Authors: A. L. Jackson
But make-believe could only get me so far, and I knew it was time I measured my strength and resolved how far I’d allow my heart to go.
I glanced across at him. His arm was draped over Lizzie’s shoulder and he played with strands of her hair. His attention was not on the television but on her, attentive to the way her face lit up in laughter, the way she sang along, the way she hid her eyes when the film turned dark even though she already knew the result and her hero would live. He leaned down, nuzzled his mouth against her hair, and looked up at me as he held her close.
And I knew I wanted him a permanent a part of my life, not as lovers, but in a partnership for our daughter, for him to take a place as a part of this family.
Chapter Eleven
Switching lanes, I accelerated through traffic, thankful the I-five flowed free; the Saturday mid-morning traffic was light as I traveled north. Wind pounded my hair, windows and sunroof wide open.
The trip flew by, and faster than I could have imagined, the GPS instructed me to exit and I was hunting for an open parking spot. I slipped into the first one I could find, cut the engine, and jumped from my car. Black flip-flops that just months ago I’d sworn to never wear crunched against the loose pavement under my feet, flinging sand as I followed the walkway up and over the embankment.
I shielded my eyes, scanning the beachgoers dotting the shore below.
They
weren’t hard to spot.
Elizabeth sat on a blanket in beige shorts and a red tank top, long legs stretched out in front of her as she reclined against her elbows, hair whipping around as she watched our child playing in the sand. She attempted to tuck a thick tress behind her ear before it was thrashed with another gust of wind.
Hurrying, I wound down the path and hit the heavy sand, sinking with each step I took.
Lizzie noticed me first.
“Daddy!” she cried out, dropping a plastic bucket and waving wildly. Elizabeth sat up and turned toward me, her lips stretching into a smile I was certain could bring any man to his knees.
I waved as I increased my speed, meeting Lizzie halfway when she ran to me. “Lizzie,” I sang as I lifted her, swung her around, and brought her to my chest in a playful squeeze. “How’s my baby girl today?”
She wrapped herself around my neck, kissed me there. “I missed you, Daddy,” she said against my ear.
I’d seen her only last night, yet I’d missed her too. So much.
I set her down and took her hand. She skipped beside me as we made our way to her mother, Elizabeth’s face aglow and peaceful as she watched the two of us approach.
“Good morning, Elizabeth.”
She pushed the hair from her face and squinted against the sun as she looked up at me. “Hey, Christian. Did you find it okay?”
“Yep.” I contemplated for only a second before I plopped down on the blanket beside Elizabeth and pulled Lizzie down with me. I nestled her between my legs and held her around her small shoulders.
I shook off my shoes, buried my toes in the cool, damp sand, and took in the beach that both Elizabeth and Lizzie had so many fond memories of. This place was something sacred shared between the two of them, and I felt honored to be included. I knew it was rare for even Matthew and Natalie to be a part of it.
And to think only last night I’d felt the bottom dropping out of my world.
Something had touched us in the parking lot of Elizabeth’s work Tuesday afternoon, a new connection after I’d walked headlong from my father’s firm. I’d been so sure of it that on the drive over to pick Lizzie up, I’d planned to ask Elizabeth to join us, daydreamed of her in my kitchen preparing dinner with Lizzie and me, saw her sitting next to me at my kitchen table.
I’d gone weak when I’d caught sight of her on her staircase, the reaction she invoked from my body, the things I envisioned doing to hers.
It had taken a few seconds for my mind to catch up with my flesh, and I’d realized she wasn’t dressed for an evening spent on the couch alone. She was going out.
Then that touchy bastard from Lizzie’s birthday party had shown up.
It’d felt like she’d run me over, the sharp sting of Elizabeth’s hand as it struck me across the cheek, spat in my face. I couldn’t help but turn to her, desperate to ask her why. All I found there were the results of my spoil, as if she’d received the same blow, one I’d inflicted, a reminder that I had done this.
Dinner with Lizzie had been difficult, but I’d forged through it, loved her and made her smile, unwilling to allow my mistakes to steal any more of the precious little time I had with my daughter.
Then Elizabeth had asked me to
stay
.
