Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels)

by Melody Carlson

  “You go to church regularly?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been trying to lately. But it’s not easy. It’s like something keeps me from it.”

  “Maybe it’s bitterness.”

  I made a growling sound. “Okay, let’s not keep talking about that right now. Now, tell me, Joey Divers. Why is it so doggoned urgent that I see my daddy all of a sudden?”

  “Like I said, he might not make it. He’s had a pretty bad heart attack and he’s in serious condition.”

  I shrugged again. “But does he really want to see me?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so!”

  “Oh, Cass, maybe we should just talk about something else until we get there. I can see this is only upsetting you.” He paused for a moment, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Say, how about if I tell you about my graduation?”

  I leaned back into the seat and sighed deeply. “Yeah, sure, why don’t you just tell me all about it.” I still felt slightly aggrieved that I’d never received an announcement.

  He glanced over at me as if reading my mind. “You know, Cass, I almost sent you an invitation, but then I thought you’d still be having classes and I didn’t think you’d want to come all the way up there just to see me walk down—”

  “Joey Divers!” I exploded. “I would’ve gladly missed school for a whole week and paid for a first-class plane ticket just for the honor of watching you graduate from Harvard, you big idiot!”

  “You would’ve?”

  “Of course, you ninny!” Now I actually felt my eyes misting up and I wasn’t sure if it was due to Joey or my daddy. “But you never even gave me the chance. Now if I wanted to become bitter, Joey, there’s something I could get pretty bitter about real easy.”

  He turned and glanced at me. “I’m sorry, Cass. Really.” And I could tell by the tone of his voice, he meant it.

  “I’m sorry too, Joey. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that. I guess this whole thing about my daddy is kind of upsetting to me.” I could feel my stomach already tied into all sorts of tight little knots.

  “Just try to relax now, Cass. It won’t do any good to fret about it.”

  “Oh, Joey, I haven’t spoken to my daddy in years, not since that last time—” I felt the tears coming now. “Oh, what in the world am I going to say to him?” And then I did start crying, just a little at first, and hopefully not enough for him to notice. But when Joey reached across the front seat and clasped my hand, instead of feeling comforted (or maybe because of it) the dam just broke and I just burst into hot tears. And I’m sure I must’ve cried all the way to Radner.

  Thirty

  Only “IMMEDIATE FAMILY” were allowed into the intensive care unit, and I think Joey used this as an excuse to send me in there all by myself. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but for some reason I felt surprised when my daddy didn’t look all that much older than the last time I’d seen him. Just worn-out and tired was all.

  I think I’d expected him to be an old, wrinkly, white-haired man, but then he was only in his late forties at that time—not so old, really. His slate-colored eyes met mine and our gaze just locked there for a long moment. Part of me wanted to turn and flee, but instead, I walked up closer to his bed.

  “Hi, Daddy,” I said, suddenly feeling timid and like a little girl again. But it wasn’t a good “little girl” feeling; no, it was one of frustration, compounded with confusion, as if I were being held down and trapped by someone with more power than I. Still, I tried to shake it off, reminding myself that he had no power over me anymore. At least I thought he didn’t.

  “Hi, baby,” he spoke quietly, barely moving his head. But I remembered how he used to call me “baby” sometimes. And back when I was young I liked it because it usually meant he was in a good mood and not intoxicated. But as I grew older I hated it, for it smelled of hypocrisy and denial.

  I looked at the tubes and monitors connected here and there. “Are you in pain?”

  “A little. But it’s not too bad if I don’t move around much.” He closed his eyes and took in some slow shallow breaths.

  “Maybe I should go and let you get some—”

  “No.” His eyes fluttered open and I could see the desperation in them, almost as if he were the one who was now being held down, trapped and helpless. Perhaps I now held the power. “Cassandra,” he whispered pitifully, “please don’t go.”

  “Okay.” I pulled a chair over to his bedside so that I could sit down and see him at eye level. “I just don’t want to make you overdo. I know you’re pretty bad off and all.”

  “Thank you for coming. I don’t know how…I didn’t expect…”

  I could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes now, and suddenly I wished there was something I could say. Something kind and comforting, but I had nothing to give him. No words. Nothing. Just the emptiness of that big, black hole that he’d left inside me.

  He swallowed. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Cassandra. And it’s all my fault. I’ve put you through—” His words were choked with a sob, but he continued. “I won’t blame you if you never forgive me. I was a stupid, good-for-nothing—”

  He broke down, and I just sat there dumbly watching him cry. I didn’t say a word, I didn’t reach out, I offered no consolation. I just sat there in numbness.

  Oh, I’d seen my daddy cry before, usually after a particularly bad spell of drinking and meanness. And I’d learned not to take it too seriously. And despite the years that had passed, despite his fragile condition, seeing him crying like that just brought it all back to me, as if it were yesterday. Why, I could almost smell the soured whiskey on his breath. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, praying for strength.

  Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. “I think you’d better go, miss,” said the nurse. “Your father needs to rest.”

  And so I walked out of his room, knowing full well that he might actually die right then and there, and knowing that I hadn’t forgiven him.

