The Offer (33 page)

I hear
Taylor’s voice from across the table but I’m not really listening.
There’s a song playing in this San Bernardino strip-mall café, the
volume too low and it’s bugging me that I can recognize the beat
but I can’t hear the lyrics.

“Bram,” she
says softly and finally I look at her.

“Hmmm?”

“I’m sorry
about the way things happened with Nicola,” she says and that name
feels like a fist in my heart. “I shouldn’t have shown up at your
door like that. I didn’t think that…”

“You didn’t
think that I’d have anyone meaningful in my life,” I finish
absently. I twirl the watch around my wrist and give a melancholy
shrug. “I don’t blame you. And please, there’s no need for you to
be sorry. I’m sure I had it coming. Karma has a sharp eye, you
know.”

She nods. “I
know. But it’s been so many years and…I really didn’t have the
right to show up like I did.”

I sigh. She
says this but I know she thinks its justified and she’s probably
right. When someone has been wronged– when someone else has fucked
up so much that their debt will never end – there’s really nothing
they can do that’s ever uncalled for, ever too much.

I don’t blame
Taylor whatsoever. She was watching the news and suddenly there I
was, the baby daddy she tried so hard to forget. She doesn’t tell
me this, but I bet she wanted to throw rocks at her TV, perhaps
burn it. She at least screamed and cursed it, I know that.

Then motherly
instinct took over and she piled Matthew into the car and drove up
to San Francisco to see the man she tried to pretend never
existed.

I know she
only came for the money, though she tells me that wasn’t the case.
She said it was about seeing me through new eyes. I was successful
and ambitious and, more than that, I was virtuous now. I was the
opposite of the man she hated. I had proven that I could get my
life on track and actually make a difference in other people’s
lives, not just my own.

And maybe
that’s true. But at the moment, I’m not making that much
difference. I still have the same tenants in my building, the same
ones who can’t afford to live anywhere else, the ones that need me.
I’ve got all but two…the most important ones.

Nicola moved
out the next day, true to her word. I tried to stop her. I tried
everything. She wouldn’t have any of it. I’d never seen her so
headstrong, so vicious, and I know I deserved it but it hurt more
than anything else. She was protecting Ava more than she was
protecting herself and when I caught a glimpse of that little girl
crying in the halls, well…I lost it that day.

I lost plenty
that day.

And the loss
is still with me. It’s building, not easing. Every morning, I wake
up to an empty bed and it’s like another fucking black brick is
cemented into my chest. Nicola has absolutely no idea what she
meant to me – what she still means to me – and what hurts the most
is that she’ll never see my pain.

I need her to
see it, to feel it, to know it.

I’ve lost the
magic in my life.

“You’re a good
man, Bram,” Taylor says.

I let out a
dry laugh and raise my brow at her. “Are you sure there isn’t a
splash of booze in your coffee?”

She
gives me a quick smile. “You’re a good man
now
. And maybe you were back then, deep down. I
certainly thought so. You know I was madly in love with you, Bram.
Madly. That’s why it hurt so much.”

I nod. “As I
said. Karma.” I pause. “I loved you too, you know.”

She shakes her
head. “No. That wasn’t love Bram. You don’t…do things like that to
someone you love. I have no doubt you felt what you thought was
love, but when you have love, you don’t throw it away. You don’t
give up on it. You don’t run, even when it scares you. And if you
do, then it wasn’t love.”

I chew on my
lip for a moment. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“It is that
simple. Human beings are complicated. Love is simple.”

“Well,” I say,
having a hard time arguing with that. I sip my tea, which is
growing cold. “Whatever it was that I felt for you, I thought it
was love. And I believed it was for the longest time.”

“Until you met
her.”

I meet her
eyes but I can’t hide the wince. “Yeah. Until her.”

“So now you
know. What you had for me and what you have for her, they aren’t
the same.”

I can’t help
but notice her use of the present tense.

She gives me a
knowing smile. “No use in pretending you’re not still madly in love
with her, Bram.”

