Authors: A. L. Jackson
I spent long days at the beach lost in guilt, anger, and remorse, and I spent the even longer nights torturing myself with his messages. Like a masochist, I pressed his broken voice to my ear and listened to him again and again.
Sometimes he begged me to call him and said he didn’t understand what he had done, but he was sorry for whatever it was. He told me too many times that he loved me.
As time went on, the messages became filled with anger and accusations, demanding to know how I could do this to him, do this to our daughter. He implored with me that if I wouldn’t allow him to speak to Lizzie, then to at least have the decency to tell her how much he loved and missed her, that he was thinking of her every second of every day. Other messages were filled with silence, though the pain of his presence was thick enough to speak for him.
Each day, I stood aside and watched my little girl suffer, the one person I was supposed to love the most, the one I was to protect and care for. I told myself that I
was
doing this to protect her, and then had to ask myself when I’d become such a selfish liar. She had withdrawn inside herself. She still wouldn’t speak and could barely eat—didn’t cry except in her restless sleep. Her eyes were sunken, their sweet intensity deadened, her vibrant spirit snuffed out and trampled under. Her teacher had called full of concern, saying Lizzie wasn’t acting like herself, and that she was
worried
.
I’d given her some pathetic excuse that we’d just had a hard week and promised that Lizzie would be fine.
Friday I pulled up to Matthew and Natalie’s house at five just as I had every day of the week. Sitting in the car at their curb, I tried to compose myself and pull myself together. I felt cold, chilled to the bone from the day spent with my feet submerged in the cold autumn water of the Pacific Ocean. I closed my eyes and held the steering wheel, willing away the sickness in my stomach, the ache in my heart, the fog clouding my mind, but there was nothing that could chase them away.
Sensing movement, I looked up to see Matthew had emerged from the house with Lizzie in his arms. Her face was buried in his neck, and he held her protectively while he glared over her shoulder at me. He’d attempted to talk to me all week, but each time I had shut him down. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it—I already
knew
what he would say.
I rose from the car to meet them, but Matthew pushed by me, gently placed Lizzie into the backseat of my car, and buckled her into her booster seat. He kissed her head and told her he loved her. She said nothing, stared ahead with vacant eyes. He paused for a moment and then placed his palm on her forehead as if he were checking for a fever. He mumbled something before he stood and shut her door. For a moment, he stared at me. His expression told me everything I needed to know. He was furious with me—blamed me.
I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin defensively.
He shook his head at my reaction and started up his sidewalk without a parting word. Halfway to his door, he paused and shifted, before he turned around with his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t you think you’ve let this go on long enough, Elizabeth?”
I shook my head and scrunched my brow, pretending I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about.
Matthew scrubbed his face, agitated as he forced the air from his lungs. It was as if he had to regain control before he could even look at me.
“You have to put an end to this, Elizabeth.” He pointed at Lizzie sitting in the back of the car. “She’s miserable.” He punctuated both words with an angry jab of his finger, though they sounded sad and desperate.
“You don’t even know what happened . . . what he
did
to me!”
He laughed in an almost incredulous way. Coming from Matthew’s mouth, it still sounded a lot like sympathy. “What? You two slept together? Did you really not see it coming, Elizabeth? Because the rest of us sure as hell did.” His voice softened and he took a step forward. “I get it, Liz . . . why you’re upset. The timing was wrong and he should’ve waited . . . he knows he should have . . . but you know as well as I do it was going to happen, and it’s not right to make Lizzie pay for it.”
I flinched and stepped back against my car, both embarrassed that Christian had told him outright and confused that it hadn’t angered Matthew.
My throat constricted as I, once again, used my daughter as a way to justify my fear. “He’s just going to end up hurting Lizzie.”
Matthew snorted in disbelief and took another step forward, lowering his head to look me in the eye. “I think it’s about time you questioned just who you’re protecting, because it sure as hell isn’t that little girl.”
“I thought you were on my side.” Tears welled in my eyes, hurt because I’d believed Matthew would always stand by me, but more so because I knew he was right.
