What You Left Behind (24 page)

I love you, Ryden, I will always love you, but I'm not here anymore.

Her handwriting becomes shakier, less fluid, as I read on.

I hope you'll find great love in your life, the kind that lasts a lot longer than ours. If I still have the right to ask for anything at this point, that's what I want_I want you to move on and be happy.

I've enclosed a letter for Hope. Please give it to her when she's old enough to understand it. Maybe when she's seventeen, so you can tell her that's how old I was when I wrote it. And please make sure she knows I love her, that I wanted her more than anything, and that I wish I didn't have to leave her.

Aaaand there it is. I
knew
she would have included something for Hope. Some sort of mother/daughter thing. I guess her letter won't help me any, since it's all secret and shit, but I think I already gave up on that anyway.

Along those lines, I have something else for you. I know you don't like to talk about your father; I'm not even sure how much you think about him. But I've had a lot of time on my hands while you've been at school, so I tracked him down. I thought maybe learning about him would help you figure out what kind of father
you
want to be. But then again, what do I know?

I love you, Ryden. Always and forever.

Love, Meg

The next page has a sealed envelope taped to it with Hope's name on the front. And the page after that has an address, email address, and phone number for Michael Taylor. How could she possibly have…?

You know what? I can't think about that right now.

I close the book and sit back on the couch, trying to process everything I've read.

“Mom,” I say. I don't really raise my voice, but I know she can hear me.

She comes out of her room.

“You didn't read it?” I ask.

“No.”

“Well, I think maybe you should.” I hold it out to her.

She looks at me, unsure, but takes it and opens to the first page.

I stare out the living room window while she reads. Our neighbor across the street is putting freshly carved jack-o'-lanterns on her front stoop. I wonder if they're going to bake the seeds. Mom and I used to do that when I was little and still into Halloween.

“She found Michael,” Mom whispers. Her face is white with shock.

“Apparently. How do you think she did it? How did she even know his
name
? Did she talk to you about it?”

Mom shakes her head. “She must have gotten a copy of your birth certificate somewhere. Can you find that stuff out on the Internet?”

“I have no idea. I've never tried.”

“Me neither.”

“Maybe she hired someone?” I say. “To track him down? Maybe she used her parents' money?”

“Maybe.”

There's a long pause.

“Well,” Mom says, “what are you going to do?”

I let out an exhausted, painful sigh. “I have absolutely no idea.”

I don't go to school or work for a week.

I make Mom and me sandwiches for lunch and help her with her projects. Mostly I just glue stuff, since it's pretty hard to screw that up.

Hope starts eating solidish foods—cheese and avocado seem to be her favorites—and she picks up the chunks with her fingers and feeds herself. I have no idea when or how or where she learned to do that. It's like she woke up one day this week and just
knew
. She seems pretty damn proud of herself for it too. All smiles and squealing and bouncing around in her seat.

She's got another tooth coming in, but Joni's Washington Square Park soundtrack is helping.

I spend as much time at the lake as possible, since in a matter of days, it will be too cold. Hope comes with me, bundled up under lots of layers.

I call and text Joni several times a day, but she never answers or calls back. I'd thought…hoped…that once a little time went by, she wouldn't be so mad. After all, she said not to drag her into my problems
until
I make peace with the way my life is now. Okay, so maybe I'm still working on that. But it wasn't a “never.” It was just a “not now.” I think, anyway.

I've been thinking a lot about Michael too. I'd kind of given up on finding him—you can only be mocked by Google so much before you start to feel defeated. And yet, I know how to contact him. He lives in New Jersey. I could call him or email him or go meet him. I could do a much more refined Google search and find out if he's an ex-convict on parole or what he does for a living or if he's got other kids. I could show up on his doorstep and finally feel whatever you feel when you look in the eyes of the guy who helped give you life. I think I'm going to.

Declan comes over for dinner Friday night, a week after the Purple Notebook Day. He brings us stuff: a rattle in the shape of a tyrannosaurus rex head (“Your mom told me she likes freaky things,” he explains.) and a steering wheel cover with a black-and-white soccer ball pattern on it for me (“I own an auto supply store, so if you ever need anything…”).

