Chapter 10
T he room had been cleaned up, the bed made, and the wine bottles gone. But as Griffin sank into the bed he’d shared with Meredith, he could still feel her presence there. He wanted her there.
She’d walked away from him in the lobby, and he’d wanted to run to her and tell her that he loved her. He’d always loved her. How could all these years have gone by without him knowing this. He had to have known it was always Meredith.
Even when he’d been so livid with her after he’d learned about Lucas, it was Meredith. His love was masked with anger then. But he never would have been as angry as he was if he hadn’t already had such deep feelings for her. Meredith was a part of his soul. He knew it now. Karen never had a chance.
His cell phone rang, and he quickly answered it.
“Don’t you have a job?” Griffin teased.
“It’s lunch time.”
Griffin glanced at the clock and did the math. Twelve Hundred. It was indeed lunchtime in Hawaii.
“How did things go? Did you tell her?”
“Yeah, I told her.”
“And?”
“You know how you keep asking me what she’s like? She’s a pain in the butt. She’s stubborn, and she’s difficult.”
“Hey, you’re talking about the woman who gave birth to me.”
“I know. What can I say? It’s easier to think of her as a pain in the butt who drives me crazy rather than the shocked and scared girl she is. She’s afraid you’re going to hate her.”
“I sent you there. Why would I hate her? Did you tell her about my mother’s letter?”
“Not yet.”
“That should ease her mind a lot. Does she want to meet me?”
“She’s scared, Lucas. She was a frightened young girl who never wanted to give you up. She’s scared just like that frightened young girl.”
Silence.
“Soooooo, does she want to meet me?”
He chuckled. “You are a one-note musician.”
“You’re dissing my music? It’s better than that ’80s stuff you listen to.”
His eyebrows raised. “Whoa. You are going to have a serious argument with Meredith if you say that to her face. Just be warned. ”
“Yeah? I look forward to it.” His voice was softer. Vulnerable . There were a few seconds of silence. “Hey, thanks.”
“I love you, kid.”
“I love you, too, Pops.”
It had been a tough night alone. Meredith was used to being in her house by herself. She was used to the sounds it made when the sprinklers outside turned on and the buzz that started when the ice maker on her refrigerator started at three o’clock in the morning. And yet, as she lay awake on her sofa because the bed seemed too lonely, every noise made her jump out of her skin.
Her eyes hurt from crying. Griffin had come here for Lucas. There was nothing wrong with that. If the situation were reversed, she would have done the same. She couldn’t fault Griffin for that. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d led her on. He’d let her fall for him, knowing he was here for another purpose. It was never her.
When the alarm went off at seven a.m., she pulled herself off the couch and dragged her body to the bedroom to stop the alarm. She didn’t need to look in the mirror to know she was a mess. Hosing herself off in the shower wouldn’t wash away all the emotion and messiness she could see.
But loose ends needed to be tied this morning, and the sooner, the better. She needed to talk to David and make sure he got the money she was gifting him, so he didn’t have to worry about working while his mother went through treatment. She needed to clear her personal belongings out of her office, make the calls she’d promised, and when all that was done, maybe she’d see Griffin before he left. She wasn’t sure when he was leaving. The reunion wasn’t ending until after brunch. But Griffin had already told her he wasn’t attending any more of the reunion .
Later that morning, she finished packing her office and loaded all her personal items into her car. Before she left, she had one more business item to take care of.
She walked through the hotel, feeling light on her feet for the first time in a long time. She’d loved working with happy people at parties where people were happy. She suddenly realized it had been filling a void in her own life where happiness was something she didn’t believe she’d have again.
“Is everything okay, Meredith?” Darcy asked with a whisper, leaning toward the registration desk.
She smiled at Darcy. She was such a sweet girl. So much about Darcy reminded her of the girl she was when she was Darcy’s age. Meredith hadn’t just aged. She’d grown. She could see things now she never would have picked up on when she was Darcy’s age.
“I want old people’s sex,” Meredith said quietly .
Darcy’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
Mortified, she said the words aloud, Meredith’s hand came to her mouth as if she could shove them back in without anyone hearing. “I’m sorry. That was completely inappropriate.”
“No, it’s cool,” Darcy said, smiling. She giggled. “If you’re talking about old people’s sex with the Colonel, I say go for it. He’s a hottie. But it’s none of my business.”
Meredith chuckled. “He is hot. More than he was in high school.”
Darcy’s cheeks flamed as she giggled and pretended to go back to work looking at the computer screen.
“Promise me you won’t settle, Darcy,” she said louder so Darcy would take her seriously. “It’s sad when you settle.”
Darcy glanced up and said quietly. “Settle? Settle for what?”
