45. Chloe
forty-five
“Chloe?” Shoshana says quietly behind me.
“Huh?” I turn around and focus my eyes on her. “What’s up?”
“Um… your-your parents are here?”
“My what? Who?” I look beyond her to the couple awkwardly standing near the entrance. Their eyes are darting between me and Justin, but weirdly it’s not on me they end up focusing their attention.
“Mom! Dad! What—Hello!” I manage to smile and peck Mom’s cheek, then side hug Dad.
Mom blinks and settles her gaze on me, seeming to shake some thoughts away. “Dawn told me, honey, and I said to Daddy, Honey, we have to go get Chloe. She cannot stay one more minute in such a dangerous place.”
I haven’t told my parents about buying the restaurant yet. I was going to keep that for later. Once it was, literally, a done deal. Less headache. I get that they’re not happy. But a dangerous place? “What are you talking about?”
Dad clears his throat. “Your mother heard about the unsavory incident with your chef.”
“Oh! Oh—that. Geez, guys, is that why you came?” It’s so sweet it’s not even annoying. “As you can see, I’m fine, and the good news is, the bad guys are behind bars and the mystery of why the restaurant was losing money is solved. And that is mainly thanks to Justin.” I gesture to him standing behind the bar, looking utterly confused, his jaw setting when his gaze meets our group. “Justin! Come meet my parents.” I beam proudly at him.
He walks straight up to me, laces his arm around my waist, lays a long, wet one on my mouth, then leaves me in an erotic daze in front of my parents and says, “Alan Sullivan, pleased to see you again. Miz Sullivan.”
They know each other?
Dad says nothing. He looks… shrunk. Chastised. Defeated. He finally breaks the silence. “Pleasure’s mine.” He doesn’t seem pleased. Not pissed either. Just utterly annoyed. Like he’d rather be a thousand miles away from here. “You seem well,” he adds.
I mean, what is going on?
Justin tugs me so close to him he turns my front to his side. My cheek is nearly squished and my mouth feels funny.
I press my free hand against his chest to right myself. “Um… do you know each other?” It’s obvious they do.
Justin’s arm clenches around me. Dad does his thing where he juts his chin out and stretches his lips to the sides. Then he plunges his fists into his pockets, rocks on the balls of his feet, and avoids looking at me at all costs.
First time I saw it was when I asked about Santa Claus. He just couldn’t deliver bad news to his little girl.
Now, not so cute.
Mom ventures, “We’ve um… we’ve met. Right, Alan?”
“Dad?”
Dad does his bullshit pose again.
“Justin?” I ask. “What’s going on?”
Justin looks on the verge of saying unpleasant things. A lot of things. He moves his chin to the couple who are holding their private dinner here. “A reunion of sorts?”
“No. We-we were here to see Chloe…” Mom’s eyes are full of tears, and her bottom lip trembles. “Such lovely people.”
“That’s enough,” I hiss, my gaze darting between the three of them. “Justin!” He’s the only one I can count on to tell me the truth.
He gives me a small shake of the head. “Not my story to tell.”
Dad rubs his forehead with the back of his thumb. “Uh.” He smacks his lips. “Son, mind giving me a minute with my daughter?”
Justin tenses, and not lightly. It’s a full-on body reaction. At what, I’m not sure. Being called son? Being told to step away?
“It’s okay, Dad,” I gently nudge. “I don’t keep secrets from him.” I tuck my body closer into Justin. “We… we’re really serious. Whatever’s going on, I’ll share with him anyway.”
Dad chuckles. Does the back of the thumb rub again.
Mom bats her eyelashes at me. “Dahling, not tonight.”
Dad looks at me. “Tonight’s actually a good night. Let’s go for a walk. You and I need to talk.”
I glance at my staff serving dinner. “I—can this wait ’til tomorrow? How long are you in town for?”
“It’s a’right, Clover. We got you covered here.” Justin kisses my forehead tenderly and then turns to Dad as he lets go of me. “You handle her carefully, now.”
My eyes bug out, and I lose my breath. I turn to Dad—expecting some kind of cataclysmic incident—but then Dad answers, “Count on me.”
And what was that?
