SCARLET #2
“I’ve done a lot of things I’ve come to regret,” he mused. My muscles stiffened in apprehension when his dark eyes—just like his son’s—met mine. I was looking into the eyes of a cold-blooded murderer. “But nothing compares to the night I took so much from you.”
“I wish your words meant anything,” I whispered, fighting back tears. “I wish they could bring her back, but they can’t. Anybody can say they’re sorry fifteen years later. I wonder if you ever thought of her once after everything was cleaned up and brushed under the rug.”
“The truth?” His shoulders sagged. “All the time. It was because of her that my son cut me out of his life. There hasn’t been a minute I haven’t regretted making that stupid, careless mistake. I didn’t know there was anyone else in the house. I swear.”
“You also never bothered finding out who she was or trying to make things right for her daughter,” I reminded him. “But nothing we say now can change that. You’ll always have to live knowing what you did and everything you lost. I guess that’s punishment enough.”
Nodding slowly, he murmured, “You’re right. It has been. I’ll have to live with that. Thank you for putting it to me straight.” With a glance at Grayson, he asked, “Will you let him know I came to check on him? It doesn’t have to be right away, so long as he knows I came.”
That much I could do, so I nodded before turning away from him and looking at his son.
The only man in the room with the guts to do the right thing when there was nothing in it for him.
Soft footsteps faded as his father left the room until I finally dropped into the chair again, shaking and crying.
I never figured I’d get the chance to face the man who made me an orphan, and of course, now there were a hundred things I wished I’d said, but maybe I’d get the chance to say them someday.
I mulled it over for a couple of hours, watching television without paying attention, listening to the incessant beeping from the numerous machines until the sound faded into the background of my troubled thoughts.
It wasn’t until Grayson started to stir that I realized how long I’d been sitting and thinking.
“Dad?” It was the first thing he said, his voice raspy, eyes still closed.
I was barely able to hold back a sob as I leaned closer to the bed. “He was here before, but now it’s just me.” There I went again, tearing up as my hand covered his, lying limply on the blanket. “Scarlet. I’m here.”
That got his eyes open, though slowly. He turned his head, gazing at me for a moment before his forehead creased. “Shouldn’t have told you. I’m going… to kick his ass.”
“I don’t think he cares,” I whispered with a shaky smile. “And you’re not in any condition to kick anybody’s ass, anyway.”
He didn’t see the humor. “I didn’t want you to see me like this. I was hoping—”
“I know what you were hoping, and I hope you know your friends care enough about you that they know when it’s time to ignore your instructions.
” Reaching out, I stroked his hair, smiling through my tears.
I didn’t imagine being able to do this again.
“I don’t know exactly what you did, but I know you don’t deserve to be alone. ”
“It’s over.” For the first time since regaining consciousness, he kept his eyes open long enough to stare into mine. “It’s over now. I want you to know that. You’re free.”
“You mean you—” He gave his head the tiniest nod. My throat tightened as inexpressible emotion welled up in me. I knew he didn’t do it just for me. It was for Jack too.
“Don’t you see?” He licked his parched lips. “You don’t want to be with me. I’m trying to do this for you. I don’t want to. But I have to.”
“And what about me? What about what I want? Because you know what I see in front of me now?” Turning my head, I slowly and deliberately scanned the length of his body.
“I see a man who almost died last night, and all because you stood up for me when you could’ve looked the other way.
You put everything on the line for me. How can you tell me I don’t want to be with you? How do you know how I feel?”
He released a weary sigh before closing his eyes again. I hated hearing it almost as much as I detested seeing his gray pallor and the lines running into his arms, not that it changed anything. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I know you have this idea about yourself,” I whispered back.
Somehow, I had to get through to him. The one thought that repeated in my head for hours last night was how pointless everything seemed now.
How hopeless. What was the use of anything if I had to live the rest of my life alone?
“You think you’re so dark and wrong. Like you could’ve done anything to save my mother’s life that night.
I know you couldn’t have. So you turned your back on all of it and tried to be better, do better, which is how I know you are a good man at heart.
