The Beginning of Always (58 page)

Lucas was quiet, resting on his haunches as he continued to wind the gauze around my hand. He had come barely half an hour ago. The sky had long turned dark and black with night, and I was still on the floor of the kitchen, leaning against the cabinets and staring out of the windows. Lights flickered through the city, spotting the horizon.

He took one look at the mess I’d made after I trashed the kitchen, said nothing and left, returning with a first aid kit.

I didn’t acknowledge him as he bandaged me up. He had seen me in some of my worst moments, deep into my cups in the past with Florence on my mind and lips.

Now, we were at the end. No more grief, no more hope, no more Florence.

I should hit the wall some more.

“That should do it,” Lucas said, tearing off the tape and pressing it down gently. Such odd, delicate movements for such a large man.

I withdrew my hand towards my chest, flexing the knuckles and making a fist.

I really should hit the wall some more.

“Don’t do that,” Lucas said. “You’ll tear it.”

I dropped my hands to my side onto the cold tile floor. I wondered where Florence was, if she was still in the city, if she was doing okay. She was most likely long gone. If I was lucky she was back in St. Haven, away from the madness.

Lucas grunted, bracing himself against a knee and crashing onto the floor next to me. He adjusted himself so his large shoulders pressed up against the same cabinets behind me. The wood groaned softly in protest but held fast as he hitched his feet up.

So we sat, in compatible silence. I fisted and loosened my hands, testing the bandages, enjoying the sharp jolt of misery that dulled my thoughts.

“Go get her, Boss.”

I shook my head. “It’s over, Lucas. She’s gone.” My voice was tired. I had lost myself, my best self.

“Go get her,” Lucas repeated. “Never give up.”

I hung my head. The darkness stretched, punctuated with a soft glow of moonlight breaking free from the heavy clouds.

“How? How can she forgive me? I really fucked things up.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said. He nodded, his head knocking into the back of the cabinets which our backs shared. “But she loves you, despite it all. She’ll forgive you, if you make it worth her forgiveness.”

“I don’t even know how,” I muttered.

“So figure it out,” Lucas said simply. “On her terms this time.”

I stared at my hands, watching the faint light trickling over my fingertips. The same fingertips that had once held her, for those scant beautiful hours, for those treasured stolen moments. For I knew they were stolen, earned upon lies and deception. Everything up until now had been a dance around the truth, where I’d avert my mind and heart away from reality so I could play in fiction.

“This time,” I murmured to myself.

“This time,” Lucas repeated.

Chapter 33

B
ill rubbed the back of his hand over his sweating forehead, killing the roar of the engine as I gestured him over with the canteen I’d brought. He waved one arm at me, then hopped off his tractor and gingerly picked his way over across the field of greens between us.

When his grizzled face appeared, I offered him the drink, which he seized gladly.

“Thank you, dear,” he said gratefully. He unscrewed the top and guzzled down the cool lemonade.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, fanning an open palm against my sticky neck. “You have to be careful Mr. Blair. Anyone can get sunstroke in this heat. You should take a break, not push yourself so hard.” The sun was hot today, and in the early afternoon, it was bearing down mercilessly.

“Meh.” Bill grunted. “An old man has got to make himself useful.” He took another swig of lemonade. “People got to eat and people got to farm.”

“Old man? You’re not that old. My dad is older than you.”

“And he’s still working those sixty-hour weeks downtown.” Bill squinted at me from beneath his hat. “Did you just come from his place?”

I nodded. I had driven to town to drop off dinner for my dad since he was going to be late again. He didn’t feel like the lemonade I’d brought and had suggested I bring it over for Bill. While I was less than enthusiastic about seeing Alistair’s father, I figured I had been back in town for a week already and it was best to get this out of the way. The longer I avoided it, the more awkward it was going to be.

“Alright, Bill,” I said congenially, taking a step back. “I’m going to be heading back now.”

“Actually,” he said gruffly. My spine seized up momentarily. “On second thought, I’m going to head back too. Let me walk you to the driveway.” He peered closer. “Can you wait a bit?”

I nodded. “Sure.” Wasn’t as if I had a lot to do.

Bill gave me a curt nod and returned to his tractor. After grabbing a canvas bag from his seat, he trudged back, swinging the bag over his shoulder.

“Alright. Back home for both of us.”

We took our walk back in without words, both stewing on our own thoughts. Blair Farms had shrunk their operations drastically in the last couple years. Now they only had a couple smallish fields close to the barn, but it was still a good ten-minute walk from the main house and road. I didn’t mind the walk since I had been cooped up for most of the past couple days, doing all I could to avoid everybody and anybody. But Bill appeared exhausted, his back straight and chin high, yet his heavy steps sunk his work boots deep into the dirt.

“So.” Ah. Here it came: the subtle uptick in his voice, a mild raise of an eyebrow, the shift in his expression. “How’s Al?”

I shrugged. I knew Bill read the papers and tried to keep up on news of his son, so he definitely was aware of the terror raging back in New York. But I didn’t want to get into it with him.

I’d always liked Bill, but his loyalties stood with Alistair.

“Al loves you, Florence, you have to know that.”

I sighed and swung my arms by my sides, taking long strides that tempted my desire to flee from this conversation. “That’s the thing, Bill, love is just one piece of a relationship, although I do question whether he has the capacity to love.”

“I doubt that. He had you for years. You loved him, and for that, he knows good. He loves you, no question.”

I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, fighting off a scowl. I wasn’t up for this talk. My dad had avoided the topic beyond the basics, and with Nicolas and Tracy busy fighting the fire for me back East, I hadn’t spent any considerable amount of time with anyone dissecting the details. Well, except myself. “What are you trying to say, Bill? You know what he did.”