The conversation with Dad is one-sided and lasts more than a minute. And when it’s done, my world is shattered and put back together. It looks different. Worse in some ways. Maybe better in others.
At any rate, a lot of things make sense now.
Justin hands me a beer and sits next to me on the steps off my deck, Moose at our feet. “You good?”
It’s night. We just got to the cottage. The evening ended on the early side. Mom and Dad left shortly after my long talk with Dad. The Wards’ memorial dinner wrapped up early. “I’m good.”
“Been quite a day for you.” He reaches for my free hand and links our fingers together.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, tears rushing to my eyes.
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” he says, repeating his earlier statement.
It was, but I get him.
Ten years ago, Dad was in Emerald Creek with Uncle Kevin for the closing on the purchase of the restaurant and the signing of a new lease on the space. They drove back at night. It was dark and visibility was low because there was a storm, but they were excited, they were in a hurry to get home, Uncle Kevin eager to celebrate. Dad was having a good day with his brother-in-law, which is not something to gloss over, since I’ve never heard Dad say anything good about his wife’s brother. But it was one of those days where Uncle Kevin seemed to be getting his shit together, and that made Mom happy.
Dad sharing that surprised me, as it was the first I’d heard that Uncle Kevin didn’t have his shit together, for pretty much all his life.
Lots of things are starting to make sense now.
Back to that night, Uncle Kevin was driving in the pouring rain, too fast, too careless, not paying attention, not having his eye on the road, not realizing the road was slippery. He didn’t see an upcoming curve, and got to the curve too fast, overcompensating, hitting a car stopped at the intersection.
Hitting it full force, sending it barreling and tumbling.
It was an old car, unequipped with airbags or all those fancy systems that prevent cars from catching fire.
It caught fire.
Uncle Kevin and Dad were in a newer car. They had all the bells and whistles. Still, it took them minutes, long minutes to emerge, dizzy and confused.
They called nine-one-one.
They stumbled to the other car, maybe a hundred feet away, such was the force of the impact, hastening their steps to bring assistance, then holding back when the car caught fire, not believing their eyes when they saw one silhouette pull another one out of the inferno. Then moving again because although they’d caused the accident, they weren’t monsters.
They weren’t heroes either.
They couldn’t bring themselves to brave the flames. It was just too damn hot. How could someone even breathe? Their eyes hurt from the smoke, their skin felt brittle, and they weren’t even that close.
And so they watched, helpless.
They weren’t heroes.
“We weren’t criminals either,” Dad said to me. “No one could establish that Kevin was driving too fast. He claimed that the kids’ car had inched onto the main road, beyond the stop sign. It wasn’t clear cut at all. But I was there, and I knew he”d lost control of the car. Your mom was so happy her brother finally had something he was serious about, and now everything was up in the air again. I mean, he could have faced prison. It would have killed her. And it wouldn’t have brought the girl back. And so I offered them a deal.” He stayed quiet for a while and added, “We met with the authorities here, and it seemed it was the best course of action. For everyone. Doesn’t mean I liked it. Just means it was the best.”
And so, on behalf of his brother-in-law, Dad made compensation to the Wards for the loss of their daughter Audrey and to Justin for his injuries.
“It… um… it explains a lot,” I whisper to Justin. “It must have been hard for you… having him right next to you all these years.” And then me, waltzing in to take over for Uncle Kevin.
He takes a long pull on his beer and exhales loudly. Doesn’t say anything.
“I… uh… I don’t know what to say. I guess you never uh… never talked it through with Kevin, right… and I guess uh…”
“What did he tell you? Sullivan.”
“Dad? He told me about the accident, and that he offered to pay… you know, to give a monetary compensation on behalf of Kevin. To, you know…” Make it go away. “Make it go away,” I add in a whisper.
“You ashamed?” he asks me.
“Ashamed?” Of what? “My dad wasn’t a hero. I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt, that I didn’t wish he’d have told Uncle Kevin to slow down, or that he’d had the guts to help you pull Audrey out and maybe do something heroic like CPR or whatever, but he is who he is,” I finish, almost inaudibly.
What was left of daddy’s little girl just died, I guess.
