Chapter 11
Fai
Sharing a bed with Sarah hadn’t been nearly as bad as I had expected.
We both respected our sides of the bed, for the most part.
I had woken once with her head resting on my shoulder as she slept soundly.
I managed to push her back to her side without waking her.
She had stayed on her side of the bed for the rest of the night.
I felt guilty knowing she was seeing someone new and I was sharing a bed with her. Another part of me wanted to flip off this new boyfriend and rub it in his face. I had never claimed not to be jealous. Hell, I was jealous of every person who had the privilege of laying eyes on her.
Fuck it. I was jealous of every person on this planet who got to breathe the same air and see the same sun as her. The idea that another man had all the parts of her that, for so long, only I knew… well, let’s just say I wasn’t handling it well.
“It’s a left just up ahead,” Gabriel called from behind me.
He had suggested the hike. Sarah wasn't the most enthusiastic about the outdoors, so it was just the two of us for the day, a seven-mile loop that Gabriel had assured me was an easy route he had done countless times.
I was grateful I had taken up running over the last few months to help manage sobriety. Without it, I would have been finished two miles back, and we still had three to go. Hiking at elevation was not for the faint of heart.
“Tell me about our mom,” I called over my shoulder.
We had briefly chatted about the investigation he went through to find me and the details on my father, but we hadn’t broached the subject of our mother thus far.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, his voice giving away that he was also out of breath.
Easy hike, my ass.
“Anything. Everything,” I explained. “How did she die?”
"A stroke, a few years back. Fast and painless, the doctors said. She didn't feel a thing."
"Was it here? Or in the town you grew up in?"
“She stayed there. I was already living here. By the time I got the call and made it to the hospital, she was already gone.” His voice dropped for a moment.
I didn't turn around, giving him the space to gather himself.
I hadn't known her, but even I felt the weight of it.
"After she died, I started looking for you.
She had always wanted to. The older she got, the more desperate she became. "
My chest tightened at the thought that she had not only thought of me, but had wanted to find me. "How old was she when she passed?"
If it had been a few years back, she would have been around fifty, which was far too young.
“Umm… fifty-five.”
I stopped in my tracks, confused. I turned to Gabriel, who was looking at me with the same expression. “She couldn’t have been that old. If she were alive today, she would only be fifty-three.”
I didn’t know much about her, but I did know the year she was born and that she was fifteen when she had me. The math was simple enough.
Gabriel blinked, then laughed, shaking his head. "Mom would get a kick out of me not knowing her age even after she was gone. It was always a problem. I don't think I ever truly knew how old she was. She was just… Mom, you know?"
I nodded and turned back to the trail, as though I did know.
But how could I? I hadn't had the luxury of taking her for granted, of knowing her so completely that her age stopped mattering.
The only things I had were the numbers. The year she was born.
How old she was when she had me. That was the whole of what I knew.
“What was she like?”
“She was a real hoot, honestly. Always cracking jokes, lighting up any room she went into,” Gabriel reminisced. “She was always trying to make the people around her smile. She had a saying, you know?”
He paused for a moment as we scrambled a steep section of the mountain, but I could see the elevation level out ahead and trudged through.
"Sorry," he managed between breaths. He was faring worse than I was at this point. "What was I saying? Right. Her motto." He steadied himself. "Deixe o ambiente mais agradável do que o encontrou."
“Is that Portuguese?” I asked, recognizing the language but unable to decipher the words. When that happened, my first thought was always Portuguese. I had learned Spanish in high school and college, trying to find ties to my Colombian roots.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “You don’t know it? It was her first language.”
“Really? I would have assumed Spanish or English,” I explained offhandedly.
“Why?” he asked, sounding farther back than before.
I stopped and turned. He had fallen behind on the trail, hands braced on his knees, chest heaving, cheeks flushed from the climb. I pulled a water bottle from my bag and tossed it over.
He caught it, twisted off the cap, and took a hearty chug of the water.
“I just assumed that since she was Colombian, she would have either learned Spanish from her parents or English as she was born in Chicago, and since she had me there, I assumed she was raised there too,” I explained.
“They were just theories. Basically, all I know about her is where she was when I was born, her ethnicity, and her age. Birth certificates don’t have a ton of information.
I drew the conclusions I could with what little information I had. ”
Gabriel’s breathing evened out slowly, and he tossed the bottle back to me. “I can’t speak on her parents, our grandparents. They didn’t have a relationship with us. They would probably have the answer to why she spoke Portuguese. I never knew them.”
“Wow, really?” I asked.
He nodded. “I think there was a lot of pressure from both her parents and your dad’s parents to give you up for adoption. I think she resented them and cut them off once she was able to.”
“Wow…” I trailed off, looking at the trees around us, trying to wrap my mind around my mom and her life.
He smiled empathetically. “We can talk about something else if you want, if that’s easier.”