“Yes, and I just wonder if this is just the same stuff he’s done all his life, trying to drive you away. He works himself up to bring you closer, but always with a finger on the self-destruct button.”

I didn’t respond.

“Al always enjoyed his secrets. He knew they’d be the end of him.” Bill readjusted his pack over his shoulder. “Do you love Al, Florence? Now?”

“Yes. I do. But this is a special kind of messed up, what he did.”

I leaned my head back to take in the heavens. I couldn’t believe it was the same sky we’d once played under.

“You have to understand, Mr. Blair, being a journalist is all about integrity, all about credibility. I worked for years to build my reputation and it was spotless, one of the best in my field. Alistair wanted to play a game. He was selfish and did things to his own advantage. He wanted to get back together—okay, fine, I can accept that, but his own messed-up machinations created this scenario. He created a playing field where I was always at a disadvantage and he was always at an advantage. He didn’t care about the collateral damage, as long as he got what he wanted.”

“But he didn’t get what he wanted,” Bill pointed out.

“Who knows? He probably just wanted to play around for a while. Then he got sick of me.”

Bill placed a hand on my shoulder and gently consoled me to a stop. His skin against mine, I found it odd how familiar the feel of it was compared to Alistair’s—callused, rough, worked over in the land. “Florence, I’m a farmer. I’m a simple man, never seen much beyond the Gulf oil fields when I was young and this farm now that I’m old. That’s why I can’t leave it. It’s all I know. I only did two things right in my life—marry Sandra and take Al in. I didn’t do a great job raising him. We did our best, but the Good Lord knows he’s got problems none of us could understand. But please believe this—he’s a good man. He tries. And if there’s anything else I know about him, it’s that he loves you more than anything else in the world. More than his own life. There is nothing more in the world more important to him, that he cherishes more, than you. Just you.”

Bill dropped his hand off my shoulder, casting me a sad look.

“He would never do anything to hurt you, not intentionally. You know that. Deep down, you do.”

I hesitated, taken aback by his heartfelt monologue. Bill had never been one for wordiness, so his speech had to have been one of importance to him.

I inhaled a deep breath and shook my head, looking off into the distance to the main house. “We should keep going.” I didn’t want to get into this with Bill; it was a nonstarter.

I took a couple steps forward and Bill followed.

“Has he tried to call you since you’ve come back?”

“Mr. Blair—”

“Can’t you indulge an old man’s curiosity about his only child? You know he doesn’t talk to us much as it is.”

Great, a guilt trip. I gritted my teeth before answering, “He’s been calling, yes.”

To say Alistair had calling would be an understatement. I didn’t have much of an idea of how often he had tried my cell phone. I had long since discarded it, abandoned and forlorn, in the bottom of my luggage. I wasn’t sure how aggressive the press still was in trying to find me, but I wasn’t eager to find out.

Unfortunately for me, Alistair knew my house phone number. The phone at home had rung so much in the first couple days that I’d yanked the cord out of the wall, but Dad had plugged it back in when he got home. “In case of emergencies,” he’d told me curtly.

So, yeah, Alistair had been calling, which wasn’t the same as saying we were talking. I had hung up on him and deleted his messages. The incessant ringing had tapered off in recent days, much to my relief.

Bill and I walked on, stepping lightly down the narrow dirt pathway worn down by the years. Alistair and I had taken the same path so many times, so long ago.

So much hadn’t changed, yet everything had.

“Why don’t you talk to him, hear him out?” Bill asked.

I huffed a sigh of exasperation. Bill was Alistair’s dad. He’d defend him until his last breath.

“Look, Bill, I get it. He loved me once. But that was a long time ago. Alistair is a different man now, a different person. He was someone who was able to do this to me without a second thought about the impact. He ruined everything, literally everything. I warned him, I told him to stay out of my career and said for us to take it slow. And now see where we are. He did this to me to discredit me, to make me rely on him. He manipulated my life, a life I had worked hard to build beyond him.”

“Don’t think I don’t understand. Don’t think I don’t sympathize, either. You’ve worked hard, and Al did you wrong, I know that. But you understand him best out of anyone, and I don’t even know if you can see one hundred percent of him. But there’s a part of him, a real fine part of him.” Bill’s voice softened from his usual gruffness. “Try to focus on that. See the good in him.”

I sidestepped his request. “Does Sandra know?”

Bill shook his head. “She never reads the newspapers out of New York, and I’ll be damned if I tell her our son did this. She’s already kind of fragile, don’t want to upset her.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Oh, you know, she just has to watch what she eats and take care of her insulin. But there are good days and bad days.” Bill shielded his eyes from the merciless sun, spotting the faded yellow house that grew larger in the horizon. “Today is a better day. I should be getting back. She’ll be wondering what’s taking me so long.”

Bill waved goodbye at the edge of the driveway, and I got into Dad’s old sedan and drove off. The air-conditioning was busted, and in the abnormally warm spring weather, I rolled down the windows, the car picking up and scattering dust into the cab. I turned on instinct once the faded, cracked, and wobbly blue mailbox came into view. I stopped the car and leaned out the passenger-side window to fish the contents out of the mailbox.

Some advertisements, the gas bill, and on top of the meager stack was a black-and-white postcard of the New York skyline. I fell back into the driver’s seat, puzzled. I flipped it over and it read, “GIVE ME A DAMN CALL.”

The order was scrawled across the back of the card in blue ballpoint ink, and the message was signed, “—Jones.”

I put the car back into drive and rumbled up our rocky driveway. My heart rate picked up the closer I got to the house.

Along with everyone else, I had distinctly avoided the
Journal
newsroom as well. Tracy had volunteered to be my intermediary and I had gladly taken her up on that offer. As a result, since Dad picked me up at O’Hare Airport and brought me home, I’d been in strangling, low-grade denial about everything.