Chapter 32 #2
Mom leans over to show Dad the photos, and he reacts politely to images of a baby born to someone he doesn’t know.
I don’t press too firmly on my bruise forming from seeing all the babies born as I stall out on my love life, highlighting my short window to have a family of my own closing.
Jeff, Lina, Cassie . . . I’m at that age where everyone seems to be sharing baby announcements, so I should be used to it.
But my phone dings again with one last picture from Abby.
It’s Caleb holding the baby in the crook of his arm.
And I remember my daydream, the flicker of hope I fanned into a flame over the last few days.
And my heart cracks along a new fault line.
I need to talk to him. I have to tell him I’m leaving.
I swallow back my tears and type back.
Me: Adorable. Is your dad there with you now?
Abby: We’re in the car on the way back. I’m going to sleep for a week! Do you need him?
Me: Nope. No. Just wondering.
I can’t tell him over the phone with Abby in the car. It’ll have to wait.
But an hour later, when Mom and I head home, he’s still not answering. Impatient and anxious, I head out for a walk, finding the path that leads to his cabin at the edge of the property. But he’s not there.
It isn’t until I trudge home that I realize my mistake.
Caleb’s truck is in the driveway. I race up the steps two at a time, swinging the door open, the hummingbird knocker clanging when I slam it behind me.
Houdini charges, howling in glee, but I stop dead at the sound of Caleb’s raised voice from the kitchen.
“This seems like an extreme decision, given this is the first I’ve heard of it. ”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Caleb needed to hear this from me.
“But I’m getting treatment. I thought you’d be happy. This is what you’ve wanted.” Mom must understand why this would be hard on Caleb. Losing Sonny, and now her.
And me. Even though she has no way of knowing that would hurt him, too.
“You know I’d drive you to any doctor, any day of the week. Go get treatment in San Francisco, or LA, or anywhere with the best doctors, but then come home.”
I’m frozen in place, but I can’t hide here forever. Houdini flagged my arrival. Caleb’s back is to me, but Mom looks over his shoulder, her focus drifting to mine for a moment. She probably thinks I’m intruding on a personal conversation.
“Eden offered her home, and Len offered financial help.”
“Len?” Caleb shouts. “After everything he put you through?”
“You don’t know everything, Caleb.”
He pushes away from the counter, pacing like a caged lion, running his hands through his hair. When he finally acknowledges me, his expression is riddled with enough anger to overpower every adoring look before it. His eyes flash like the tips of flames. “I know enough.”
It’s my cue—a begrudging but obvious invitation to the conversation.
“I thought you said you were moving here?” Caleb veers too close to too many truths.
“That’s not fair to her. She doesn’t want that,” Mom jumps in, and I need to correct her, but Caleb and I can’t have that conversation with Mom as a witness.
If she knew how we felt about each other, I’m afraid she’d sacrifice herself.
She’d stay here, fall into the same patterns of inertia, and avoid treatment.
And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
There’s no situation in which I can have Caleb and live with the guilt of sacrificing Mom’s health to keep him.
Caleb’s watching me, waiting for me, and my heart is breaking as the betrayal crosses his face. “Yeah, why would she?”
Because of you, I want to shout. Because I love you, my face says. My instinct is to wrap my arms around him and whisper my wants into his ear—to untangle his hurt and place mine in his hands to fix.
This quiet is too loud. I sense Mom’s focus on us as we have a conversation she can’t hear.
“I want my mom to have the best care,” I say, hoping he captures the subtext.
Caleb’s gaze barrels into me, his jaw twitching. “Well, since you’ve got it all figured out, it doesn’t sound like you need me.” He swipes his keys off the counter, storming away.
“Caleb, wait!”
Caleb doesn’t break stride, reaching the front door and slamming it in his wake. I turn to follow, but Mom reaches for my hand.
“Leave him be,” she says. “It’s between Caleb and me. He doesn’t know how to deal with big feelings, so he gets mad, but he’ll come around.”
I’m not so sure of that. Mom knows him better than me, surely, but she can’t know what he’s feeling now.
I pat her hand. “Let me try.” I don’t wait for her to stop me or ask why his reaction has me rattled.
Caleb is already ushering Houdini into his truck when I jog down the porch.
He freezes when he sees me and keeps his hand on the open door, a hair trigger away from running again.
“So that’s it? You’re leaving and taking her with you?
” I remember this tone—distant, bitter, and accusatory.
He’s guard dog Caleb again, and I’m the intruder.
I don’t come closer even as I feel the pull of his gravity. “What was I supposed to say? That I changed my mind? That the offer no longer stands?”
“Tell her you’re staying—that we can take care of her here.”
I want that so much. But it isn’t about what I want, or what he wants. It’s about what Mom needs. “I don’t think we can, at least not as well. She’s gone years without treatment because there aren’t any good options here. And she needs ongoing care. There’s no cure, no six-month miracle treatment.”
Caleb squints toward the forest as if searching for answers, or possibly just because he can’t look at me. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.” He swallows hard as he finally catches my gaze. “I thought we had something, but I guess I misunderstood.”
I take a desperate step forward, reaching for his hand, but he yanks it back. “Caleb, you didn’t misunderstand. We do have something, and I wish there were another way. But I need to do this for her.”
I didn’t let my mom care for me when I needed her. And I never really healed. I know this is what I need to do to finally heal us both. But I would stay with him if I thought either of us could live with ourselves if I did.
“You don’t have to choose her over me just to prove you’re not like her.”
The accusation hits me like a slap, knocking the air out of me.
The comparison is both cruel and too close to home.
Every summer Mom left Grand Trees, she chose Dad and me over Sonny.
When she finally left San Francisco that last time, she chose him.
How many times did Mom face this dilemma?
Was her decision as physically painful as mine is now?
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Well, you could have fooled me.”
“Caleb, that’s not fair. This is an impossible situation.
” I’m no martyr, and I’m not sacrificing my happiness to prove I’m better than her.
I just want to do the right thing. A sob catches in my throat, but I swallow it back because I don’t deserve his sympathy right now.
I have to leave. But he’s the one who’s being left, and I’m only beginning to understand what a trigger that must be for him, because he has never been chosen.
“How could you have made this decision without me? Last night, you were going to move here and make it work? And now you’re”—he looks over my shoulder toward the house, blinking rapidly—“taking off and taking your mom with you? Where does that leave me? Leave us?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I’ve been in panic mode since my parents sprang this on me.
I can’t see beyond the fear, the loss, the cost. I’d just started to envision my life here with Caleb, but that fantasy has bloomed so quickly in the fertile soil of my adoration that moving forward without him feels like wandering into the desert—hopeless, lifeless.
“And yet you seem sure of this plan—so sure you made it without even talking to me.” His jaw ticks. I want to throw my arms around him and beg him to kiss me and fix this. But he looks so furious that I’m not sure how he would respond. We need some time to calm down and figure this out.
“We can’t leave right away, though. It’ll take some time for Mom to pack up and say goodbye. We still have a few weeks—”
Caleb barks out an incredulous laugh. “Yesterday, you told me you were staying forever, and now I’m supposed to be happy with a few more weeks. We really are in different places.” His gaze lands on me, and I can see the hurt he’s hiding behind the anger.
“We aren’t. I just need some time to think and—”
“Well, I don’t need time. I’m all in. And the fact that you’d go along with this plan without considering me—or us—well, I guess that tells me all I need to know.”
He slides into his truck, closing the door behind him with a finality that grabs me by the throat.