A Heart of Time

by Shari J. Ryan

  “I’m sorry,” Dad begins. “I didn’t mean to scare your friend away.”

  “She’s not my friend,” I reply coldly. But I would have liked her to be my friend, I think. What am I thinking? Saying? I haven’t dated anyone in the time Ellie has been gone because it didn’t feel right. Now I’m sitting here confused as all hell about how I got my emotions wound so tightly around Charlotte that I actually feel pain for what she did with AJ, and now this...a complete stranger has captured my attention in less than thirty minutes. This isn’t me.

  “What’s going on with you, Hunt?” Dad asks. Placing Olive down on her feet, he then turns to her, saying, “Go find me ten little rocks by the bench over there. Ten.” Dad holds his fingers up one at a time for Olive to count.

  “I know how much ten is, silly Grampy.” Olive skips over to the bench where she begins her search, counting out each rock slowly, one at a time.

  “Hunter,” he begins again. “Talk to me, Son.”

  “I don’t know, Dad.” I don’t. I don’t know what to think or feel. I don’t know what’s appropriate or what’s wrong.

  “You’re scared of getting hurt again,” Dad says. His accusation is partially correct, but I’ve been more concerned with what Ellie would think if she could see everything I’m doing.

  There were times in our life together when she would get this unsettled look in her eyes, a look worth a million thoughts. It would sometimes take me an entire day to crack the code. She didn’t like to vocalize her worries; instead, she would write them down. A lot of times I wondered if I had done something to make her upset or if I just completely messed up or forgot something, and I would have to pull it out of her if I had any hopes of figuring out what I did wrong. That was the only part of her that truly made me nuts sometimes. I’m a fixer. I like to fix problems, especially ones that I cause. The only thing I don’t seem to know how to fix is myself.

  “Yes and no,” I tell him. “Do you think she can see me? Do you think she knows what my life is like, the decisions I make, and the feelings I have? Do you think she can sense all of it?”

  “You know I don’t believe in that stuff,” Dad says, shifting his weight around to lean back against a tree. “I think once a person is gone, they move on to the next part of their life, and I don’t think that’s here on earth. She’s gone, Son, and it is okay to move on with your life. It’s okay to be happy.” Dad leans over to pick up a dirt-covered penny from beside his foot, bringing it back up to inspect it under the bit of sunlight poking through the trees. “Huh, will you look at that?” His attention is quickly diverted to the penny as he brings it up closer, flipping it from side to side. “This isn’t just a lucky penny, it’s a 1955 double-die penny. This thing is worth money.”

  Dad has a thing with coins. Nope, not just a thing, an obsession. I spent most of my youth with a metal detector in my hand, combing beaches for pennies. The world could freeze around us, but if he’s looking at copper, nothing else matters. “Dad,” I say, trying to pull his attention back.

  He slips the penny into his front pocket and refocuses. “I’m sorry. What was I saying?” he pauses for a second. “Oh right. If God forbid, you were the one who died and you had the chance to tell Ellie one last thing other than ‘I love you’, what would it be?” I would want her to be happy and to live a life that we could both be proud of. “You’d want her to be happy, wouldn’t you?”

  Then it hits me. I promised her I would live for both of us. I have broken that promise in every single way possible. I have taken care of Olive and I have been a good dad to her, but when that little girl isn’t looking at me, I feel sorry for myself and I know it has taken over who I am. “Yes, I’d want her to be happy,” I reply simply.

  “That is what she would want for you, too. I know for a fact that she would want you to be happy,” Dad says.

  “You know for a fact? What—what are you talking about?”

  “Remember the car accident you two were in?” Dad asks.

  “I found ten, Grampy! Ten!” Olive shouts, running toward us with two handfuls of rocks.

  “Good, now go find ten little sticks that are green inside.” Olive looks at him, puzzled at first but then runs to the grassy area, falling to her hands and knees.