  It seemed incredibly cold and harsh and not even like the person that I had thought I was. And yet it was like a part of me just didn’t give a rip. I think I believed that my daddy was simply getting what he deserved from me. The same thing he’d given me—nothing.

  “How is he?” asked Joey.

  “He doesn’t look too good.”

  “Did you talk?” He looked at me intently, probing me with those big dark eyes, made larger by the lenses of his glasses.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  We went to the cafeteria to get some dinner, but the food tasted like sand in my mouth, and I just sat there staring at my plate, wondering who in the world I really was and what I was doing here. Finally, I looked up at Joey. “I need to be alone,” I said as I pushed back the chair and stood.

  “Sure, Cass, whatever.”

  I walked out of the stuffy cafeteria and then outside, continuing on down the sidewalk, walking quickly away from the hospital. I didn’t know or care where I was going, I just wanted to get away—far, far away. Was I running from my daddy? Or from myself? I couldn’t even be sure.

  As I walked my eyes blurred, and even as the tears streaked down my cheeks, I didn’t know who I was crying for. Was it for myself, the little girl who’d been beaten and betrayed by the one living relative who should’ve protected and provided for her? Or was I crying for him, the poor, sorry man, lying on his deathbed, who couldn’t even get the comfort of forgiveness from his only child? Maybe I was grieving for both of us, two lives caught in the twilight between love and hate.

  The sky was just getting dusky as I found myself in a tiny city park, which was thankfully deserted. I sat down on the only bench there and leaned forward, clutching my arms around my middle, and allowing the pain to envelop me as I sobbed loudly. “Oh, God,” I said over and over, again and again. “Oh, God!” It was a prayer, a desperate wordless kind of prayer, that I didn’t even know the fu
ll meaning of myself. But I believe, I truly believe, that God understood my cry perfectly.

  And then, just like the rainstorm that floods the earth then is gone, it was over. I stood up and dried my face with the backs of my hands and turned around and walked back to the hospital. It was dark by the time I reached the hospital’s entrance, and in the same moment that I walked into the brightness of the lobby, I knew. I knew I must forgive my daddy. It was in that flash of an instant, just as my foot hit the carpet. It was as if God himself had spoken to me. And I knew what I had to do.

  I rushed to the elevator, suddenly concerned over my daddy’s welfare. What if his tired heart had simply stopped beating after my unsettling visit? What if he was already dead? What if my bitterness had killed him? Inside the elevator, I punched the third-floor button again and again, waiting impatiently for the doors to finally close and for the elevator to sluggishly make its ascent, stopping on the second floor to wait for a man with a cart of medications to slowly maneuver himself on.

  As the elevator climbed from the second to third floor, a parade of all those I had known and loved (and who now were dead) filed across my imagination. My mama, my grandma, Mr. Crowley, Gram, Skip. And suddenly I knew that death is simply a fact of life—it just happens and we have no control over it. And it was quite possible that it had already happened to my daddy. I might’ve waited too long.

  When the doors finally opened, I burst out and ran down the wide hallway toward the intensive care unit. Joey stopped me just before I reached my daddy’s room.

  “Wait a minute, Cass,” he said. “They’re in there with him right now.”

  “Is he alive?”

  Joey kept holding on to me, then nodded soberly. “Barely. I think he just had another heart attack.”

  I leaned my head into Joey’s shoulder and felt his arm holding me (only one arm because the other hand held firmly to his cane as he managed to balance for both of us). “Let’s go sit down, Cass,” he whispered quietly.

  We sat down on a hard molded vinyl seat and he put his arm around me and drew me close, and then quietly, and in a way that sounded incredibly genuine and sincere and not quite like anything I’d ever heard before, Joey began to pray—really pray—for my daddy to get better. I just sat there and listened in amazement. How was it that Joey had learned to pray like that, without sounding religious or frantic or poetic or desperate or long-winded or empty-worded or foolish, but simply real?

  “I didn’t forgive him,” I finally told Joey after he stopped praying. “At least not when I was in there with him anyway. But now I have—it just happened—kind of miraculously. I need to tell him. I can’t let him die thinking I never forgave him, Joey, because I did. I really did.”

  Joey grasped my hands in his. “Cass, even if your daddy does die, he’ll know that you forgave him.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just can’t believe that God would keep something like that a secret from him.”

  “You mean in heaven?”

  Joey nodded.

  “Oh, Joey, do you honestly think my daddy will go to heaven?”

  He nodded again. “Based on all the conversations I’ve had with him, I’m fairly certain he’ll be there.”

  Then Joey and I sat and talked and talked that night. Mostly about God. And I was amazed and impressed with his maturity, his understanding of the Bible, and what I can only describe as his steadfastness. Because more and more I could see how Joey’s faith had never wavered over the years. He’d given his heart to Jesus back in high school, and after that he’d just steadily moved forward.

  And it’s not like his life was easy either. He had his own battles to fight, his personal struggles to conquer. But all the while he never gave up, and he never got swept up by some sensational doctrine that seemed to offer all the answers in one easy lesson. No, Joey Divers just kept trusting God one day at a time and moving steadily forward.