“Are you hungry?” Elizabeth shifted to her knees and began unpacking the picnic basket, sandwiches wrapped in plastic, whole pieces of fruit, bottles of soda and water. She glanced at me with a timid smile as she set them between us.
“Yeah,” I answered, helping Lizzie with the wrapper of a sandwich. I twisted the cap from a bottle of water for her and did the same for myself, and then I shared lunch with the two girls who owned me heart and soul. Lizzie rested against my chest between my bent knees, peeking up at me as I gazed down at her, grinning as she chewed her ham and cheese sandwich. Her hair flew around us, licking my arms, kissing my chin—it scared me that I might love her too much.
Sated and relaxed, Elizabeth and I sat in silence as Lizzie jogged back to her playthings, far enough away that she submerged herself in her own imaginary world of castles and dragons and princesses but not close enough to the water to cause us alarm. The sun washed over us, its heat the perfect contradiction to the coolness of the ocean breeze.
Elizabeth stared ahead, but I could almost hear the click, the quickening of her pulse, triggering the same reaction in my own, the rush of nerves as she hugged her knees to her chest.
“Did you think of us?” Her voice was pained, and her question hung in the air as a doorway to our past, one she finally asked me to step through. Up until now, every time I’d tried to talk to her, she’d shut me down; but now it came without provocation, her own instigation. As much relief as it brought me, I knew there was no way this conversation would be easy.
“Every day.” I looked over at her and watched the pain gather in the creases at the corner of her eyes.
She turned and rested the side of her face against her knees as tears pooled in the honeyed amber. “Why didn’t you come for us?”
A solicitation for me to finally account for what I’d done.
No. There would be nothing easy about this.
I squirmed while I debated how to explain myself, knowing there would never be any justification. My conscience
assaulted me and I looked to my daughter for strength. I brought a knee to my chest and anchored myself to it as I dug my other hand in the sand, pulling out a handful and watching it fall through my fist as an hourglass.
Exposed in all my shame, I turned back to Elizabeth in confession. “I did.”
I watched her as my words sank in. Her irises widened and a tremor shook her body. “What?” The word fell as a small cry from her lips.
Exhaling some of the pressure in my chest, I focused on Lizzie, knowing I wouldn’t be strong enough to handle the disappointment on Elizabeth’s face while I described to her how I’d not only walked out on her once, but twice. “The night after Lizzie was born. I came to the hospital. I planned on apologizing to you, asking you to take me back.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and pressed on. “But Matthew was there . . . and I . . . left.”
I mustered enough courage to look at her, to watch her have her heart broken all over again. She turned from me and buried her face in her knees, her body convulsing as she tried to still her racking sobs. She jerked up, burning with anger, unable to speak, and then closed her eyes, tripped back into sadness.
“That’s how you knew about Matthew,” she said under her breath. She seemed disoriented as she tried to acclimate herself to this most dishonorable revelation.
I couldn’t stop now, even when I was certain my words would do more damage than good, but when I came back into this, I’d promised myself I would always be truthful with her. “That night I convinced myself I was doing the right thing . . . sacrificing for you so you could have a normal life with Matthew. I realize now it was just an excuse, Elizabeth. I walked away from
my child
because I thought I couldn’t have
you
. I never
even knew if she was a boy or a girl.” This admission flowed like poison from my mouth, vile in its offense.
“I regretted it every day. I’d always expected to hear from you with a request for child support or . . . something. I waited, but none ever came.” No apology could ever rectify this wrong, but still I needed her to understand.
Elizabeth’s bottom lip quivered, and she shook her head, a clear dismissal of my reasoning. “That doesn’t make it any better, Christian.” She looked out upon Lizzie, and then leveled her eyes back on me. “Maybe it makes it worse. For so long I believed we never even crossed your mind, that the moment I’d walked out of your apartment we’d been forgotten, and to find out you . . . you waited for me to
come to you
,” she stressed the words. “It’s just . . . ” she said, at a loss for what to say as her voice trailed off.
“I thought you were happy.”
She sniffled and rocked herself. “How could you think that? Did you not believe that I
loved
you? That I wanted to spend my life with you?”