He glanced at the ground, then back at me, and took the last step to bring us face-to-face. His words were intense as if he wanted to shake me to make me understand. “I am on your side. All I’ve ever wanted was what’s best for you and Lizzie, and if you’d stop being so goddamned scared for once in your life, you’d see that it’s Christian!”
With that, I broke. The tears flowed and I fell into Matthew’s arms. He held me up just as he always had. He rocked me and shushed me as he told me, “It’ll be okay,
sweetheart.” He ran his hand through my tangled hair and whispered again, “It’ll be okay.”
He stepped back, gripping my upper arms with both hands and squeezed me in reassurance as he pled, “It’s time to allow yourself some happiness, Elizabeth. You’ve loved that man since the day I met you, and running from him now isn’t going to change it.”
I gasped and tried to catch my breath as I admitted, “I don’t know how.”
He kissed me on my forehead and squeezed me again. “Yes, you do.”
Then he touched my cheek and left me standing there while he walked back into his house.
Reeling, I sank down into my seat. I wiped at my tears with the back of my hand and glanced at Lizzie through the rearview mirror. For the first time since her father had walked out our door almost a week before, her expression was something other than numb, and tears stained her precious round face.
In silence, I drove us home. As soon as I pulled into the garage, I hurried to Lizzie’s door and gathered her into my arms, desperate to erase the distance I’d placed between us over these last few horrible days.
I felt sick, finally accepting what I’d done, that I’d kept my daughter at arm’s length when she needed me most. And I’d done it to shield myself from the blame—and from her pain.
I stood in my garage, holding my child. I breathed her in, nuzzled her with my nose, and kissed her for the first time in a week. I ran my hands through her hair, her father’s hair, and apologized again and again, “I’m so sorry, baby girl. Mommy is so sorry.”
She dug her fingers into my skin and wept.
I swayed us in an attempt to console the inconsolable little girl in my arms.
She hiccupped, climbed up higher as she wrapped her arms around my neck, and spoke for the first time. “I miss my daddy.”
I released a heavy breath and drew her closer.
“I know, baby. I miss him too.”.
Chapter Seventeen
Leaving Lizzie that way was the hardest thing I’d ever done. The door slammed behind me harder than I’d intended, and I’d felt the intensity of Lizzie’s stare through the window as she watched me walk away from her. I couldn’t stop the sound of her begging me to stay from persisting in my ears. The muscles in my chest coiled and constricted, and I had to force myself to get in my car and drive away.
At the end of the street, I stopped, buried my face in my hands, and tried to make sense of how everything had fallen apart—how in one hazy night my near-perfect life had been destroyed. It was a life that I’d known only for a handful of months, but one that had erased every lonely day I’d had before it began.
How could I have been so stupid? Why did I have to push and take when I knew she wasn’t ready?
I’d wakened to an empty bed with the taste of stale alcohol on my tongue and a hint of Elizabeth on my skin. It all rushed back, how the night had escalated out of control and had erupted in pent up passion, fast hands, and impulsive reactions. I
was hit with the magnitude of the mistake I’d made.
I hadn’t even asked
but had come undone inside of her, careless and irresponsible. I should have known where Elizabeth’s mind would go, what it would remind her of. I’d stumbled from her bed and downstairs to seek her out. I’d wanted to reassure her of my love, to show her that no matter how imprudent our actions were from the night before, I was there to stay. I’d felt a fleeting sense of relief when I’d come upon her holding my shirt to her face.
That relief had been shattered when she’d pushed me away, demanded that I go, accused me of taking advantage of her.
She thought I’d
used
her.
“Damn it, Elizabeth,” I said aloud in the confines of my car as I rammed my head back against the seat. I contemplated turning around and going back to her house. Instead, I turned out onto the main road.
While I drove back toward my condo, I tried to convince myself that Elizabeth just needed some time to calm down, and just like so many times before, any measure of progress we made was met with a step back. Somehow, though, I knew that this time it was different. I’d touched Elizabeth in a place that never should have been touched, had unleashed something deeper than I’d ever acknowledged existed—something I’d created in her many years before.
