26. Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-six
Adam tried to act casual, leaning against the counter and sipping his coffee, but his insides were unsettled. Before Danny had gone off to his lesson this morning, he had repeated his intention to ask Callie to stay with them.
“She said yes,” Danny announced as he breezed into the kitchen.
Just this once, Adam wouldn’t have minded if Danny dropped his guitar in the kitchen instead of being responsible and putting it away immediately in his bedroom.
“Really?” Adam called after Danny. He forced himself to be still. He didn’t want to worry Danny by pacing around the kitchen.
“Uh huh,” yelled Danny from the bedroom. Adam heard the thump of the guitar case hitting the floor, and a moment later Danny reappeared in the kitchen. He sat down at the table and began pouring cereal. Adam waited, but no further details were forthcoming.
“So…what exactly did you ask Callie?”
“I asked her if she would be my music teacher forever. ”
Adam released the breath he had been holding. It came out as half laugh, half cough. That wasn’t the phrasing he would have used.
“And how exactly did she answer?”
Danny concentrated on pouring the milk into the bowl, then looked up at Adam.
“She said that she couldn’t be here every day, but that she would always come back, and that whenever she was here she could play music with me. Every day.”
His insides stabilized, leaving him with the realization that some conversations were best left to the grown-ups. It was time he started acting like one.
“That’s good news.”
Danny nodded.
“Did she say how long she was staying in town?”
Danny nodded again, but his mouth was full.
“How long?”
He waited, hiding his impatience, until Danny finished chewing.
“She leaves on Monday.”
Adam closed his eyes. He had the weekend to convince her to stay.
Eight years ago
Adam waited until the crowd thinned around the bonfire. He used the time to strengthen his resolve. Memories of Callie had tortured him all evening, but he refused to cave in. He would do the right thing even if it killed him. Callie had been subdued tonight, and she hadn’t met his eyes. He was fairly certain that his Christmas card had done the trick, but he needed to be certain—or maybe he needed this one last excuse to talk with her. Whatever the reason, tonight he would make sure that she had moved on.
When he sat down beside her, she stiffened, but she didn’t walk away. She wove her pick into her guitar strings, snapped the case shut, and stared into the fire.
“Hi, Adam,” she said. Her voice was so distant he might as well be back in Singapore.
“Hi.”
He knew what he needed to do, but had no idea what to say.
“We got your Christmas card,” she said, “and the photo. She’s very pretty. What’s her name?”
“Charlotte,” he said. He didn’t trust himself to say more.
“How did you meet?” she asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
She waited a moment, then shook her head.
The urge to confess overwhelmed him. She’s just a friend. I didn’t want you to wait for me. But he held himself ruthlessly under control, determined to see it through.
“How was your first year of school?” he asked.
“It was great,” she said brightly, but her voice sounded brittle. “I joined a band, and I’m dating the lead singer. His name is Brian.”
“A lot can change in a year.”
She nodded.
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His Christmas card had worked exactly as planned. Deep down he wanted to pound her new boyfriend into a pulp and then drag her back to Singapore with him, but that was just a fantasy. Callie had moved on. He would never ask her to put her life on hold for him. She deserved better.
“So I guess this is goodbye,” she said, looking at him for the first time .
He nodded. The shadows in her eyes cut him to the bone. He had done that to her.
“Goodbye,” she said, then grabbed her guitar and rose to leave. He watched her walk away until she disappeared into the darkness.
It was done.
Adam followed the sound of music to the boathouse, wishing with every step that he had tackled this conversation earlier in the week while Danny was at school. It would have been much easier to have a soul-baring conversation when the body was already naked. But Callie had been different yesterday. More intense than usual. And he had still been reeling from Danny’s pronouncement that he wanted to live with Adam. Between that relief and the distraction of Callie’s bare skin, he had missed his best—and possibly last—chance for a naked conversation. With Danny home from school today and through the weekend, their opportunities for private time would be limited.
Adam hesitated before knocking, not wanting to interrupt, but Roscoe barked a welcome and she stopped playing. He had never been particularly good at ‘we need to talk’ talks, so when she met him at the door and wound herself around him, he welcomed the delay, sinking into her lips and inhaling in the scent of her skin.
She began to pull away.
“Stay,” he whispered. The word slipped out before he could stop it. She smiled and then leaned back into him for another kiss.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured against his mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He tried to disappear into the kiss again, but couldn’t quiet his mind. She was leaving. This time he was the one who pulled back, just enough to see her face. She met his eyes and he held still, memorizing the moment. The morning sunlight swam in the blue-green of her eyes and warmed her hair. He savored her slow, quizzical smile and tightened his grip on the gentle curves beneath his hands.
“Stay here with us,” he repeated. “We need you. Don’t leave on Monday.”
Callie could feel her heart stop, then start again in a hard driving rhythm.
“Are you serious?” she breathed, wrapping her arms more tightly around him. “You’ve got so much going on, with Danny and the custody case. I wasn’t sure you were ready for us to be…real.”
He eased back a little and rested his forehead against hers.
“I can’t imagine anything more real than this. I need you. We need you.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “You and me and Danny, we make a family. We should be together.”
