26. Carina
twenty-six
Carina
C ara was going to be here in a few days, and I couldn’t wait. Excitement fluttered in my belly like butterflies’ wings flapping. It was the longest I’d ever gone without seeing her, and I missed her more than anything. I wanted to be close to my daughter. I wanted to hug her again.
I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep. Travis being on another twenty-four-hour shift didn’t help, nor did the naps that I now couldn’t go a day without. Even when I got a good night’s sleep, I was exhausted by early afternoon. Then I’d sleep like the dead for a few hours. I’d been going to sleep at 9:00 p.m.—unheard of for me—but tonight I’d been wide awake since 2:00 a.m.
Our new sleeping arrangement was taking a little getting used to. I’d slept with one other person in the bed before, and when I’d been drunk or Cara was little, two. But having four adults together was new. I was too wrapped up in exploring all that foursomes had to offer to want to sleep when we were in the bedroom—until I conked out at 9:00 p.m., that was. It was as if I was living my wild late-teens and early-twenties now, and my body was saying, “Hell, no. You’re thirty-nine years old, not twenty-one.”
I’d welcomed the few hours of quiet—not because Jacques, Trav, and Linc were too much, but because I wanted to do some work on myself. I wanted a life plan—an idea of where I wanted to go and what I hoped to achieve.
I had to keep reminding myself that my time here was limited. If I didn’t, I’d create some fantasy in my head where we stayed together and lived happily ever after. Then when reality hit at the end of our twelve months, I’d be heartbroken again.
So I needed a plan.
Did I want to get back into music? Did I want to go to university to study it? Did I want to play socially? The truth was, I didn’t. I’d had fun playing with the band, and I’d love to have my violin sent over, but I wanted to enjoy it as a hobby, not professionally.
The thing that stood out for me, that had made me the happiest, was watching my baby girl grow up. I’d raised a strong, independent, beautiful woman. The photos of Cara growing up reflected that—the first day at school when she comforted me because I was crying, her birthday when the other girls were doing pamper parties and she’d asked for a potato book party—literally potatoes cooked different ways with quiet reading time—book week at school when her costumes were ever more elaborate with the more advanced books she read, vacations together where we always visited at least one library and museum, and, more recently, graduations, and photos of her, Monroe, and Alec. My baby was grown. It had only felt like a handful of years ago that I’d held her in my arms for the first time. Now, she was starting her dream career and moving across the world to be with her boyfriends.
I was excited for her. Nervous too. Cara starting this new chapter of her life was incredible. I couldn’t wait for her to be immersed in all the amazing experiences that lay in front of her.
I was a little sad, too, though. It was silly, really. I wouldn’t lose her. We would always be in each other’s lives. It didn’t matter whether she was five or fifty-five; I’d still be her mum. I’d still want to talk to her and be there for her. I’d had twenty years with her, seeing her every day and watching her grow, and I knew I’d have many more years with her.
But revisiting the photos was bittersweet. There were so many photos—so much of Cara’s childhood—that I barely remembered. Then I looked at the date and remembered the deal I’d been working on, or I found product photos mixed in with the happy snaps and I’d remember. I recognized family memories based on what I’d been working on. My whole adult life had been lived in reverse, neglecting the truly once-in-a-lifetime experiences with my daughter in favor of the grind. I’d been working toward a goal that wasn’t my own, aiming for money and success. But it had never been enough—it would never be enough—because now that I didn’t have the career or the money, I was the happiest I’d ever been.
If only I’d learned it earlier.
Twenty years had passed in the blink of an eye, and I would always live with the regret of missing those irreplaceable childhood moments. I simply wasn’t present enough. I may have been physically there, but I was focused on something else entirely.
If only I could relive it all. I wasn’t deluded enough to think that I could turn back time to fix my regrets. But if I had my time again, I’d do things differently. I wouldn’t change a thing about Cara.
I would change me .
I sighed and looked back at the image of David, Cara, and me on vacation with Sophia, Pierre, and Jacques.
“Hey,” Jacques said from the doorway. “Can’t sleep?”
“No.”
He slipped onto the sofa next to me and cuddled in close. “What are you up to?”
“Looking at old photos.” I turned my laptop to him and giggled when his eyes widened.
“I must have been ten there.” He huffed and shook his head. “My God, that hair. What was I thinking?”
I ruffled his hair, and he groaned. “The Justin Bieber look was very fashionable with you young’ns.”
He slid down the sofa and rested his head on my shoulder. “Mom and Dad are still angry,” he murmured, his voice flat. “I tried talking to them again, and they wanted to know if I’d come to my senses yet.”
I kissed his head and clasped his hand. My heart hurt when I thought about them, but Jacques made it better. So did Trav and Linc. “I miss them too.”
“I understand that they’re angry, but why can’t they see it from my point of view?” He could barely contain his frustration and hurt. His tone changed, his words becoming shorter and his voice rising further from the whisper we’d been using with every word he spoke.