There was no other explanation for her reaction. This woman was one of the best mothers I knew. She was a woman who loved our daughter just as deeply as I did. Something had to have snapped inside of Elizabeth for her to put Lizzie through what she had this morning. I’d wanted to shake her, to grab her by the shoulders and demand that she wake up and see what she
was doing to Lizzie—to open her eyes so she could see the fear in Lizzie’s.
Instead, I was left struggling to comfort our daughter the best I could, to promise her that it would be okay even when I really wasn’t sure that it would.
Never had my condo felt more desolate than when I stepped through the door this Sunday morning. My head pounded with the remnants of last night’s excess, a reminder of my indiscretions. I crawled under the cold sheets of my bed and forced my lids closed, hoping for escape, a few minutes reprieve. Behind them I only saw my daughter’s face and heard the echo of Elizabeth’s words,
I hate you . . . I want you out of our lives
.
And I didn’t know who to blame.
I’d messed up, I knew. I should have been more cautious. Elizabeth was fragile and should have been treated with care. But I knew, even still, even after everything that had been said, that she had wanted me just as badly as I had wanted her. It had been building for weeks, for months.
Besides that, no matter what Elizabeth and I had done to each other, regardless of any mistakes we may have made and whatever consequences we had to face, there was absolutely no excuse for making Lizzie suffer because of it.
Eluded by sleep, I sat up and called Mom. I just needed someone to talk to, someone to offer me hope in a time when I felt entirely hopeless. I told her everything with as little detail as possible.
She sighed and muttered, “Oh, Christian.” Her disappointment was clear. I could see her shaking her head, sad and worried, as she told me, “Give her some time.”
Time. Always more time.
I tried, but it was nearly impossible.
The hours ticked by, second by excruciating second. The sun filled the sky and then dove toward the ocean, all the while I sat static on my couch, waiting.
At seven fifteen, I called, and a new fear gripped me when it went to voicemail. Seven fifteen wasn’t about Elizabeth and me. It was about Lizzie. Would she really try to keep me from my daughter?
I want you out of our lives
.
A stunning pain tore through my chest as I listened to the unbearable silence on the other end, and I finally pled low, “Please, Elizabeth, don’t do this.” I prayed she would come to her senses.
I’d almost forgotten what insomnia felt like, the exhaustion coupled with a racing mind and thundering heart. Only now it was so much worse than ever before. In place of nagging guilt and what-ifs was agonizing loss. Shadows that had once concealed an unknown child were replaced by the face of my precious daughter, by her glowing spirit and the pinked roundness of her cheeks, by the trust in her smile and the faith in her eyes when I promised her I would never leave her again. Those images blurred and mixed with thoughts of Elizabeth, the woman with the sweet, insecure smile and wary heart that I’d come to know over the last months, the woman I loved even more now than the girl I’d fallen in love with years before, only because I’d grown to be capable of that kind of love.
And as much as I wanted to run from the memory, I couldn’t help but think of the way Elizabeth’s skin had burned under my hands the night before and how perfect she had felt. Even though it had been wrong on so many levels, it still had been completely right—because
we
were right.
Groaning, I rolled over in bed and gave up on getting any sleep. I stood and stretched my sore muscles when the first light seeped through my bedroom windows.
I went into the office early and left just as soon as I’d come. I couldn’t focus on anything but the relentless throbbing in my chest.
From my car, I called Elizabeth again and again. I knew I shouldn’t, that I should give her time, but I begged her to call me. I told her I had never intended to make her feel used, that she and Lizzie meant the world to me, hoped if I told her I loved her enough she would finally believe it.
Matthew showed up at my condo that evening. I buzzed him in and wasn’t surprised at all to see the rage set deep in the lines of his face when I opened the door. It drained when he saw me, catching him off guard, before he stepped inside and demanded to know what the hell was going on.
I didn’t spare him the details I had spared my mother.