She laughed. It bubbled up from deep inside her and there was no way she could hold it back, even if she wanted to.
“I can’t believe it,” she laughed helplessly. “I honestly never thought that you and I…that I could be part of a family and still be able to do my music. It’s just…inconceivable.”
“Why?” asked Adam, his breath warm on her ear. “Your father did it. Why not you?”
She leaned her forehead against Adam’s shoulder. What he said was true. Her father had found a way to combine a music career with a family, but the way Adam said it made her pause. She and her father were very different people.
“My father is a teacher at heart,” she said softly, directing her words at Adam’s shoulder, “and a songwriter. He’s not a performer.” She pulled back so that she could see his eyes. “I am. The songwriting isn’t over until I have a chance to share my music with an audience. That means getting out on the road from time to time. Doing my music means performing my music.”
She tried to lose herself in his eyes, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t ignore the wrinkle of concern between his eyebrows, or the stubborn quirk of his mouth as he prepared to object. Her chest tightened and her hope began to fade.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his confusion all too real. “I thought you said you wanted to stay.”
“I do,” she whispered.
“But we need you to really stay. Not just visit,” he explained, tension tightening his voice. “Do your music here. If it worked for your father, it can work for you.”
She closed her eyes. “It’s not the same.”
“Danny and I are ready to build a family. If you’re not—”
“I am,” she insisted. “I want this, more than you know. Just because I can’t be here every day—”
“I won’t do that to Danny,” he interrupted. “He deserves stability. He shouldn’t have to adjust to a parent who floats in and out of his life. I don’t want that for him.” He paused and took a breath. “I don’t want that for me.”
“But we can talk on the phone,” she pleaded, clutching at the last fragments of the dream. “Or we could set up the computer to….” Adam was shaking his head even as the words were coming out of her mouth.
“Callie, I don’t want that kind of life.” His arms tightened around her as if he were trying just as hard to hang on to his own dream. “I promised myself years ago that I would have a real family, the kind with a bunch of kids and a couple of dogs. I want to eat dinner together every night and barbecue on the weekends. I made that promise again to my brother before he died. I don’t want to break that promise—to him or to myself.” His voice cracked, but he continued anyway. “Please stay here. I don’t want to do this without you.”
She swallowed hard, wanting more than anything to dive into his arms and never come up for air. But she wouldn’t do this to herself again. She wouldn’t compromise her dream away.
“Adam, I made a promise, too,” she whispered. “I swore I would give my music a chance. I’m finally free to do it. This is my moment. How can I walk away now?”
“I don’t want you to give up,” he said, his voice low and intense. “But please, think about what you really want. Have you considered that your dreams might be different now? You’re not the same person you were ten years ago. What do you want today?”
“I don’t know,” she choked, pulling out of his arms. “I don’t know.”
His question hurt, and she hated that it made her doubt all the things she had been so certain about until this moment. She shook her head, but he was still there, waiting for his answers, so she ducked around him and ran out of the summer house. She needed to escape, to breathe, and to think.
Adam collapsed into the nearest chair, unable to believe what had just happened. For a moment, before she had pulled away, he had thought the dream was theirs. How could she walk away from this? He needed her. Danny needed her. And clearly she needed them.
The what-ifs tugged at him. This was all his fault. If he had found a way for them to be together all those years ago, they wouldn’t be struggling to stay together now. He had pushed her away with that stupid Christmas card. What if he had begged her to come with him? What if he had asked her to wait? What if he had never gone away? Ultimately it didn’t matter because all the what-ifs in the world couldn’t help him now.
He waited for what seemed like hours. Roscoe had loped out the door after her, but he shuffled back after only a few minutes, head hanging low. Adam let him in the door and scratched him absently behind the ears. Together they waited, but she didn’t come back, and Adam couldn’t wait forever. He had to go back up the hill. Danny would be worried.
He took a deep breath and marshaled his thoughts. This was a setback, but he refused to admit defeat. He simply needed a new approach. Clearly a big part of Callie wanted to stay. What would it take to convince the rest of her? His strongest weapons in this battle were Danny and the lake. The time had come to use them. He gave Roscoe one last belly rub and then headed back up the hill to the cottage.
Callie ran down the lake path, putting as much distance as possible between herself and Adam. She stopped when she reached the sheltered cove and the stand of willow trees where they had capsized the canoe. She bent over, her hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath, but she couldn’t. Her breath came in hitches and gasps until the sobs finally broke through. She sat down hard on the grass, wrapped her arms around her knees, and let it all out.
Only later, when the storm had passed and Callie could breathe normally again, did she realize that she had made her decision. If she didn’t fight for her dreams, nobody would. If she didn’t value them, nobody would. And if she didn’t pursue them now, she would miss her chance to make them real.
No matter how desperately she wanted to build a life with Adam and Danny, she couldn’t trade in her dreams to make it happen. No relationship could weather the subversive ‘what-if’ whispers that would inevitably follow. When times get tough you need to be sure of each other, without any lingering doubts.
If Adam didn’t want all of her, he couldn’t have any of her.
She blew her nose on the hem of her shirt and wiped her eyes with her sleeves. The next two days would be a bitch, but she would get through it. She had survived the loss of Adam before. A second time wouldn’t kill her.