Reconcilable Differences: A 'Having It All' Novel

by Clarke Scott, M A

  Everyone bid Casey and Michelle a good night and a Merry Christmas, and they bustled out the door bundling their sleeping children, gifts and bags of leftover food. They were soon followed, after swift kisses and hugs good night, even for Simon, Kate noted with interest, by Alexa, who had offered Bertie a ride. “Merry Christmas, Katie, love,” she said. Shortly afterwards the lonely and downtrodden Bruce left.

  “She didn’t even ask if I needed a ride,” Kate said as the door closed behind them.

  “She’s an astute woman,” smiled Simon.

  “Hmph.”

  Lily stood on the front porch in her long quilted parka, stomping booted feet. “Let’s go-oo, Will.”

  Simon gripped his brother’s hand. “Thanks for your help tonight, bud.”

  Will turned toward his brother, looking up and shaking his head. “I was such a jerk. I was sure you’d get your ass kicked again.” Kate frowned, confused, scanning Simon’s face for clues. Simon smiled and hugged him roughly, thumping his back. “Thanks. I might yet.”

  Will pulled away, grinning and shaking his head, darting a glance in Kate’s direction and lowering his voice. “I’m envious. Even Mom never looked at me like that.”

  “That’s ‘cause you’re the ugly one,” Simon teased. “G’night.”

  Will shuddered theatrically and led Lily out into the hush of thickly falling snow. “Huh. I hope you know what you’re doing, bro.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They were alone at last. Kate waited on the sofa, gazing at the empty disordered room, pretending she hadn’t overheard Simon’s touching, if confusing, exchange with his brother. Despite Michelle’s efforts to tidy up, the living room looked like a bomb went off. There were dirty mugs and glasses here and there, bunched up giftwrap, sofa cushions and throws in disarray. The almost barren, soiled dining table sat in the background awaiting another opportunity to stage a laughing crowd. Kate could almost hear the echo of laughter and loving voices, and felt a warm sense of completion and contentment. Closing the door, Simon padded silently to the living room and leaned on the doorframe.

  “Well, we both survived,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you put yourself through that every year.”

  His smile was tentative. “They’re not that bad, are they?”

  Kate grimaced. “That’s not what I meant. They’re all lovely. Colourful, but lovely. I meant the work, the preparation and cooking. It was amazing.”

  “Thanks. I like to do it for them. I realize they’re a tad eccentric. But they’re my orphans and I take care of them.”

  “Your orphans?”

  He snorted. “It started years ago. First time Mom and Dad went on a trip, I felt I had to do something for Will. And Bertie. After her husband died, she had no one. Bruce, too, is kind of uncomfortable with his family, so the holidays are hard. Then I met Casey through work. And he and Michelle are so far from their families. It just…” his shoulder jerked up, “…evolved.”

  “And now you’ve added me and Alexa to your list of orphans?”

  “I was thinking maybe adoption in your case.” His eyes creased, twinkling, and Kate felt a shiver of heat and anticipation. “But first I have to tuck this girl in.” He turned to the sleeping bundle under the tree and peeled away the blanket to reveal the adorable Madison, her round cheeks flushed under a disheveled brown mop.

  “It's a miracle she slept through it all.”

  He chuckled and knelt to gently lift her limp form. Gazing at her sweet face, he bent to brush his lips across her silky pink cheek, and his intense love for her was palpable. He stopped and peeked at Kate over his shoulder. “Come with me?”

  Kate rose and followed him up the stairs and into Maddie’s room. He set Maddie on her bed and, with the expected awkwardness, patiently extracted her from her wrinkled party dress and tangled tights. She remained as limp as a rag doll while he wrestled her limbs into her nightgown and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. She’d worn herself out; she didn’t move a muscle. He bent to kiss her forehead and stood. “She’ll be up early. I have to be ready.”

  In response to Kate’s questioning look, he beckoned with one finger and led her into the darkened hallway, where he slid opened a closet door and pulled down a large lumpy bag from a high shelf.