He looks at me, waiting for my reaction.

I stare at the steering wheel thing in my hand. It's kind of a weird gift to give someone, isn't it? Like, here's a random item for your car that no one could possibly ever need.

“I don't play soccer anymore.” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I feel bad. Apparently I can't go a single day without being a douche to someone who's trying to be nice to me.

Declan's face falls. “Oh. I didn't know that,” he says. “Well, you can come by any time and exchange it for something else if you want.”

I shake my head and force myself to put a little effort into the conversation. It's not like I have a ton of people on my side right now. And if my mom's biker boyfriend is offering to be my friend, well, I'm not in a position to turn it down. “Nah, this is cool. Thanks.” I hold out a hand, and he shakes it.

“No problem, man.”

My mom, who's been standing a few feet away, watching the whole exchange, lets out an audible breath, and says, “Why don't we go into the kitchen? Dinner will be ready in a few.”

Declan looks at her and smiles, his eyes taking on that so-in-love look that Mom's been sporting lately, and it hits me like a soccer-ball-patterned steering wheel cover to the face—this guy is going to be around for a long time.

He hands her a bag, and she takes out a bottle of wine and a bakery box that looks like it contains some sort of pie or cake.

“Thanks, babe,” she says and rises up on her tippy toes to give him a quick kiss.

“Did you ride your motorcycle over here?” I ask Declan as we head to the kitchen.

He raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think I have a motorcycle?”

I nod at his outfit as I put Hope in her swing. “I dunno, the leather jacket, the boots, the beard. I have a friend who reads books about bikers, and you look exactly like the guy from the cover.”

Declan laughs. “Okay, you caught me. I had a bike for a long time. But I got rid of it when I had my daughter. Figured I shouldn't take so many risks, since I want to be around to see her grow up.”

That
gets my attention. “You have a daughter?”

He nods. “She's three. She lives with her mother in Portsmouth half the time.”

I glance at Mom. She's smiling to herself as she fills the water glasses.

All throughout dinner, Mom and Declan laugh and talk and brush their hands against each other's and smile dopily across the table. Declan asks me a lot of questions—and he doesn't stick to the safe subjects, like school and work.

“I can't imagine what it's like being a single dad at your age, Ryden,” he says as Hope starts fussing. I get up to make her a bottle. “It's hard enough for me, and I only have my daughter every other week. And I'm thirty-seven. How has it been for you?” He's looking at me like he really wants to know the answer.

“It sucks,” I say completely, one hundred percent honestly, and everyone laughs. “But I'm figuring it out. Trying to, anyway. Mom's been amazing.”

He looks at her but responds to me. “She is amazing, isn't she?”

“Oh, stop,” Mom says, brushing her bangs back from her face. “I'm only doing what anyone else would do in my situation.”

“No, you're not,” Declan and I say at the same time, and everyone laughs again.

I set Hope in my lap, and she latches onto her bottle right away.

Mom beams, like she can't believe how well the evening is going. Honestly, neither can I. Is this what it's like to have two parents? Not that Declan is my father or that I would ever want him to pretend to be. But the whole “two adults, two kids, sitting around the dinner table, laughing and sharing stories, everyone getting along swimmingly” scenario. It's so incredibly foreign.

Declan starts clearing the table as Mom sets out the pie he brought. Even in these simple, basic actions, you can see how happy they are.

He knows everything, and he still loves her. I don't know much about his story, apart from the fact that he has a daughter, but I bet he's told her all about his shit too, whatever it is, and she still loves him. It's so much easier when there're no secrets. When you're with the right person, at least.

Which makes me think of Joni again.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial her number. It goes straight to voice mail.

I wish she were here with us. I wish she would look at me again the way Declan looks at my mom.

I miss her. And it's not about the sex, and it's not about pretending my life is different than it is. That didn't really work anyway. It's about
her
.

It's her stupid jokes and weird, made-up games and her bag full of candy and her wacky outfits and how she meets people wherever she goes. It's the way she's always blowing her hair out of her eyes instead of pushing it back with her hand or securing it with a clip. It's how she skips instead of runs, and how she's so badass in so many ways, with the tattoos and whatnot, but also into ridiculously girly things like romance novels and unicorns.

