“Was that difficult for you?” Sam asked. “Married to someone in the public eye?”
“A little, yes. I hated going places with him. People always stared at us. In Seattle, high-tech moguls are like movie stars.”
Garth had gone quiet. He traced the pattern in the granite with one finger.
“I’d have loved the attention,” Brian said. “I wish everyone knew how rich I was.”
Garth’s head snapped up to look at his father. “Dad, that’s terrible.”
“Is it?” Brian laughed. “If it is, then I’m guilty. I always want to tell people how clever I am to have started with nothing and turned out like this.”
“I understand what you mean,” I said. “You should be proud of your career. But the celebrity and admiration aren’t as good as you might think. When people know, they treat you differently.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” Brian said.
I knew he was joking, but if he’d only known half of what I’d endured on social media, he wouldn’t have found the idea attractive. “Social media is full of trolls, just looking for a way to let out all their rage. I got hammered after his death.”
“You’ve never told me that,” Garth said.
“I don’t like to think about it. I put it all behind me when I came here.”
“What did they do?” Garth asked.
“People on the internet were not very nice to me.” I hadn’t told Garth how bad it had gotten. The mean tweets and posts on social media about me had been devastating. As if losing Patrick and the baby hadn’t been bad enough, the online trolls had come after me. The narrative made me seem evil, like I’d married him for his money and was happy he was gone. None of which was true.
“What do you mean?” Brian asked.
“False rumors about me marrying him for his money and things like that.” I lifted the pot to look at my chicken. Steam rose up and brought the scent of wine, garlic, and onions.
“Is that why you moved here?” Sam asked. “To get away from all of that?”
“Yes, that’s exactly why. His death made people even more curious about me. No one cares about any of that here. I returned to being just me. That’s why I went back to using my maiden name. I shut off all social media. Which is why I didn’t know how close the fire was. If your son hadn’t come for me, who knows what would have happened.”
I looked up from the stove to see Sam watching me. “How frightening all of it must have been.”
“Brandi—that’s my best friend—told me to come here. I lived with her for a few months while I looked for a house. I’ve never looked back.”
“That was a wise choice,” Sam said.
I hadn’t expected her to be sympathetic and intuitive. She was not at all what I’d expected from a woman who’d run away from her own family. Had I misjudged her?
"She opened the kitchen store in town.” Garth did nothing to disguise the pride in his voice, which made me uncomfortable. What would his parents think of all this? Would they have us married off before morning? Knowing I was getting in too deep and yet not being able to stop myself, I had the niggling feeling of guilt.
"And you know what else?" Garth asked. “All the proceeds from the store go to feeding the homeless."
"Garth," I said quietly. "They don't want to hear about that."
"We do,” Sam said. “What a wonderful thing to do.”
"I didn't think y'all had homeless people here," Brian said.
Garth laughed. "Only those of us who lost our houses in the fire. These are homeless in Denver mostly."
"Seattle, too,” I said. Why had I said that? I sounded full of myself. I despised boastful people. Especially since all this wealth was Patrick's, not mine. “Never mind. I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging.”
“There's no reason to be ashamed,” Brian said. "You care about people. We need more like you in the world."
“She’s like the patron of Emerson Pass,” Garth said. “I know she does more than she tells me about.”
“Garth, stop. You’re exaggerating.” I gave him a look before turning away to fiddle with the burner.
“Fine, I’ll stop,” Garth said. “But that doesn’t make it false.”
Outside, night had come, prompting the outside lights on the patio to flicker to life. At the end of the long room, the gas fireplace burned brightly. For a split second, I imagined us all here at Christmas. We’d have a tree that reached the ceiling, twinkling lights, and stockings hung over the fireplace. Maybe my mother would come.
I put a screeching halt to those thoughts. I was letting myself get carried away. Or was it that my heart was finally healing?
“Speaking of patrons," I said, hoping to divert the conversation. “Garth does a ton of pro bono work for battered women.”
It was Garth’s turn to seem embarrassed. “No big deal. I mean, it's the least I could do, really. These women—they don't have a chance."
“Honey, what a great thing you're doing." Sam wrapped her hands around the stem of her wineglass. "Despite having me as your mother, you've become such a good man."
"You were a great mother," Brian said.
"Until I wasn’t,” Sam said.
No one said anything for a moment.
“You're here now.” Brian exchanged a glance with Garth in their secret, silent language. As different as they were, the men knew each other in that way people do who have fought a war together, or survived tragedy.
"Mom, we can't go back, only forward.”
"Not that I’ve always been good at that,” I said. "But it's really the only choice we have, isn't it?"
Brian smacked the counter. "Well, let's not waste another moment of tonight. We’re all here together in Garth’s beautiful home. I say we open another bottle of wine. Life's too damn short to spend all of it crying into our glasses."
"I couldn't agree more," I said.
