16. Caleb
CALEB
Greg and I headed to the village fair, and I couldn’t believe the number of people who had gathered there.
It was fifteen degrees Celsius, the sun peeking through the clouds in soft bursts of light that warmed the cool evening air.
The breeze carried the smell of greasy, calorie-laden food from the stalls—fried dough, roasted corn, and sugary treats that made children tug impatiently at their parents’ hands.
Bright lights from the Ferris wheel and roller coasters flashed against the evening sky, spinning and blinking in dazzling colours, while laughter and excited chatter blended with music blasting from speakers near the stage in the centre of the fairgrounds.
A spooky house and mirror maze entertained children and adults alike, drawing curious visitors toward their entrances with promises of thrills and surprises. A live band played upbeat songs, adding to the lively chaos that surrounded us.
“This is unbelievable,” Greg said, turning slowly as he took everything in. “There’s nothing like this in Vancouver. The lights, the colours, the rides, the people.”
I nodded in agreement, scanning the crowd.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks.
My pulse spiked, pounding against my ribs, and the noise around me seemed to fade into the distance, as though someone had suddenly lowered the volume on the entire world.
A few feet in front of me stood Jiya and her children.
How could I possibly run into her when there had to be at least a thousand people wandering through this fair?
The odds felt impossible, yet there she was.
I knew she would be at the fair. She had mentioned it to Greg and me, but still…
in a crowd this size… the coincidence felt unreal.
And if I was honest with myself—painfully honest—I had hoped I would see her again. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“Caleb?”
The voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
Lucas stood in front of me, frowning.
I stared at him, momentarily frozen.
He had grown so much since the last time I had seen him. The little boy I remembered was gone. In his place stood a taller version of himself, still skinny but stronger, and his blue eyes pierced straight into mine.
“Hi, buddy. How are you?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Fine,” he replied. “How come you’re here?”
“Didn’t your mom tell you?” I said before I could stop myself.
My gaze shifted to Jiya, and I saw her cringe slightly.
“I had a meeting here, and I’ve been in town for a couple of days.”
“You’ve met him already?” Lucas turned towards her, his eyebrows squished together. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
She opened her mouth to explain, and closed it. Her chin dipped to her chest, averting his gaze.
“I’d like to go and hang out with my friends now,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes.
I winced inwardly.
I hadn’t meant to create tension between them.
I hadn’t meant to put her in that position in front of her son.
I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have asked her first before revealing anything.
Instead, I had acted on impulse, letting my frustration speak before my judgment had a chance to catch up.
I wanted to hurt her.
Not him.
Jiya knelt in front of Lucas, trying to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen.
I could see the tension in his small frame, the stubborn set of his jaw, the hurt flashing in his eyes. No amount of talking was going to fix this. She seemed to realize that, too, as her shoulders sagged.
“Geeta, will you take Lucas and Emma and find his friends? Keep your phone on. I’ll call you.”
Geeta nodded and led the children away, guiding them through the crowd.
Once they were out of earshot, Jiya turned to me. Her face was flushed, her breathing uneven, and her nostrils were flared. “Why did you have to do that?” she demanded. “You didn’t have to tell him that you had been here for a couple of days or that we met at the office.”
“How was I supposed to know you didn’t tell him?” I shot back. “You should have been better prepared.”
“Well, I didn’t expect you to come to a fair for your bachelor party.”
“You were the one who told us about it, so here I am,” I bit out. “Deal with it.”
“Guys… guys… relax,” Greg stepped in, raising his hands. “No one is at fault here. Just breathe and calm down.”
I barely heard him.
All my attention remained fixed on Jiya. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and I could see the effort it took for her to keep herself composed with her jaw clenched.
“I’ll see you later, Greg,” she said abruptly.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked away.
I watched her marching with her back straight and steps firm, telling myself it didn’t matter, that she was just another face in the crowd.
But the lie fell apart the moment she disappeared from view.
Greg nudged my shoulder. “Let’s go on a ride or something, man.”