“Anything. I did that once. It only brings regret. People come into your life, and you think you’ll get over them when they leave. But you don’t. Life goes by fast. You’re young. You have no idea. Years go by, and it feels like a blink of an eye. Don’t settle. If you want something, really want something, fight for it. Go for it. Give it your everything.”
“Are you…did something happen?”
“Yeah.” Meredith bit her lip. “I saw David. He won’t be coming back to work here.”
“I know.” Darcy showed concern, confirming Meredith’s suspicion that maybe Darcy and David were more than just friends—or at least, Darcy wanted them to be.
“Don’t let go of something or someone you want if it means that much to you. Maybe you should call David. He could use a…friend.”
The smile gone, Darcy said, “Okay.”
With new energy and resolve, Meredith walked past the registration desk and down the hall with a mission.
She approached Edward’s office, feeling the pit in her stomach fade with each step. When she finally made it, she knocked on the door and stayed in the doorway. There was no need to prolong this matter. Edward didn’t bother to lift his head from his paperwork, the same paperwork he had been working on yesterday.
“Come in.”
“I won’t be staying.”
“Suit yourself. But take these with you and work on them. I need them done by this afternoon. They’d be done by now if you hadn’t gone off half-cocked yesterday.”
“I believe I quit yesterday.”
“I hope you got all that out of your system.”
Each second he kept his head down, it only infuriated her more.
“I’ve written up a formal letter of resignation from my position for your files. It will make it official.”
She reached into her pocket and grabbed the folded envelope she had prepared in her office that morning. Then she walked into the room and dropped it on his desk. Stepping back, she said, “I don’t need a reference from you. I have enough experience that I know I’ll land somewhere. We both know my pay grade was well above this job. But David is going to need a reference.”
“Stop.”
“Stop what? You fired him because his mother has cancer and needed emergency surgery. Did you know that David’s been the sole support of the two of them for the past five months? David, this young kid, has been taking care of his sick mother, and working his tail off here, and you refused to let him go to the hospital during an emergency.”
Edward seemed to ponder that for a second and then shrugged. “I didn't know that about the kid.”
“He told you he had to go to the hospital. You know, in the few months you’ve been here, you’ve never reached out to the people who work here to get to know them enough to care.”
Edward sat up straight in the chair. “If he had let me know that his mother had cancer, it wouldn’t have been a sudden request. ”
“He needed the job. It’s all they have right now.”
“And now he doesn’t have one.”
“That won’t be for long. I made a few calls and spoke on his behalf. They will be calling you for a reference because you were his superior. So, I’m asking you not to mess this up for him. Give him a good reference because he was a good worker. I’ve already given him a glowing reference.”
“You can’t leave.”
“The hell I can’t. And when I do, you’ll have to do your own job without me.”
“Meredith,” he pleaded. This job was well above Edwards’s pay grade, and he knew it. What was worse, he knew that Meredith could do it very easily because she had.
“I’m asking you. My job is on the line.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I feel for you, Edward. You talked your way into a job that was above your head. But it’s not my problem. I have other…” Sh e was going to say problems, but none of the things going on were actually problems. The chance to meet her biological son that she gave up for adoption was a gift, not a problem.
“I have to go. I wish you the best, though.”
Edward stood straight and rammed his hands on the desk before him as he leaned forward. “We have a wedding booked tomorrow night. There are two hundred and fifty guests, and they will be in the banquet hall.”
“Maureen has all the details. I trained her right out of college. You may want to think about giving her a promotion. And if you’re smart, you will also give Darcy a raise and promotion. She’s quite good and has a good future if she stays. Just so you know, as soon as I walk out that door, I will not be on call. When I leave, I'm gone.”
“Come on, Meredith. You can’t do this to me!”
She turned to look at him. “I’m not doing anything to you. I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago. I’m doing this for myself.”
Griffin’s bag was full, and as he walked across the lobby to the front desk, he stopped and glanced around. Nothing lasts forever, not even love. It comes and goes and walks into your life. Today, it was walking out of hers again.
“You’re leaving.”
“Were you waiting for me?” he asked.
“I cleared out my office. But yes, I was hoping I’d see you before you left. You said you didn’t want to talk over the phone, so I thought we’d talk before you headed to the airport. You have to leave today?”
“I need to be back to the base in a few days. I have some wiggle room if I need it, but I’ll be pushing it.”
Meredith drew a deep breath and squashed down the tattered emotions she was reliving. Every attempt to open her mouth and speak betrayed her. The sob that was lodged in her throat threatened to choke her. Her knees grew weak even as her arms longed to reach out and right the mistakes of their past. The last thing she wanted to do was bawl in the lobby of the Ocean Vista.
They were who they were. Despite the love they shared, they’d built their lives without each other. She knew it, even if Griffin hadn’t uttered the words. The first time around, he’d held her in his arms and told her he loved her before she’d been brave enough to admit it. She’d loved him right from the start as a fifteen-year-old, long before they’d started dating.
