Chapter 28 #2
“But you don’t know why,” she said in a small voice.
After a pregnant pause, he said, “I’m not going to pull it out of you, Cat. If you want to tell me, fine, but make it quick. I’m working here.”
Cat looked at him, trying to decide if he was worth tearing off the Band-Aid she’d worn on her soul for so long she almost didn’t remember life without it. Again, who did she think she was kidding? He was so worth it. If they couldn’t be together, he needed to know why. She owed him that much.
“I’ve got to go.”
“No. Wait.” She bit down hard on her lip, took a deep breath, and vowed to get through this without tears. “I never knew my father. For most of my life, it was just me and my mother. She was always a little nutty, but in a fun way, you know?”
His sullen shrug told her he was still pissed. “I guess.”
“I was eight when she married my stepfather. Chuck was an okay guy, not about to set the world on fire with ambition or anything, but he was nice enough. My mother wasn’t getting any younger, so they had two kids in two years, Marina and Dylan.
Two babies right on top of each other put a lot of strain on them and their marriage.
They had these loud screaming fights, and then he would take off, sometimes for days on end, leaving us to deal with the kids.
A lot of times she left me alone with them, even when I was as young as ten. ”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a kid,” he said, his posture losing some of its rigidity as he listened to her.
“It was, but I loved them. I’d waited forever for siblings.
They were never a burden to me. Anyway, my mother and Chuck finally got divorced when I was in eighth grade.
She started dating again right away, and I did a lot of babysitting.
I spent far more time with them than either of their parents did.
I got them off the bus, made sure they did their homework, made their dinner, gave them baths, read them stories. ”
“Cat,” he said, his eyes soft with sympathy she didn’t want from him.
“Wait.” She held up a hand to stop him from coming toward her.
If she didn’t get this out now, she’d never work up the courage again.
“As I got closer to finishing high school, I noticed my mother was spending even less time at home. In the meantime, I was plotting my escape despite how worried I was about what would happen to Marina and Dylan after I was gone. I knew they were worried, too, but we never talked about it until I got accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.”
Ian released a low whistle. “What do you play?”
“Used to play,” she clarified. “The piano. I taught myself on an electric keyboard I worked a year to pay for, and I got really good.”
“You must’ve been amazing to get into that school. No one gets in there.”
“In the end, it didn’t matter. The night before my graduation, I came home to find my mother packing.
I asked her where she was going, and she said she couldn’t be a single mother again.
She’d already done it with me and wasn’t going to do it again.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ I asked her.
‘What you’ve always done, Cat,’ she said.
‘You’re more their mother than I ever was. ’
“She walked out the door that night, and I’ve never spoken to her again even though she still lives here in Newport.
She saw the kids a couple of times early on, but after a while I decided it was more upsetting for them to see her than not to, so I put a stop to it.
She never uttered a word of protest and just disappeared from our lives. ”
“What about their father?”
“He helped out some financially, but I raised those kids all by myself. I gave up the chance to go to Berklee, but it was worth it, Ian. I’m so proud of them.
Marina’s a sophomore at Providence College, and Dylan’s leaving next week for Syracuse—both of them on academic scholarships.
Somehow, between the three of us, we managed to pull it off. ”
“I’m awestruck, Cat. I’m struggling through it at thirty-six with more help than I know what to do with, and you raised two kids, alone, when you were half my age.”
She shrugged off his praise. “I just wanted you to know it’s not personal, my thing with Rosie.”
“I understand that now.”
“Remember when I told you I’d just gotten out of a relationship?”
“The big hairy deal?”
“That’s the one. We dated for four years and broke up because he wanted to get married and have kids.
He moved in with Dylan and me last year.
When Dyl got his own place this summer, I snapped up the chance to move in with Georgie.
I couldn’t very well stay where I was after saying no to his proposal. ”
Ian looked down at the floor, his shoulders stooped with dejection.
Cat went to him and reached up to caress his face. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I never meant to. I knew if I stuck my hand in this fire, we were both going to get burned, but I couldn’t seem to resist. I still can’t.”
“Cat,” he whispered as he crushed his lips down on hers.
She clung to him, meeting each ardent stroke of his tongue with her own and gasping in surprise when he lifted her off her feet and into his strong arms. The kiss was long and deep and desperate.
It went on until Cat couldn’t take another minute of being that close to him while knowing she couldn’t have him.
“We can’t keep doing this, Ian,” she said. “It just gets worse every time.”
He let her slide down the aroused front of him. “I know.”
They held each other a long time until a knock on the door startled them.
“Are you guys doing it in there?” Ernie called in a joking tone.
“No,” Ian replied without releasing her. “Come on in.”
The door opened. “The boss is looking for you, dude. I told him you had a situation.” His eyes darted from Cat to Ian and back to Ian again. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Cat said, stepping out of Ian’s embrace. “I was just leaving.”
“See you around, Cat,” Ernie said as he walked away.
With a small smile for Ian, she said, “Don’t be a stranger.”
“Cat.”
Looking up at him, she took a moment to memorize every precious detail.
In a soft voice packed with emotion and regret, he said, “Did it ever occur to you that you might have a lot in common with a little girl whose mother abandoned her?” He caressed her cheek with his index finger and kissed her forehead. “Take care, babe.”
She watched him go, feeling as if he’d ripped her heart right out of her chest and taken it with him.