Fade to Blue

by Julie Carobini

  Timo guffawed.

  Letty clucked. “So now you are a comedienne? Shall we unveil it for her, Timo, or let her simmer in her curiosity?” She sent him a wave, as if to say “oh, never mind,” then tugged one corner of the sheet, pulling it away with a flourish. Letty looked at me. “What do you think?”

  “It’s . . . gorgeous.” I ran a finger along the molded edges. “It’s completely intact—every bit of it. And primer’s been applied too.”

  Letty crossed arms in front of her and nodded like a proud mother. “That’s Timo’s work. He molded and replaced the broken sections, then applied the primer. It’s why we keep him around.” She dipped toward him, those arms still crossed. “The only reason why.”

  “Ch-yeah.” In a not-so-debonair move, Timo stuck a pencil atop his ear only to have it slide out and hopscotch down his back. He bent to pick it up and, upon rising, bumped his head on the workstation. Letty leapt forward and grabbed a jostled jar of brushes to keep it from overturning.

  With a look that would wilt fake daisies, Letty dismissed Timo, then turned to me. “Is this not the most beautiful almost-restored door?”

  I patted her upper arm, warmed by the glow in her eyes. She loved her work and who could avoid getting swept up in her passion for it? “Oh, Letty, it is. Truly. Maybe someday you will visit Monaco and see it hanging proudly in place.”

  “You mean other than in my dreams?”

  I laughed and set off to find my own apron. With the door’s finish line in view, Letty and I would work straight through the morning. We still needed to in-paint where needed and apply gilding in strategic spots.

  I prepped my station and got back to work, with Letty sending only an occasional comment or instruction my way. I would not allow my mind to travel the labyrinth of thoughts that had awakened me through the night. Instead, my mind and heart stayed focused on the painstaking restoration of this wounded door, my energy better spent here than on my worries. Whoever claimed to dislike good, hard work had obviously never had his or her heart broken.

  Nor had she been faced with the challenges of forgiving the one who broke it in the first place.

  My back ached, but I didn’t let it bother me, each pull of my muscles another sign that progress was being made, each shot of pain a reminder that I was learning a skill that may one day grant me the independence I sought.

  A clap resounded against the studio’s din. “Enough! I am going for coffee. Want some?”

  I glanced at the clock, shocked by how much time had passed. “Actually, I’m meeting someone.”

  Letty squinted at me.

  “Okay, fine. I’m meeting Seth.”

  “The one with the voice—and the squeegee.”

  I grabbed a wadded-up paper towel and tossed it at her. “Have your fun. We’re friends, Letty, and he just wants to talk to me about something.” I shrugged. “He’s been trying to make amends lately.”

  “Sure he has.” She held up her pointer finger to stop another protest. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. He has brought you breakfast and that is more than enough explanation.” She flicked her chin toward the door.

  Seth stood behind me holding a large bag with a handle, a goofy grin on his face.

  “You’re here. Hang on a second and I’ll grab some coffee for us.” I moved quickly away from him, annoyed that my face had grown hot.

  Filling up the thermos I’d brought from home gave me time to recover. If only I could dash into the restroom and pat some cool water on my face, take a few deep breaths, and start over. Instead I willed away the heat from my face, even as my heart began to beat a little louder. Rats.

  “Let me hold that for you.” He took the carafe from me, his smile wide. “Ready?”

  We slipped out the door and walked up a narrow, undulating path behind the studio. I didn’t have to ask where Seth was headed—the path led to a spot above the studio’s roofline that exposed the wide arc of the sea.

  The path tightened, going from smooth to rocky soil. Seth stopped, stuck the thermos under one arm, and reached for me. “Give me your hand.”

  I let him take my hand in his, and together we pushed our way up the steep incline. We continued on like that until reaching the lone table and bench beneath a fragrant pine with umbrella-like branches stretching out for shade. The ocean sparkled like crystal in dappled sunlight.