“Of course I knew you loved me.” My voice rose in frustration. “There’s nothing I can say that can make any sense of the decisions I made. Bottom line, I was a selfish asshole.” I splayed my hand through my hair, helpless, losing the grip I’d had on my control. I angled toward her, capturing her face with my eyes as I pled with her. “It doesn’t change anything, Elizabeth, but I
truly
am sorry. If I could, I’d take it back, right back to the moment I made you choose between me and our child. That was the worst decision I’ve ever made.”
She turned away and sat silent while she listened to my explanation, watching the waves race in against the sand, their constant ebb and flow but still steady progress as they claimed a
stake further up the bank, just like us, the low necessary to reach the high.
I looked out at the horizon, unable to discern where the ocean met the sky, and settled into her quiet as I continued to speak. “My mother . . .” I felt her eyes fall on me. “She always pushed me to find you, told me I was wrong in staying away. I never believed her until I saw Lizzie in that store.” I looked at Elizabeth who was staring at me as my words turned to desperation. “She means everything to me, Elizabeth.”
You mean everything to me
.
I didn’t say it aloud. She wasn’t ready to hear it yet.
Even under the weight of the conversation, I saw in her expression that she at least understood
this
, accepted that I adored Lizzie. That expression shifted as if something had just occurred to her, her words flowing with the quiet shock of her realization. “You left your father’s firm because of her.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to. I’d give up anything for my child.
Elizabeth glanced at Lizzie and then back at me. “I’m so sorry, Christian.”
“I’m not,” I said with complete conviction, because it was true. I couldn’t go on working for a man who would say such unfounded, disgusting words about Elizabeth and my child. I should have walked away six years ago.
She chuckled quietly, and I could tell by the softness that settled on her face that it was not at my expense, but in her own surprise with my actions. “You are a mystery, Christian Davison.”
I shook my head at her notion. “No, Elizabeth. I’ve just changed.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly, her lips parting as the idea seemed to penetrate her, her eyes setting in agreement. I hoped she believed that change was for the better.
Taking a collective breath, we turned our attention back to Lizzie and watched while she filled bucketfuls of sand with a small plastic shovel, tipped them over into towers that housed the captive of her fairy tales, her mouth moving without voice as she played out the scene unfolding in her head. It was as if we had called a time-out, a reprieve from the past, needing a moment to regain a measure of equilibrium before pressing forward.
Finally, I broached the topic I was sure neither of wanted to discuss. “Will you tell me about Matthew?”
She emitted a heavy breath, though didn’t seem surprised by my line of questioning. “Matthew.” She released an affectionate huff. “We tried so hard to fall in love. The first time I slept with him, I was four months pregnant with Lizzie.”
I flinched at her brutal honesty, but that’s exactly what the last six years had been—brutal.
Swallowing, she seemed to get lost in the memory. “I cried the whole time.” Her voice dropped in slow ruefulness. “Matthew was so good to me. He kissed away my tears and promised that it would be okay, that somehow we would make it work.”
She glanced at me askance, not meeting my face. I realized I was holding my breath. “But it was always forced. We loved each other, but not like that. The day after we got to San Diego, Natalie showed up at our doorstep to meet my new daughter and boyfriend, and it was like . . . like . . .” She looked up at me as if she were wondering if I could understand. “Like they could touch each other from across the room.”
“I let him go that night.” She laughed without humor and shook her head. “Of course he tried to refuse, adamant that Lizzie and I were his family, and he’d never leave us like that.” We cringed at the same time, cutting words that hadn’t been her intention. Her eyes flashed to mine. “I’m sorry, Christian, I didn’t mean—”
I shook my head, stopping her. “It’s okay, Elizabeth.” She shouldn’t apologize for my deficiencies. The truth was that I’d left her.
“Anyway,” she went on, “We talked the entire night, and we both decided if he stayed, we were only prolonging the inevitable. He packed a small bag and checked into a hotel down the street from my apartment. Within two weeks he had moved in with Natalie.” She sighed with a shrug. “When it didn’t hurt, I knew we’d made the right decision.” She looked at me with a grimace etched into her beautiful face. “All I felt was relief.”