“Well,” I
start, not sure if I should tell her that I didn’t even know I had
been in love with Nicola until now.

But she’s
right.

Because all
along, I was in love with her. It was too simple to know. I was
expecting something more drawn-out and complicated than it already
was. When really, she had my heart for a while.

Just that
realization on its own is enough to knock me off my chair.

And to think,
when she told me she loved me, I could have told her in return. I
could have said anything at all instead of what I did. I didn’t
have to already break her heart before I broke it again.

“Listen,”
Taylor says to me. “When I saw you on the news, I didn’t go up
there to mess up your life. I didn’t want you to tell me you still
loved me, because I know we have both moved on. And you’ve been
more than gracious to put the two of us up for this last month. It
all couldn’t have been better timing, with me being between jobs
and Matthew really needing a father figure right now. All I wanted
from you was for him to know you and for you to know him and so
far, that’s what he’s gotten. He now knows the man behind the
socks.” She smiles to herself and twirls the coffee cup around in
her hands. “The last thing I want is to ruin what you had. If you
love her still, you need to go after her. You need to tell her and
you need to fight for her.”

I swallow
misery down my throat. “It’s a bit too late for that.”

She blinks at
me surprised. “It’s never too late,” she says adamantly. “What did
I just say about love? It’s simple. It doesn’t just go away. If she
was in love with you before, and judging by the heartache on that
poor girl’s face, she was in deep, then she’s still in love with
you now. Believe me, please, I’ve been there. Anger doesn’t erase
love. Pain doesn’t erase love. Crying doesn’t erase love. Only time
does. Lots and lots and lots of time.” She flicks her finger at me.
“And take it from me, time has barely moved on for the both of you.
It’s been just over a month. She’s going to love you for a lot
longer than that. I hate to admit this, but until three years ago,
if you had showed up at my door again with one more attempt to win
me over, it would have worked.”

“And our lives
would be completely different,” I note, leaning back in my chair.
The volume of the song goes up and I recognize Garbage’s “The Trick
is to Keep Breathing,” and I think Shirley Manson’s right about a
lot of things.

“Different,
yes,” Taylor says. “But you know what, I don’t regret a thing.”

I look at her
sharply. “What was that?”

“I said I
don’t regret it. I don’t believe in regrets anyway. It’s no way to
go through life. Whatever happens, happens and it shapes us all to
the here and now, where we are supposed to be.”

Nicola’s
motto. It’s all too much.

Taylor reaches
over and touches my hand. “We were never supposed to be together,
Bram. And Matthew wasn’t supposed to know his father until now.
Because we’ve been okay, him and I. We’re a team. Because of you,
the checks, he’s never wanted for everything. And it’s made me
stronger. It’s made me realize what I want. Sure, no one asks to be
a single mom but it’s not the end of the world either. It’s just
life. You deal with it and keep moving.”

“And
love?”

She gives me a
coquettish smile. “There is a man you know. Irving. He’s in the
military so I don’t see him that often and we’re only really
friends anyway. But he’s fond of Matthew and Matthew is fond of
him. And I know it’s love. Small love on its way to big love. I
just haven’t found the nerve to tell him yet. But I will, the
moment he gets back.”

I manage a
smile. “That’s great. Good to hear.”

She does a
little dance in her seat and the way she blushes reminds me of
Nicola. “So you see, there’s hope for me. And there’s a lot of hope
for you, Bram.”

I suck in her
words like oxygen. Hope has seemed like a very dangerous word
lately.

“Well,” she
says, pushing back her coffee. “I should get going back to the
house.”

I know this is
goodbye for now. After Taylor and Matthew arrived on my doorstep, I
made sure they were able to stay in the city for as long as they
wanted. Then a week ago, they went back down to San Bernardino and
I went along for the ride to see where Matthew lives, to be more
involved.

I’ve been
staying at a local hotel but now it’s time for me to fly back into
SF. I’ve got my cousin coming in from Edinburgh tonight, which
means I’ll be distracted for the next while, something I sorely
need.

