Chapter 23 Rachel
Currently Playing: My Life by Billy Joel
***
It was funny how smells held more memories than most artifacts.
Don’t get me wrong, music was what usually took me back. There’s nothing like hyper-fixating on a song during an extra special season and then listening to it again a few years later. But what worked the most for me was scent.
I woke up feeling nostalgic. Maybe it was because of Dad’s flare up a couple of days ago or being out of my apartment, but something had me dragging out a box of my old things. Well, not just my old things. Some were Dad’s too. He didn’t have a ton of storage in his complex, and Adam had gone back to my house to grab the rest of my things, reassuring me for the millionth time that he didn’t mind me taking over his space.
While I was rummaging through a stack of nearly dilapidated boxes filled with homemade Christmas ornaments and those personalized keychains that I just had to have every time we went on vacation somewhere, I ran across an empty bottle of perfume from my high school days. Taking off the cap, I lifted the spout to my nose. Immediately, I got punched in the gut with memories of unnecessary drama, ridiculous crushes, and bad decisions. Mixed with a little fun here and there.
“Phew.” I put the cap back on and buried it deep in the box, ready to not see that little guy again for another ten years.
I reached for an envelope next. It was filled with old pictures of Dad and me. Every now and then, there would be one with Mom and Katherine too, but they were rare. I wondered if, even back then, he had a feeling about their loyalty to our family. If so, he never would have admitted it. A laugh sputtered out of me when I ran across one of me wearing plastic heels, giant fake sunglasses, and a banana hat. Dad wore a Santa hat and beard combo, and we each held a microphone, singing karaoke. No wonder Katherine left as soon as she turned eighteen. I was probably the most annoying little sister there ever was.
My smile grew further with each new picture. Dad and me at the zoo. Me on his shoulders with my ice cream melting all over his hair. Me around age five with a mouth covered in marshmallow fluff. A jar and a spoon in my hands and a wide smile on my face. I assumed Dad took that one. Mom would have never thought to take a picture of something she was going to have to clean up after.
I reached for a weathered green envelope labeled Aunt Trudy . Having no idea who the woman was, I assumed this was something of Mom’s that ended up in Dad’s boxes.
As I lifted the envelope, a small leather notebook fell behind it, the box shifting.
My curiosity piqued, I tossed the envelope to the side and reached for the notebook instead. Most of it appeared to be empty. I flipped through the pages back to front until I landed on a single paper with a checklist on it in Dad’s handwriting.
Bucket list, it read at the top. One item after another was listed farther down the page. I smiled to myself. He’d always had big goals.
My eyes scanned the list, taking in each one.
Make pasta from scratch
Take more pictures
Ride in a helicopter
Run a triathlon
Get a tattoo
Feed a giraffe
Ride a motorcycle
Fall in love
Become a parent
Buy a chinchilla
The only one he had ticked off was Become a parent. My stomach churned. He never got to do any of these, really. I mean, I supposed he’d fallen in love with Mom. He had to have somewhere down the line. They were married and they’d had kids. Yet it wasn’t marked off, and I couldn’t entirely blame him. Even on her best days, my mother was…a lot. Never had patience for loud noises, especially music. Hated toys being anywhere other than in our rooms. Even when I was a teenager, she pretty much walked around with a permanent storm cloud over her. Everything bothered her.
I wasn’t entirely clueless as a child. I’d witnessed my father working crazy hours and Mom complaining about them both piling on shifts. Katherine and I took the bus most days, and every now and then, my grandmother would come into town to watch us for a long weekend so Dad could finish up a project on a jobsite. Of course he didn’t have time for stuff like this, and since he’d started slipping, he rarely got out of his complex unless I took him somewhere or his old SEAL buddies came to see him.
Guilt whirled its way inside of me, a deep, guttural pain behind my chest. I mean, the guy didn’t have to buy a chinchilla, but he could have at least done a couple of these. And yet he sacrificed everything he had for me and my unworthy family. And now he was living this lost life that somehow made him happy. Yet he had no idea how much he was missing out on.
“What’s that?”
Adam’s rumble from the doorway caused my back to straighten. I hadn’t heard him come back from his run.
I twisted my shoulders to look at him. Thankfully he wore a shirt today. Probably figured out it would be best to do so as long as I was here. But his shorts were an inch or two shorter than yesterday’s. His strong, thick thighs were on display, and those weren’t exactly helping me focus either.
Adam’s chin dipped, his eyes focused on the open notebook in my lap.
“Oh. It’s Dad’s bucket list. I found it in an old box of his stuff.”
“Hmm?” He said it more like a question, so I went on.
“Yeah, but the only one checked off on the whole list is Become a parent.”
He nodded and dipped his head down the hallway. “I got some food. You want to bring it in here and eat?”
