Chapter Five #2
“I think it’s supposed to be cloudy tomorrow,” I say, desperately trying to change the subject.
“You opened your bedroom door and tried to beat me with an iron hanger. I still have a scar in fact.”
I look at him horrified. “You do?”
He starts unzipping his jacket. “I’ll show you.”
“No, don’t!” I glance around, panicked. “I believe you. Just . . . Please keep your clothes on. And I’m sorry about that. I really am.”
He gives a brief nod of acknowledgement, then continues. “Fact number four, it was Zevi’s idea not to tell you ahead of time. He said you’d be sad and try to change my mind, and that you’d get over it faster as long as I sent you stickers and candy.”
“Wait—” I pause on the sidewalk and shake my head. “It was Zevi’s idea?”
He nods. “Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
The wall I built slowly starts to chip. I’m beginning to realize that my perception of the past is misconstrued where Caleb is concerned.
Maybe I had been reliving the pain of my father’s abandonment and taking it out on Caleb.
I was seven years old when he left and never sorted out my emotions.
My mother was too much of a wreck herself and was just trying to survive on a day-to-day basis, and Leah and Zevi were in no shape to help me.
The only advice I got came from my paternal grandmother. Someone quite odd and definitely not all there. “You know my trick?” she said to me after she found me crying in my room one day. “I take all the bad feelings, pack them in a suitcase, and store them in the attic!”
“What attic?” I said confused.
“This one,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “And then you lock it up—” she mimed it as she spoke— “And throw away the key,” she finished, pretending to fling a key over her shoulder. Then she spread her hands wide and trilled, “Taaaah daaaah!”
I know now that this wasn’t the healthiest advice.
But I took it anyway, and discovered that life was easier when you lived on autopilot.
Existing without feeling helped me survive the hardest years of my life.
Now, at twenty-eight years old, I find myself unwilling to open that attic door. I’m not a fan of pain.
“You actually sent me candy?” I say, clearing my throat.
“A green Laffy Taffy with every letter.”
“My favorite.” I smile sadly. “Such a waste.”
He turns to me abruptly. “Didn’t you get my letters?”
“Uhm. Yes.” I nod. “But also . . . no?”
“Explain the ‘no’ part.”
“I threw them out without opening them.” His eyes narrow and I rush to add, “But if I could go back in time, I definitely would. Actually,” I joke, tilting my head, “it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway since I hadn’t evolved yet to accept bribes.”
He mutters something unintelligible under his breath and I bite back a smile.
“And you should’ve known better than to listen to Zevi,” I say, sidestepping a questionable substance on the sidewalk. “He avoids confrontations like they’re a life-threatening disease. This is the guy who was going to marry a woman just to avoid telling my mother that he’s gay.”
Caleb chuckles. “Yeah, that was dumb of me.”
We walk in silence for a while, both lost in our thoughts.
I hadn’t realized how much he cared. I didn’t know that in my effort to protect my heart, I hurt his.
And if I were to be completely honest, I wasn’t being fair to him.
He had just turned eighteen and was just a kid himself, trying to live his truth.
My resentment slowly melts away and it feels surprisingly good too. I feel lighter somehow.
But.
Forgiving someone is very different to trusting them, I remind myself.
And even though I understand the past in a new light, there’s no taking back the fact that he still left.
He still signed up for a lifestyle where he’d be absent from my life, aside for a few weeks a year.
He still left the Orthodox way of life. It’s hard to trust someone who one day picks up and becomes a different person.
Who’s to say that he wouldn’t do it again? Who’s to say that he wouldn’t have a midlife crisis and abandon his wife and kids to chase some childhood dream of becoming a rockstar? After all, the biggest predictor of the future is the past.
“Looking back,” Caleb says, breaking into my thoughts, “I think I was afraid that I’d take one look at your sad face and crumble.”
I blow out a long breath. “I’m sorry, Caleb. I shouldn’t have given you such a hard time. And,” I add, swallowing against a sudden lump in my throat, “you’re not like my father.”
He looks equal parts hopeful and suspicious. “Do you mean that?”
I nod. Mostly, anyway. “And you don’t have to buy me the boots.”
He laughs and shakes his head as we continue walking. “I’ll get them anyway.”
“Well, luckily for you,” I say, with a teasing smile, “I do accept peace offerings.”
“That is lucky.” His eyes dance with humor. “So,” he pauses and casts me a glance, “are we good?”
“We’re good.” I smile. I can talk about other things besides the weather with him now.
I just need to remember to keep my heart at a safe distance, that’s all.
That way, if he disappears again and moves across the country, or even the world, it won’t be a catastrophe.
It’ll just be a bummer. Like that twinge of irritation when you realize you left something important at home, but know that it’s not the biggest deal.
“Good.” I nod. “So now that we’ve got that out of the way,” I say. “Tell me what you’re looking for in a wife.”
“Right. The thing is,” he pauses and runs his hand through his thick hair, “there’s one more catch.”