  Back downstairs, Simon added several brightly wrapped packages to those already arranged under the tree. “She knows some of the gifts are from me, but there has to be a surprise element or it spoils the Santa logic,” he explained.

  Kate smiled in understanding, then brightened. “I almost forgot. I have gifts for you and Maddie.” She looked around. “Where did I put my bag?”

  “Is that yours in the front hall?”

  She retrieved it and set it down, opening it and rummaging until she extracted two parcels, both wrapped in elegant silvery blue paper with matching ribbon the same shade as her sweater. Her eyes shied away from the small pouch bearing her toothbrush and a change of clothes, her stomach doing a little gymnastic flip as she closed the flap on her bag. She set the gifts under the tree, glancing over her shoulder to beam at him.

  He stood looking her up and down, his admiration evident. It was mutual. She flushed hotly, wondering if he might be thinking similar thoughts to hers.

  He held her eyes and moved silently toward her, taking both her hands in his to lift her up, and bent toward her. He held back hesitantly. Kate had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact, and she did so, gazing thoughtfully into his eyes, the barest hint of a welcoming smile touching her lips. It was evidently enough encouragement for him. He kissed her once, tentatively, and pulled away, still searching her eyes. For what? He kissed her again, more quickly and said, “Just one more thing.”

  She watched him wordlessly as he fished two stockings from his bag, hung them from hooks on the mantelpiece, then proceeded to fill them with small packages, mandarin oranges and chocolate. He turned toward her, hesitant, and lifted a beautiful quilted stocking embroidered with an angel and silver stars on a navy blue sky. “I have a spare. Shall I hang it for you? Or would you prefer a cold, lonely taxi ride home?” He tried to make light of it, pouting in a hammy way, though she knew he was perfectly serious.

  Well. This was it. Decision time.

  Searching her eyes again, he moved towards her, holding her arms in his hands. “I’m so glad you’re here. This is all I want for Christmas. Just you.” He stroked her cashmere sweater, running one fingertip gently along the scooping neckline next to her skin, over the tops her breasts. He drew in a ragged breath. His voice sounded strained. “Make me even happier. Let me wake up tomorrow with you in my arms. Please.”

  Kate’s breath left her, her throat constricting. “I… I’d like to say yes, Simon. I would… ” She hesitated, feeling the too-familiar crawling, fearful sensation that had preceded her anxiety attacks of late. Consciously distancing herself from the anxiety, she observed it, named it, knowing that she had to move past the irrational fear. She turned away, out of his embrace, concentrating on her breathing, and reached a hand to grasp her knot pendant, silently asking for strength from whatever force in the universe meted out her fate. At the same time she knew, it was up to her.

  Stepping up behind her, he said, “Is it my imagination that you’ve had a change of heart?” He turned her toward him again, dropping his voice. “I’ve fallen in love with you Kate, all over again. Tell me I’m not crazy to think you might love me too.”

  She kept her gaze cast down, too afraid to meet the earnest expression in his eyes. She wanted him. She knew what she needed to do. She only needed to give herself permission to feel the love she had for him, and put her fears aside. Simon lifted her chin gently with his fingertips.

  “Tell me, Kate. I won’t hurt you. I promise. But don’t be afraid of my reaction, either. I know Will thinks I’m made of glass. Whatever you have to say, I can take it. Tell me the truth.”

  Kate peered uneasily at his creased brow, aware that his eyes g
listened with fear of his own, and wondered. He didn’t deserve this. After all he’d been through, Simon should never have to doubt that he was loved.

  “Have I got it all wrong?”

  “No. Simon, I…” Her voice was a whisper, and she dug down deep for the courage she needed to face her own truth, and to open her heart to this man, who meant everything to her.

  “Tell me what it is? What’s the matter? Is it a fear of commitment?” His frustration was unmistakable. His voice dropped. “Is it Maddie? Are you worried about… having to step into a mother’s role?” Simon released her and stood with his hands out, palms up, beseeching. “Tell me.”