  He set the coffee and bag of bagels onto the table, but his hand lingered on mine. With a start, I withdrew my hand and made some innocuous comment about how beautiful the ocean looked, realizing the redundancy in saying “beautiful” and “ocean” in the same breath.

  He thrust a hand into the bag. “So I brought you cream cheese in three different flavors: blueberry, strawberry, and the plain stuff. You still like blueberry?”

  I reached for the small white tub. “I don’t know. Haven’t had any in . . .”

  He quirked a smile. “About six years?”

  “Yeah.” I had once bought a tub of it for a picnic and when there were no takers, I ate the whole thing myself. Disgusting, but at eighteen who really worried over their fat intake? “Quite the memory you have.”

  He tore a piece of fresh bagel and stuck it in his mouth. “Not something easily forgotten.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Even Jer’s finally learned not to talk with his mouth full.” I mumbled something unintelligible, pointed at him, and laughed.

  He swallowed his bite and laughed back. “What can I say? You bring out the little boy in me.”

  “Caring for one child is enough, thank you very much.”

  “Ah, from what I can tell, you love being a mom. And your boy adores you.”

  I smiled at that. “He’s my life now. Wouldn’t change that for anything.”

  “I’d like to get to know him.”

  “Who? Jeremiah?”

  Seth swallowed his bite of bagel and stopped before taking another. “If that’s okay with you . . .”

  The idea sounded comfortable, like iced tea on a warm day. Yet a trickle of something—anxiety, maybe?—attempted to wriggle its way up my neck. “Of course it’s okay. Maybe we can meet for ice cream some weekend.” There. A noncommittal, simple answer.

  “Ice cream it is, then.” He paused. “Actually, I was wondering if you and Jer would like to drive over to the zoo in Atascadero with me on Saturday to see the monkeys. I’m sure we could find some ice cream nearby.”

  Just the three of us? I imagined us standing in front of the monkey exhibit, mesmerized by the wild creatures whooping and swinging high above our heads. A perfectly whimsical idea from the Seth I once knew. And yet his idea sounded anything but spur of the moment. Something about the way he suggested it, while watching carefully for my reaction, gave me the impression that it was premeditated.

  I kept myself focused on the half bagel before me, smearing it with blueberry cream cheese. “Sure. That sounds nice. Do you want to drive back up here or . . . ?”

  “Of course. I’ll come by and pick you up around noon.”

  “Great.”

  An awkward silence settled between us. I chewed my bagel slowly.

  He reached for the plain cream cheese. “When all is said and done, the purist in me prefers the old-fashioned kind. Does that make me sound old?”

  I smiled, thankful for broken ice. “Is that why you cut your hair? Because you’re getting ‘up there’ and thought the style too young for you?”

  “Nice segue. No, I cut it because it reminded me of my grandmother’s mop—after she’d spiffed up the whole house.”

  “Spiffed up?”

  He grunted a laugh. “Cleaned, washed . . . whatever.” He took another bite of bagel and let his gaze wander out to sea before swinging it back to me. “You think it’s too establishment for me, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Wouldn’t say that. Haven’t noticed too many men in suits wearing spiky hair.”

  “They’re short spikes and Holly’s hairdresser, Dora, says they’re not too much.”
/>   A small snort escaped me. “You have your hair done by a hairdresser named Dora?”

  “What? You think that’s weird?” He leaned on his elbows, a piece of bagel suspended before him. “A lot of guys go in there.”

  “It’s just that I always thought of you as more of a barber kind of guy.” The giggles came and I pressed the back of my hand to my lips, forcing them closed. “Not like you ever actually went to one back then.”

  He gave me a mock glare. “Laugh all you want. I’ll have you know I get plenty of compliments on my hair.”

  “I bet you do.” He exuded strength, not in a bulky, he-man kind of way, but he looked fit and healthy and cut in all the right places. I glanced away, pulling myself from that kind of admiration—the kind long since buried, but oh so remembered.

  I cleared my throat. “So. You said on the phone that you had something you wanted to tell me.”

