CHAPTER THIRTY
Arthur won’t hear of me staying in a hotel. When they ask about Ernie’s and the auction and I reveal the reason for bringing Carl along with me, Arthur tells me he’ll be offended if I don’t stay here until they’re done. I protest on principle, but Arthur repeats himself: “I’ll be offended if you don’t accept our offer to stay.”
Charlotte is more direct. She tells me leaving would be stupid. She says the only decent places to stay in town “if I don’t want to wake up with a drug needle in my arm, or waste all my money” are the inn or one of the older bed and breakfasts. The house I’m in now, on the other hand, has a spare bedroom that will cost me nothing, all made up and ready.
I still feel like I should protest — I have Ernie money on the way, and there’s nowhere near Old Town where “drug needles” are the rule — but then I feel Maya’s hand slide onto the top of my leg under the table. Mackenzie joins in, saying that we’ll have chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, but my hand has already slid atop Maya’s and is squeezing it. I’m convinced.
After dinner, there’s more discussion over decaf coffee while Mackenzie plays with Carl, who seems to adore her. When Maya takes her to bed, Mackenzie runs over and hugs me as if she’s known me for a lifetime instead of a week. I even get a little kiss, then she’s running off while I sit in a daze, wondering why this was what I spent the last part of my life fleeing.
There’s more banter after Mackenzie goes down, but Arthur and Charlotte, to their immense credit, seem to understand how much baggage is hanging in the air between me and Maya. They retire discreetly, claiming to be overly tired. But it’s barely after nine, and I know they’re giving us space — the time alone that up until now, we haven’t had.
I almost want to skip this part — to clip out our sticky middle like a scene chopped from a movie. But there are things that need discussing before the wound can close.
We dance around the key topics for a while, sniffing the edges by discussing what is and has been rather than what went wrong: the life I’ve led in the interim, how things are with Maya at work, how Mackenzie gets along in school, and what she’s like. There’s a heavy feeling that we’re setting the foundation of something new but that the ground must be cleared of debris before we can build. But it’s okay. I want to move forward — to prune alternate paths from my future and focus on one that matters most.
I glance up the stairs, sensing the sleeping girl beyond. Then I look at Maya: the girl right in front of me.
“I shouldn’t have left.”
Maya’s lips press together. She won’t say I was right to leave, but she’s giving me the dignity of cutting myself.
“I thought about coming back all the time. Whenever I knew it was time to move on from one place to another. There were always two options: back home or farther away. It only took a few months before I didn’t even have a reason to stay away. Once I was eighteen and had saved up some money, I could live on my own, away from Ernie. It would have been in a shitty little apartment, but I could have done it. And I wanted to, Maya. I want you to know that I never stopped looking back. I wanted to return. I just … couldn’t.”
She won’t ask why not. She knows.
“I didn’t make it easy for you, the way we left things,” she tells me. The TV is off. Lights are dimmed. It’s after ten, and it’s possible the rest of the house is asleep. We could be the only two people in the world, like it used to feel when we were together all those years ago.
“I was stubborn.”
“I was.” She twirls a finger in her long hair. “Redhead pride. I didn’t like that you wouldn’t do what … well, what Tommy never would. But you have to believe me, Grady — I never wanted Tommy to do it. I never, ever wanted him more than you.”
This is hard to hear, even given her tone of regret, but I know it must be even harder for her to say. We’ve never rationally discussed it. The last time any of this came up between us, there were horrible things said, mostly from me.
But still, the old pain wants to resurface. As she says “I never, ever wanted him more than you,” my brain wants to counter by saying, With one hot and heavy exception.
“I know.”
“You had every right to be angry. But I never let you be mad. It was all about me. How we were broken up, and why we’d broken up. You have to understand. I love my parents, but … the guilt. You can’t know what it’s like to believe such horrible things about yourself, based on a mistake. I had to make that fight about you and what I imagined you did to … to ‘drive me to him.’ Because I couldn’t admit what it all said about me.”