  Kate shook her head emphatically. “No! Absolutely not. Put that thought out of your head.” She swallowed, gathering her thoughts. “I have… I suppose you’ve noticed how I’ve been.” She sighed heavily, on a frustrated grunt. Where to begin? “When I saw you again, something happened to me. A kind of… relapse.”

  “Saw me?” Disbelief ratcheted Simon’s voice up a notch. Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her head against his chest, stroking her hair and back. He gently pushed her away and asked his question again, this time with only his pleading eyes, waiting patiently, trusting her to explain if she could.

  She could. She must. Kate breathed a deep and quivering sigh and raised her eyes to his. She turned inward, searching for the words to explain. “There is… a part of me that has never stopped loving you. Even when you didn’t love me. Even when you weren’t there, I obsessed over you. And I had to go on with my life.” She squeezed her eyes shut. She shook her head for a moment, opened them and continued with a quavering voice, pushing the words past the blockage in her throat. “I had to make sense of that. Why couldn’t I function? Eventually, with help, loads of help, I came to understand that my love for you was a kind of unhealthy attachment that arose from a void inside of me. I had no self-love, no sense of self worth. I was so ruined by what happened to me, by… by what I finally realized happened to me…”

  “Wait. You’re losing me. I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  Of course not. Kate stopped speaking and closed her eyes, breathing slowly and deeply for a long time, reaching for the strength to continue.

  “How could you love me and still be afraid?” Simon asked. “Love is a wonderful thing. A joyous feeling.” She could hear his confusion and hurt, and see a brooding darkness descend over his face. “You know you can trust me, Kate. Please explain. Tell me everything so we don’t have painful secrets between us. I want to really know you.”

  Kate slowly raised her eyes to his, and they came into focus, piercing and penetrating. “I do love you, and I trust you. But I don’t trust… myself?”

  “You don’t sound certain of that.” He frowned, clearly perplexed.

  “I know. I’ve been trying, but I still can’t find the words to express this fear,” she clenched a fist and pressed it into her middle. “This feeling inside me that says, I can’t have this. I don’t deserve this kind of, of… happiness. Fulfillment. Security?” She shrugged.

  “Don’t deserve…? Why?”

  Kate pushed her hair back from her face, tucked it behind her ear. “That’s not even right.” She tried to calm her thoughts, and sink down deep, quiet the noise and wait for the truth, the words she needed, to surface. Because she needed them. Now. This was her moment of truth. It was now or never, and Kate was not prepared to let this moment pass. She knew she stood on a precipice, her future lay in her own grasp. It was time to let go of the past, and embrace a future that was, unbelievably, a dream come true. For better or worse.

  Even if she and Simon didn’t work out, in the long term_– because who really knew what the future held? She deserved to give it a chance. To give them a chance. It’s what he wanted. And it was what she wanted, too, in her heart of hearts. Kate was not a bad person. She had not made such terrible mistakes. And limiting her whole life because of one unfortunate incident, punishing herself, and Simon too, because of something so far in the past, out of their control, was foolish.

  She would never have the closure and redemption that confronting or punishing her attacker might provide. If indeed that wasn’t a myth. But she refused to continue to punish Simon for the actions of another. Or to punish herself.

  If in the end they moved on, well so what? That would be a decision born of the true circumstances of the life she was living now. She’d survive. She’d be okay.

  How could it be worse than what she’d carried around for years? An unrequited compulsive love for a man that didn't even exist outside of her imagination. Kate realized she had obsessed over an ideal, a hollow man, not a real man. A crutch to lean on, something to buttress the dark abandoned mine shafts of her heart all these years, something to keep real love at arms length.

  Kate had been lonely. So lonely. She had always been waiting for him. Not to rescue her, but to fill that space that only he could fill. Her man with heart, even though she knew that what she had been missing was a part of herself. Even so, she had known a profound connection once and, having tasted it, would never be satisfied with anything less.

  Simon stood before her, his face aglow with compassion. She saw his warmth and solidity, his patience and yearning. She would give Simon her love, with no strings attached. She could not deny him or herself. But first, she owed him an explanation.

  “I do love you, Simon, I do.” She caressed his cheek with one hand. “But there’s something I have to tell you, before… before…” She shrugged, and turned away to stare out the picture window at the still night.