Brian was up and crossed over to the counter to open another bottle of wine. A few minutes later, he had us laughing with a story from his childhood.
I watched him, impressed by this man's resilience. He was in the middle of a new, probably nasty divorce, and yet here he was entertaining us. Garth was much more like his mother, sensitive, which made them vulnerable to the world. They felt emotions so deeply.
That was the thing with Garth. The way he loved me scared me the most. I held his happiness in my hands. I didn't like it. With Patrick, I’d felt that if anything had happened to me or to our relationship, he would've been fine. This man before me now was an entirely different breed. His heart beat outside his own chest. I had the power to break that tender heart.
Who was I to have such power? I was a woman pining for a ghost. Here was the very best kind of man—a man most women would do anything for. I was selfishly taking what I wanted from him with no idea of the future. I’d never in my life been ashamed of my actions toward another person. I’d thought of myself as a good person, unselfish. The patron of Emerson Pass. All my charities and giving to those less fortunate. Yet here I was hurting the best person I've ever known. No one could look at themselves in the mirror and not see the truth. He deserved better. Every moment I stayed here in this house, and in his bed, led us closer to the eventual pain I’d cause him when I had to leave.
If I had to leave.
Maybe I could stay.
Forever.
13
Garth
In the middle of the night, I jerked awake from a sound sleep. Something wasn’t right. I reached across the bed for Crystal but found only cold sheet. I sat up, wincing from the dull ache in my ribs. A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, lighting the room. Crystal, her head bowed and knees drawn to her chest, sat in the armchair next to the window. Long strands of her hair, almost silver in the moonlight, hung over her face as she silently sobbed.
“Crystal?”
She yanked her head upward and looked at me. “I’m all right. Go back to sleep.” Her voice sounded eerily normal, g
iven her obvious emotional state.
“It’s cold. Come to bed.”
She hesitated for a moment before unfolding from the chair and padding across the floor to climb in next to me.
I couldn’t bring her to me because of the cast between us. Drawing her close must be done with my words, not my touch. I knew from past experience that I was better with touch. “What’s going on?” I asked gently.
She didn’t answer. I heard only the drawing in and out of her breath. After a few more seconds of this, she finally answered. “I couldn’t sleep. All the bad thoughts started coming. Chasing me—calling out to me to listen to them. To relive all the regrets. Do you know how that is? When it’s dark and the morning seems far away and that nothing will ever be all right ever again?”
“I do.”
“I had a miscarriage after Patrick died. It was my fault that I lost the baby.” She put a cold hand on my chest.
I lifted up a few inches to put my arm around her shoulders. “How was that your fault?”
“After Patrick died, I was in a very bad place. I didn’t know I was pregnant. I asked God to let me sleep and not wake up.”
I sucked in a breath as if someone had sucker punched me. Did she think God took the baby from her because of the wish of grieving widow? I thought about what my mother had said earlier about Christopher’s death. She’d said she felt it was her fault. Was this the plight of all women once they were mothers? All their thoughts led to and from their child? Every bad outcome was somehow their fault? I chose my words carefully. “I can understand how you arrived at that conclusion. But I don’t think God would punish you for a moment of darkness. Not when you were in so much pain. He understands that you were grieving for your husband.”
"How do you know?" she asked, not in accusatory way, but as if she truly wondered.
“I just do.”
“I should’ve been stronger for the baby. I gave in to the sadness, let it consume me. There are studies that show stress can cause women to miscarry.”
“You were grieving. Even if it did harm the baby, it’s not something you could control. The husband you adored died suddenly. There’s no other way through that but to feel sad.”
"It was a double blow. Losing Patrick and then the baby.”
“I’m sorry.” Such inadequate words for such a profound feeling, but it was all I could think to say.
“Today, watching your mother, I could see so much of myself in her.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“How trapped inside herself she is. How guarded and regretful. The weight of the past pressing down on her tiny body.”
My eyes stung as I took in what she said. Crystal was right. My mother’s movements were laborious, like those of a much heavier woman.
“I’m so sad for her.” She rolled to her side and touched my face. “I can see how much she loves you.”
I took Crystal’s hand and pressed it to my mouth. “I don’t know about that. She loved my brother best. Sometimes I think she wished it were me that died.”
“No, a mother would never think that.”
I didn’t argue with her even though I knew she was wrong.
“Tonight, when I was lying here in the dark listening to you breathe, I felt as hopeless as I ever have.”
“Why?”
“When I met Patrick I thought he would make up for my lack of a father. Like I was finally whole. I know it sounds strange. It was as if he made up for all the love I missed growing up without a father. When I lost him, it seemed like too much of a coincidence. I wasn’t supposed to have the kind of love most girls or women get. To try simply tempted fate. The moment I believed I’d found my family in Patrick, he was snatched away.”
I thought about that for a moment. She’d come to the conclusion that any man she loved would leave her, one way or the other. Thus, she couldn’t allow herself to love me for fear it would all end the same way. She would be alone and grieving.