  His eyes shrunk a little, as if his thoughts had moved from lightness to something more serious. He dropped the remaining piece of bagel onto a napkin and dusted the crumbs from his hands.

  “I did. But I don’t know where to start exactly.” His lips twisted and I caught myself fixating on them.

  “Sounds serious.”

  His face, raw with sudden emotion, caught me off guard. I twiddled with my fingers, lacing them in and out of each other as he gathered the steam he needed to continue.

  “Here goes. I know I’ve already said this, but I came barreling at you the other day, and you didn’t deserve it, Suz. We hadn’t seen each other in years, so where did I get off mentioning your parents—let alone criticizing you for how you remembered them?” He reached for my hand and rubbed the back of my fingers. “I am sorry, and I hope you will forgive me for being so stupid.”

  Emotion whirled through me. He shifted, piercing eyes focused on me, waiting, and I knew that my lack of response unnerved him. My gaze dropped to where his fingers drew circles on the back of my hand and I mustered up the courage to speak. “Forgiven. I’m sorry, too, for overreacting.” I didn’t move my hand away, irresponsibly leaving myself open to a man’s heart again. Was I ready for that?

  “Can I tell you something that I’ve observed?” he asked. “Your faith has changed; it’s deeper now. You always had a hopeful outlook on life. Shoot, when we were kids you could turn down my crazy ideas but do it so positively that I didn’t even realize you were saying ‘no.’”

  I smiled at that.

  “I shouldn’t have expected anything less in regards to your parents, but somehow I did. I remember how I felt about your parents’ passing. It didn’t seem fair. So, of course, when you spoke about them in that glowing way of yours, only this time with more conviction than I’d ever known, I balked.” He shook his head, staring at me. “It made me angry.”

  “Angry? But why?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Because it opened up a wound in me that wasn’t done healing.”

  A drawn-out silence hovered between us and I wanted to probe, to find out what troubled him enough to say such a thing. I was at a loss.

  “Suz, I’ve done more in the past six years than travel across this country from job to job.” A determined set to his chin told me he was ready to continue. “I met a girl. Thought she might be the one—after you.”

  My expression fell.

  “But then . . . I broke her heart.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Seth, you’re not the first guy to—”

  He shook his head, silencing me. “It didn’t end there. This is where it gets tough.” He gathered air into his lungs and clasped his hands together, squeezing them as if gathering strength. “She became pregnant—with my baby.” His voice, usually so soothing, sounded jagged, broken.

  “You’re a father? I–I had no idea.”

  Instead of joy on his face, though, his eyes brimmed with tears and the edges grew pink. “I tried to straddle both worlds, still flitting around and taking jobs I didn’t care about while also promising to set up a life with Ginny. By the time I made up my mind to get serious and make a commitment to her and the baby—she was gone. She found someone else, someone who wanted to marry her and give her everything I’d been too selfish to deliver.”

  “She left you?”

  “She did.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” His breathing was pronounced. “One day they were going out to dinner and a car ran a red light.”

  An invisible forced wrapped around my lungs and squeezed. I waited for him to finish his thought, and all the time hoped that he would not.

  He looked up. “They were broadsided. Ginny and her fiancé made it through, but the baby died in her womb. She was almost to term. I spent the last couple of years blaming everyone—me, Ginny, God—for allowing that to happen.”

  A tear dribbled down my cheek, landing on my forearm. “Seth, I don’t know what to say, other than I am so very sorry . . .” I had no words, nothing but sadness in my heart for him and the child he never knew.

  “I’ve wanted to talk with you again, ever since the other night when you laid into me for bluntly judging you. What you said speared me.” He shook his head, a tiny smile pulling at the corners of his eyes. “Instead of allowing my faith in God to comfort, I’ve been using it to condemn myself, completely forgetting everything I believe to be true about eternity. And about his grace to forgive.”

  I reached for Seth’s hand and cradled it between mine.

  “So much of my confusion has been about my struggle with God. Not that he failed me.” His eyes found mine. “But that I had failed him.”