“Are you sure
you’re okay with taking a cab to the airport?” she asks. “I can
drive you.”

I pat the
suitcase beside me. “I’m fine, go rescue Matthew from his aunt.” I
get out of my chair and though my first instinct is to shake her
hand, I end up pulling her into a bear hug. “Thank you for being so
forgiving.”

She hugs me
back, patting me lightly. “Thank you for being so easy to forgive,”
she says. “Once a charmer, always a charmer.” We both pull away and
she puts her hands on either side of my face and stares intently at
me. “I live with no regrets. You need to too. Go and make sure you
don’t have any.”

“I will,” I
assure her. As she walks to the door, I yell, “And tell that wee
boy that the next time the Dodgers play the Giants, I’ll be calling
him up, gloating.”

She rolls her
eyes and keeps walking. Naturally, I don’t have much interest in
baseball, but Matthew is obsessed with the LA Dodgers and I’m
trying to relate to him on as many levels as I can. It’s definitely
not easy to go from being such a distant figure to someone real in
Matthew’s life. It’s a learning curve for both him and for me. We
don’t yet have a relationship with each other and I doubt it will
ever get to the level where he’ll start calling me dad, but you
never know. I’ll certainly be working on it whenever I can.

But Taylor has
made it very clear that they have their own life and though she
wants me to be a part of it, I’m to have my own life too.

If only my
life had Nicola in it.

I exhale,
those bricks shifting around in my chest but never moving. I finish
my tea, then pick up my suitcase and head back home.

***

The next few
days fly by for once, instead of the slow, painful grind. There’s
nothing like heartache to make every day last a million years, to
make every breath feel like your last. But having your cousin, whom
you haven’t seen in ages, bunk with you makes the clock tick on. I
would have put him up in Nicola and Ava’s old apartment but I can’t
quite seem to move on from that. It’s empty and I want it to stay
that way, just in case they ever come back.

To say I’m
delusional is an understatement.

Needless to
say, Lachlan McGregor is quite the roommate. The man really opens
up when he’s drunk, otherwise he’s extremely serious and rarely
smiles. Normally that would be okay because, let’s face it, I can’t
deal with any more drama. But I’m also the type who cracks jokes to
win people over and with Lach it feels like I’m talking to a brick
wall. It doesn’t help that he kind of resembles one.

Back at his
home in Edinburgh, Lach is a rugby player, a wing, for the city’s
main team but a recent tear to his Achilles heel has put him on
their backburner for the time being. I had known for some time that
Lach was pretty loaded, not just from the sport but because he’s
actually an extremely smart man whose been making a lot of key
investments over the years. If anyone is going to disprove the
stereotype that all rugby players are dumb gits, well, it’s
Lach.

Though we chat
on FB on occasion, commenting on pictures or whatever else (“oh,
you won the game again, way to go you dumb ape” – even though he’s
smart, I don’t want him to think I know that) our relationship
never really went beyond that. You know how it is with cousins,
especially when you come from a fucked up family.

However,
with the news feature on me and then a write-up opinion piece in
the
San
Francisco Chronicle
that
fought for my funding, my whole low-income housing project has
stalled. I’m out of a lot of money, paying my mortgage with my
savings and no money coming in. If this all keeps up, I’ll lose my
project and my dream and be in the hole for it. After losing Nicola
and Ava, I refuse to let that happen.

So, I
swallowed my goddamn pride and called him up. It’s not easy asking
your cousin, who is far more successful than you and three years
younger to boot, for help. But I did it. Because, fuck it, I’m not
going to fail again.

To my
surprise, Lachlan was bored waiting on the sidelines, and even
though he should be returning to the sport by the time the new
season starts, he said he would at least come over for most of the
summer. Though I grilled him on my idea beforehand, now that he’s
been here we’ve really put our heads together trying to come up
with the best way to move forward. If things go well and if he can
find a backer on his own, he says he’d be willing to join me, make
a non-profit corporation and get this thing off the ground.

“Justine!” I
suddenly say with a snap of my fingers.