  “Yeah, I remember the accident.” Obviously. We both almost lost our lives that day. Some drunk asshole in an eighteen-wheeler sideswiped us on the highway, pushing our car down into a ditch. I was told the car had rolled four times before a tree stopped us. We were both airlifted from the scene and taken to Mass General.

  “She woke up before you did, you know that right?” Dad continues.

  “Yeah, I know,” I tell him. It may have been twelve years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

  “I remember sitting with her right when she woke up. Her parents were in Scottsdale or something, I don’t know. Anyway, your mother was with you and I sat with Ellie so she wasn’t alone.” Dad pulls in a deep breath and sinks back against the tree a little harder. “One of the nurses came in to tell us you had woken up and everything looked like it was going to be okay.” He reaches over and places his hand over my shoulder, squeezing it during a pause in his story. “I cried like a goddamn baby, Son. You know that?” He laughs an uneasy laugh. “Anyway, within minutes, a doctor came in to tell Ellie that one of her ribs had slightly punctured her lungs and she needed emergency surgery. She was so scared when they were taking her away.” Dad closes his eyes briefly, smiling through silent laughter. “They told her she was going to be just fine, but she didn’t want to believe them, so right before she was rolled out, she grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes and said, ‘If anything happens to me, I want you to tell Hunter to live a happy life. Tell him not to worry about me. Tell him I want him to live his life without regrets and to always keep that smile I love on his face.’ Naturally I told her not to worry about a thing, but her words hit me hard.” Dad takes another couple of short breaths before continuing. “Anyway, her parents finally arrived some time while she was in surgery and asked me to leave, so I wasn’t there to tell her ‘I told you so’ when she got out. Otherwise, I would have.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

  “Because she woke up from the surgery, survived just like you, and went on to live a happy life.” He pushes himself away from the tree, peeking around me to see what Olive is doing. She’s peeling sticks apart, looking for a green center, and appears to have now killed an entire tree with the pile she is creating. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought of it again until just now when you asked me what she would be thinking. I just remembered her saying all of that.”

  “Do you think that accident had anything to do with Ellie’s aneurysm?” I don’t know why I never considered this before, but I have to wonder if that could have been the reason?

  “I’m guessing it’s possible,” Dad says. “You both had head damage from that accident. Although I don’t remember hearing anything about her CT scans. She got all of those tests back after her parents came in so I don’t really know what those results were.”

  “She would have told me though, right?” Surely she wouldn’t keep something like that from me. She wouldn’t. We told each other everything, unless she was mad at me, of course.

  “I would assume so,” Dad says. “You ever ask her parents?”

  “No, it never occurred to me that the accident could have affected her seven years later.”

  “And it may not have. I don’t think it’s something you need to figure out at this point. It won’t bring her back,” Dad continues.

  There’s no sense in arguing this with him, and it’s just another question that will nag at me until I come to the conclusion that there is no answer available. “Olive, how are you doing over there?” Dad calls out to her.

  “Almost done!” she shouts.

  “Look, my point here is that Ellie would want you to be happy. You got a great girl back there at home. Charlotte cares about you a lot. You s
houldn’t be so quick to push her away.”

  And just like that I remember exactly what brought me here. “Dad, she was sleeping with AJ.”

  “Hunter, what have I always told you since you were a young boy?” I roll my eyes and throw my head back, focusing on the branch above us while waiting for what I know he is about to say. “Don’t you know what the word assume means?”

  “Yeah, Dad. I know,” I tell him.

  “Then don’t be an ass,” he says, thumping his hand against my back. “Go get Olive and let’s get back to the house before we miss lunch, too.”

  Dad and Olive head up the stairs, leaving me to Ellie for just one more minute.

  I dig my toe into the dirt, staring straight into the center of the etched heart on the tree. “Ell, is it true you want me to be happy?”

  Now’s the time when the wind is supposed to blow or the sun is supposed to break through the branches and hit me in the face—any type of sign that she can hear me. But that never happens.

