My disobedient memory reminds me why the sadness is there. The things she’s suffered that put it in those gorgeous blue eyes—watching her mother die of cancer and being with her brother while he committed suicide in his bedroom. Going through that all alone so young with a father unwilling to see her agony. The guilt she felt. The pain. Struggling through it on her own in silence, burning her body just to shut off the pain—an unending legacy, a forever part of her, like the infinity brand on her hip and burn scars on her leg. The things that make her so cautious and afraid and untrusting. Why she’s so loving and gentle and goodhearted always. Why she makes so many messes in her life. And why, when I look at her, I just want to love her until the sadness goes away, even now, when she’s ripped out my heart in yet another devastating way.
The things that make her a woman capable of this.
The things that make me love her through everything.
But no, no, no.
It’s not going to happen, not through this.
“How the fuck do you have five kids that are mine and not intend it, Chrissie?” I snap and she jumps, flinching.
She takes in an anxious breath. “I’ve tried to tell you so many times. I don’t know why I couldn’t. That’s not an excuse. I know there is no excuse. I’m not going to try to make one, and I think it’s better if we wait until you’re less angry for me to try to explain.”
I stare at her, stunned. She wants to end this discussion? She thinks she can dictate anything between us after this?
My anger pulses through me. “There is only one explanation I’d like to hear. Then I think we’re through. I know that birth control is beyond basic management for you, Chrissie, but fuck, we both know you know how to get an abortion, so why the fuck didn’t you?”
The color drains from her face.
Oh fuck. Those words I want to reclaim because that’s not how I feel, not what I meant to say. I’ve always felt hurt that she had an abortion and never told me, and that every other fucking man she was with she gave birth to his kids.
It was the cruelest thought in my head.
It poured out on its own.
I need to take back those words.
I didn’t mean them.
But I can’t.
The way she’s staring at me chokes in my throat any apology I could attempt to make.
“That was mean, Alan,” she whispers, heartbroken, then she lowers her eyes and stares at the ground. “I know you didn’t mean that. It hurts anyway. And I’m sorry that I made you angry enough to say something that isn’t even close to who you are.”
The blood starts pounding through my head. That effortlessly she sends me into total disarray. And the only thing I want to grab onto to keep me from going under is her.
It’s fucking insane, but even in this worst of the worst moment of us, I want her with me as we go through this.
I stare at her, ragged from pain and too many other emotions I’m nowhere near ready to sift through.
The same question keeps turning in my head.
I can’t shut it down.
I can’t make reason of it.
I look at her. “How could you do this, Chrissie? You stole my family from me.”
“I didn’t steal them, Alan. I kept them for you. I loved them. I waited. There’s a difference.”
Her tone.
Her posture.
Oh fuck, she thinks she’s done something defensible here. The way her eyes stare is too much to endure. I can’t listen to any more tonight.
No. Not tonight, Chrissie.
I don’t answer her. I brush past her and into the house. I don’t care if what she did makes sense to her. If she thought it was right. Or anything else she might say to try to get us through this.
It’s not going to work this time. And I’m sure as hell not going to try to decode her logic. There is no logic to this. No way to defend it.
Goddamn her.
Chapter 18
I stay in the car and stare at the house. How the fuck did I get here? I know I drove, but my mind is blank, everything has an unreal, detached, and mechanical feeling. Driving, breathing and even thinking.
I hopped on the freeway in LA planning to go to the airport, get on my plane and go to New York to do a lot of things that I haven’t thought of in decades. Irrevocable things. Things that would make this ripping agony and her no longer consume me.
But I brought myself here.
Single-story white Spanish structure with a tiled roof.
Unchanging.
Exactly as it had been twenty-five years ago.
I climb from the car, hurry up the pavement, and knock on the door. Fuck, I didn’t call. What if he’s not here? My pulse starts to accelerate again—
The door opens wide.
Blue eyes staring at me.
The sight of him makes my emotion give way.
“I’m glad you came here,” Jack says, pulling me into his arms and holding on to me firmly.
“I don’t want to fuck up my life. I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t want to lose Chrissie. But I don’t know how to forgive her. I don’t know how to get through this, it is tearing me apart, and I’m the closest I’ve ever been since Chicago to using again.”
Jack pats me firmly on the back. Like that, everything inside me seems less on the edge and a little more manageable.
“It will be OK, Alan. Come in. We’ll talk. We’ll get through this together. You can stay as long as you need to. Neither of us is going anywhere until we’ve worked through this for you.”
* * *
I sit on a chair above the cliff staring at the ocean. I’ve been here four days. We talk. We cook. We jam in the studio together. Sometimes we just sit, silent, like we’re doing now. Jack says an occasional trite, folksy axiom, his version of wisdom. Little bits of nothing that have the strange power to move through me as something significant, soothing, focusing, and grounding.
I take a sip of my coffee and shake my head. It’s ridiculous that what Jack does works so completely for people in crisis. But everything is clearer and in focus in me, and that moment of crisis that’s remained a threat even after twenty-five years has stepped back away from me again.
I’m no longer on the edge.
I still don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.
I shift my gaze to Jack. We’ve been friends forever. I still don’t get him. The man is an enigma unto himself. I’ve never asked. But I’m tired of talking about me.
“How do you do it?” I ask. “Get past things as a man you shouldn’t be able to get past with Linda. Stay together all these years and not go insane that she’s married? It’d be like endless purgatory to love her and not be the man in her life.”
Jack turns, studies my face, and then laughs. “Fuck, I can’t believe you’re asking me that. No one ever does. Not even Chrissie. But she’s like me. I think she gets it without asking.”
He looks out across the Pacific, his chin bobbing in little nods, and then purses his lips, stares at the sky and exhales slowly.
“It’s how it worked out,” he says in measured slowness. “We did what we thought was right for everyone, and I’ve never regretted loving her and I will always love her. No one can have everything the way they want it. The man who tries usually ends up with nothing. I have enough. Enough is a pretty fine thing.”
I shake my head.
Jack studies me, amused. “Even when you go through life with the best road map, you’ll still find roads you never expected. Sometimes it’s the unexpected roads that are the best journeys.” He laughs. “I’d say you’ve gotten a few unexpected roads lately and you definitely have enough. More than enough.”
“Fuck you.”
I drop my head into my hands. His jabs come out of nowhere. Why do they make me laugh? Corny ’60s shit. Life can’t fucking be this simple for him, not for any man.