I was starving, and since I’d run out of my favorite flour, I hadn’t made a sourdough-inspired breakfast this morning. My stomach growled at the thought of whatever Adam had in there. I agreed, walking into his kitchen and taking my seat at the island. He had a dining table, but somehow, we always managed to find our way here to eat instead. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he sat at his dinner table every night before I arrived. It seemed very Adam-like.
He pulled out two plates and then set a bag from Marlo’s next to it, reaching in to grab an apple cider doughnut. “They didn’t have your cinnamon rolls. But Layla likes these, so I figured you might.”
I smiled up at him. “Thanks, Adam. That was really sweet.”
As I ate, Adam looked over the bucket list I’d found, his eyes scanning each item one at a time and then repeating it again.
He tapped his long fingers against the book, his golden band catching the light and refracting it onto the leather-bound backing. “So he never got to do any of these?”
“Nope. Too busy working and being a dad, I guess.”
He nodded. Adam saw how much time and effort his brother Liam put into being a father. Even watching his nephews on occasion was proof enough that parenthood itself was taxing.
“Did you ask him about it?”
“No. I just now found it, and even if I wanted to ask him, it might make him upset. Or make him realize how even though he’s happy, he didn’t get to do a lot of things he hoped to in life.” My shoulders fell at the thought.
Adam looked back down at the list as I polished off the last of my doughnut.
“What if…we do them? Like for him?” he suggested.
A chortle left me. “How are we going to find the time to”—I looked over his arm at the paper—“run a freaking triathlon? I barely could even do a 5k.”
“I could train you.”
He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. As if we would drop everything going on around us and run off into the sunset like a couple of regular Forrest Gumps.
“Adam, you’re gone all the time. I don’t really see that happening.”
His throat cleared, the base of it turning this warm red as he popped his knuckles. Anxious Adam. It was rare for me to see that side of him. Adam was sure about everything around him.
“I was going to talk to you about that today…I talked to my boss on base and mentioned that my…” He looked above me. “That my father-in-law and wife needed me close, so…I’m here. For the summer at least.”
An entire summer of Adam? Full of sourdough bread and flower surprises, apple cider doughnuts and late-night talks?
A smile spread across my lips at the thought. “The whole summer?”
Adam smiled right back, like he could see through me. “Till the first week of September. I will have to go away for a while after, but until then, I’m yours.”
I squeezed my legs together. “So we really could do some of these?” I ran my finger down the list again. “Well, I mean, some of these are easy. Take more pictures, make pasta from scratch. I’ve done that. But I don’t see us going on a helicopter ride or feeding giraffes anytime soon.”
He shrugged before taking a bite of his food. Something with grilled chicken and egg whites, it looked like. “We could do the easy ones first and just go from there.”
I knew this marriage was only platonic, an agreement between friends who cared deeply for one another. That fact didn’t stop my heart from racing any less.
“You would really do that for me?”
“You think there is something out there I wouldn’t do for you?”
My smile crept up further, and I relaxed, knowing he was right. There was not a single thing Adam wouldn’t do for me. I could probably ask the guy for a kidney and he’d jump on the table.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket as I took another bite of doughnut, cinnamon and sugar coating my lips and fingers. I swallowed and wiped my hands on the nearest paper towel before reaching for the device to see who was calling.
It was ridiculous that my first thought every time was that something was wrong with Dad. It was like a looming cloud over my head. The fact that a rhythmic humming caused my heart rate to spike nearly every time was absurd. And inconvenient, considering 90 percent of the time, it was one of my friends or Adam. But still, my heart and reflexes couldn’t hold on to reason. They heard that buzzing and instantly thought He’s had a bad day. You’ll have to go up there and stop him from swinging on the nurses and cussing everyone out. It hurt each time, and it almost made me want to put the stupid thing on silent. But if I were to do that, then it would mean not knowing when they needed me, and that felt just as terrifying.
The screen had an unknown number. The area code wasn’t local, but I knew a couple of the new employees at the complex had come from out of state, and I wasn’t willing to risk anything.
I held up a finger to Adam. “Let me see if this is for Dad.”
He dipped his chin in a nod and reached for his own breakfast that looked absolutely glorious. I would, without a doubt, steal a bite of it later when he wasn’t looking.
“This is Rachel.”
“Ugh, finally.” My blood ran cold, goose bumps forming along my arms. “I had to call you from Stephen’s number since every time I called, it would go straight to voicemail.”
Because I had blocked her. Because she was scum of the earth. A lying traitor that I didn’t want near my phone. Because she was my mother.
My body was frozen, mouth dropped down and eyes stuck on the balled-up napkin beside my half-eaten doughnut. Why was she calling? Why, why, why?
“Rachel, honey.” Adam’s low voice sounded across from me, and I could practically feel his concern wrapping around me like a warm blanket. “Who is it?” he whispered.
“Rachel? Are you still there?” Her shrill voice sent memories waving in my mind, only the ugly ones. The screaming ones. The throwing the record and packing her bags while I begged her on my knees not to leave us. I’m still young. I have a life to live, and I refuse to live it waiting on someone. She said it as if she was the nineteen-year-old and not a forty-five-year-old woman who had already lived an entire life putting herself first.