  And I think it’s because her heart is still holding her soul captive somewhere in someone else’s body.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I follow behind Dad’s car on the way back to the house. Breakfast was not supposed to be an all day event, but clearly when my family sees an opportunity to watch some entertainment, they make themselves comfortable and grab their bucket of popcorn.

  As I walk back inside, I’m quick to notice the house has been straightened up, cleaned as if breakfast never happened. Charlotte and Lana are gone, Alexa is nowhere in sight and AJ is sitting at the cleared dining room table with his hands folded tightly together.

  I want to punch him square in the jaw. And I might if he doesn’t have a really great explanation.

  “I’m sorry,” he begins again.

  “Dude, I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry. How about you tell me what the hell you were thinking.”

  He looks up at me, and I see grief coating the glassy look in his eyes. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Then what is it? If you think I’m going to sit here and ask you a dozen more times, you’re wrong. I’ll leave again. I’ll cut you out of my life so fucking fast...and I won’t hesitate.”

  “Jesus,” he says, likely stunned by my non-Hunter-like response. Continuing with what better be a fucking good explanation, he says, “A year ago, right before Alexa and I got hitched, I was having second thoughts.” He leans back in his chair and folds his arms behind his head. “We all know she’s a pain in the ass and I wasn’t sure if I could really spend the rest of my life with her.”

  “So you cheated on her?” I ask, trying my hardest to sound unfazed.

  “Let me finish,” he snaps back. “Look, not that I’m going to place any blame on you or anything, but sometimes I need a friend or a brother to talk to and let’s be real, you haven’t been much of either to me in the past few years—understandably so, but still.”

  I suppose I deserve that. It’s the truth, but nevertheless I say, “Do not blame your cheating scandal on me. You are a grown man, AJ, and you need to act like one. You can’t blame anyone for the mistakes you made or make.”

  A growl escapes his throat before continuing, “I’m not blaming anything on you. I’m telling you I was going through a hard time.” He shifts around in his seat again, this time bringing his elbows to the table. “I needed someone to talk to, so I created an account on ‘theLword.com’.” He places his hands up, I’ll assume to stop me from saying what I want to say. “I know I shouldn’t have been on that site looking for someone to talk to.” That is not how I figured he met her. What the hell? “Anyway, something weird happened with my account and it got hacked or something, I’m not sure—I’m not real good with computers, you know that. So I had to contact whoever was in charge of the site so I could try to figure out how to fix the problem. Emails were being sent out to my email list and Alexa was one of the recipients. It was a huge fucking mess.”

  “And that’s when it all happened,” I chime in. “Charlotte contacted you and you found your person to talk to.” My cheeks are burning—all of my skin actually feels like it’s on fire. I’ve needed someone to talk to for years, but I haven’t turned to a goddamn dating site, and I certainly wouldn’t do that if I were engaged to be married. But that’s AJ—he doesn’t think things through.

  “Well, kind of. We just got to talking while she was going through my page, trying to debug whatever happened. She was going through her divorce and needed someone to talk to, too. Honestly, we only met up a few times because I realized I did want to be with Alexa and we cut off all communication since Charlotte didn’t want to be the reason I broke off my engagement.” I can tell he’s giving me the truth, but I can’t tell if he’s leaving shit out.

  “Did you fuck her, or not?”

  “Hunter,” Mom shrieks from the kitchen. “Don’t use that language while your daughter is in the house.” I’m not sure why I would have thought Mom wouldn’t be listening in on this whole thing. She is probably standing around the corner with that big bowl of popcorn.

  “Did you?” I repeat.

  “No,” he grunts. “We kissed and maybe a little more, but we didn’t sleep together.” The ‘a little more’ fires me up a bit but I tell myself it could be worse. I tell myself that this happened before I knew Charlotte even existed. What I’m pissed about is that both AJ and Charlotte failed to mention any of this before now. What are the odds? I go five years without a female romantic interest in my life, and when I finally find someone whose company I actually enjoy, it turns out that AJ already had his way with her.

