Chapter Thirty-Five
JAYCE
Jayce stood on the edge of his mother’s lawn, momentarily mesmerized by the serene setting.
In the pleasant dim of twilight, his parents’ homes appeared tranquil, as if the occupants weren’t waging an eternal war.
He’d never noticed how both of his parents’ porch swings hung in opposite directions, facing each other.
Did the decision reflect their inner desire to remain connected somehow? He certainly hoped so.
He tread quietly across the soft grass. The gentle hum of the ocean just beyond the sleepy street muffled his footsteps.
As he moved in relative silence, his thoughts drifted to CeCe.
Once again, he prayed over her conversation with her father, hoping for the best. Let tonight be a night of reconciliation, he internally pleaded, thinking of more than one relationship in desperate need of repair.
He stopped beside the lemon tree, his heart beating wildly, anxiously anticipating his next move. Was he doing the right thing? He wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t shake Mr. Dupree’s words from earlier that morning—words that had reshaped a long-held perception of his parents’ feud.
Jayce could still see the stark sadness in Mr. Dupree’s eyes when he’d offered to fly him home in his private jet.
Mr. Dupree—or Paul, as he’d asked to be called—had dropped his gaze, staring blankly into his steaming mug of Peruvian coffee. “I don’t think CeCe wants to see me.”
“What?” Jayce had balked, asking, “What makes you say that? She may be angry with you, but—” Before he’d had a chance to finish his sentence, Paul’s head jerked up in surprise.
“She’s angry with me?” The man’s voice had carried an unexpected twinge of hopefulness.
“A little, yeah,” Jayce had confessed, confused by Paul’s reaction but also guilt-ridden he’d accidentally betrayed CeCe’s confidence.
It was her place to tell her father how she felt, not his.
“But forget I said anything. And don’t let it discourage you.
” The last thing he wanted was his blunder to deter Paul from coming home.
“Discourage me?” Grinning, Paul had removed his thin wire-framed glasses and wiped the coffee steam from the lenses with his frayed bandana. “My boy, you’ve given me phenomenal news.”
“I have?” Jayce had suddenly wondered if all those hours trapped underground had affected the man’s mental faculties. “How is CeCe being angry with you a good thing?”
Paul had looked at him with borderline pity, as if he’d been the one missing brain cells.
“Because, dear boy, indifference is the road to death. But anger—ah, anger!” His voice rose an octave with unusual gusto.
“Anger is a strong emotion. It means something matters, that there’s hope.
” His eyes had danced with the delight of an archeologist who’d just discovered the Holy Grail.
Jayce had dwelled on Paul’s words for the duration of their travels home, mulling over the implications in his own life. Could the man’s philosophy be true? Did his parents’ perpetual hostility and inability to move on mean they still had feelings for each other?
There was one way to find out….
Jayce pulled the ripcord on the chain saw he’d borrowed from Evan. It revved to life, disturbing the evening’s tranquility.
Widening his stance, he drew in a deep breath, braced for the impending showdown.
The loud rumble lured his intended targets.
“What’s going on out here?” his father asked with gruff annoyance. Jayce suspected he’d roused him from the TV.
“Jayce?” His mother gawked, her bewildered gaze darting between the whirring chain saw and her beloved lemon tree. “What are you doing?”
For a split second, Jayce hesitated. His parents stood on their respective porches, staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. Had he? Was his experiment too wild to actually work? Or would the lemon tree—which he’d long suspected to hold deeper meaning—serve as the impetus to get them talking again?
Angling the saw’s spinning chain toward the sturdy trunk, he decided to put his theory to the test.
“Stop!” his mother shrieked. Horrified, she covered her mouth with both hands.
“Son, what are you doing?” his father demanded sharply, striding across the porch, poised to intervene.
“I’m tired of you two bickering over who rightfully owns this blasted tree,” Jayce told them. “Either you sort it out, once and for all, or I chop it down.”
His parents shared a quick glance of concern before his father narrowed his gaze in Jayce’s direction. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. It’s for your own good.” He suppressed a rueful grin at the irony of the situation.
How many times had his father used the same line on him during his childhood?
Jayce, this timeout is for your own good.
Jayce, we’re revoking your video game privileges for your own good. Now, he finally understood.
His parents exchanged another glance, silently debating how to handle their renegade son.
Finally, his father turned to him. “Put the chain saw down.”
“Can you two agree on the rightful owner? Or is it arrivederci lemon tree?”
“The tree belongs to your mother. I’ll stop pruning it to favor my yard.”
“I knew it!” His mother jabbed a finger at her underhanded ex-husband. “I knew the growth pattern had nothing to do with optimal sunlight on your side of the fence.”
His father flashed a sheepish smile. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t buy that excuse. You’re too smart for that.”
The compliment seemed to mollify her slightly. “Then why even attempt it? Why go through all the trouble of pruning the tree in the first place? You don’t even like lemons that much.”
His father hung his head.
Jayce cut the engine, and the chain saw rumbled to a stop. Come on, Dad. Fess up. Tell her you still care .
After a long pause, his father lifted his head, meeting his mother’s gaze. “Do you remember when we got this tree?”
“Of course,” she said with unexpected softness. “You bought me a sapling for our fourth anniversary, since the traditional fourth anniversary gift is fruit. You said, as our love grows and bears fruit, so will our tree.”
His father nodded. “I really believed that. After four years of marriage, my love for you had only grown stronger. I thought it always would.”
“But it didn’t, did it?” The pain in her voice sounded as sharp and poignant as the day they’d announced their divorce.
Jayce wanted to look away, to give them privacy as they hashed out their broken relationship from across their two porches. But he couldn’t. He needed to know what happened.
His father released a deep, guttural sigh, his entire body sagging with the force of his exhale. “That’s what I told myself. I didn’t know how else to explain the disconnect, why our marriage fell apart. Except that you’d stopped loving me.”
“Me?” His mother flinched in surprise. “You’re the one who stopped loving me.”
“What? No.” His father shook his head, as if the motion might shift the fractured pieces of his memory back into place. “That’s not what happened. You must have forgotten.”
“Forgotten?” His mother’s voice warbled with emotion. “How could I forget the worst moment in my life? When you said you wanted a divorce—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I asked if you thought we should get a divorce.”
“Because you wanted one,” she fired back.
“Because I thought you wanted one.”
His parents stared at each other in stunned silence as the walls of their misconceptions came crashing down around them.
Jayce’s heart squeezed, compressed by the crushing weight of grief. So much misery. Decades of heartache. All because two people didn’t know how to communicate. Or weren’t willing to try.
He couldn’t help wondering, if everyone in the world compiled a list of their regrets, would more people regret the things they said? Or the things they didn’t say?
He knew which way he’d land.
Luckily, he’d get a second chance to say all the things he should’ve said long ago.
He just prayed it wasn’t too late.