Chapter twenty-three
Caine
I couldn’t stop staring at that business card. It sat on the coffee table exactly where I had placed it after we got back to the hotel. It was simple, white and elegant… just like her.
I hated that thought the second it entered my head. With an irritated sigh, I leaned back against the sofa and rubbed my face. Of all the places in the world. Of all the cities. Of all the streets.
How the hell did I run into Monique in Zurich, Switzerland?
The whole thing felt unreal. Like some kind of bad dream… a fucking nightmare. My daughter stepped into the living room area a short time later wearing pajama pants and an oversized hoodie. Immediately my eyes moved towards her face.
She seemed okay… at least on the surface. That didn’t mean much. Devyn had always been good at hiding her feelings when she wanted to.
“You alright?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
The answer sounded familiar because I had used the exact same one about ten times since we had left Monique standing on that sidewalk. My daughter looked down and spotted the business card. Her expression darkened immediately.
“You kept it.”
I glanced at the card before looking back at her. “Yeah.”
“Why?” Devyn asked.
I honestly didn’t have a good answer, so I shrugged and replied, “I don’t know.”
That was the truth. Not only didn’t I know why I had put it in my pocket, but I also didn’t know why I hadn’t thrown it away. And I sure didn’t know why I kept looking at it.
Maybe because I was still trying to convince myself that today had actually happened. Devyn folded her arms and shook her head.
“I don’t want anything to do with her,” she said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m serious Daddy.”
“I know you are,” I said.
“No, I mean it.”
I looked at her. “Devyn.”
“What?” she asked looking annoyed.
“You don’t have to convince me.”
We both remained quiet. After a few seconds she sat down beside me and for a while neither of us spoke. Then she asked the question I had been expecting.
“Were you surprised?” she asked.
I laughed a short humorless laugh. “Yeah.”
“Really?”
I looked over at her so she could see that I was being honest. “Baby, I haven’t seen that woman in almost fourteen years,” I said.
The words felt strange coming out of my mouth. It had been almost fourteen years.
Damn.
Has it really been that long?
Apparently it had.
Devyn stared at the floor. “I thought she’d look different,” she said.
I smiled slightly. “Yeah. Me too. But in all honesty, she looks the exact same way she did when she left. She hasn’t aged a bit.”
“We look so much alike.”
The statement hung in the air like a ceiling fan. Neither of us acknowledged it immediately because it was painfully true. The second I saw them standing across from each other, I noticed it. They literally had the same eyes, the same high cheekbones, and the exact same smile.
The resemblance was impossible to ignore.
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “You and your mother look like sisters instead of mother and daughter.”
Devyn sighed. “More like perfect strangers if you ask me,” she corrected. “I don’t like it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, but that earned me a glare. “What?” I asked.
“You think that’s funny?”
“Just a little.”
“Daddy, please stop,” she said with a serious expression.
I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m sorry.”
She rolled her eyes then leaned back against the sofa. The silence between us returned but it felt heavier this time. Eventually she spoke again.
“Why did she leave?” Devyn asked.
I knew that question would come up once she saw her mother. As long as Monique was out of sight, she was out of mind as well. Now, she wanted to know the answer to a question I had spent years hoping wouldn’t be asked.
Not because I didn’t have the answer, but because I wasn’t sure my answer would be enough to satisfy her.
I took a deep breath and simply replied, “It’s complicated.”
“Everything about this situation is complicated,” she said.
I smiled awkwardly because she was absolutely right. This whole situation was complicated as hell.
I nodded slowly. “Well, not everything is complicated.”
“So why did she leave?” Devyn pressed.
I stared at the card on the table then looked away. “I guess because she wasn’t ready to be a mother and wanted a different kinda life.”
The answer sounded hollow, even to me. But it was the truth.
Devyn scoffed. “How could she get pregnant and have me but not be ready to be a mother to me?” she asked. I remained quiet because I didn’t really have an answer for that. “Right! It makes no sense. But I guess she wanted a different kinda life that didn’t include me.”
The statement hit harder than she realized. Maybe harder than she intended.
I swallowed hard before rubbing a hand across my chin. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“Make it about you.”
“How is it not about me?” she asked quietly. “The woman left right after I was born! You said so yourself!”
I didn’t have a response because if I had to be honest, part of it was about her. Or at least that was how it probably felt to a little girl who grew up without a mother. The realization made my chest ache.
