Authors: A. L. Jackson
My spirit danced in the midst of these women who’d rallied around me. Only this time, it wasn’t to pick me up when I was down, but to support me in my time of happiness.
Most stayed for a while as casual conversations struck up in my sister’s cozy living room. Eventually people began to leave. Goodbyes were said, hugs, gentle hands pressed to my belly.
I couldn’t believe the next time I saw my friends and extended family, it’d be as I began the march down the aisle to marry the man I’d loved for as long as I could remember. The upcoming week would be nonstop, dinners to entertain our guests arriving from out of town, our rehearsal and dinner, and I knew Natalie would be dragging me everywhere as we took care of all the last minute details.
I closed the door with a final wave. The only ones who remained were my sisters, Natalie, my mom, and Claire.
I blew out a heavy breath, realizing just how exhausted I was after today. Everyone headed into the kitchen to begin cleaning up, all except for my mom, who hung out on the other side of the couch, watching me.
“This was a great day, Elizabeth,” she said with a subtle nod of her head.
“Amazing. These women…” I looked back at the door they all had just disappeared through. “I can’t imagine feeling more loved than I do right now.”
She offered me a smile as she pulled a small gift from behind her back. She began to walk toward me. “I have something for you, but I didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone.”
A smile wobbled at one corner of my mouth, and I looked at my mom who appeared a little self-conscious, shifting her feet, ill at ease.
The gift was haphazardly wrapped, all over the place with kinks and uneven edges and subdued beauty, a little like my mother’s constant demeanor.
Awe pumped a steady beat with my heart, wound with expectancy and hope. Somehow I knew whatever waited inside, her gift was going to become one of my most cherished possessions.
Slowly I extended my hand out between us, palm up, and watched as she carefully sat the gift upon it.
“Thank you,” I murmured as I glanced up at her with a soft smile, then down to tug gently at the satin ribbon.
Cautiously, I unwrapped her offering. Tearing away the tacks of tape, I pulled the paper free. I lifted the lid to the small box.
“Mom,” I whispered. Nested inside the white satin lining was a ring.
But not just any ring.
My grandmother’s ring.
An old yearning slammed me. It hurt and comforted and filled me whole. I missed my grandma so much, and to be given this was beyond anything I’d ever have expected.
The white gold band appeared the antique it was, worn, though it still boasted the intricate design that wrapped and curled. Delicate tendrils crawled up to cradle a baby blue stone. Pinching it between my fingers, I spun it through the rays of late afternoon light that streaked in through the window, let the colors shimmer and dance and play.
Something old and something blue.
“She gave that to me a few days before she passed,” Mom said. A distinct current of homesickness slipped into her tone. “She told me it belonged to you, and that I’d know exactly when I was supposed to give it to you.”
Wistful emotion played where it danced along the lines set deep in her face, her mouth quivering. “I know that day’s today, Elizabeth. That ring was meant for you to wear on your wedding day.”
She swallowed hard. “I have to be honest and tell you I’ve been worried over all this for you. When Christian came back into your life, I was scared for you, I guess because of all of my
own insecurities…the things I had to go through in my own life.” She kind of laughed, though it was drenched in sadness. “For so long, I viewed the two of us the same, and somewhere inside me, I thought we’d live out our days the same way…alone. Like we had this common bond we both had to bear.” Her voice strengthened. “What I never imagined was Christian would turn out to be the man he is. But there is no mistaking it in him. I’m so thankful you’ve found a man to love you the way you deserve to be. Completely.”
“Mom,” bled from my mouth in a torrent of thankfulness. I rushed to pull her into an eager embrace. “I can’t tell you what this means to me. This ring…you saying this. Thank you…so much. You don’t even know.”
She hugged me tight, her arms wrapped around me in an unwavering declaration of support. “Yes, I do,” she whispered back. “I just want you to be happy.”