“Does that sound ridiculous?” she asked.
“Actually, no.” Hadn’t I felt the same way about women? First, my mother. Then, my wife. Both left me. Why, then, was I willing to give my whole self to Crystal when she couldn’t do the same? Knowing that she wasn’t able to return my feelings and would eventually leave me, was I setting this up on purpose to prove my greatest fear to be true? I could not be chosen. I could never be a woman’s first choice. My mother had chosen my dead brother over the one who lived. Crystal was now choosing her dead husband over a live, breathing man who wanted her. Was the human mind that much of a saboteur? Was my mind that much of a saboteur?
“What’re you thinking?” Crystal asked. “I can hear your mind churning.”
“I was wondering if you’d had a father and if my mother hadn’t left, if we’d be here like this?”
She went perfectly still. “Do you mean if we hadn’t suffered those losses, we’d be able to love each other?”
“Maybe it’s even more complicated than that for me,” I said. “Like have I fallen for you to prove to myself that my worst fears are true?”
“Which are?” Crystal asked softly.
“That all women eventually leave me. I’m always second place.”
“Second place?”
“My mother preferred my brother to me. You wish Patrick were here instead of me. I’ve been blind to it until just now. I’m repeating a pattern. One so ingrained that I didn’t even see it.”
Her breath caught. “Is that what you think is happening? That I’ve chosen a dead man over you? You’re second?”
“My brother and Patrick are the chosen ones even though I’ve been here all along just waiting for you both to love me.” Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. I wiped them away and wished I could turn over on my side, away from Crystal.
“Garth, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. I don’t want you to think you’re second best.”
“You can’t force yourself to love someone just because they love you.”
“Or think they do anyway. Do you think you just wanted to win me? Maybe you don’t really love me?”
Was she right? Had I fabricated all these feelings? No. I loved her. My heart wouldn’t ache this way if my feelings weren’t real. Despite how damaged I was, I loved this woman. I’d do just about anything to have her in my life. “I don’t think anything. I love you.”
“You’re not second best. Not to Patrick or anyone else,” Crystal said.
“But to you? Am I second best to you?”
“No, it’s just that you’re different. This thing between us is not how it was with Patrick.”
“How?”
“My feelings for you crept up on me. With him, it was all a whirlwind. With you, it’s been a slow build.”
“Maybe that’s better,” I said as hope flooded me.
“You’ve become the first person I want to call when anything good or bad happens.”
“Same for me.”
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. “Hold me until I fall asleep.”
“I won’t.” I’d never let go if she wanted me to stay. God help me, did I have a chance?
The next morning, I woke late to a bed without Crystal. I lay there for a moment, remembering the talk during the middle of the night. Had I dreamed all of it?
I sat up and reached for my crutches. The light outside the window was dim. A cloud cover must have come in while I was asleep.
Crystal came out of the bathroom, showered and dressed and looking way too pretty. “Morning,” she said.
“Morning.” How could it feel awkward when we’d shared such intimacy last night? In the light of day, there was no place to hide.
“Your mom’s here already. She’s in the living room with your dad watching television.” Crystal rushed toward me, threw her arms around my neck and kissed me, long and hard, leaving me breathless.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“For last night. For listening. For n
ot letting go.”
I put my weight on one crutch and pulled her against me. “Do it again.”
She did. By the time we pulled away, we were both breathless.
We were interrupted when Crystal’s phone buzzed from the dresser. She hustled over to take a look. “It's a text from my mom. She wants me to come to breakfast at the lodge. She says it’s urgent. That’s weird.”
“Go ahead. I’ve got my dad to help if I need anything.”
She nodded as she tucked her hair behind her ears. “Garth, don’t give up on me.”
“Never.”
“All right, then. I’ll see you later.” She gave me a peck on the mouth. “I’ll call you later.”
I waited until I heard the front door slam before I bumped out to the front room on my crutches. They were sitting on the couch watching football on the flat screen my dad had hung. Dallas was up six points over Los Angeles.
“I should’ve known you had an ulterior motive for getting the television hung yesterday, Dad.”
“San Francisco plays tomorrow,” Dad said. “It was either this or watch it down at the bar.”
My father was a diehard San Francisco fan even though he’d spent his childhood in Texas. When I was a kid, Mom had loved the Seattle team. I could vaguely recall watching the games as they good-naturedly ribbed each other. My mother had jokingly called us a divided home.
A sudden memory of my mother during a Sunday game came to me. My father had said something to make her laugh. He'd always been able to make her laugh. Until all the laughter in her dried up, replaced by tears.
"Is everything all right with Crystal?” Mom asked me. “She rushed out of here.”
“Yeah, she’s fine.” I sat down next to her, then propped my cast on the coffee table. "Her mom asked her to come out for breakfast. Something urgent."
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