“But um… he loved his wife, and his love language,” I add with a sad huff, “is money. I’m not surprised he’d throw money at a problem. I mean, I’d be surprised if he hadn’t. That wouldn’t be him. Or if it was him, if he had the means to make a problem go away by throwing money at it and he didn’t, then that would be a negative trait, as far as he’s concerned. He did the right thing by his standards.”
“How d’you feel about that?” His question comes immediately.
I look at Justin’s profile against the dark night. His strong jaw, cut cheekbones. His angry gaze. “I feel immensely lucky that I have you in my life. Despite his flaws, I love my father. But I do not envy my mother. And I would not want to share my life with a man like him. That’s how I feel.”
I expect this to get me a kiss, or at least a stroke on my back, a half hug. “I felt like a cheat,” he says instead.
Like a cheat?
He stands, goes to the kitchen, returns with two fresh beers, one for me, one for him. He sits down and starts talking. “When I came out of the hospital, I was weak and angry and mostly felt out of control of my whole life. One moment I was this asshole stealing his brother’s girlfriend, planning on losing his virginity to an experienced girl. The next I was a thief. Maybe even a murderer. A cheat.”
I set my hand on his forearm, but it falls off when he lifts his beer to take a long slug. I tug my hand between my thighs, set my bare feet on Moose, and take comfort in the dog’s soft grunt.
“And when I’m out of the hospital, I’m shoved into a room with my parents and a bunch of adults who tell me I have to sign here and here and here and everything will be okay. Audrey’s parents were there, and they were signing. The two guys who I’m told were in the other car were there and they were signing. My dad said we were grateful. Fucking grateful.” He plays with his beer between two fingers, his head hanging low, watching the bottle dangle. “I made money from someone’s death. Real money. Too much money for an eighteen-year-old. And certainly too much money for someone who survived. She wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t been for me.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I stay quiet.
“I still resent my parents for that. If I had to do it all over again, I’d never take a single cent from Sullivan. His money soiled me.”
My stomach clenches. “You turned the money into something good. Something for the community. It did some good. It didn’t bring Audrey back, but nothing could do that.”
“Heard that a million times, Chloe. You wanted to know why I called the pub the Lazy Salamander? You have your answer.”
“The Wards,” I venture awkwardly. “What did they—what did you talk about?”
“The usual shit. Forgiveness and stuff.” He takes a deep breath. “I—I didn’t mean it that way. It wasn’t shit. At all. I mean these people—these people are saints if you ask me. It’s just that…” His words die in the night, but his pain is there, looking for a way out. “It was a lot, seeing them today. Hearing them say the things they said to me.” He squints, holding tears inside. “I was looking at them, later during dinner. And listening to them. And what they said to me, they’re right, you know. I need to do that too. Live my life. Snap out of it and truly live. Stop being fucking scared.” He takes my hand again. “You give me that. The power to move forward. The courage to live my life.” Our gazes meet. Is he thinking about his unborn child, and how I’ve been by his side through the curveball life threw at him? And I’m proud I was able to do that, to be that person for him. To convince him he could do it. That he was more than capable.
That he’d be a great dad.
But I don’t know how long I can sustain this.
My chest constricts, as if a giant vise is clamping around my heart. How do I really feel about Justin having another woman in his life, a woman he made a baby with? About him having this woman in his life, in a way, and forever.
And I hate, hate, hate myself and my stupid insecurities for that.
Why can’t I be stronger?
My eyes well up just as Justin stands. I inhale slowly. I don’t have the strength to open up to him about my darkness.
Justin doesn’t notice my distress. He gives Moose a soft whistle, taking him to the wooded area surrounding the cottage to do his business.
I bring our empty beer bottles inside and do my bathroom routine. As I slide between the bedsheets, the domestic sounds of Justin locking the door, turning the lights off, then coming up the stairs, fill me with a comfort tinted with a shade of uncertainty.
Life can never be that simple.
He lays heavily on the bed, turns to wrap me in his arms, then falls immediately asleep. No nightmares. Not even a whimper.
I can’t sleep. I want to toss and turn, but he has me tugged into him, and I don’t want to wake him.
And amid all the thoughts that twirl in my mind, keeping me awake and more and more restless, my anxiety settles on one sentence.
‘His money soiled me.’
Does he see Sullivan’s daughter when he sees me?