Chapter 8 – Liam
8
LIAM
I berated myself as soon as Sophie closed my front door. The entire time I was refusing her help, I knew I was being a dick. The logical part of my brain was setting off alarm bells, but I couldn’t stop being irrational. The other reason is because I know Sophie is right. I do need help. I just don’t know how to ask for it and for some reason when she offered, it made me feel weak. I was just starting to think I am getting this parenting thing and today it seems like I’m back at square one. Lucy is dozing in my arms now, but I know I won’t sleep at all tonight if she’s as sick as Sophie seems to think. I stand up and place her in her crib; she stays asleep.
I head downstairs but find myself just standing in the kitchen, unsure what to do next. I glance over at Maggie who is camped out under my kitchen table. “Come on girl, let’s go outside,” I tell her, gesturing to my sliding glass door. She doesn’t move. “Maggie, don’t you have to go pee? Let’s go.” In typical stubborn golden retriever fashion, she continues to stare at me. I’m sure she heard the argument and is pissed at me too.
I reach down and slide her out by her collar and walk over to open the door. Only then does she walk out. I follow her out and look over the fence at Ellie’s house. It’s dark of course. The cottage is lit up and I can see Sophie on the couch in the window laughing at something. She’s absolutely beautiful when she laughs. She must reserve those smiles for people who aren’t unnecessarily rude to her.
For a minute, I think about going over and apologizing, but I can’t let go of my pride. I mean, I am the parent. I don’t need her unsolicited advice. Anyone who knows me knows what I’ve dealt with and that I’m trying my damnedest to do right by Lucy. Forget it. I don’t have anything to apologize for.
I watch Maggie sniffing around the trees that line the fence, and I am about to call her in before she picks up a dead bird or something when my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Melanie. I brace myself for a fight but the message only says:
Melanie: Even though it hurts, I appreciate you being honest with me, Liam.
I swallow hard and put my phone back in my pocket. I want to say the right thing and I know I’m not in the right mindset to do that. I flash back in my mind to the first time Melanie and I connected as more than friends, about a year after Cara passed away.
We are at a house party in Lower Township. The houses here are on large lots of land. I don’t know whose house it is, honestly, but the party is a rager. Since I can’t cope with anything happening in my life, I am drinking heavily. There are about fifty people here and multiple kegs in the backyard with a huge bonfire. I remember doing a keg stand and not much else after that. I am stumbling around the woods when I trip on a raised tree root and fall. I lay there on the ground for I don’t know how long. I am starting to pass out when I hear leaves crunching nearby, and then Melanie is lying next to me.
“What are we doing?” she asks, looking up at the stars.
“Just…laying,” I say. I look over at her and feel her grab my hand and intertwine her fingers with mine.
“Okay. I will just lay with you,” she says, leaning her head on my shoulder.
Melanie strokes my hand with her thumb and forefinger. We are so quiet that I can hear her breathing. Before I know it, I am crying. Full-on beer tears . Melanie knows it too, and she does nothing but continue to stroke my hand.
“Shhh,” she says. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re not alone,” she whispers to me.
“It is my fault,” I croak. I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the worst day of my life. I was driving with Cara in the front seat, and Melanie in the back. Then we were T-boned by a large pickup truck at a four-way stop. The driver had been drinking. I saw him coming but it was my turn to go and it was his turn to stop. I saw he wasn’t slowing down. I thought I could make it or maybe I was showing off by putting the pedal to the metal, but either way, I was wrong. He ran the stop sign. A loud sob escapes me at the memory.
She wipes away one of my tears and puts my fingers to her lips, kissing them. “It’s not your fault, Liam,” she whispers.
I can’t say anything back but before I know it, we’re kissing.
Kissing was as far as it went that night, but through the years, our relationship got to be very intense. Both of us missed Cara in our own ways, and Melanie was the only one who understood the guilt that I experienced from that night. I have blamed myself ever since.
I think if you asked me back then, I would have told you that I loved Melanie. She took so much of my guilt and hurt and carried it for me. All she asked for in return was that I give her my heart, and I never could. If Cara had never died, I would never have gotten swept up with Melanie. I might have even married Cara. We were headed in that direction. I was going to play baseball at Duke University. Cara applied to their nursing program. We were in love. Our futures were bright…until they weren’t.
I let out a big, defeated sigh and call Maggie inside. I wander into the front room and look at Leah’s boxes piled high and not labeled well. My parents put everything together after Leah’s funeral. I couldn’t bear to help. It was too painful, so I have no idea where everything is. After three boxes of childhood photo albums, I find one that says Important Papers . I open it and find several file folders with Leah’s birth certificate and sadly, her death certificate. I feel something in my heart shift at the sight of it.
I find her military papers and IDs but nothing pertaining to Lucy. Finally in the third folder, I find Lucy’s birth certificate. I take it out and study it. Lucy Elizabeth Harper. Under mother it says Leah Grace Harper. The father line is blank. I knew the jerk took off when he found out Leah was pregnant, but she must've had no contact with him whatsoever to leave his name off the birth certificate.
The rest of the stuff in the folder is just Lucy’s baby footprints from the hospital, the “It’s a Girl'' card that they put on her hospital bed, and finally the discharge paperwork. I scan the papers and find a pediatrician’s name who checked her out in the hospital. Dr. Andrew Philips at Rainbow Pediatrics. There’s a phone number, so I call and leave a message on the recording. There is nothing more I can do tonight. I pack up the boxes once again and just as I’m about to bring Maggie up for the night, I hear Lucy crying upstairs. It sounds like she’s saying “Dada.”