Chapter 16
Caleb
Blissful silence fills the café as I make my rounds, wiping the tables and collecting dirty mugs and plates.
Thank God for my trusty dishwasher and the fact that I don’t have to clean each of them by hand.
Bobby used to make me do that when I acted up, right after I began working for him. It was a very effective punishment.
Sometimes Dimitri, a withdrawn guy in his forties who builds furniture in his own woodworking shop, pops in for a coffee to go before making his way back to his home just outside of Wayward Hollow.
He told me that he’s a night owl. For him, getting a coffee in the early evening is the equivalent of people with a more common routine coming in here around noon.
I can’t fault that logic.
Once upon a time I used to love sleeping in, but this café gave me a routine that is hard to get out of my head. Not that I’ve ever tried. Because if there’s one thing I needed back then and still do today, it’s a routine. Something I can hold on to, something reliable, predictable.
Is that why Lauren scares me so much? Because she challenges everything about it?
Like today. Usually after closing up, I’d make the short drive to the supermarket for dinner.
On the way, I’d decide what I would have for dinner that evening and maybe the next day.
I’d shop for it, drive back home, cook, and then settle in for the night, go to sleep and wake up early to prepare everything for the café.
It’s a simple life.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that I like to know what’s coming. And today, Lauren announced - yes, not asked, announced - that she was coming over.
And for some reason, that does not cause a pit in my stomach and my thoughts to spiral. Hell, I’m even excited about it. She wants to show me her final ideas for our Christmas market stand. I still have no idea how she roped me into this, or even why she’d even want me to help her.
I would never admit it out loud, but I’m kind of looking forward to the Christmas market now. And that’s making me suspicious.
Because this? Being happy? The woman who makes my heart flutter and me wanting to step out of my comfort zone at least kind of likes me? I mean, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked me to help her with the Christmas market booth, right?
I can’t trust it. It’s too good to be true. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me.
No. Being the unluckiest of the bunch is what happens to me.
Though considering the fact that Nic’s ex-fiancée cheated on her with her sister, all while her parents knew about it and seemingly even encouraged it in an attempt to scam her out of money, I’m not sure I can still call myself the unluckiest of our group.
It’s more of a head-to-head race between Nic and me now. What a weird realization.
All of a sudden, the bell over my entrance door chimes, announcing someone entering.
“I’m about to close,” I say gruffly, without bothering to lift my head to see who it is. Heavy steps make their way inside, but whoever it is doesn’t answer me and they don’t turn around, the bells don’t chime again, announcing a departure.
No, only the soft click of the door falling closed fills the room, with the heaviness of a bad omen. The hair on my neck stands up, an uncomfortable shiver creeping down my spine.
“We’re not here for coffee,” a light female voice, barely louder than a whisper, announces.
I slowly get up from the hunched position I have been in over the table by the window while wiping it down. Nausea hits me quicker than a Muhammad Ali punch. Emotions clog my throat.
I remember that voice. It has haunted me for years - during silent nights when I lay awake, and sometimes in nightmares, replays of memories my consciousness forces me to watch. In every waking moment, it’s the cause of doubts constantly hovering in my consciousness.
Maybe I hit my head. That must be it. I’m having a concussion and only imagining it. It can’t be her.
Slowly, like a child fearing the monster behind them, I turn around.
It’s her.
The sight hits me harder than a truckload of bricks. My chest tightens, as if someone has tied a cord around me and slowly pulls it tighter. Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. My lungs scream for air.
Fuck.
God, I wish I could just turn off the lights, run to hide under a blanket, where monsters can’t catch me. Or, in this case, reality.
“No,” I say abruptly, jerkily shaking my head.
Breathe, Caleb. But the air burns in my lungs. My skin tingles as if ants crawl all over it. Fuck.
I know who she is.
I know she’s exactly seventeen years, three months and five days older than me. What I didn’t remember is that she has the same eye shape as me, the same unruly curls falling down her shoulders. The same mole on her index finger.
She’s the woman whose voice used to break when she sang ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ to get me to sleep.
Whose eyes crinkled slightly at the corners when she sent me off to kindergarten, only to turn around as soon as she thought I was out of sight, to let her face fall and her arms fold around herself.
A woman whose last words to me on a cold, gray November morning were: Have fun at school. I’ll see you later, Honey.
I guess it was my misinterpretation that “later” meant a whopping twenty-six years.
“Hi, Honey.”
Hopeful eyes glistening with unshed tears look at me, seemingly oblivious to the emotional equivalent of a hurricane happening inside my head.
Now I realize why the strange woman felt familiar. It’s so clear to see, all of a sudden. The way she’s holding onto my mother’s arm, as though she’s the only thing keeping her upright. The same nose as hers. The face shape. The same hair color.