He was trying to distract me, to pull my attention away from her, but it didn’t work. I shouldn’t care about how she felt or what she thought. She didn’t mean anything to me anymore. That was the truth I kept repeating in my head. So I followed Greg, and we went to stand in the bumper car line.
The music blared around us, lights flashing in every direction.
For a few minutes, I let myself get caught up in the chaos of the ride, bumping into Greg and the other drivers, gripping the steering wheel and focusing on the noise and movement instead of the thoughts circling inside my head.
After enjoying the ride, Greg stepped out of the car beside me and stretched his arms.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” he said.
I nodded. “Alright. I’ll wait near the Ferris wheel. I want to go on it.”
“Okay,” he replied before heading off toward the restroom.
I walked toward the Ferris wheel line, the towering structure glowing, its lights spinning slowly above the crowd.
And then I spotted her.
Again.
I watched Jiya from a distance as she made her way toward the Ferris wheel with Emma, guiding the little girl carefully through the crowd.
A few minutes later, after waiting in line, they finally reached the front near the loading platform.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” the young ride attendant said politely. “She’s too small for the ride. Another adult needs to sit beside her and you.”
“Mama,” Emma protested, her voice rising. “I go up. I go up. No fair.”
“But my son is in the other one with just one adult and—”
“I understand,” he replied patiently, “but he's a big kid and can ride safely on that one. Your daughter is too small in height and weight to sit with you on this one. Chances of her slipping out and getting hurt are quite high.”
“I’ll hold on to her really tight. Can’t you make an exception… just this once?”
I could hear the strain in her voice now. She wasn’t arguing out of stubbornness. She was trying to protect her daughter’s happiness. Emma had clearly been excited about this ride, and her lips now pressed in a tight grimace with her shoulders drooping, tugged at something inside my chest.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“I’ll sit with them.”
The words left my mouth before I had time to think.
The attendant and Jiya turned toward me.
Pin drop silence descended for a few seconds.
“No, it’s fine. We’ll get off,” she said quickly, reaching for Emma. “Next year, sweetheart.”
Emma started to cry.
The sound cut straight through me.
“I said I don’t mind sitting with you,” I repeated calmly. “And it seems like she really wants to go.”
Jiya looked at me, her eyes bulging.
“Thanks, but no thanks. There are many things children want at their age, and sometimes it’s not possible. She’ll learn to understand and accept it.”
She tried to lift Emma again, but the little girl whimpered, clinging to her.
Without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on Jiya’s arm. The moment my fingers made contact, I felt her body stiffen beneath my touch.
It had been years since I had touched her like that, yet the familiarity of it hit me instantly—like muscle memory returning. I felt the slight tremor that ran through her, and saw the way her breath caught.
I removed my hand quickly as if I had been burned and shoved both hands into my pockets.
“The problem can be solved easily,” I said. “The solution is staring right at you. Let’s sit down and enjoy the ride.”
Jiya glanced at the growing line of impatient people behind us.
“Fine,” she said at last.
We climbed into the cart together. Jiya sat on one side, placed Emma in the middle, and I took the seat on the other.
Emma sniffled softly.
I leaned toward her and swiped the tears away from her cheeks with my thumb.
“There you go, Emma,” I said gently. “Now give me a big smile.”
Her face lit up.
Seeing that smile stirred a familiar longing inside me, catching me off guard before I could push it away. This could have been us. Our little family with Lucas as our son and Emma as our daughter. It should have been us.
The Ferris wheel began to move, lifting us slowly into the air.
The town spread out beneath us. From up here, everything looked peaceful—small houses, quiet streets, the distant shimmer of water along the shoreline.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Jiya snapped her head toward me, her eyes widening.
“I shouldn’t have said anything to Lucas until I had checked with you first,” I continued. “I was caught off guard.”
The words felt awkward leaving my mouth, but they were honest.
She looked at me for a few seconds, and then her expression softened.
“I’m sorry too,” she replied quietly. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you either.”
The cart reached the top and paused.
Emma gasped. “Look, Mama!”
Jiya followed her daughter’s pointing finger, and I did the same.
The entire town stretched out below us—the waterfront glowing in the fading light, the sky painted in soft shades of orange and purple, the world calm beneath our feet.