“Thank you, that would be great, actually. It’s… well, it’s a lot to take in. I’m getting a lifetime of questions answered unbelievably fast.” I pointed over my shoulder, back to the path. “You good to keep going?”
He nodded, and I turned again, picking my way along the trail.
“Can I ask you some questions? I’d love to know my big brother a little better.” The lilt of his voice was teasing, but I felt sincerity in his wanting to get to know me.
I was someone's older brother. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh. "Sure. What do you want to know?"
“Umm… I guess I’ll get right down to the nitty-gritty. What happened between you and Sarah?” he asked. “When my PI found you, you were married, and that was less than a year ago.”
“Damn, you really are just jumping right in there,” I teased, but proceeded to answer anyway. “To be honest, it was my fault. I’m an alcoholic and relapsed… badly relapsed. I said some things I didn’t mean and pushed her away. She finally got sick of me and filed.”
“Shit, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupted, not wanting him to feel guilty. I showed up at his house with my ex-wife. It was only right he was curious.
It was quiet for a moment as we hiked, but I could feel him thinking behind me.
“Are you sober now?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, just over seven months now.”
“Congrats, man. That’s huge,” Gabriel spoke softly. I smiled to myself because it was starting to feel like a big accomplishment. “You and Sarah seem to be in a better place now, too.”
“Yeah, we talked through some of our issues on the drive here. I think we’re friends now,” I explained.
He laughed. “You mean to tell me when you got in the car to come here together, you weren’t even friends yet?”
I laughed with him, truly thinking about it for the first time, because it was as ridiculous as it sounded.
Her climbing into my truck for an eleven-hour drive was only the second time we had seen each other since the divorce, and she had done it to support me.
“I never said the two of us made logical decisions.”
He laughed harder, and I joined in.
“She seems really great,” his tone was bright as he spoke about Sarah.
I couldn’t blame him; the full effect she had on people was often incomprehensible to me.
I was also her biggest fan, but it seemed Gabriel was gunning for the position.
“I don’t know her well, obviously, but from what I do know, she seems exceptional. ”
“She is,” I agreed. “She’s the most incredible person I know. That I’ll ever know.”
“Do you still love her?” he asked, his voice tentative. I glanced at him over my shoulder and just shook my head. He accepted the answer without needing my words.
Saying I didn’t love Sarah was a lie I would only say aloud once.
“Tell me about you,” I asked, trying to change the subject to anything but my feelings for Sarah. “All I know is that you live here, work as a fisherman, and no offense… are a shit hiker.”
He laughed, taking the teasing in stride. "You're not wrong. It's my own fault. I haven't kept up with much during the off-season and it's showing. Honestly, there isn't much more to know about me. I'm fairly boring. You're probably the most exciting thing in my life."
“Your long-lost, alcoholic older brother is the most exciting thing about you?” I asked incredulously.
He gave me a knowing look. “That title explains my point well. You also started your own business, a successful business at that. I’ve read some of the journals; they’re really good.”
“Really? You know about Fibonacci Files?” I was surprised. I knew a private investigator looked into me, but I didn’t realize the extent of what he knew.
“Yeah, once I learned you owned a journal, I subscribed right away. I have the last few issues back at the house,” he explained. “How often do you write for it?”
The trail had leveled out, and from here it looked like a steady downhill back to the car, which seemed like good news for Gabriel. I wasn't sure his lungs had another climb in them. "I try to have at least one piece in each issue, but the focus belongs on my writers. They're the real talent."
“Oliver James and Jackie James, right? Are they siblings?” he asked.
I shook my head. “They’re in-laws. He married her sister a few years back and took her last name.”
Gabriel smiled, falling into step beside me as the terrain leveled and the trail widened. “You’ve got a good thing going on out there.”
I thought about my crew back at home. I did have a good thing going on.
Maybe it was time I tried to salvage it, face my demons and my mistakes.
Apologizing wasn’t enough to right my wrongs, but maybe through real action I could at least restart some semblance of a friendship with them.
“They’re good people. I think you’d like Goldie, our editor. She’s a force of nature, that one.”
“She’s your roommate too, right?”
I nodded.
“Think you could set me up?” he asked with a wink.
I barked a laugh at the absurdity of Goldie being set up with anyone. “She would bite your head off, man. It’s better if you keep a few states’ distance for now.”
Gabriel laughed. "Maybe I'll come out and visit sometime. Could even see myself moving out there one day."
"You'd always be welcome," I said. "Doesn't your Alaska season start up again soon though?" I kept my eyes on the trail as the downhill began to steepen.
Gabriel hooked his thumbs through his backpack straps. "I think I could get used to the rain. It's just an idea, and nothing is keeping me here anymore. Not really."
“Just a mortgage,” I joked.
He blinked, then laughed. "I genuinely forgot about that for a second."
"Come visit first and go from there," I offered.
He nodded. “I think that’s a good plan.”