My fingers shook. A ball formed at the base of my throat, and I willed myself not to cry. Not for her. She didn’t deserve that satisfaction.
“I’m here,” I muttered, finally looking up at Adam, who had his brows creased together and his lips pursed. He pointed to the phone and mouthed, “Speaker.”I nodded and followed his instructions before asking her. “Why are you calling me, Mom?” Just calling her that felt wrong.
“Well, like I said, I tried to yesterday—a few times—but your voicemail box must be full, because it didn’t let me even leave a message.” Again, because she was blocked.
“No, why are you calling me?” I clipped.
“I don’t know why you sound so short with me. I’m the one who deserves to be upset here.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam toss his hands up to his hair and pull. “You went and got married? Without telling your own mother?”
My own mother. I wanted to scoff at how out of touch she was. It was like she’d left just last week and not so long ago that I’d had nearly eight birthdays come and go without so much as a hello.
“We eloped,” I explained, doing everything I could to level my voice. “It was last minute, and it was just us. I didn’t think to tell you.”
“Are you pregnant?” she spat out.
Adam stood and took a step toward me and held his palms out, flexing his fingers, wanting me to hand him my phone. That would end in an absolute dumpster fire. I shook my head.
“If I am?” I asked, testing. I hated that this woman was my one weakness. The one person I couldn’t stand up to and fight.
“Then I would suggest you sort your life out before you become a mother. Who even is this guy? I had to log into Stephen’s Facebook to find his account. He is covered in tattoos and has a giant scar on his eyebrow. What were you thinking? I thought maybe you had grown up enough to not be so foolish, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
I couldn’t even process that enough to ask who the heck Stephen was. My immediate response was to defend Adam, to tell her that any preconceived notions she had about my best friend—my husband—were wrong. That she wished she was half the person he was. That Adam Wells was loyal, protective, and passionate in a way that she, as a parent, had never once been. But I was frozen. Because that was what she did to me, what she always did to me. My Achilles’ heel.
Adam’s face slowly turned beet red. He ground down on his teeth and reached for the phone again, but I yanked it away and pressed mute.
“What do you want to say?”
“Tell that old witch to screw herself and never contact you again.” I had never heard his voice go that low before, that deep. It was like he was summoning a curse to send to the woman on the other side of the line.
“Rach?” she asked, probably assuming she’d lost signal.
I looked down to the phone, and my fingers began to shake again. “I-I can’t. It’s too mean.”
“Give me the phone, and I’ll say it, baby.” His voice turned softer, and all the willpower in me left. My phone in hand dropped to his side, and he gladly picked it up.
He unmuted the call, and I had the strong urge to leave the room to avoid the conversation.
“Nah, nah, nah.” Adam shook his head at the phone as if she were in the room with us. “You may talk to other people that way, but not my wife. Never my wife.”
“Are you the father?” She gasped, and I could picture her clutching her pearls, staring at Stephen’s phone in pure disgust.
Adam scoffed. “I’m no father any more than you are a mother. But I am Rachel’s husband, and if you’re going to speak to her like that, then you better expect the same right back from me.”
A vein in his forehead poked out, and I thought this was it. Adam was going to have a stroke and die right here. He was so full of anger.
“Listen.” Mom’s voice wavered, and I was almost jealous of how quickly he’d made that happen. “I just wanted to speak to her—”
“No. You listen. If you want a chance to speak to my wife again, then fix your attitude and accept that you abandoned her. You left a nineteen-year-old girl to take care of herself and her father entirely on her own so you could go running off with random men in California—”
“Now hold on—”
“I’m not finished,” he growled, and my insides did an entire flip. “You left an amazing man and your even more amazing daughter so you could live your own selfish life. You made your bed, now go lie in it. Next time you call my wife, it better be with an apology for everything, or you’ll never call her again.” He hung up the phone before she could answer and tossed it onto the counter.
I was still frozen in place. My feet felt like they were cemented to his kitchen floor. Adam’s hands lifted to his hair and pulled again as he groaned, muttering a couple of low curses to himself. His chest heaved in and out, his face so red and strained that I had the raging urge to take my pinkies and smooth out every crease and tensed muscle.
As if I needed another reason to fall for this man, there he was, defending me with 100 percent of himself, and yet still, I knew he’d held back so much of what he wanted to tell her.
I sniffled, not even realizing that there was a tear already sitting on the high point of my cheekbone. Adam flinched and turned to me. “Stevie, honey. I’m sorry.”
I took a step, choosing to ignore that, and walked my way to his side and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Thank you,” I mumbled into his shirt.
After a moment, his arms dropped around me, pulling me closer to him. “I told you. There’s nothing out there I wouldn’t do for you.”
I smiled to myself, because yeah, I knew that good and well.