His gaze penetrated her until she felt it deep in her soul.
“I don’t know what to say. I knew you were going to leave, but this is the part I’ve always had trouble with. I hate it.”
He stared at her for a moment.
“I will let you know if I hear from Lucas,” she added. “I mean, if you want to know.”
“He’ll tell me. I’ll be seeing him.”
“Of course.”
She drew a deep breath and forced the envy that was choking her back down her throat until her stomach hurt. Of course, they’d had a relationship for years without Meredith knowing it.
“The tattoo was for Lucas. Inside the butterfly is the symbol for giving a child for adoption. It’s hidden. Rafe obviously knew about the butterfly, but he never knew about the adoption. I never told him about Lucas. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have understood. I just didn’t want to share it with him. I wanted that little piece of Lucas just for myself.”
“You kept him close to your heart.”
She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
“Do you want to talk outside? Maybe sit in the hammock out back?”
“And what? Relive memories?”
“Only if we make love. No, just talk. I think it will do us both some good. ”
“There’s a bench hidden in the dunes near the beach. If no one is there, we can have some privacy.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Come here.” She walked to the front desk. “Darcy, can you stow the Colonel’s bag behind the counter until we get back?”
“Sure thing,” Darcy said.
A few minutes later, they walked the path and found, to her relief, that the bench tucked in a sand dune surrounded by tall grass and a wooden fence was empty. They settled in, and each of them was silent for a few seconds.
“All this time, I foolishly thought you came to Crystal Cove for me,” she said. “How crazy is that? I actually believed that. I thought it was me, but it was for Lucas.”
“If I’m being honest, I didn’t want to come at all.”
“I understand why you’d never want to see me again.”
“Lucas pushed me. He wanted to meet you. But he couldn’t do that unless you knew he had met me and that you were okay with everything. He doesn’t know our story. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t completely understand myself. And he was okay with that until I got that stupid invitation to the class reunion.”
She nodded and then drew in another deep breath. She couldn’t get enough air. There wasn’t enough air for her to breathe.
“Does he really look that much like you?”
Griffin laughed. “I told you. He’s a mini-me. Do you want to see pictures?”
She placed her hand over her heart where the butterfly tattoo resides. “You have one?”
“Lots.”
“Lots,” she whispered.
She waited for him to search on his phone, and then he handed it to her. “This is on my boat. We go fishing once or twice a month. I sail up to the Big Island from Oahu. ”
“Really? Oh, gosh, he does look like a twin. He even has your chin.”
“Yes, he does.”
He took the phone and then searched through his photo album. “This one is of him and his fiancée.”
“He’s getting married?” She looked at the picture. “She’s beautiful.”
“Alaina is the light of his life along with this little munchkin.” He swiped a few more times and revealed a little girl in a flowered bathing suit digging in the sand. “This is Olina. It means a place of joy. And she is a joy.”
“He’s a father?”
Griffin nodded. “Which makes us grandparents.”
She chuckled. “So, you are a grandpa.”
“Yeah, the skateboarders were right. I’m a grandpa. But she calls me Pops. So does Lucas. He sometimes calls me Griff, but most of the time it’s Pops. He called his dad, Dad.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You have such wonderful memories with him. Seven years’ worth of wonderful memories.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty great.”
“He really doesn’t hate me?”
He shook his head. “Far from it. I never got to meet the man who raised him. His name was Buddy. Not short for anything. That was his birth name.”
She smiled. “Really?”
“But I did meet his mom, Charlene. A wonderful woman. You would have really liked her.”
“You met her?”
“I knew her. I used to have dinner at her house with Lucas a few times a year. She died a year ago. Both of them were older when they adopted Lucas. They were in their mid-forties. Buddy died in a freak accident at work when Lucas was still in junior high school. Horrible. It left Charlene shattered. Charlene died from breast cancer that she’d battled for years. After Lucas found me, she insisted I become part of their family.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. She knew there was a real possibility that she wouldn’t be around for any of Lucas’s milestones in life. You know, grandchildren or a wedding or holidays. It was Charlene who encouraged Lucas to search for his biological parents as soon as he turned eighteen. It took a few years, but he found me. She was fighting cancer even then, and I think she knew his time with her was limited. She didn’t want to leave him alone. There was no other family. I think she wanted to know he’d have family when she was gone.”
“It took me a little time to transfer to Hawaii, but it was a good move.”
“You didn’t want him to be alone either.”
“The feeling was mutual. But he’s not alone. That’s for sure. Alaina has a big family. Wonderful people. He didn’t need me. There is plenty of love to go around there. So much so that his cup runneth over. And they do love Lucas.”