I see it. I feel it. All you have to do is believe it yourself. ”
His jaw worked, revealing his indecision and the way he fought with himself. Why did he have to fight so hard? “It’s not that simple.”
“It doesn’t have to be hard unless you want it to.” I squeezed his hand harder like it would do anything to make him understand. “Or you can listen to me and believe me. You can believe what Jack saw in you.”
His eyes closed, pain touching the corners of his mouth. I hated knowing I put it there, but some things a person needed to hear. “What do you think he would want you to do now?” I asked. It was a risk because I didn’t quite know what the answer was, but I had a feeling.
After drawing and releasing a few slow breaths, he grunted. “I just want to do what’s right for you.”
“What’s right for me is not being apart from you.
I love you. I still love you.” Never more than now, seeing him like this, knowing how close we came to never having this moment.
“Give yourself a chance. You wanted me to start over and build something new. You need to do the same thing. Forgive yourself. Move on. Let me be next to you while you do it. That’s all I want. ”
“You can still say you love me?” He turned his hand over to clasp mine, squeezing with surprising strength considering his condition. But then, he was a strong man. He could take a lot.
“I don’t deserve you. I’m not only saying that.
I know it’s true.” He paused for a breath before adding, “But if you’d give me a chance, I would do everything I could to make up for my mistakes.
I can’t promise it will be easy or that I’ll be able to change into a better man overnight, but I will try.
Dammit, Scarlet, I will try for you, for us. ”
“So long as you don’t try too hard.” Winking, I explained, “I kind of like you the way you are.”
A smile slowly spread, lighting up his face. “I’m not stupid enough to pass up a second chance. The last thoughts I had before I passed out were of you. I thought I was dying.” Staring up into my eyes, he murmured, “Maybe I did. Maybe I’m in heaven now.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’re very much alive.” And he was very much mine. I wasn’t letting him go, not now. He was right. Second chances were rare.
“Who says I’m disappointed?” he asked with a grin before I bent to kiss him.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“Just say whatever is in your heart. I don’t have to be here,” I reminded Grayson, standing a few feet behind him on a bluff overlooking a crystal blue lake.
The first rays of morning sunlight were beginning to pierce the sky in the east, peeking over the treetops.
I could see my breath—the morning air was cool, crisp, revitalizing.
We weren’t outside to enjoy the weather this morning.
It had taken the two months since Grayson’s injury to decide what to do with Jack’s ashes once his body had been cremated.
“He wouldn’t want to live on the mantle,” he said, though I had to wonder if the man really would have had an opinion either way, seeing as he never left any final wishes.
It was more a matter of what Grayson wanted for him. Since Jack had always dreamed of moving out to Lake Tahoe after retirement, it seemed a good place to spread his ashes. Now, he would always be part of this special place.
Grayson held the urn in his hands, staring down at the contents. “Now that we’re here, trying to do this, I’m at a loss. I don’t know where to begin. You didn’t have to do anything you did for me, Jack. You didn’t have to decide I was worth guiding.”
My chest ached at the way his voice broke ever so slightly.
Just enough to reveal the pain he was fighting to hide.
Even now, when it was the two of us and nobody else, he thought he needed to hide his emotions.
Reaching out, I brushed a hand against his shoulder but said nothing.
I wanted to be sure he knew I was there, supporting him. He didn’t have to be alone.
His spine stiffened, and his shoulders rolled back like he was bolstering himself. Pride threatened to choke me. This had to be terrible, crushing. He had avoided it for so long until it was clear he had to do it for his own sake.
This trip was about closure—new beginnings.
For both of us.
Releasing a deep breath, he turned his head slowly from one side to the other, taking in the expansive view.
“If it hadn’t been for you, I would have ended up in prison or dead…
no doubt about it. You showed me there was a better way.
You forced me a lot of the time. You nudged and prodded and insisted. You refused to give up.”
Tipping his head back to gaze up at the bright, cloudless sky, he added, “You never gave up.”