I turned into him and admitted, “I understand how they feel. If the situation were reversed, I think I would have reacted the same way.”
Jacques sat up, his brow furrowed and his lips turned down in a frown. “But you don’t have a problem with the age gap between Cara and Monroe,” he pointed out. “How is this different?”
I stroked his fingers with my thumb, looking at the differences between our hands. His were strong and smooth; mine were showing the beginnings of age, my pores deepening and fine lines starting to appear. “The age gap isn’t the problem. Your mum and dad feel like I betrayed their trust and stole their son’s innocence and future.”
He barked out a disbelieving laugh. “That’s ridiculous. I’m hardly a blushing virgin.”
“You’ve never introduced Trav and Linc to them as your partners, so they don’t know that you’ve been in a serious relationship for years. Regardless, their feelings don’t have to be logical.”
“Still….”
“It’s important you acknowledge those feelings, Jacques. I hope my friendship with them isn’t beyond repair.” I blinked back the sting in my eyes and exhaled heavily. “I don’t want to lose them. But more importantly, I never want your relationship with them to suffer because of me.”
“If they can’t get it—”
“I think they need to understand your position to be able to really move past what’s happened. But if they can’t, then I want you to honor their wishes not to hear anything about me. It’s only a year—you three can go and visit them without me, or if they come here, I’ll stay in the guest cottage.”
“Not going to happen. It’s all or nothing.”
“You know, when my ex didn’t support Cara moving here, I didn’t tell him he was going to lose his daughter if he didn’t change his mind.” I pursed my lips, biting back the instant anger at David. It wasn’t so much the cheating now—Jacques, Trav, and Linc had all helped me move past that—it was me needing to persuade him to do the right thing by our daughter, an action that should have been second nature to him. It was the first thing our daughter had ever asked for help with, and he’d refused.
Jacques tightened his grip on my hand, and his jaw bulged as he ground his teeth.
“I should have, but I didn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from me, nor did I want him to think I was swaying her opinion of him.” I sighed and shook my head, annoyed that I was still angry at him.
“You still changed David’s mind.”
“I did,” I conceded. “It helped that I was here. It also helped that Cara had run her business plan by me. I tweaked a few parts of it to include information he’d want to see in there and sent it to him.”
“And, what, he said he’d be a good dad because of that?”
I huffed humorlessly. “Basically. I appealed to his business brain. Cara had a plan, and he decided to invest in it. I think he figured out that the payback—a relationship with his daughter—would be far greater than if he continued to stonewall her attempts.” I shrugged. It really was as simple as that.
“My parents don’t think like that, though. They’re all about trust and loyalty and ethics.” His voice held a note of bitterness in it, and I couldn’t help my laugh.
“All the important things,” I reminded him. We were quiet for a moment, and I added, “The greatest joy in my life was raising my daughter. I know for a fact that your mum and dad share that view. My relationship with my parents wasn’t the same after they found out about David. I lied to them about his age, and I lied to him about mine. But now, instead of being happy that we’re divorced, they think I’m a failure. I’ve tried repairing the rift between us. I’ve tried talking, I’ve tried begging, I’ve tried yelling at them. But there’s a whole mountain of hurt there between us that I doubt will ever be summited. Don’t let that happen with your parents,” I begged, squeezing his hand to bring home my point.
“They’re trying to protect you the same way my parents tried with me. My parents banned me from seeing David—that made me sneak out and do stupid shit that I want to smack my seventeen-year-old self upside the head for. I was too young and dumb to understand they were trying to protect me. Don’t make my mistakes. Keep talking to them. Please.”
Jacques sighed unhappily. “They’re hurting you.”
I nodded and forced a smile, but it wasn’t a happy one. “I hurt them too. I’m hoping that we can get past it. I’ve reached out to them—the ball is in their court. But they still want a relationship with you. Don’t give that up easily. One day, they won’t be here anymore, and you’ll look back and regret losing them. I don’t want that for you.”
I was introspective tonight. Early morning reminiscing would do that to a person. I had regrets—everyone did—but maybe I could fix some of them. I’d done the best I could with Cara when she was little. I wished I could have been there more. We were solid now. We were close, and she knew I’d be there for her whenever she needed me. I wanted that to continue. I wanted to grow old watching my baby girl live her life and be happy.
No matter what happened in my life, I needed to be there for her. I was living in a bubble, but I could feel the pressure building. We were already three months into this marriage. No, fake marriage. I needed to remember that. It didn’t matter how hard I was falling for Jacques, Linc, and Trav. Permanent could never happen. Jacques and I had already pre-signed the divorce papers. That train was already in motion. I couldn’t very well jump off now. They were sweet and genuinely good men. But I needed to remember that this was temporary.
Still, it would have been nice to have had everything I’d ever dreamed of.