“I don’t know what was going through her head back then, sweetheart. All I know is that she wanted something different that I wasn’t providing.”
That part was true. Even after all these years and all the time that had passed, Monique’s decision had never fully made sense to me. And it probably never would because I couldn’t understand how a mother could look into the beautiful face of a four-month-old baby girl and just say goodbye.
Devyn sighed heavily and rested her head against my shoulder like she used to do when she was little. The gesture caught me off guard. For a few moments neither of us moved nor spoke. We just sat there in silence trying to process something neither of us had expected.
Finally, she spoke. “Do you plan on calling her?”
I glanced down at the card then at my daughter. “Do you want me to?” I asked as I stared at the card again.
“Not for me!” she shrieked. “I want nothing to do with that woman.”
The question should’ve been an easy one to answer, but it wasn’t. I honestly had no idea what I was going to do. And that scared me more than I wanted to admit.
After all these years, I had convinced myself that Monique was part of my past. Today proved otherwise because as soon as I saw her, it took me right back to when we first met sixteen years ago.
And now she was back and standing in my present. Whether my daughter realized it or not, the moment she saw Monique on that street, everything changed. Devyn eventually headed back to her room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I stared at the card again then picked it up. I put it back down but couldn’t stop looking at it, so I picked it up again. I was still holding it between my fingertips when my phone rang.
It was Natalia and for a brief moment, I closed my eyes. She always seemed to call at the right time… when my life was falling apart.
“Hello,” I answered, trying to sound normal.
“Hey handsome.”
Normally that would’ve made me smile, but tonight, it didn’t. There was a pause before she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Caine.”
I sighed heavily because this woman knew me too well. Sometimes I thought she knew me better than I knew myself.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t do that,” Natalia said.
I leaned back against the couch. “Do what?”
“Act like I can’t hear that something is stressing you out. I can hear it in your voice.”
For a moment I considered lying then decided against it.
With a heavy sigh, I blurted, “I saw Monique today.”
There was a shocked kind of silence. “Repeat that please.”
“I saw Monique.”
“Devyn’s biological mother?” Natalia affirmed.
“What other Monique you think I’m talking about sweetie?”
“I mean I know you’re talking about her, but how?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.”
I looked towards the window as the lights of Zurich sparkled in the distance.
“Of all the places in the world…”
“What happened?” Natalia asked.
So, I relayed everything that happened to her from the shopping trip with Devyn to seeing Monique across the street right down to the shock of it all. Then I told her about Devyn’s reaction, the business card Monique gave me and the invitation to join her for lunch.
By the time I finished, Natalia was quiet. “Wow!” she said after a few minutes. “Just wow.”
“Yeah. That was my reaction too,” I admitted.
“How’s Devyn?” Natalia asked.
The question immediately relaxed something inside me because Natalia always understood. She wasn’t asking about Monique. She was asking about my daughter.
“She’s angry.”
“I figured that would be her reaction.”
“And she’s hurt.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
I rubbed my forehead feeling the pressure. “She says she doesn’t want anything to do with her.”
Natalia was quiet for a second. “Today.”
“What’s today?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want anything to do with her today.”
I frowned in confusion and asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s fourteen.”
I didn’t say anything… just listened because Natalia was usually right about shit like this.
Natalia continued, “She’s angry now.”
“So?”
“Once her anger subsides, she’ll eventually have questions.”
I looked down at the business card in my hand. The same thing had crossed my mind… more than once.
“What if I don’t want her talking to Monique?” I asked.
Natalia laughed softly.
“What’s funny?”
“Caine, you can’t protect her from every answer she wants,” Natalia said.
The words hit harder than I expected because regardless of what she said, I still wanted to keep Devyn from having anything to do with Monique.
I wanted to protect and shield her. I wanted to keep her from getting hurt. The problem was Devyn wasn’t a little girl anymore and no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t fight every battle for her.
Not only that, but she lived here in Switzerland, where I couldn’t control anything anymore. It was crazy how I took her away from one issue just to put her smack dab in the middle of a bigger one.
The line went quiet. Then Natalia spoke again. “Just be there for her.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
“That’s all you can do babe.”
After we hung up, I sat there for a long time just staring at the card… thinking, remembering, and worrying. Because for almost fourteen years, Monique had been a closed chapter, a finished story.
Something I had packed away and moved on from. Today proved how wrong I was. The chapter wasn’t closed. So, I guess the story wasn’t over either… not even close.
And the worst part, I had a feeling this was only the beginning.