Emma tugged at my jacket.
“We stuck?”
“I hope not,” I replied with a small laugh.
“Scared?”
“A little bit,” I admitted. “You?”
“No. I take care of you. No worry.”
Her confidence made me chuckle.
“You’ll take care of me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “And how old are you, Emma?”
“I free years old!” Emma declared proudly, holding up two three fingers with a big, toothy grin.
Coldness hit my core with her answer.
Across from us, I saw Jiya go very still. Her fingers curled around the metal bar beside her, and her gaze flickered toward us for the briefest second before she quickly looked away. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her movements just slightly too quick, too tense.
My thoughts raced as the Ferris wheel began its slow descent. She had left me, built a new life in another town, married a wealthy man, and had a child. Wow. Jiya moved quickly.
My stomach hardened looking at her. I forced my gaze forward, but my eyes kept drifting toward her.
Her black hair swayed gently in the evening breeze, and a loose strand floated across her jawline
God… she’s still so beautiful.
I swallowed hard and shifted my attention back to Emma, continuing the conversation with her daughter as the cart moved downward.
When the ride finally stopped, I lifted Emma carefully into my arms and stepped out of the cart. Her small hands wrapped around my neck, her fingers curling into my collar.
As we walked away from the ride, Lucas and Geeta approached us through the crowd.
He stood beside Geeta, his hand gripping hers tightly, his eyes narrowed as he watched me.
There was caution in his expression, even though he had a pinched mouth.
The boy was studying me as though trying to figure out who I really was, weighing something in his mind that I could not see.
I bent to meet his gaze.
“Did you like the ride?”
“Yes. It was nice,” he replied quietly, lowering his eyes.
He released Geeta’s hand and crossed his arms over his chest.
I straightened slowly.
Sure, Lucas might have been upset about my sudden appearance, but this felt like more than simple frustration. His shooting glances at me and his body angling away from me made me feel like I was under inspection.
Was he questioning my reasons for being here? Or sensing the tension between his mother and me?
“Lucas, can I talk to you for a second?” I asked gently.
Before he answered, I glanced toward Jiya.
Her brows were drawn together, and her lips pressed into a thin line as she watched us. Still, after a brief hesitation, she gave a small nod.
“Whatever,” Lucas muttered.
I guided him a few steps away from the others, moving just far enough to give us a bit of privacy without making it seem secretive.
The sounds of the fair continued around us, but they faded into the background as my attention centred fully on the boy standing in front of me.
I knelt, bringing myself to his level.
“I’m sorry I upset you earlier,” I said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to.”
Lucas stared at the ground, kicking at the sand with the tip of his shoe, sending small grains scattering in front of him.
“You’ve grown up so much since the last time I saw you,” I continued, studying his face, noticing how his features had sharpened. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
“Do you like it here… in this place?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a lot of friends?”
“Yes.”
Each response came out flat and minimal, like doors closing one after another, shutting me out.
I exhaled slowly, realizing the conversation was not going anywhere.
For so long, I had worried about him, about whether Jiya had abandoned him the way I once believed, about whether he had been left to face the world alone.
But now, watching the way he carried himself, the way he stayed close to her, the way Geeta hovered nearby with quiet attentiveness, I could see the truth unfolding right in front of me.
She had stayed and taken care of him.
“Great,” I said, forcing a small smile as I glanced around, searching for something else to say. “I’ll let you go so you can enjoy the fair.”
I stood up slowly, brushing sand from my hands with a quiet sigh.
Just as I turned to walk back, Lucas spoke again, his voice barely audible. “Are you going to be here for a while?”
The question stopped me in my tracks.
I looked down at him as my heartbeat raced with his question.
Then, I knelt again so we were face-to-face.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” I explained. “But I’ll be back from time to time since I’m working with your mom on a new project.”
“Hmm… okay,” he said with a small shrug.
We walked back together toward Jiya, Geeta, and Emma.
As the distance between us closed, I felt a strange shift inside me, changing the direction of everything I thought I understood about her, about the past, and about the story I had been telling myself for years.
This is not what I expected.