“But he didn’t have you. His father.”
“Buddy was his father,” he said resolutely. I can’t replace him no matter how much time passes. But Lucas and I have developed a bond. I’m more of…an uncle or big brother he can make fun of from time to time, I guess?” He chuckled. “And he loves making fun of the old man. We’re close—closer than I thought we’d be when we first met.”
A tear rolled down her cheek freely. “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she said quietly. “Truly, I didn’t. I wanted to stop hurting. I was scared all the time you were in Iraq. I was scared you were going to die. And when Lucas was born, he looked just like you and I remember holding him and thinking if you died, he would be a constant reminder of the pain of losing you. I was young. Stupid, really.”
“You were alone.”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize that loving him would keep you with me. I was afraid of the pain of losing you. So, I told the nurse I wanted him to go to a family with two parents who would love him forever. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I did it to stop hurting. I squashed that pain away. I never pretended he didn’t exist. But if I didn’t see him and look at those eyes that were just like yours, I wouldn’t miss you so much. I never dreamed he would lose the parents who raised him, especially not at such a young age. And you two are like clones.”
“There is definitely no denying he’s my son. I never had to see the adoption records or DNA. I just looked at him and knew.”
She chuckled but it came out as a sob. “I don’t blame you for hating me all this time.”
“I did. For a long time. It was easier. Anger. But I can’t look at you and hate you at all. I tried though. The first few days here I realized I never really stopped loving you.”
“I never spoke up. I should have, but I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I never told you not to reenlist. I never told you I was angry when you did. I didn’t tell you I was pregnant. I put all my faith in you loving me and me loving you and you coming home. That’s all on me. I can’t go back and change that.” She shrugged. “I’m not doing a good job at this. You know, just go. Forget I said that. You can give Lucas my number, and he can call when he’s ready. Just go.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Which part?”
He moved closer to her and took her hands in his. “All of it. Help me understand. Why didn’t you tell me you wanted me to stay? Why didn’t you put up a fuss when I reenlisted?”
She sputtered. “It was done. You already did it. Why didn’t you talk to me about reenlisting before you did it? I thought you knew how I felt? We were months away from getting married. Months! And when you reenlisted, you mentioned you wanted to change the wedding date. Why would I have to tell you to stay with me unless you really didn’t want to be with me? ”
“Because it was your life, too.”
“ You were my life. How could you not know that?”
“No matter how compelled I felt to serve my country, nothing changed how I felt about you. About us.”
“It didn’t feel like it,” she said quietly. Nothing had really felt like it since. When had she gotten this way?
“I don’t know that it would have made a difference in my going initially. And I did reenlist without talking to you about it. That’s on me. You didn’t create the chasm on your own so I can’t let you think what’s happened is all on you. I had a part of it, too. But it would have made a difference after that if you’d told me to stay. I would have insisted you come with me and stay on base while I finished my tour. We wouldn’t have been together initially, but you wouldn’t have been alone. There were other military families there. I would have fought for us if I’d known it meant losing you. After that, I only stayed in the military because the one thing I’d wanted to love wasn’t there anymore. By the end of that second tour, I'd finished my college degree, so I commissioned to be an Officer. I got promoted from there.”
“I was angry. It had already been four years of me waiting. Four years of me waiting for you to make me your wife. For us to be together.”
He sighed slowly. “It would have been different. But I was selfish.”
“Serving your country is not selfish.”
“Not giving you a voice in our future was.”
A dull ache formed in the center of her chest and grew with his admission.
“I was selfish, too.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t the same. You were scared. Alone. And I wasn’t here to support you. Every letter you sent me filled me with your love while I was in that desert. We didn’t have technology like we have now. I’m not sure how that would have changed things if we’d been able to email, text, and video chat on a regular basis. We had letters, and I thought things were okay because I was serving my country. But I didn’t stop to think about how empty I’d left you. I don’t think I understood that until I saw your expression and your reaction to seeing me. I’m sorry. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get to this place, but I am.”
Tears stung her eyes, and her hands trembled. “Would you have stayed and resented me?”
He glanced away quickly and sighed. Then he looked straight at her. “Truthfully, I don’t know. Not about being pregnant. Maybe about me having to leave the military. And I would have. Who knows. We can’t go back and change things. Too much has happened since. I wouldn’t have had you living on base alone with a child with me out there doing my job for my country for more than my next tour. That wouldn’t have been fair. So…I don’t know what would have happened.”
He got up and stood in front of her. “Lucas will call you. He does want to meet you. He means it. But only if you want to.”
A sob escaped her lips as she got to her feet. She’d thought about it many times, but shame had always replaced the longing she’d had to put her eyes on the little boy she’d given birth to.
“Maybe someday.”
“Maybe someday soon?”