How did I not see it?
Right. The same way I didn’t expect my mother to turn up, two decades after abandoning me with a man whose attitude never left high school.
“Out.” That’s all I can manage to press out, pointing at the door. Fighting for breath, I stumble away from them. “Get out.”
Time stands still, the ticking of the clock above the kitchen entrance hammering into my ears as I struggle to breathe.
“But, Honey, we—”
“No!” I say louder, shocking myself with the intensity. My eyes drop to the ground, hands on the back of my head interlocking my fingers, forcing myself to breathe.
“Is everything okay?” the nameless woman asks, and I hold up my hand to make her shut up.
Yet they don’t leave. Still as fucking statues, they remain in place, not moving a muscle.
Breathe, Caleb. In. Count to ten, slowly. Exhale.
By the second inhale, I don’t fear suffocating anymore. By the third, an eerie calmness washes over me. And by ten, cold anger flows through my veins.
“Listen, I’m sorry for surprising you like this,” my mother mumbles. I take one more breath and I lift my gaze, my eyes jumping to her. She swallows heavily, her hands trembling.
“You fucking should be.” I can see her recoil, my calm words piercing her sharp as knives, but I can’t find it in me to care. More than two decades ago, she didn’t.
“Did you really think you could turn up here after twenty-six years and I’d welcome you with open arms?” I cross my arms in front of my chest, pretending they’re an armor, protecting my heart from getting broken again.
The younger woman’s eyes are darting between me and my so-called mother, head bobbing as if she’s watching a tennis match. Only nobody will cheer by the end of this. Nobody will go out of here victorious.
Fuck, I knew everything was going too well. But did it have to be this curveball? I would have hoped for one with a little less Pompeii effect.
“I only wanted to—”
“Let me stop you right there, because your excuses are two fucking decades overdue. I don’t want to hear them.
” Her face crumbles, and tears well up in her eyes, but I’m too busy talking myself into a rage to care.
“When I said, get out, I meant it.” I point towards the door.
“Who do you think you are, suddenly waltzing in here after two and a half decades? For what?” I glare at her, putting all the rage I can muster, all the hurt into my eyes.
“You left.” Her eyes overflow with tears when I almost scream the last word.
The younger woman puts her hand on her back, whispering what I guess is reassurance.
“You fucking left me. No goodbyes. No warning.” My finger stabs through the air as I gesture wildly, keeping the table between me and my unwelcome guests.
“I used to sit by the window from the moment I got home until bedtime, for months, hoping I’d see your headlights round the corner to our house.
I didn’t give up hope that you’d be back.
For a whole goddamn year, I stayed up until the early morning hours, hoping to catch your return, going to school with an aching back because I fell asleep waiting for you.
” My voice is eerily calm, yet with every word that leaves my lips, she flinches.
But I can’t find it in me to care.
All that pain, all that anger, all that sadness comes rushing back into me at once, paralyzing my limbs, a weight on my shoulder that makes me gasp for breath like I’m drowning.
“At this point, I don’t care why you left.
Every Mother’s Day, that exact question made me cry into my pillow.
Every Christmas, it made me want to burn our tree down because there was an ornament with your picture on it.
For years, every fucking day, that question tortured me.
And now you have the gall to come here and call me ‘Honey’ as if you didn’t fucking abandon me? ”
A cold laugh escapes me at the absurdity of the situation.
“You’re being kind of unfair,” the nameless woman, who I assume shares the same genes as me in some capacity, says softly. All it manages to do is draw another cold laugh from me.
“Unfair?” She flinches under the glare I shoot her way. “Yeah, go back in time and tell the six-year-old child she left behind that it’s unfair to be angry about that. So fucking unfair.”
I bark back. The two of them flinch, though it can only be at the meaning of my words, because I’m calm. A fire might rage inside me, but I’ve had years to perfect my poker face.
“I’ve managed the past twenty-six years fine without you. I have no interest in sudden family reunions. Or any, for that matter. I haven’t needed you, and I damn sure don’t need you now. I will repeat myself only one more time: Out.” I point at the door.
The two women exchange a glance. Wordlessly, my mother tears her arm from the girl’s hold, and scurries outside.
“If you ever change your mind,” the young woman says, takes a card out of her pocket, holds it up between her index and middle fingers, then places it on the table. “Here’s my number.”
I watch her hurry outside. I wait until they’re out of view before I blindly reach for a chair and collapse onto it with a thud, burying my face in my hands as I try to make sense of the past five minutes.
Breathe, Caleb.
I lace my fingers behind my head, missing the familiar fabric of my cap under my fingertips, elbows tight, trying to keep myself from coming apart.
I’m not sure how much time passes until Lauren finds me like this.