Chapter 9
Sarah
Gabriel wasn’t what I had expected. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t him.
Don’t get me wrong, he seemed like a great man, but he was the complete opposite of Fai.
He was boisterous, always having a story to tell or an anecdote to share.
It was hard for me not to analyze him from a psychologist's point of view.
He seemed to be overcompensating, doing his best to talk himself and his accomplishments up.
I assumed it was to impress Fai, his newly found older brother.
As an oldest child myself, I had memories of my younger siblings behaving similarly, but when we were children.
It was odd to see a grown man behaving the same way.
I had spent more time with him than Fai had at this point, though not by much. Dinner had come together quickly, and by the time Gabriel and I carried the food out and set the table, Fai had finished his calls and joined us.
Neither Fai nor Gabriel knew how to start a conversation.
They were both bursting at the seams with questions for each other, and hopefully answers too.
I glanced at Fai to urge him to speak up, but found his gaze glued to his plate in front of him.
I recognized the look, the particular exhaustion that meant he was shutting down, overwhelmed by the weight of the moment. I stepped in.
“So, Gabriel,” I began as I dished up my plate, “what do you do for work?”
Gabriel smiled from his seat at the round table. He did that a lot, smile I mean, even when the moment didn't quite call for it. “I spend the summers on a fishing boat in Alaska. I make enough for the year and come back here for the winters.”
“Alaska and rural Montana? You really like living remotely, don’t you?” I mused jokingly.
Gabriel laughed lightly. “I really do. I haven’t ever been a big fan of cities.”
“Did you not grow up in Chicago?” Fai interjected, perplexed.
Gabriel looked at him, confused, and shook his head. “No, why do you ask?”
“Oh, sorry.” Fai was flustered. “It’s where I was born. I guess I always assumed our mom stuck around the city after she had me.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that’s where you were born,” Gabriel explained. “I was born and raised in Montana. Not this town, but one a few hours away. She must have moved here after she gave birth to you.”
Fai nodded quietly, turning the information over.
I turned to Gabriel. “How did you find us?”
Gabriel’s demeanor lightened, excited to explain.
“It was really quite the process. I actually found you first, Sarah. Unintentionally. After my mom died, I hired a private investigator to find this brother of mine I always heard about. It took over a year to find anything, but he did manage to find a connection between my mom and a man named Rohan Acharya.”
My eyes went wide, hearing Fai’s father’s first name for the first time. Fai was just as shocked, his knuckles turning white as he grasped onto the fork.
“Is that…” He cleared his throat and took a steadying breath. “Is that my dad?”
“Oh shit, you didn’t know?” Gabriel asked both of us. We both shook our heads and Gabriel sighed. “Wow, I would have been a lot more delicate sharing that bit of news with you. What do you know?”
Fai let out a humorless chuckle. “Nothing.”
Gabriel sat back. “Okay, well, what do you want to know?”
“How about what happened after you found Rohan?” I offered, reaching under the table and bracing my hand on Fai’s knee for comfort. His leg was bouncing until I made the contact, a nervous tick he had always had. “We can start with that piece tonight.”
“Who am I to disagree with a trained professional?” Gabriel said with a wink.
I did my best to hide my disgust, keeping my expression neutral.
Men were never fully aware that winking, flirting, and suggestive behavior usually had the opposite effect than intended.
It’s one of the reasons I had fallen for Fai.
Where most would flirt with me, make suggestive comments, or play that stupid dating game, Fai had always been real with me when we first met.
He never put on a facade to impress me, only giving me his truth.
“The connection between our mom and Rohan was minimal. They went to high school together, and in their sophomore year, Rohan’s parents paid our mom a good chunk of change.
They essentially paid her to give you up for adoption,” Gabriel explained as he looked at Fai, his expression careful and empathetic.
“After you were born, his family moved. I’m not sure where, but the last name and the timeline gave me a jumping off point…
well, my private investigator a jumping off point,” he corrected and turned to me.
“He then found Fai’s records in the Illinois foster system records.
It was pretty easy to track him down to Oregon at that point. ”
“How did you find me first if they found Fai through his father?” I asked, confused.
“It’s a small world,” Gabriel explained, leaning back into his chair. “A couple of years before all of this started, I heard a guest lecture of yours at Montana State University about the inner workings of psychopathy.”
"Oh my god, you were there?" I said, genuinely surprised, thinking back to the lecture I had given as a favor to a colleague who taught at the university.
Gabriel nodded. “It was by complete happenstance. I was supposed to have a meeting in Bozeman, but it ended up being rescheduled and I had a day to fill.”