I edged back an inch, still clinging to her, clinging to the ring I had pinched between my fingers. God, I was crying again, but I felt so full. So loved. How could I stop them? Today…well, really, these past few months, had been perfectly overwhelming. Flawlessly breathtaking.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”
She touched my cheek. “I can see it. You radiate it. Don’t ever let it go.”
That promise was easy to make. “I won’t.”
Chapter Eleven
Christian
Present Day, Early October
On Monday night, I turned the key on my condo lock. I held the door open and flipped on the light. “Go on in, sweetheart.”
With a passing grin, Lizzie scampered around me into the living area.
I had her pink overnight bag slung over my shoulder, and I dropped it to the floor beside the door.
A wistful smile played at my mouth as I watched my daughter enter my condo. God, I’d been missing her. The last time I’d spent any time with her was Saturday morning before I dropped her back home, and she’d spent the last two nights with Elizabeth. I’d had an early meeting this morning, so I had to ask Elizabeth to take her to school and then she picked her up this afternoon. I’d been anxious all day, wishing the hours away so I could head to Elizabeth’s to pick Lizzie up to spend the night with me.
There’d been something I couldn’t quite read about Elizabeth this evening.
Maybe I was grasping, but I thought I sensed a change, something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Like maybe there was a subtle difference in her eyes. Like maybe there was a flicker of life. It’d been missing for so long, I almost didn’t recognize it, but she’d dropped her gaze faster than I had time to study her, to understand her.
I shook my head. I just didn’t know, didn’t know what she wanted, didn’t know what I could do.
But I knew I was going to have to do something. How much longer would I just sit idle? Doing nothing? An overbearing feeling of helplessness had held me back, kept me down. But I felt it all coming to a head.
I quietly latched the door behind us.
Rays of sunlight streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling windows in my loft. Burning streaks of oranges flamed against the fading blue on the horizon, glimmered across the rippling bay as daylight slipped away.
Lizzie went right for the windows, her favorite spot at my place. “Look at all the sailboats,” she whispered, almost pensive as she pressed her face and hands to the glass. “I wish I got to see the ocean every day.”
I crept up to her side and rested my hand on the back of her head. “It’s really beautiful out there, isn’t it?” I cast her a soft smile.
She returned one that eclipsed anything happening outside. “The ocean is my favorite, Daddy.”
“I know, princess. I know.” It’d become my favorite, too. Something so special to Elizabeth and Lizzie had inevitably become my own. We’d been looking at houses near our beach when everything fell apart. Lizzie had been thrilled, running
through each house with unadulterated wonder as she proclaimed almost every single house we looked at as
the one
. I could only pray one day we would finally make it there.
I nudged her chin. “Are you hungry?”
“Uh-huh.” She dropped one earnest nod, and a sudden cheerfulness took over her expression. “I’m super hungry, Daddy.” She scooted away from the window and into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and peered inside.
Making dinner had become one of her favorite chores. She always wanted to help plan and cook. These cherished moments we spent in the quiet ease of my kitchen had become one of the things I most looked forward to.
“What should we make?” she asked, a flurry of excitement flooding her voice from where it echoed back from the refrigerator. She had her head buried inside, searching through the stock of food I had ready for her.
“I went to the grocery store yesterday to make sure I had plenty of food for you. I picked up some chicken. I thought maybe we make some mashed potatoes and vegetables with it? How’s that sound?”
“That sounds yummy…but I did just have chicken yesterday.”
Wandering in behind her, I kind of laughed as I ruffled a playful hand through her hair while I passed by her. As if she wouldn’t eat chicken every day. I moved to the opposite side of the kitchen and leaned down to pull a large pot from the lower cupboard and set it on the stove.
“You did, huh? Did your help your mommy make dinner last night?”
“Nope! Me and Mommy had a barbecue at Kelsey’s house, and we had barbecue sauce on it, and I ate two whole pieces.”
Normally I would have chuckled at my daughter’s rambling. Not today.
I stilled as a slow sense of foreboding took hold, a shock of ice-cold awareness penetrating deep as it slithered down my spine. It spread out to freeze every cell in my body. With my eyes narrowed, I turned to look back in her direction. Lizzie was leaning over with her back to me, digging through the vegetables in the bottom crisper.
