret deeply my words one second too late. He doesn't have to know what I'm thinking about his new, compact look.

  "Do you think?" He smiles smugly, not trying to hide that he is very pleased.

  "Look at you." I gesture with my hand at his body.

  "Do I have a new fan?" he raises an eyebrow again. Oh, shut up.

  "You're photogenic, I'll admit that." Only that, and nothing else. A second later he puts his hand to my cheek, and the touch of his fingers on my skin is burning. I blush and my lip begins to tremble. Fuck.

  "You're so beautiful." He strokes with his words as much as his fingers. "I didn’t leave to find someone else, I always knew I would come back."

  "I wish you never left." I don't stop him, I don't want him to move his hand, hugging the forgotten feeling. "I wish you'd stayed."

  "I know."

  "I'm trying to imagine it." My head sinks into his big palm. "You, in the desert."

  "Don't." His voice turns cold and he pulls his hand gently away from head, and the touch is gone, gone as if it were never there. "Don't try to imagine it."

  "Was it as terrible as it is on the news?" I can't let it go.

  "Sometimes." All I get from him is a short and laconic answer.

  "You lost friends?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm sorry."

  My mom's words echo.

  That child suffered loss after loss, and now you want to take away the only thing he has left.

  "That's the price of war." He refrains from elaborating, doesn't want to let me know. He doesn't want me to hear what happened.

  "You didn't have to pay it."

  "It was my choice," he cuts me of. "I've learned a lot about myself, I learned to take responsibility and fight for what was important to me. I love Vivian and I'd do everything for her, but she is not the only reason I came back."

  "I don't know if I can forgive you." The pain in my chest increases. "Five and a half years is a very long time, and I spent them hating you."

  "Do you still hate me?"

  "Sometimes," I reply sheepishly.

  "And other times you don’t?" I hear a glimmer of hope in his voice.

  "Some nights I lie in bed," I wrap my fingers around my cup, staring at the steam rising from it, "and I'm so tired that the thoughts just creep in, and I don't fight them, and for a moment I allow myself to dream of another life. For a moment we're a happy family, but then I wake up, in this cramped and crumbling house, and get into my car that starts up only miraculously…And I hate you again."

  "I don't blame you," he hastens to answer, "I hate myself. I lie in bed thinking about us, but I don't fight it. I believe that if I imagine it hard enough, it will happen."

  He has to imagine it really hard, for both of us.

  "What are you thinking about?" He breaks the silence.

  "About Lauren," I whisper, "About you moving on."

  "Tell me to wait for you."

  I breathe heavily. Since his return, I have been living in two worlds that only seem to collide. Suffering from a split personality that throws me from side to side like a ship swinging on the waves. The seventeen-year-old girl begs me to forgive him and to believe him, to see again the man who promised to lay the world at her feet. But the woman and mom that I am refuses to let the walls collapse—she has too much to lose.

  "I can't." The heavy responsibility on my shoulders defeats the dreamer. "It wouldn’t be fair, I can't promise you anything."

  "I don't need promises," his voice i
s quiet, "I need a chance, I just need to know we have hope, maybe . . ."

  "I can't," I whisper back.

  "Tell me to wait for you."

  "No." I shake my head. I won't do that to him. I won't make him wait for me as I waited for him. I know how despairing this hope, this expectation can be, and I won't drag him through the ordeal I've been through. "You need to go."

  "Think about what we've been talking about," he almost pleads with his voice. "Accounting sounds like a good idea." He rises from the chair and my heart starts to pound at an uncontrollable pace. He's leaving, taking this normality of the last hour and leaving my house, and I want to scream.

  "You can come again this afternoon." I raise my eyes from the coffee cup to the man towering over me. "I mean, if you have no other plans, I'm sure you're busy, but Viv will be happy."

  "I'll come at five." He grabs the invitation.

  "Good." My lip curls into the twinkle of a tiny, almost invisible smile. He reaches out and his thumb touches the tip of my mouth, stroking my lips gently.

  "Look at that," he doesn't take his eyes off his inquiring fingers, "A smile."

  "Hardly," I whisper.

  "It's called a start, Elizabeth," he mutters, "one day I'll kiss those lips again."

  The words he says and the way he lets them play wake the sleeping monster and a wave of heat runs between my thighs all the way to the connection between them. For a brief moment I can feel everything throbbing, how my blood is rushing through my veins. His insolent finger teases me, taunting me. Our looks lock and knot in bonds that can't be untied, and I catch his thumb between my lips, let it slip into my mouth and meet my tongue, playing with it.

  I know what he's thinking. I see the hungry look in his eyes, and after five and a half years I know that my look is the same. My body wants it.

  But he'll change his mind the moment he sees how much I've changed. He doesn't know how my body looks, what remains of it after the time that has elapsed.