Finding Home

18. Caleb

Chapter 18

Caleb

“ Y es, you wanted to sneak away last night, but you didn’t ,” my counselor, Gina, says on my computer screen. “That’s all that matters. Thoughts aren’t actions, Caleb. Actions are what matter.”

I’ve never been as honest with Gina, as I’m being during this Zoom call. Up till now, I’ve viewed myself as an unwilling hostage of rehab. A victim. And so, I’ve acted accordingly. Remained tight-lipped. Made Gina pull teeth to get anything out of me. But this morning, for some reason, I woke up wanting to try something new—to give today’s session a genuine effort. And so, right off the bat, I admitted the bad thing I was planning to do last night. The thing Aubrey sniffed out and thwarted, thereby saving me from myself.

“You should tell Aubrey the truth about last night,” Gina, my counselor, says. “The more honest you are with her, the more she can help you.”

I lean back in my chair, twisting my lips. I can’t believe how close I came to disaster last night. I haven’t wanted to admit it to myself, but maybe I need rehab, after all. “I’ll think about it.”

When the counseling session ends, I close my laptop, get up from the kitchen table, and look for Aubrey in the living room. When the room is empty, I look for Aubrey in the workout/playroom, figuring she might be doing yoga in there. But when she’s not there, I head outside and discover Aubrey sitting on a workout mat on the patch of grass in front of the shoreline. She’s dressed in workout gear, but she’s not presently doing yoga. She’s got her knees up and her forehead pressed against them, and her shoulders are shaking with sobs.

Shit . I rush to Aubrey and dive onto the ground next to her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? What happened?”

When Aubrey lifts her head, my heart cracks at the sight of her sad little face. I open my arms to her, reflexively, inviting her to turn to me for comfort; but she only lowers her head again and sobs into her arms.

Not knowing what else to do, I rub her quaking back. “Tell me, baby. Please .” I look around, my hackles up. Did the guy on the rowboat come back? Was he Ralph Beaumont, after all?

Aubrey lifts her head and sniffles. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what? Babysit me? Because you’re doing a great job of that. In fact?—"

“I’m only twenty-four!” she shrieks, her dark eyes rimmed with tears. “Less than a month ago, I lost my lifelong best friend, and now, suddenly I’ve got to be a full-time, single mother who also has to babysit your ass, while also helping you transform into a model fucking father, while also learning to be a good parent myself, even though I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing! ”

I rub her back. “It’s okay, baby. You’re doing great.”

“I’m faking it! I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Caleb!”

“Take a deep breath, sweetheart. Breathe, Aubrey. You’re a superstar.”

Aubrey hiccups and wipes her eyes. “I had another nightmare about Claudia last night. The worst one yet. She begged me not to let her father take Raine away and do to her what he did to Claudia as a child.”

My heart stops. Aubrey has told me about Ralph beating Claudia’s mother. But she hasn’t said a word about Ralph beating Claudia, too.

“Ralph used to hit Claudia?”

Aubrey’s nostrils flare. “He did something worse than that. The worst possible thing, over and over again, beginning when she was around nine or ten.”

My stomach revolts. “Jesus Christ.”

“Claudia confessed it to me when we were twelve. But she told me he’d kill her and her mother if I told anyone, so I never did. And now, she’s gone, and I have to live with my mistake forever.” She wipes her eyes. “My parents would have helped Claudia and her mom, if I’d been smart enough to tell them the truth. I should have known that.”

“You were a kid.”

Aubrey shakes her head woefully. “Ralph told Claudia nobody would believe her, because he was a police officer, and she believed him. So, I did, too. But now, as an adult, I can plainly see we simply played into his hand.” She puts her hands over her face. “And now, thanks to me, it’s going to be my word against Ralph’s at the hearing, because Claudia isn’t here to tell the judge the truth, and I don’t know if my word will be enough to keep Raine safe. ”

I gently remove her hands from her face and look deeply into her soulful, tormented eyes. “I won’t let Ralph get her. Baby, take a deep breath for me. That’s it, baby. Breathe. It’s gonna be okay.” When Aubrey’s chin trembles, I open my arms to her again, purely on instinct; and this time, she falls into them and lets me hold her sobbing frame for several minutes.

When Aubrey calms down enough to speak, she says, “When I moved in with Claudia in Seattle, we talked about everything as adults for the first time. She’d started going to therapy by then, and she was having all kinds of breakthroughs about her childhood and the abuse. She was even working up the courage to report her father to the police in Seattle. But now, she’ll never get the chance to do that.”

My heart squeezes. “Poor Claudia.”

“She was amazing, Caleb. The best mother to Raine. The best friend to me. I wish so badly you could have actually known the real her. She was so much more than the fangirl groupie you met.”

My heart feels like drumsticks are banging on it. “If only she’d taken me up on my offer to fly her and Raine out to LA to meet my family and me, I would have had the chance?—"

“ What ?” Aubrey’s flabbergasted expression makes it clear my revelation is news to her.

“I . . . Yeah. I offered to fly Claudia and Raine to my house in LA.”

“ When ?”

“About six months after Raine was born. I sent Claudia an email, directly, not through our attorneys, pleading with her to bring the baby to my house in Santa Monica. I told her about my mother’s diagnosis and explained time was short for her, but Claudia turned me down. ”

“Are you sure? Maybe?—”

“Her exact words to me were, ‘Fuck off.’”

Aubrey gasps. “I don’t believe it.”

“I’ve still got the email.”

“But . . .” Aubrey rubs her forehead. “I was living with Claudia by then, and she told me everything. Caleb, Claudia constantly talked about you and what a shame it was that Raine’s ‘asshole sperm donor’ had zero interest in getting to know his beautiful child. Why would Claudia say all that to me, but not bother to mention you’d offered to fly her and Raine to your house in LA?”