“It doesn’t say anything about you,” I say, knowing that part of me felt differently then and still, today, doesn’t really want to let go. Tommy Fucking Finch. To think that he touched her where only I was supposed to touch her. To think that he was inside her when my heart felt that she belonged to me. To think of the ways he must have made her feel that night, given how much I know she always secretly wanted him. Because that was always the worst of it all, the part that dogged me even after my common sense tried ordering me back to Inferno Falls: It never felt entirely like a mistake. I always felt sure it was something she’d always wanted to do, and therefore something she might do again.
I can’t bear the thought of another man touching her, or of her wanting anyone but me, as naive and ridiculous as that sounds. It’s something I’ll need to get over if we’re to be together again because I’m not naive. I’ve had my own loves in the meantime. But I don’t want to think of it, hear about it, or worry about it ever again.
“I was a stupid kid,” she says.
I laugh. “Just you?”
“I never acknowledged how much that hurt you. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I hurt you, Grady.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry, too. Not just because of what I did to you, but because of what … ” I push on, and say what I need to before losing my nerve. “What I did to us. To our future.”
I feel my throat thickening. I was so numb these past ten years. I kept moving because I didn’t want to be forced to stop and think. I didn’t look back because once I did, I knew I’d have to face the regret. It feels like I’ve murdered something. Like my stubborn refusal to face the truth has slaughtered children I never had. All those moments. All that might have been. Gone, because I was a fool.
She’s looking at me with those big green eyes. I can tell she doesn’t want to pry — that she feels this is a time for both of us to unburden on our own, to eviscerate ourselves without letting anyone else hold the knife. But she’s going to speak anyway because there’s something she needs to know. And if I can predict the future at all, I’m sure it’s the question I spent so many nights asking myself.
“Why didn’t you call me, Grady? I would have called you if I knew where to find you.” Unspoken, there are accusations she doesn’t want to make but can’t help. For the first few years, I never stopped moving and was more or less impossible to pin down. But I never left the US, and in time I got a cell phone like the rest of the world. For most of the time I’ve been away, I’ve had the same number. I didn’t need to be brave for longer than a few seconds. One noncommittal text to say hello would have given her my number, and after that Maya, whose guilt looks pale next to mine, would have taken the first step.
“I just … couldn’t.”
“Why? I wasn’t angry for long. After the first few weeks, all I wanted was to have you back.”
Her words are like an iron boot on my chest. I know they’re true, and above everything else, it’s what I’ve feared most. Not at first, when I was simply arrogant, self-centered, and blind — but later, after years had passed. By then, getting in touch didn’t feel like relief; it felt heavy with the burden of years away. Every one that passed made calling home harder. Not because I didn’t want to see her but because I felt sure she wanted to see me, and I didn’t want to face the lost time that my neglect, in never trying, had cost us.
I can’t answer her Why. I won’t be able to force out the words. I shake my head. “I was stupid. So, so stupid. And now, when I look around this house and see the way everything worked out just fine and I missed it? When I look at your daughter?”
I think Maya is going to speak. Instead, she touches my hair, then my cheek. I have no idea how she’s feeling. What are the nuances? She misses me. She wants me back. But does she hate me too? I’ve given my confession. Does it merely unburden me, or soothe the in-between?
Maya leans closer.
I lean to match her.
And we kiss. It’s soft. Bittersweet. I taste lost years inside it. I can taste her guilt, her apology, my unfathomable regret. I hate myself, even as I feel something knitting between us. Maya had a moment of weakness, but for me, that moment dragged for a decade.
Mistakes can be forgiven.
But wasted time is gone forever.
We come apart, and she blinks at me in the quiet.
“Make love to me,” she whispers.
But I can’t. I think I love her all over again, but my heart is too heavy with the weight of shattered dreams.
“In time,” I say.