34. Sean
THIRTY-FOUR
SEAN
I slept on the couch, in the shadow of the Christmas tree that Lizzie had helped me choose. When I opened my eyes the next morning, I looked at the deep green branches and the twisted wire of the lights I hadn’t bothered to turn on, and I felt like a hollowed-out version of myself.
My back hurt. My legs were stiff. I dragged myself to the kitchen and watched the coffee drip into its pot, my mind completely blank.
I’d messed up. But the worst of it was, I didn’t know how to fix it, or even what I wanted the outcome to be.
Choose Lizzie? Choose Aaron and the rest of the family? Slink back into oblivion and move away from Heart’s Cove with Mikey?
The last made me close my eyes in disgust. My son loved it here. Within days, he’d been smiling more than he had in San Fran. He had more friends here than he’d had in the city. He was excited about joining clubs and doing sports. That was exactly what I’d come here to give him: community, support, a richer life.
And instead of being satisfied with that, I’d gone and ruined it.
As I filled my mug with black tar and drank down the bitter sludge, I thought of Lizzie’s face last night. It had been like staring into the eyes of a stranger. Like she’d closed the door on all the parts of her that I’d come to admire. I didn’t have the right to see them anymore.
I drank my coffee and stared at my phone, which was blank and silent. No message from Mikey or my ex, no anger from Aaron, no word from Lizzie.
Why had I thought I deserved a woman like Lizzie? What had possessed me to pursue her, when I knew that she never would’ve made the first move? I’d been so caught up in my own needs that I pushed her into an impossible position. And then when she told me she wanted to wait until after the holidays to broach the topic with her family, I’d ignored that too.
I was the one who’d kissed her. I was the one who’d called it a mistake, who’d ruined her family’s Christmas dinner. Maybe I was no better than my father, after all.
She deserved so much better than me.
The doorbell rang, pulling me from my thoughts. I shuffled to the front door and opened it to see my aunt Margaret standing on the other side. Her silver hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a deep burgundy jacket with a cream silk scarf. Her ears were adorned with smooth, white pearls.
“Hello, Sean.”
I moved aside to invite her in. “Merry Christmas.”
She arched a brow at me and stepped inside. I gestured to the kitchen and offered her a drink, then apologized for the state of the coffee when she made a face after her first sip.
I sat down across from her and stared into the dark liquid in my mug. “What happened after I left last night?”
“Oh, everyone was aflutter with excitement, as was to be expected.”
I lifted my gaze to meet hers and caught the wry look in her eyes. “Aflutter, huh?”
“Aaron vowed to do some unpleasant things to you when he saw you next. Then he called his sister some unsavory names. Sandra got upset. Dorothy opened half a dozen bottles of wine and insisted everyone calm down by screaming at the top of her lungs, which was surprisingly effective. Then we ate dinner and pretended everything was fine. Sandra got me a lovely new jewelry dish for my vanity.”
“Sounds like Christmas.”
Margaret sipped her coffee and managed not to make a face at how disgusting it tasted.
“Let me make a fresh pot. I know it’s terrible.”
“Sit down, Sean.”
I lowered myself back onto my chair and cleared my throat. “It’s my fault everything went wrong last night,” I blurted.
It surprised me to see sadness enter Margaret’s kind eyes. She’d taken her jacket off and hung it on the back of her chair, and as she pushed up the sleeves of her cashmere sweater, I stared at the watch she’d worn for decades. She’d always been a steady presence that seemed a little uncomfortable compared to the chaos of my childhood home.
“It wasn’t your fault, Sean.”
I scoffed. “No? I’m the one who kissed Lizzie right there where anyone could see. I’m the one who pursued her. I’m the one who tackled my oldest and best friend to the ground.”
“You used to do that every second day when you were teenagers.”
“Yeah, when we were teenagers.”
Margaret let out a long sigh. “Fine. I’ll amend what I said: you weren’t solely responsible for what happened yesterday.”
“It wasn’t Lizzie’s fault, Margaret.”
“I never said it was.”
“She’s a good person. She’s the best person. I never deserved her, and I never should’ve pursued her because I know she’s too good for me.”
“So what do you deserve?”
I blinked at my aunt. She stared back at me, her back straight as a rod, her gaze steady. When she arched her brow to prod me to speak, I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Do you deserve to be unhappy and alone?”
Her words felt like a slap, but I relished the pain. “Probably, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because—” I gulped. “I just do.”
“Explain it to me.”
“I ruin everything. I can’t get over these feelings inside me, and every year they rear up. Christmas brings out the worst in me. Just like my dad.”
Margaret leaned back. “Ah.”
Her quiet acceptance of my words stung, but how could she deny it? “He’d drink his way through the holidays and make our lives a living hell,” I continued, throat tight. “He made us walk on eggshells. That’s what I did to Melody. I didn’t drink the way he did, but I drove her away. It’s what I did to Aaron and his family. To Lizzie.”
“So it was your fault that your wife was unfaithful?”
“Yes!” I exploded, then shoved my palm against my short hair. I gripped the strands as best I could and pulled, then let out a long breath. “If I’d been a better man, she wouldn’t have had to go looking for affection somewhere else. The office holiday party would’ve been a chore instead of an opportunity to cheat.”
Margaret traced the base of her mug with a finger and was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “What do you want for Mikey?”
Confused, I looked up at her. “What?”
“What kind of life do you want for your son?”
“I want him to have everything. I want the best for him. I want him to grow up surrounded by people he loves. I want him to meet someone and have a great life. I want him to be happy, to thrive.”
“That’s why you moved back to Heart’s Cove.”
“Of course.”
“It’s what drew you to Lizzie. She’s warm and nurturing, all the things you wish you could give your son.”
I frowned at her. “Well, yes. But she’s a lot more than that. She’s not… She’s talented and funny and bright. She’s really clever, and she can keep track of a million things at once. Margaret, everyone thinks she’s just good at being a mom. They don’t see her.”
“But you do.”
We stared at each other. My heart thumped uncomfortably, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t understand what my aunt was getting at, or why she was asking me all these questions.
Margaret’s face softened, and she reached across the table to lay her hand over mine. It was warm and soft and small, birdlike bones barely covering the back of my palm. But the touch sent warmth spiraling up my arm and made me want to cry.
“Sean, darling,” Margaret said quietly, “it wasn’t your fault your father drank. It wasn’t your fault he left. It wasn’t your fault your mother got sick and passed when you were too young to truly come to grips with it. And the fault for your wife’s infidelity lies at her feet, not yours.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I should have been a better husband.”
“Yes. And she should have been a better wife.”
Her simple words cracked something inside me. I stared at her age-spotted hand atop mine and felt the ground shift like quicksand beneath me. “He used to get mad when I made noise on Christmas morning and woke him up,” I said, thinking about my father. About his red-faced rage when he opened his bedroom door, the scent of old booze reeking from every pore. The way he thundered down the stairs when I stood peeking at presents under the tree.
Margaret’s fingers curled around mine as her thumb swept over my knuckles. “You were a child, and you deserved better.”
A tear escaped my eyes, and I brushed it away. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Margaret.”
She squeezed my palm. “You own the things you did wrong, Sean. And you let go of the things that weren’t your fault.”
I lifted my gaze to hers, and the quicksand under my feet settled. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
“Sean, darling?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you deserve to be unhappy and alone?”
My throat constricted as I tried to gulp down the ball of emotion clogging it. “I?—”
She squeezed my palm hard. “No,” she told me firmly. “No, you don’t.”
It took me long, long moments to eke out the words and repeat, “No, I don’t.”