Chapter 33
After lighting this match, Dad heads home the next day, leaving us to put out the fire. It takes us two weeks to pack Mom up and say goodbye to Grand Trees. And it takes the town several attempts to say goodbye to her, with three going-away parties filled with lamentations, nostalgia, and gifts.
Caleb and I haven’t spoken directly since our argument.
As painful as the silence is, it may be easier this way because time hasn’t offered any epiphanies about how we could make it work while I care for Mom in the city and Caleb raises Abby in Grand Trees.
Every time I attempt to figure out a solution, I run into a brick wall, like a labyrinth without an exit.
A long-distance relationship would require that I put our future—and my desire to have kids—on hold indefinitely.
When would we even see each other while we care for others and are stuck in different worlds? I can’t stay. Caleb can’t leave.
A few more weeks of pretending would make me fall deeper in love with him and make the inevitable heartache even more acute.
As it stands, I’m barely surviving it. Caleb is so hurt that he’s acting like the asshole I met when I arrived.
It doesn’t make me love him less, but it does remind me that relationships are difficult, and it takes two people to make them work.
If he won’t even speak to me directly, how the hell can we figure out the impossible?
Adelaide spends most of her time with us at Sonny’s house, alternating between tears and well-wishes as she helps Mom make decisions about what she can leave behind.
I learn the house belongs to Caleb as Sonny’s legal heir.
But I have no idea what he’ll do with it.
Perhaps he’ll move in or leave it as a shrine to Sonny in the same way Mom has done.
Caleb swings by every day on his way to camp, but he’s all business and logistics.
He wants to know when Mom’s leaving, whether the neighborhood is safe, if my house is appropriate for her mobility issues, how long until she’ll see a doctor, and what help she needs from him to move.
He directs all his questions to Mom, who doesn’t know half the answers.
He won’t even look at me. And every time he avoids me, it shoots another bullet into my heart.
I save my tears every night for my empty bed, or the shower, when I collapse on the cool porcelain and let my pain escape and circle the drain.
Abby doesn’t come to visit, and I overhear Caleb tell Mom that she’s having a hard time accepting the move. She doesn’t respond to my texts. Abby’s outrage and silence must press on the barely healed bruise of my teenage rejection, but I console myself that I’m doing the right thing for my mother.
The day before the move, Caleb finally speaks to me.
It’s Friday night, what would have been game night if Abby came around anymore.
But like he’s done every day for the last few weeks, he comes alone and is so stingy with his words that I’m desperate for the sound of his voice.
I’m in the living room, wrapping portraits in Bubble Wrap while Mom and Adelaide finish sorting through the kitchen.
Caleb didn’t say hello to me on his way in but pauses in the entryway on his way out, addressing me as an afterthought.
Meanwhile, I’ve had one ear and eye on him since he arrived.
“Is it all right if I bring Houdini along when I move your mom’s stuff?”
I set the bundle of paintings aside and glance up at him from where I’m perched on the floor. “You’re coming?” I’m startled, rattled, and thrilled at the idea that I’ll get Caleb for one more day, even if he’s so cold that he doesn’t resemble the Caleb I fell for.
“You need my truck, don’t you?” He folds his arms across his chest in a wide stance—guarded, defensive.
He’s the Caleb I met this spring, the pit bull ready for a fight.
But I know better. He’s still the same guy who softened among the wildflowers and redwoods, who caught me as I fell to earth, who touched me with reverence and wonder.
Every time he stops by, determined to ignore me, it takes all my resolve not to reach for his hand, inhale his scent, beg for his forgiveness with my mouth on his skin.
To tell him I’ll stay if he’ll just look at me again.
But I know I can’t stay, so I say instead, “That would be helpful,” and fight the sting of tears that are always ready to strike these days.
“Can I bring the dog?”
Houdini is curled up beside me, his muzzle in my lap. I scratch under his chin, and he releases a pleased little groan. “Of course.”
“I’ll only stay long enough to unload. We won’t be in your way long.”
I drop my voice, aware that Adelaide and Mom have stopped talking in the kitchen. “It’s a long drive. You should stay the night. It’ll be late.”
“I’m not staying at your house, Eden.” He opens the front door, and Houdini scrambles out of my lap to follow him. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning at six.”
And he’s gone.
I’m left staring at the closed door—a habit I’m forming—when Mom and Adelaide join me in the living room.
Mom slides onto the couch behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry he’s taking it out on you, honey. I was hoping you two would find a way to get along by now, but this threw him for a loop. I suppose it’s easier for him to blame you than me.”
Adelaide crouches on the coffee table, positioned in my direct line of sight.
“He can be hard to win over and sometimes surly, but it takes a lot to really upset him.” She levels me with a meaningful look that reminds me of her former life as a high school counselor.
“I’ve only seen him this out of sorts a couple of times.
When he showed up here as a kid all angry and alone. And when Sonny died.”
I blink back the stubborn tears and fiddle with the packing tape, making an ineffectual attempt at securing the Bubble Wrap to the portraits I’d set aside earlier.
I don’t need Adelaide to tell me I’m hurting Caleb.
I feel his broken heart, skipping beats, out of sync, as mine shatters alongside his.
“But I’m not dying. Well, not quickly anyway,” Mom says, missing Adelaide’s meaning, as Adelaide intended. “I have a better chance of being around for him and Abby if I make the move and get treatment. And it’s not as if I won’t visit.”
“I’m sure he knows that, Nicolette.” Adelaide strikes the balance between soothing and savage.
“But you know that boy. He’s had a lot of important people in his life who didn’t choose him.
But there’s no one who loves his people more than he does”—she gives me a knowing glance—“and once he loves, he loves fierce and has a hard time letting go.”