Chapter Five #2
“Well, we’ll have to get you a snack then, huh?” Cassie said, and I imagined her tickling Lily’s stomach by the way she was answered with a fit of giggles.
And just like that, I watched Liam transform from my normal, disinterested-looking brother to this whole other person I’d only gotten used to seeing over the last few years. He was already smiling before Cassie and Lily bounded into the kitchen.
“Daddy!” she yelled, jumping into his already outstretched arms.
“There’s my girls,” he said, squeezing her tight against him.
Cassie smiled, coming over to his side at once.
“Hi, baby,” he leaned over to give her a kiss.
“Hi,” she responded, staring into his eyes.
“Hi!” I chirped in, knowing if I waited for them to stop making goo-goo eyes at each other, I’d be sitting here the rest of my life.
“Auntie Maggie!” Lily wriggled free of her father’s arms to run toward me.
“Finally,” I exhaled dramatically, “someone who will pay attention to me.”
Lily giggled, jumping up and down in front of me like a golden retriever.
“What are you doing here?” Cassie chirped happily, unwinding a scarf from her neck.
“Don’t start undressing yet,” I told her, making her blush as her hand paused. “You’re coming with me on an emotional support best friend walk.”
“I want to come!” Lily squealed.
“Sorry, Lil. Next time,” I told her.
“But next time is far away,” she pouted. “I want to go now time.”
“Tell you what,” I squatted down to her level, “if you let me take Mommy on a walk now, I’ll take you to the playground on Saturday.”
“When’s Saturday?” She squinted her eyes suspiciously at me.
“This many days away,” I held up my fingers.
“Okay,” she nodded solemnly, “but I want ice cream too.”
I laughed at her bargain.
Yeah, I think it was safe to say she did have a bit of me in her, after all.
I held my hand out for her to shake. We’d made enough deals since she figured out how to negotiate that she knew the drill by now. She shook my hand with the utmost severity, and I winked at her before pulling Cassie by the arm.
“Guess it’s you and me, kid,” Liam said, scooping her back up.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said over her shoulder, before looking at me with her analytical eyes. “I think.”
“Don’t ask her any weird questions!” Liam called to us as we left. “I mean it, Maggie!”
Cassie opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but I shot her a look and muttered,
“Don’t ask.”
I liked taking walks with Cassie when I had a lot on my mind. For one, she was so naturally good-natured that it seemed to keep some of my darker thoughts at bay.
How could I spend time thinking about everything I was upset about when Cassie was next to me smiling over a pair of squirrels?
Another factor was the speed at which she walked, leaving me no room for anything other than focusing on keeping up with her.
“Slow—” I huffed, “down!”
She turned, pausing in surprise to notice I’d fallen several feet behind her.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. With considerable effort, she slowed her pace. “But look!”
I stared at her. Then at the background behind her. In all my effort to control my breath and match her speed, I hadn’t noticed the route she’d taken us.
“You brought us to our old college,” I blinked up at the campus of Boston College.
“Ta-da!” She gestured wildly with an all-encompassing smile.
“But why are we here?”
“Because you seemed contemplative lately,” she noted, once again freaking me out with her scarily accurate assessment. “And we used to have the best talks here, remember? By the tree?”
“I don’t think sitting in the same spot will make me open up anymore.” I laughed. “It only worked in college because I was all young and vulnerable, and you were always bugging me about how I was feeling.”
“I still bug you about how you’re feeling,” she pointed out with a tilt of her head.
“Yes, but I’m not twenty anymore. I’ve built up better Cassie defenses.”
“Why do you need defenses against talking about a problem?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s a problem. It’s just that sometimes talking about something doesn’t make a difference.”
“Well, let’s just go sit and see what happens.” She didn’t even give me a chance to refuse before she was bounding off toward the quad.
“Look, no one’s sitting there!” she grinned, looking back at me.
“That’s because it’s January,” I told her, watching her sit at the base of the tree.
“Meaning, it’s too cold for people to sit outside and chat,” I emphasized pointedly.
“Then we better get started before we freeze,” she patted the spot beside her. “Come on.”