“And you chose a lecture on psychopaths as your plan?” Fai asked, amused and finally relaxing a bit.
“Hey, it sounded interesting,” Gabriel defended with a smile. “It was free and a few hours long, so I figured, why not? You know? It was interesting too." He turned to me. "Is that what you do full time?"
I nodded. “Along the lines of that specific area of research. I can’t get into specifics—”
“HIPAA laws, you know?” Fai interjected, throwing me a wink.
I laughed lightly. “Exactly, HIPAA laws. But I do focus on the rehabilitation of convicted criminals.”
“That must be incredibly fulfilling,” Gabriel mused, his entire focus on me now. “What can you share about your work?”
I smiled as I explained the ins and outs of how I got to the position I was in.
In fact, we spent most of the dinner conversation talking about my work and the schooling that got me to this point.
I made sure to keep an eye on Fai, to ensure he wasn’t upset that the conversation had moved on from him and his family, but he seemed just as happy as Gabriel to hear me talk.
Knowing Fai, he was probably enjoying the reprieve from being the center of attention, taking the time to process what he learned about his parents.
I had always found it interesting how Fai processed.
It was incredibly internal. Many would assume, just by watching him, that he didn’t think too deeply about concepts or didn’t process these moments at all.
From the outside, it looked like he took the information in and simply moved on.
But I knew better. Fai would think, and think…
and think things over. The amount of mental energy he expended on a daily basis would send most people into a coma.
It’s how he processed the world, thinking through every avenue internally and only sharing when he was done.
I could analyze why he did it that way. Hell, I had many times. He was used to being alone, not having anyone to lean on for emotional support. He didn’t choose to be as independent as he was, situations forced him to be. It was the only way he was able to survive.
I felt extremely lucky that for a time, he was able to open up to me. That for the first time, he wasn’t alone in this world.
Until he was again.
I shook the thought off. The divorce was necessary.
Excruciatingly painful, but extremely necessary.
Looking at him now, I couldn’t help but be grateful for the divorce.
He was thriving. Seven months sober, finding his footing in work again, and meeting his brother.
I tried not to dwell on the fact that he only got sober after I left, and instead focused on being grateful that he had gotten sober at all.
For so long I worried about him. I would dread the day I received a call letting me know he had gotten in a stupid bar fight, or wrapped his car around a tree.
He wasn’t reckless by nature, but he couldn’t avoid the consequences of his drinking forever.
After each relapse, every time the phone rang, my heart dropped before I even looked at the screen.
I would thank whatever god was out there that Fai was alive today. After our conversation in the car, not even Fai had expected to make it this far.
I knew he didn’t believe it, but he deserved nothing but good in his life. I hoped someday he would come to understand that.
What I had to understand was that I was no longer that good.
I was grateful to be here for him, but this trip was already prying open something in my chest that I had worked hard to keep closed.
If I had moved on, found someone new, I could have been here as his friend and only his friend.
But Fai held the only key to my heart, and that hadn't changed.
This trip was dangerous for a heart as carefully pieced together as mine, and I had to be deliberate about the boundaries I kept, no matter what.
Another yawn escaped me, the long day finally catching up. Dinner had been wonderful, but I was ready to collapse.
“We need to get this one to bed,” Fai mused with a smile as he looked at me. “Once the yawning starts, you have a small amount of time to get her into a bed before she collapses.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue. I was ready for bed.
“Let me show you to your room,” Gabriel insisted as he stood, his chair scraping underneath him, but he paused, looking between the two of us. “Ah, hell. I forgot you’re divorced.”
I raised a brow at him in question.
“There’s only one extra bed. I don’t get a lot of visitors,” he grimaced. "I'm sorry, I assumed you were still married. I didn't mean to put you in an awkward position."
So much for boundaries.
The implications hit me like a wave in the ocean. I was going to have to share a bed with my ex-husband.
Well, I could insist that Fai sleep on the couch. He would do it without argument. But that didn’t seem fair. This trip was already heavy enough, and he deserved a place to unwind at the end of the day.
At the same time, I didn’t want to sleep on a stranger’s couch. Gabriel seemed like a good man, but he was still a stranger. No woman was going to feel entirely comfortable sleeping in a stranger's living room.
I glanced at Fai, who was already looking at me with wide eyes. I could see him getting ready to offer to sleep on the couch, but I couldn’t have that.
“We’ll be fine sharing a room,” I explained to Gabriel, who seemed apologetic for the circumstances.
“You sure?” He asked. “We can make up the couch for one of you, or even I can take it. You can sleep in my bed.”
I waved him off. "It's really fine. Fai and I shared a bed for sixteen years. What's a few more nights?"