  My life, on the other hand, looked like some kind of a carnival ride—the roller coaster or Tilt-A-Whirl. Anything but steadfast. And yet Joey could still find the good in it all, and once again he told me that he was proud of the way I’d come through. And not for the first time, he called me a survivor.

  “The Steadfast and the Survivor.” Sounds like the title of an old movie that never was. Anyway, a lot of things about Joey and me and God became clearer to me during that long night. And when we could think of nothing more to talk about, we simply put our heads together and prayed—mostly for my daddy to get better.

  To the doctor’s amazement, and my great relief, my daddy didn’t die that night. And by the following morning I was able to go back into his room and talk to him once more. And while I didn’t do it terribly eloquently or perhaps even all that coherently, I did tell my daddy that I’d forgiven him.

  His eyes misted up and it looked as if he were about to cry again, but thankfully he did not. “Thank you, Cassandra,” he said in a quiet voice. “I know I will never deserve your forgiveness, but it means everything in the world to me. I just wish I could forgive myself now.”

  “Maybe you will in time,” I said, not even knowing exactly why, but the words seemed comforting somehow. We weren’t allowed to talk much longer because the nurse came in again and I could see that even after such a short visit, my daddy was weary and needed rest. “I’ve got to go home, Daddy,” I told him as I stood.

  I was surprised at how sad his eyes became when I said this—as if he really didn’t want me to leave him. Could it be that he actually needed me? Suddenly I realized that he had no one else on earth—not one other living blood relative that he knew of anyway—nor did I, for that matter. All we had was each other, and that seemed to be slipping away fast.

  “But I’ll just go home to take care of a few things,” I told him quickly, as if this had been my plan right from the start. “And then I’ll drive back over here in my own car and I’ll find a place to stay for a while, until you get better.”

  “You can stay in my apartment, Cassandra,” he offered, his eyes hopeful.

  I nodded, feeling uncertain. “Yes, I suppose I could do that.”

  “When will you be back?” His voice reminded me of a small child’s.

  I looked at my watch. It was just before noon. “Maybe by early evening,” I said. “Would you like that?”

  His smile was weak, but I could see a faint light glowing in his eyes. “Yes, if it’s not too much trouble. I’d like that.”

  I reached over and gently squeezed his hand. “No, it’ll be just fine. You take care now, Daddy.”

  On our way back to Brookdale, Joey and I talked about our parents and Joey mentioned how he’d been growing more concerned about his mother’s bad health lately, and how he wanted to spend some time with her this summer, to make sure she was getting all the proper medical attention.

  “My dad seems almost oblivious to the whole thing,” he continued. “It’s like if he pretends it’s not there, it’ll just go away. Kind of like when I was a kid—with the polio, you know.”

  “Maybe that’s just his way of protecting himself, Joey. Maybe it’s like a shield so he doesn’t get too close, so he doesn’t get hurt.”

  Joey nodded. “Yeah, despite his tough-guy exterior, I’m pretty sure there’s a soft heart underneath it all.”

  “And you know how his generation is—big boys don’t cry and all that macho stuff.”

  “Yeah. But it’d do him some good to cry. I looked at your dad lying there in the hospital bed and I got worried that my dad might be next. He still smokes like a chimney and my mom says his blood pressure is sky-high.”

  “Isn’t it strange how our parents are getting old?”

  “Yeah, and it’s kind of ironic too.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked sleepily as I leaned back into the seat, fighting to keep my eyes open after our long sleepless night.

  “Well, here we are both concerned about our parents right now, we’re trying
to help them and—”

  I sat up straight. “And you wonder where were they when we needed them?”

  He laughed. “Well, sort of.”

  “Yeah, part of me is still struggling with this whole thing, Joey. I mean, I truly believe I’ve forgiven my daddy. Really, I can feel a change in my heart. But I guess I’m wondering why I need to do more. I mean, should I really get involved in his life again? Part of me wants to know why can’t I just say adios and wish him well, and then move on. What would be wrong with that?”

  “Hanging around might be more for your benefit than his, Cass.”

  I nodded, closing my eyes again. As usual, I figured Joey was probably right.

  Thirty-one

  I quickly packed a few things as I phoned Ashley Romero (my best high-school art student) and invited her to oversee my “Art in the Park” project for the rest of the week. Ashley agreed and even refused to let me pay her, saying she wouldn’t be doing anything anyway since she hadn’t gotten a job for the summer yet and didn’t know if she even would.

  Ashley reminded me a lot of myself back when I was her age, not her home life so much because she had two parents (albeit two fairly absent parents) but more because she was sort of an outsider with her peers. But she was an artsy girl, with her own ideas about things, and someone I would also describe as a survivor. I smiled as I hung up the phone, thinking I wouldn’t mind having a daughter like that someday.

  As I drove back to Radner, late that afternoon, I wondered what in the world I’d gotten myself into. Playing the devoted daughter to a man I hardly knew felt like such a foreign and even phony role to me. And yet how could I not?

  I felt uneasy at the idea of staying in my father’s apartment by myself and almost opted to get a motel instead. But he seemed so hopeful that I’d take him up on his hospitality that I took his key and then drove by the little complex where he lived (not far from where he’d been working at the Volvo dealership downtown).