“Maybe she was too embarrassed about shutting me down to admit the truth to you.”

Aubrey’s clearly not buying that explanation. “Can I see her email to you?”

“Sure.” I scroll on my phone to find it.

As I’m searching, Aubrey murmurs, “Why on earth would Claudia turn down the chance to come to your house? I would have thought she’d be giddy to get to do that. You were always her celebrity crush, even after she’d had sex with you.” She looks out at the lake. “Claudia was a compassionate person. That’s why she wanted to be a nurse.” She returns to me. “Surely, she would have said yes to you, solely based on the situation with your mother.”

“She didn’t want me in her child’s life out of the gate, remember?”

“Because you demanded she get an abortion! And when she said no to that, you made it abundantly clear you wanted nothing to do with the baby. So, of course, she agreed that was for the best. But trust me, if she thought for a second you’d had a change of heart, or even that there was a possibility of you having one, Claudia would have jumped on the first flight to LA.”

I understand Aubrey now wants to think of her best friend as some kind of a saint. It’s understandable, in light of her premature departure from this world. But once she sees the email exchange, I think she’ll realize Claudia wasn’t quite as perfect as Aubrey believes.

“Here it is.” After locating the emails, I hand my phone to Aubrey to read them.

For a long moment, Aubrey stares at my screen with tears in her eyes. When she finally looks up from my phone, she’s pale. Like she’s seen a ghost. “There’s no way Claudia wanted to write that reply to you. I don’t know if her mother or boyfriend influenced her to write that to you, but the Claudia I knew never would have sent that response. At the very least, she would have let your mother meet Raine. Of that much, I’m sure.”

I take the phone back and set it down next to me on the yoga mat. Poor Aubrey. This must be a tough pill to swallow. Clearly, Claudia didn’t want to look like a cold-hearted bitch to Aubrey. And I can’t blame her for that. Aubrey is such a warm, loving person, I also want her to think highly of me. “Either way,” I murmur, “the end result is the same. My mother died without knowing she had a grandchild, and it’s all my fucking fault.”

“Was that the only time you contacted Claudia?”

“I tried again a couple months later, after my mom’s health took a sharp turn, and found out Claudia had blocked me. Not only my email address, but on social media, too. I should have created a new email address and tried again, or maybe hopped a flight and begged Claudia in person, but my mother was in bad shape, and I wasn’t in the right headspace to take that on. I thought I still had plenty of time to try again later, once my mom got better. But unfortunately . . . ” I look out at the lake. “She never got better.”

Aubrey places a hand on my back. “I owe you an apology. This whole time, I’ve been thinking you never gave a fuck about Raine. Never asked to meet her. Never even asked for a photo or update. I misjudged you. I’m sorry.”

Her apology, our proximity. Her touch on my back. It’s all filling me with the thumping desire—the need —to lean into her and kiss her. But since that’s not an option, I swallow hard and whisper, “You might as well keep thinking the worst of me. One pathetic email doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t there for my child. For all her firsts. That’s something I’ll have to live with forever.”

Aubrey rubs my back. “Raine is only two. She’s still going to have lots of firsts, and you’ll be there for all of them.”

I bow my head, too overcome to speak. I didn’t expect the conversation to take this turn. I’m overwhelmed.

“Don’t beat yourself up too much,” she whispers softly. “Only a tiny bit.” I glance at her to find her smiling. “Honey, Raine won’t start logging long-term memories for another three or four years. Soon, she won’t even remember a time before Coobie—Dadda—came into her life.”

I smile through my emotion, and she rubs my back again.

“When she called me Dadda, it was the best moment of my life.”

“One of the best of mine, too. Once my mother told me it was all for the best.”

My eyes drift longingly to Aubrey’s lips. I want to kiss this woman more than I want to breathe. More than I want a drink or to play drums. More even, than I want my solitude and freedom. But, of course, I don’t act on the impulse; but instead, resolve to do the thing my counselor, Gina, instructed me to do: tell Aubrey the truth about last night.

“You were right to take my keys away last night,” I whisper. “I was planning to sneak off and drive to Billings.”

Aubrey frowns. “I had a feeling.” She swats at my shoulder. “Don’t you know that would have been catastrophic?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I would have had to report you! You would have had to go back to square one at rehab.”

“I know.

“And then, who knows if the judge?—”

“Aubrey, I know. I didn’t tell you to get yelled at. I told you to let you know you kept me from self-sabotaging last night, like I always do. I told you, so I can thank you for saving me from myself. So you know, even if you feel like you’re faking being a kickass sobriety coach, you’re doing one hell of a job.”

Her cheeks bloom. “I only want to help you.”

“I know, and I’m grateful for it.”

My lips are mere inches from hers, as we sit, shoulder to shoulder on the yoga mat, facing the lake. But a promise is a promise. From this day forward, I’m hereby committed to my word being my bond, no matter what. That’s going to be my commitment, whenever I give my word; but it’s going to be especially true when I give it to Aubrey Capshaw.

Aubrey bumps her shoulder against mine and grins. “I can’t believe you almost did that.”

“I’m a dumbshit. What can I say?”

Before she replies, the sound of a car traversing the gravel next to the house causes both of us to turn our heads to look. It’s Aubrey’s mother, Barbara, parking her car on the side of the house. When she stops, Barbara swings open her car door and pops her head out, her face beaming.

“Raine wanted to come over!” Barbara shouts excitedly. “She opened her eyes this morning and immediately asked to come over here to make pancakes— with her dadda !”