  No wind disturbed the lush snowflakes on their slumbering descent. Muted streetlights, ringed by diffuse halos. Coloured lights trimming neighboring houses muffled now under a thick blanket of fallen snow. In the pool of ice blue light from a streetlight, something shiny, red and sharp gleamed in the neighbour’s front yard, like a blade, cutting the surface. A forgotten bicycle perhaps. She smiled.

  “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.” Soon, the falling snow would completely obscure the red bicycle, until only a soft, blurred outline could be detected, the gash healed over, only a scar.

  She turned to Simon, reconciled to tell him everything.

  “I didn’t want you in my life. I was grieving–”

  He was clearly puzzled. “In October?”

  She smiled, shook her head, and continued. “It wasn’t me that crashed into your dorm, drunk as a sailor at three in the morning, banging on the door and begging to be let in.” She could remember the upheaval like an earthquake. He had turned her world upside down then too.

  “Are we talking about college?” he looked doubtful, embarrassed and confused.

  She looked up from his chest into his eyes. “Yes. Please listen.” She paused, smiling weakly and shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t know why you wanted my miserable company.” She sighed and squinted up at him, determined to get it over with. “Let me tell you what you never knew. You may remember, when we met, that my boyfriend had just dumped me. I don’t know if I told you. What you never knew was that… I was still in trauma from a… a rape in the last semester of high school.”

  “What?”

  She held up a hand. “Not Ben. I was on a school trip… we were out drinking. We met some touring American soccer players…” she shrugged. “And after it happened… you just don’t know… I felt so… soiled, so worthless.” She again turned her eyes to the soothing view outside.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? We were close enough.”

  “The thing was… I didn’t know it exactly. Not that I was in trauma– well, that too. I mean, I didn’t remember the rape. Had totally blocked it out. A kind of selective amnesia caused by trauma-related stress. The memories didn’t come back until about ten, eleven years ago. I guess I was finally ready to face it. I don’t know. I’d heard of that happening to people, but you can’t imagine your own mind
playing such tricks on you.”

  “Not playing tricks. Protecting you from pain.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “Well. I felt the pain, only much later. But I was so… broken. I was a mess when I met you. A much bigger mess than I even seemed on the surface. I didn’t even understand it myself, because I’d dissociated from the memory. I was withdrawn, depressed, passive and needy. And you kept coming back, cheering me up, drawing me out, until I came to depend on you, until all my hopes and dreams hung on you, my savior. My knight in shining armor.”

  Now, she loved a real man, and though a part of her feared he would never measure up to the dream, the thought was comforting in a strange way, trickling into her tortured consciousness like a tonic, softening and sweetening her suffering. This was complicated and messy, but infinitely better. She had lived through violation, rejection, pain and self-loathing and put herself and her life back together again, stronger than she was before. She could never sink that low again. She would survive.

  “And I didn’t know a thing.”

  Anger surged through her, suddenly, and she wanted to strike out. Her fists tightened and shook with violence. She didn’t know the pent up anger and resentment had been bottled up inside her. She glanced down at her hands. Painful memories, like overripe fruit ready to burst, surfaced, overwhelming her.

  “And you took what you wanted without giving anything in return,” Kate said, knowing it was wrong. She shook her head, negating the words. Yet she couldn’t stop the flow of bitterness. “Then when you figured out how messed up I was, you bolted.” What a horrible, mean thing to say. What had happened wasn’t Simon’s fault. She stole a wary glance at him, blurred through her tears.

  His face reflected the shock she knew he’d feel. “I never knew this about you. What promise did I break? I was nineteen.”

  “I’m sorry. That was wrong. That came from a dark place.” She placed a palm on his chest, over his heart. “It’s not true. I just have this residual anger inside of me, for that nameless, faceless man that took what I didn’t offer, and my innocence and faith, too, without consequences. And maybe even at society for leaving me with decades of psychological garbage to deal with. But I shouldn’t direct it at you. Nothing that happened to me was your fault. I know that.”