Chapter 36 Ocean of Never-ending Torment
ocean of never-ending torment
Sariah
The job search is way more complicated than I expected.
It’s nerve wracking and messes with my self-confidence.
How is it that I can’t manage to get past any of the bots at any company?
Keywords are there. Experience in spades.
Where the company is looking for something reasonable, I’ve applied.
I’ve barely even gotten the perfunctory email thanking me for my application.
I finally switched over to real estate in areas known to have amazing schools.
I never once considered moving, though, because a shell of a house, straight down to studs in any of these areas, was out of my budget.
Walls and, gasp, bathrooms or a kitchen…
those would’ve had me being laughed out of the bank.
My little house has met all our needs. Two bedrooms, one bath, small footprint on a large lot in a good school district.
It allowed me to raise Renée on one salary in a safe neighborhood and put food on the table.
Neighborhood kids met at the park to play and run and rode their bikes.
It has good bones, was built to last, and has charm.
Searching real estate sites, even as successful as I’ve become, at these prices is humbling. Between the notion that I can’t find work and the idea that I can’t afford better even now, I’m a little glum.
It’s also the day. Renée’s birthday always does this to me, though I never let her see it. So does the anniversary of the day she was conceived.
She is perfect. She is loved. She is wanted and she’s needed.
Some days like today, though I’ll never let it show, she reminds me of what was lost in gaining her.
I drop the lid on my computer and leave my phone with it on the island as I grab a bottle from Cian’s liquor cabinet and make myself a stout drink.
Bailing onto the loveseat on the terrace, I contemplate the brutality that brought me beauty, the terror that brought me the treasure that is my daughter.
My innocence was traded for hers.
My future was traded so she might have one.
My sacrifice was traded so that she would never need to have the same.
“Sariah?” My name spoken in sheer panic rouses me. “Angel?”
I lift myself from where I slouch and peer over the arm of the lounger to find Cian heading back into the house.
“Ci,” I call, trying to catch his attention. “I’m right here.”
He rushes back to me. He’s better than I deserve, and everything about this last month proves it.
“Angel? Did you fall asleep? At ten in the morning?”
I lift the empty tumbler and shake it in my hand. Nothing says loser like day drinking and passing out after breakfast.
He takes a seat at my feet, lifting to place them on his lap. He stares at my glass and back to me. “Want to tell me about it?”
“I get melancholy a couple of days a year. I don’t let Née see it because I don’t want her to think it’s about her. It’s not. It’s about me.” I drop my eyes closed as he begins massaging the soles of my feet.
Fighting back the prickle of tears and the stinging in my nose that always accompanies it, I take several deep breaths.
“Somehow, this feels like fourteen times, or one hundred times, the sadness and overwhelm. It’s all I lost—all we lost—plus the threat of fourteen.
Can I survive a year of this worry? And will it even stop in a year?
Have things changed to make it two years or three? ”
“Angel.”
“Am I even making sense? And did I lead them right to us? Fucking Liam telling me I’d let other kids drown to save my own. All I did was dangle her above an ocean of never-ending torment.”
The job search, the fact that I might have made myself unhireable with my actions, the house search with prices that aren’t remotely reasonable… all have compounded my despondency until I want to crawl into a hole.
“And the vodka is numbing your fears?” His words are cautious and quiet.
“Nope.”
“Is it helping you see things more clearly?”
“Also no.”
He looks at me with wariness, but his words are kind. “Can we set it aside, then, and assume it isn’t helping?”
“Do you ever wonder where we’d be if I hadn’t left… if I hadn’t had to leave?”
“I do.”
“Vodka makes my fuck-up easier.”
“Angel.”
“Ci.” I offer back, hoping it has the same resolve that his does.
“We’d have gone through our struggles together.
You’d have had someone at your side as you took on the tech sector in Denver.
I’d have had you with me through all the shit that is Murphy Enterprises, and I’d have come home to you after learning my sister fell off the side of a ridge to a brain injury that threatened her life.
We’d probably have two kids and run carpool all day long. ”
“That would be nice.”
“You missed it, Angel.”
“I missed what?”
“Who I am now… Who you are now… We’re better because we’ve been through things that allow us to see the true priorities in life.
Renée is exceptional. You know how resilient you are as a single mom.
Do you know how strong you are? You should.
You’ve proven it to yourself over and over again.
You’re a survivor. You’re a mama bear, and since I know stories from Ayla, I can attest to the accuracy. ”
“Ci—”
“Let me finish, Angel.” He waits for me to nod before continuing. “I’m a better man today than I was fifteen years ago.”
“That’s not true,” I whisper.
“It is. I’m less selfish. I’ve set aside things that don’t serve me.