“You went to a barbecue at Kelsey’s house? With Mommy?” I clarified. The words came harsh, forced, because I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to stomach her answer.
Lizzie stood and, with her foot, she nudged the refrigerator door closed. Her entire face glowed as she spun around and danced her way over to me with a plastic bag stuffed with broccoli swinging from her hand.
“Oh, Daddy, we had so much fun. Mommy and I spent almost all day there. I got to play for so long, and I got to help put the sauce on the chicken. I was careful not to burn myself, just like you taught me.”
On its own accord, my head slowly began to shake, and I felt as if I was being led into a massacre, set up for the kill.
This was not happening. I
refused
to let this happen.
“Here you go,” Lizzie prodded at my side, looking up at me in confusion as she handed me the bag of broccoli, completely unaware that her words had cut me to the core.
For once, the child seemed oblivious to the turmoil she’d spun up in me.
“At whose house, Lizzie?” I asked.
Lizzie gave me a look that told me I was crazy. “I already told you, silly. At Kelsey’s house.”
“Which one of Kelsey’s houses?” My voice came out harsher than I intended it to.
Because I already knew.
Shit
.
Distraught, I scrubbed my palm over my mouth and dragged it down my chin. It took everything I had not to shout, took everything inside me not to demand Lizzie give me a different answer than the one I already knew she was going to give. This had nothing to do with her, the unwitting messenger who stood there grinning up at me. No chance in hell would I take this out on her. No chance would I show her that the day she was going on and on about was enough to shred what was left of me.
“Oh…” She giggled as if my meaning had just dawned on her. “At her daddy’s house.”
That asshole. I
knew
it. I fucking knew it.
I forced myself to stand still, because my control was slipping fast. Steadying myself, I pressed my palms onto the counter. The cool surface shocked into my heated hands. Anger pounded through my system, a raging storm that thundered through my veins, an onslaught of fear and outrage and the brutal sense of disappointment that tightly fisted my chest.
Dropping my head, I sucked in a breath and tried to swallow it down. It just lodged at the base of my throat.
I didn’t know if I was angrier with myself or with Elizabeth.
What I did know was I wasn’t going to let that asshole anywhere near her. Who the fuck did he think he was? Taking advantage of Elizabeth when she was at her most vulnerable?
This wasn’t a fucking game.
This was my
family
.
I raked a shaky hand through my hair, then forced a fraudulent smile. The act was physically painful. “Why don’t
you finish rinsing the broccoli and I’ll be right back to help you get it started, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the images from invading my mind. I searched for my bearings before I started down the hall to my bedroom. Darkness swallowed me as I quietly clicked the door shut behind me. For a second, I stood there, just forcing the stagnant air in and out of my lungs, then I staggered the rest of the way into my bathroom. Blindly I fumbled for the light switch. Light flooded the space, and I blinked to orient myself. Not to the harsh glare shining from the lights above the mirror, but to the cruel reality that I might actually lose her.
I guess somewhere inside me, I’d held onto the belief that one day Elizabeth would open her eyes and really see me. That she’d see me the same way I saw her.
As the one she couldn’t live without.
Shit
.
How could I have allowed this to happen?
I held myself up on the counter and dropped my head.
Realization crushed me.
Like Matthew had accused me of the other night, I was a fool.
The worst kind of fool.
After everything we’d been through together, I’d left Elizabeth when she needed me most. Left when life was the most difficult, because I didn’t know how to deal with the pain any more than she did. We’d been blindsided, our foundation ripped from beneath us, nothing there to catch us when we fell.
And when we’d fallen, we had completely fallen apart.
I’d been standing on the sidelines, waiting. Waiting when I should have been fighting.
I lifted my face to find my reflection staring back at me. My eyes swam with torment, swamped in a grief that felt unending and echoed the loneliness that was eating me from the inside out. It was destroying the last piece of me, my last bit of hope that somehow we’d make it out of this together.