I miss her magic room. I miss
her
magic
, period.

For the first time, I see it: my and Joni's relationship has absolutely
nothing
to do with Meg. Joni isn't a means of escape. She's her own destination—someone to go
to
, not to use as a means to get
away
.

And I completely blew it.

“Mom,” I say, my voice coming out in more of a whisper than I thought it would.

She's pulled her chair close to Declan's, and she's feeding him spoonfuls of pie and ice cream. “Yeah, bud?”

“I need to go out for a little while.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just…need to do something.”

“Do you want us to watch Hope?” she asks.

“Nah, I'll take her with me.” Mom looks surprised but doesn't comment. “You two look like you need some alone time anyway.” I give her a raised eyebrow.

Mom and Declan laugh. Huh, funny how they didn't disagree.

“I'll text you when I'm on my way home. Don't want to walk in on anything unsavory…”

“Oh, shut up, Ry,” Mom says, still laughing. “Have fun.”

“Uh, yeah, you too, I guess.”

I grab Hope and all her stuff and practically run to the Sable, my plan taking shape with every step forward. Every step closer to Joni.

Elijah's in the garage, as always, working on a painting I haven't seen before. It's a series of faces that look like they're melting. Normally I would ask him what that's about, but I don't have time for that right now.

“Hey, Elijah,” I say. “Is Joni home?”

He's clearly surprised to see me. His eyes zero in on Hope, who's in her car seat, sound asleep from the ride. “She's really pissed at you, dude,” he says, still staring at the baby.

“I know. Just tell me, is she here?”

He nods. “She's in her room. She hasn't really left there all week, except to go to school. I don't even think she's been going to work. Probably trying to avoid your lying ass.”

I'm already on my way toward the front door. “Thanks,” I call back.

I ring the bell, and a middle-aged woman comes to the door. Joni's stepmother. Her skin is the same shade as Elijah's, but her hair, which is cropped close to her scalp, isn't quite as light. She's wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of a golden retriever puppy on it. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“I'm here to see Joni. Um, please. My name is Ryden Brooks.”

“Oh, yes. Ryden Brooks. We know
allll
about you.” She doesn't look very happy with me.

“I've tried calling, but she won't answer her phone. I really need to talk to her. Explain everything. Apologize,” I say.

She stares me down a while longer, arms crossed, considering. A few times, her eyes flicker toward Hope.

“Please,” I say again. “Just give me a chance.”

Finally she drops her arms to her sides. “Wait here.” She closes the door in my face.

I stand there for a few minutes, but she doesn't come back. So I sit on the porch steps, facing the front lawn. It's a huge expanse of green. The flowers that lined the walkway the first time I was here are mostly dead now. Stupid fall.

About fifteen minutes later, Joni's stepmom returns. “She doesn't want to see you.”

I shake my head. “I'm not leaving until she at least tells me that herself.” I'll sit here as long as I have to. Really, where else do I have to be?

She sighs and disappears again.

A few minutes later, I hear Joni's voice. “What do you want?”

I stand up and turn to face her. She's on the other side of the screen, wearing the simplest outfit I've ever seen her in: baggy jeans and a gray hoodie. She's not wearing her nose ring. She gasps when she sees Hope sleeping in her car seat by my feet. Her eyes get a little watery.

“What are you doing, Ryden?”

I reach into Hope's diaper bag and pull out a baggie with a silver twist tie around the top. “I brought you candy,” I say, holding it up. It's filled with Smarties and rock candy and sour gummy worms and tiny boxes of Nerds and all kinds of other stuff. “I stopped at the candy store on the way over. I figure it's my turn to bring you a peace offering.”

She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head. “You can't bribe me with candy and expect everything to go back to the way it was.”

“I'm not—I mean, I would never think that. I just know you like candy, so I wanted to bring you some. You bring—brought—me stuff when I wasn't in a good mood, and it always helped.” I take a deep breath. “Actually, it wasn't the food that made it better. It was you.
You
make everything better, Joni.”