I’ve lost the most precious thing in my world and regained it.
You think I won’t fight to keep it in a different way?
The shit that other people squabble over?
That isn’t us, baby. We’re big-picture people.
We’re sacrificing-the-good-for-the-great people.
We’re the bulwark-against-anything-coming-against-us people.
I needed to become this version of me so I could be the man this version of you needs.
Vodka won’t change our pasts. It won’t change our heartbreaks.
It will change our ability to be wise now. ”
“I’m so fucking scared, Ci.” I hold his gaze, giving him all of my burden. “So. Fucking. Scared. If they touch her, if he mutilates her or violates her, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Mama Bear. Let’s channel that energy into protecting her on the front end instead of healing her on the back end.”
“How?”
“Would you consider a year in an underground bunker?”
My mood lightens, and my face relaxes. “Probably not.”
“A move to Asia for a year?”
I scrunch my face.
“And you already eliminated a move…” he trails off.
I hadn’t realized it, but that’s true. So we stand and fight. We peer around every corner, we have each other’s backs, and we stand.
“I’m still fucking scared.”
“Me, too, Angel. Me too.”
Cian
As a kid, Casa Bonita was a pit. It’s a shame to say, but it’s true and everybody knows it. But it was fun as shit, even if the food was terrible.
Since the cartoon guys got a hold of it and restored it beyond its glory days to a real attraction, the waits are crazy, the prices steep, and it’s one hundred percent worth it. Our party of eight has a table near the cliff divers and, though it’s loud, it’s a blast.
The singing, the caves, the puppet show. Hell, the food is even good. Better than good, in fact.
Rosie looks dumbfounded, as does Sariah.
Renée and her best girlfriend are taking it all in, trying to play it cool.
Christian looks as out of place as Liam, only opposite ends of the spectrum.
Christian’s suit trousers probably cost the same as my monthly mortgage.
Tatted-up Liam with his pierced brow carrying a motorcycle helmet is his antithesis.
And Ayla and I could be those parents who beam at the kids for coloring inside the lines.
Watching the people we love happy and together is enough.
It's strange to be the adult here. Though, I’d bet the owners would argue, and I might, too, that no one is the adult here. We’re all kids, just of differing ages and maturities. Hell, I might have actually seen my brother grin over enchiladas.
The fight over raising the flag was not about who wouldn’t, but about who would. Raising the flag means piping hot sopaipillas need to be delivered. Ultimately, it was Sariah who did the honors. “I never got to as a kid and Renée will get another turn, I’m sure.”
We eat our desserts and chat around. Liam is his typically stoic self, though he does give Renée fist bumps throughout the meal. He might as well bear hug her. Liam isn’t verbose, but once you’re in, you’re in, and Renée and Sariah are in.
“Can we go to the gift shop?” Emma, Renée’s friend, asks with a few minutes left before the next cliff diving show.
Sariah looks around the table before relenting. “Sure, but take your phones, okay?”
Both girls show theirs in their pockets before sliding away.
“Come tell me if you go further.” She’s trying so hard to provide a normal life in abnormal circumstances.
We watch the next act of indoor cliff diving as the men, and one woman, lip-sync, mime downing a drink, and do some acrobatics into the pool below.
Rosie drops her napkin on the table. “I’m going to find the restroom.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sariah puts in, sliding out from our table.
The show ends, but it will return in twenty minutes with additional divers and their own unique antics.
“I got your email,” Christian starts. “I’m sorry for being slow to reply. I could use some good folks. I’ll shoot you a list of what I need.”
“That would be great. I hate to put good people out of work.”
“If you have good talent that isn’t on my list of immediate needs, mention that with their backgrounds and I’ll see if we have a place or can make room, or if another business in town that we know can use them.”
I exhale. “Thanks, Christian. Bankrupting my father is one thing. Hurting the people he betrayed with his falsehood is something different. I’m not him. I don’t enjoy the fuckery.”
“I enjoy fuckery,” Liam puts in. “But can we aim it at him?”
“I think pushing all the illegal shit to his accounts and taking what I’m owed while dissolving the rest all while he’s on ‘administrative leave’”—I use air quotes—“is fuckery aimed at him.”
“Make it hurt, would ya?”
“Guys?” Ayla asks.
All three of us turn to her.
“The divers are back.”
I nod. “And?”
“The divers are back, and the girls have been gone since before the last show started. And no matter the women’s room lines, twenty minutes is a bit much for Sariah and Rosie. There are restrooms everywhere and none are far.”
Christian’s eyes go hard as he scans the restaurant.
People wander and mill about. Families crowd our section to see the divers do their show.
The puppet show voice warbles and grates, and the laughter around it echoes against my ears.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.