  “You never came clean to Alexa?” I ask.

  “She knew I kissed someone. She knew her name was Charlotte. I think she took a lucky guess when I said, ‘That’s a big win right there. Trust me.’ I should have left off the ‘Trust me’.”

  “You should have never kissed another woman, and ‘more’, in the first place,” I mock him. Then it occurs to me, “Wait a minute, that Olsans’ hardwood job wasn’t a coincidence, was it? How stupid are you? You were trying to hide this shit from Alexa and then took on a job with Charlotte’s parents?”

  “Dude, you’ve told me we’re not in a position to turn down work with the way the economy is, so I didn’t.” Jesus. I drop down into the seat across from AJ, resting my elbows on the table the same way he is. I lower my forehead down against my closed fists and release every bit of air from my lungs. “I am sorry,” AJ says. “You know I’d never do that with a girl you were involved with, but you didn’t even know her then.”

  “I know,” I say. The words come out muffled against my fist, but he heard me. The sigh of relief he lets out tells me so.

  After a few minutes of silence, I look up at AJ, finding regret and discomfort written across his face. “She a good kisser?”

  AJ lowers his voice to a whisper. “You haven’t kissed her yet? I mean, I thought you guys were fucking like bunnies over here every night.” His words send a gnarling pain into my stomach. I haven’t kissed or done anything more than that with any woman besides Ellie. Crossing that line is something I’ve been thinking about, even obsessing over, but I haven’t been able to make that move yet.

  “No, we’re just friends,” I remind him.

  “If she were just your friend, you wouldn’t have stormed out of the house for two hours.” He’s right. “Where the hell did you go anyway?”

  “The gardens.”

  “Oh,” he says, understanding.

  “Look, if you want my opinion, get your ass across the street and give that girl the kiss she’s been dreaming of—the one I’m pretty sure you’ve been thinking of, too.”

  “I’m going to go talk to her, but I’m not going over there to compare spit swap stories,” I respond.

  “Well, you should,” he quips.

  I groan as I stand up from my seat. “I love how you boys talk your problems out,” Mom says, walking out from around the corner with her hands placed over her heart. �
��That was just beautiful. It makes me so proud to know I have raised two respectable men.” I want to roll my eyes and tell her to knock it off, but the woman is on the brink of tears. “Go ahead, Hunter, go talk to Charlotte. I’ll take care of Olive.” I take a few steps down toward the TV room and find Olive asleep, tucked under Dad’s arm on the couch. Dad’s asleep too.

  “I think Dad and Olive are taking care of each other,” I laugh quietly.

  “Well then, I’ll just keep cleaning,” she says. “And AJ, please go find Alexa. You have some explaining to do.”

  At thirty and twenty-eight years old, AJ and I are still under this woman’s power. Never, have we ever been able to say no to her.

  I grab my coat from the living room couch and slip it on as I head out the door. I cross the street and hesitate for a brief second before I knock. What am I going to say?

  Before I have the chance to knock or figure out what those words are going to be, Lana opens the door. “Hi, Mr. Cole,” she says. Her lips are bowed into a slight scowl and I hope I’m not the cause for the look on her face. I don’t think my reaction was totally unwarranted but maybe I could have made less of a scene. No. I didn’t do this. Everyone should have been honest with me, but they weren’t. Charlotte wasn’t, and AJ sure as hell wasn’t.

  “Is your mom home?” I ask her.

  “Yes, but she’s kind of upset,” Lana says, looking away from me and down toward the ground.

  “Can I come in and talk to her?” I continue.

  “Well—“

  “Lana, is someone at the door?” I hear Charlotte shout from the other room.

  “Yes, it’s Mr. Cole,” Lana replies.

  A thud in the kitchen tells me Charlotte just dropped something in the sink, probably out of surprise that I’m here. She turns the corner, wiping her hands off on the side of her legs. “Hunter,” she says, rushing to the door. “I can explain everything.”

  “AJ already has,” I say, taking a couple of steps inside.