She moves her hands away from her face and looks up slowly.

I take that as a signal to keep talking. “I've missed you so much this week, you have no idea. I know I have no right to show up here and ask you to listen to me like this, but I…I don't know. I want us to start over. I want you to know everything about me, and I want to know everything about you. Even the shitty parts. I can't change the past or pretend it didn't happen, like you said, but I'm hoping there's a way to move forward from it. And I really want you to be there for that.”

I break off, gasping a little. The words rushed out, and I kind of forgot to breathe. Joni watches me, silent.

When I get my air back, I say, “So, first step toward you knowing everything about me: this is Hope.” I hold Hope's car seat so it's close to our eye level, lift one of her sleeping baby hands, and wave it at Joni. “Her name is Hope Rosa Brooks, and her mother's name was Megan Elizabeth Reynolds. She's seven and a half months old, she loves weird-looking monster toys with googly eyes and big teeth, and I'm pretty sure I'm her least favorite person in the world. But we're working on it.” I hold Joni's gaze. “She also loves your Washington Square Park soundtrack.”

“Ryden…”

“Yeah?” I can't stop the hope that surges through me. I'm putting everything out there—it has to work. It just has to.

“I…”

“Yeah?”

“I can't do this. It's too little too late.”

“Joni, please. I—” I stop myself as my brain skips ahead of my mouth and I realize what I was about to say. I was about to tell her I loved her. Where did that come from? I can't be in
love
with her. It's only been seven months since Meg died. Seven and a half. Whatever. It's too soon.
Way
too soon. Instead, I say, “I miss you.”

She shakes her head at me sadly. “Bye, Ryden.” She starts to close the door.

“No! Wait!” I spring into action, pulling open the screen door and sticking my foot in the doorjamb so she can't close the interior door on me. She stops, sighs, and waits.

She wants honesty? Well, then that's what she's gonna get.

“Please don't walk away from me. I feel like if you do, I'll never get you back, and I'm really not okay with that.”

She doesn't move. Her eyes narrow, but they're somehow less sad than they were a minute ago. She's giving me the chance to say whatever I need to say or do whatever I need to do to change her mind once and for all.

Time to pull out the big guns.

I look her straight in the eye and blurt out, “I got my scar when I was eleven years old.” Joni opens her mouth, then closes it, listening. “I was on my way home from my friend's house a few streets over, and I noticed this Frisbee stuck in the branches of a tree right near the house of this family who had, like, nine or ten kids. The ones in my school were really popular. I got this idea in my head that I would climb the tree and get the Frisbee and knock on their door and say, ‘Behold! I have come to return your Frisbee!' And they'd all be grateful and think I was so brave, and word would spread around the neighborhood and on the school bus that I was their hero.”

I keep rambling. “So I climbed the tree. Turned out the Frisbee was a lot higher than it seemed from below, but I got it out and tossed it to the ground. Except then I couldn't get down. I couldn't get a good perspective on the branches or footholds to lower myself down, and I was too scared to jump. So I ended up sitting in that tree, stuck, for hours.”

Joni giggles.
Yes
. It's working.

I smile. “It gets worse. So after a while of sitting there, having no idea how I was going to get down, I had to pee. Knowing I had nowhere to go made me have to pee even more. So I peed from the tree.”

“No!” Joni covers her mouth with her hand.

“Yes. But I couldn't figure out how to do it from my sitting position without getting pee all over me, so I stood up on the branch. And as I was zipping myself back up, I lost my balance and fell. I whacked my face on a few branches on the way down.” I point to my eyebrow. “Needed four stitches.”

Joni shakes her head, amazed. “You're lucky you didn't lose your eye.”

“Tell me about it.” I run my thumb over my scar. “I've never told anyone the real story before. Not Meg, not even my mom. I told her I was playing hockey in the street with the kids in the neighborhood and someone accidentally knocked me in the face with a hockey stick. You and I are officially the only people in the world who know the truth.”

Joni fiddles with the spring on the screen door hinge for a minute, chewing on her bottom lip.

I wait.

She steps outside. “Come on. Let's go for a walk.” She starts across the lawn. “And bring the candy.”