I sat, recoiling at the thought of the cold, damp earth rubbing against my designer wool coat, but I knew Cassie wouldn’t let that slide as an excuse.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
And I really didn’t think it was going to work, but damn it if those freakily earnest eyes of hers didn’t get the best of me.
“Ugh,” I groaned in frustration, surprised by how fast the feelings came to the surface. “I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot about my Dad lately.”
Cassie didn’t say anything—just let me take my time to get the words together. I knew that if I really didn’t want to talk, she would understand and she wouldn’t push me.
Which is why I felt comfortable enough to continue.
“I don’t know,” I picked at the dead grass.
“I guess I’m frustrated that everyone seems to treat him like some big supervillain. He’s just a person, you know? He made a mistake, but doesn’t it mean something that he’s trying now? That he’s been trying?”
My dad reappeared in my life a few years ago. A random phone call I never expected to get, but had hoped for my entire life.
And since then, he’d been consistent. He answered when I called. He met with me when I asked to get lunch. He hadn’t disappeared again, the way Liam had expected him to. But still, it hadn’t changed my brother’s mind about him.
“I know it means something to you,” Cassie said with a soft smile. “That’s all that matters.”
“But what about Liam?” I implored. “Don’t you think it’s wrong that he refuses to ever speak to him again? He won’t even give him a chance.”
“I think,” Cassie started carefully, mulling her words over, “that the way people feel about their parents is a complicated thing. And I don’t think there’s necessarily a wrong or right way to do it.”
“What about Lily?” I asked. “Do you think it’s okay that she’ll never meet her grandfather?”
Cassie sighed, as if knowing it pained me but still resolute in her loyalty to Liam.
“It’s Liam’s call to make.”
“But what if he regrets it after it’s too late?” I asked helplessly. “What if Dad dies and Liam is wracked with guilt over having never given him another chance?”
Cassie flinched, and I realized I’d hit too close to home without meaning to.
She’d made the decision years ago to cut ties with her own mother, and I knew it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
She didn’t talk about it much anymore, but I knew it still ate away at her more than she’d ever admit.
“I didn’t mean—” I started, but she held up a hand to stop me.
“No, it’s okay.” She shook her head. “But I think in that case, he probably assumes the cost of what he thinks he’s sparing her from now is worth the risk that he might regret it later.”
I understood where she was coming from in one sense. And I understood more that she was probably thinking a lot about her own mother when she said it.
“Do you regret it?” I dared to ask. “Walking away from your mom?”
I watched her body stiffen at the mention of her mother, and from an outsider’s perspective, I knew it was the only thing she could do for her own sanity. Even now, years later, I had to watch the ripple effects their relationship still wreaked on her.
She thought about it for a long time, staring off at the students crossing the campus in front of us.
“No,” she said finally. “It was the right thing to do at the time. But now?”
She looked toward me.
“I’d be lying if I said it’s easy to stay firm in that decision for the rest of my life. Like… what if this time I give her a chance and it works out?”
She shook her head, as if shaking the thought away.
“But then I remember all the times she let me down, and I know I can’t risk it. Not for me, but because of Lily. How could I let that into her life when I know there’s a higher chance of my mom screwing up than there is of her being what we need her to be?”
She blew out a breath.
“I can’t speak for him,” Cassie shrugged, “but maybe Liam feels the same way. Maybe he’s been burned too many times and isn’t willing to risk it.”
Sometimes I thought I was selfish, because I never thought of things like that. Of having to put someone else’s emotional needs before my own.
For Brody, of course I would, but he was so seldom upset about anything. But a child? The thought of it sounded daunting.
Cassie was used to putting people first. It was second nature to her. And for a second, my heart broke because of what she had to go through to get to where she is now. She puts people first because she wants to. Because she genuinely cares about everyone she meets.
Maybe it had something to do with her upbringing. Or maybe it’s just her. Either way, I was hit with the sensation of feeling so grateful to fate or destiny or whatever it is that was in charge of making our paths cross all those years ago.
“You’re a good person, Cass,” I told her, wanting her to know it the same way I did. “I’m glad we’re family.”
“We were always family,” she said. “Even before Liam.”
I felt myself smile, feeling her words all through my heart.
“I know.”