  “Oh, Seth. I can’t imagine losing a child.” An ache lurched in my chest. “But I understand what it’s like to think you’ve failed God. That’s giving us way too much credit, though.”

  He nodded, his lips rubbing together as he thought. “I’ve felt a barrier between God and me for a while, but I have been realizing something more and more.”

  “What’s that?”

  He shrugged. “That I’m the one who put it there. He’s been offering me forgiveness and healing all along, but my hard head wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t forgive myself, Suz.”

  I watched him. “And now?”

  “Now I’m like God’s stalker.” He leaned closer, his face animated like the Seth I once knew. “I’ve been reading and studying, trying to catch up on everything I’ve missed for so long.”

  I smiled, pulling our entwined hands close and pressed my lips to his fingers, the familiar smell of his skin awakening our past. Sorrow retreated from his eyes and it did a number on my heart and in my soul.

  His voice drew me in more. “Suz?”

  “Hmm?”

  His forehead shifted. “I’ve missed . . . us.”

  My heart and head overflowed with responses, but only one made it out. “I’ve missed our friendship too, Seth.”

  His brows dipped and his eyes darkened.

  Why had I chosen this moment to define our relationship? After years of mistakes, wouldn’t it be better to base a relationship on something more reliable than emotion?

  My head tried to make its case. My heart, however, wasn’t listening.

  I continued to hold his hand, watching a frown develop across his face. “Seth, I—”

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Seth’s hand jerked from my caress, and my chin swung sharply to the side. “Len.” I winced, and not only because of the throbbing pain at the base of my neck.

  Len stood in the tall grass, a kid-sized pair of size three slip-on shoes dangling from one hand, the other propped onto the hard edge of his hip.

  If I wasn’t mistaken, by the pouting expression on my ex-husband’s face, he had much more than a pair of lost shoes on his mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  We had nothing to hide. So why did Len’s unexpected presence make me feel as if my father had caught me in a compromising position with Seth?

  He wore that man-pout better than ever. “Was just going
to return our son’s shoes to you. Took a run out on the beach today and found them there, half covered in sand.”

  “Thanks.” I reached for them, dazed.

  Seth shifted and began to gather up our makeshift breakfast.

  He wouldn’t make eye contact, no matter how hard I searched his face. “Don’t leave,” I whispered.

  He stopped and gave me a halfhearted smile. “Duty calls.”

  Len cut in. “If he has to go, I’ll walk you back. I’ve been thinking about Jer ever since teaching him to surf the other day. The boy’s got good balance. We should talk about developing his skills. I could help him with that.”

  I both nodded and wagged my head, confused. As Seth moved to leave, I touched his arm and looked into his face, my voice still a whisper. “You sure you have to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry. Let’s talk again soon.”

  He shrugged that one shoulder again. “Sure.”

  “I will pray for you, Seth.”

  The caress in his eyes melted me. It was all I could do to hold myself back from following him down that hill, even though I could in no way keep up his pace.

  Len took a seat on the bench, the same place Seth had just vacated. It didn’t seem right.

  I crossed my arms. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just drop Jer’s shoes onto the porch?”

  “You’re angry.”

  I rubbed my lips together. “It’s complicated.”

  He raked his tousled hair. “Honestly, Suz. Didn’t plan on interrupting anything. If you want to blame someone, take it out on Timo. He pointed out the way for me to find you.”

  I exhaled and darted a glance to sea, a place of instant relief. Of course, Len couldn’t have known that Seth and I were up here together. Not that it mattered.

  “When I found the shoes, I took it as a sign that I should come find you. You seemed pretty peeved at me yesterday, and in my gut, I knew I shouldn’t have left things that way.” Len opened both palms, like in surrender. “This faith thing is all new to me, but when I get a feeling like that, I can’t ignore it.”

  I eyed him. “You haven’t mentioned much about your, um, newfound faith, Len, and I’ve been wanting to ask you about it.”