A Heart of Time (17 page)

I skip forward several pages, finding another indented quote centered in the middle of the page.

A gift doesn’t always have to be tangible

It doesn’t always have to be enfolded with a bow

Occasionally it’s protected in blood and arrives without a label

While full of soul-rendering love, it can also produce sorrow

I offer this bequest

In the remains of my shadow

A gift that will surpass my last breath

I read the poem over and over, doing my best to make sense of it—the gift she’s speaking of—a gift covered in blood. Ellie, my Ellie, the one with a smile always carved into her perfect, rosy lips, never expressed a morbid thought. I want to be in denial of the thought that she might have known of an expiration date. Her parents would have known, and yet they have never shared a hint of expecting her untimely death. Would she have kept something like this to herself?

I’m afraid to read more. I’m afraid to search for more insightful rhymes that I can’t make sense of. I close the journal, hugging it against my chest tightly. “Ellie, what were you keeping from me?” I ask as I lie back against my pillow. Being alone in this cold bed that I have occupied myself for so long, it feels extra empty tonight.

Peering over to the nightstand, I see that it’s two in the morning, and the gears in my head are working harder than they do in the middle of the day. My pain has always been about missing her, sadness for what she lost and what Olive and I have lost out on, but now there’s a pain from wondering about what I never knew—what secrets she was keeping from me.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but when the bed shifts, I know it’s morning. After an endless night, the daylight is painful, filling my body with slight flu-like symptoms. Exhaustion has me pinned to the bed, unable to move other than lifting my eyelids as far as they will go.

Sunshine is filtering through my half-closed blinds and glowing through Olive’s blond curls. I take the moment to look in her eyes, admiring how blue they appear surrounded by the youthful bright whites encircling them. Why does my heart sometimes hurt when I look at her? A father should never feel pain when he looks at his daughter, but I do so often that I feel guilty.

“Are you okay?” Olive asks me softly while running her small hand across my forehead. “You don’t feel warm.” She lifts the covers and pulls them up to her neck, regardless of already being completely dressed from head to toe for school. “Grammy is taking me to the bus stop. She said you aren’t feeling well. Why are you still in your clothes from yesterday, Daddy?” I continue to watch her face move as she asks me all of her questions. “Why aren’t you answering me? Is something wrong with you?”

I pull my heavy arm out from behind my head and wrap it around her shoulders. “I’m just fine, Olive. I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Grammy said you aren’t well,” she continues. “I don’t want you to be sick, Daddy. I can ask Grammy to make you soup. Why do you look so sad?” Olive’s question falls short as her chin trembles and a tear falls from her eye. “Please don’t be sad.” Why is it I’m only good at making people cry?

I pull her against my chest, still having no words to make her feel better. I kiss her head and inhale the sweet scent of her watermelon shampoo. “I’m okay and I love you more than anything in this whole world. Do you understand that?”

“I love you more than the sun, the sky, the grass, the moon, and the stars. I love you so much it hurts, Daddy.” Her mature words sting my nerves, making me wonder how much she understands of what she said. It’s as if Ellie’s whirlwind lyrical thoughts were genetically laced within Olive’s DNA.

“I don’t want you to ever feel pain, Olive.”

“But sometimes—” she pauses, looking down at a piece of lint on the sheet, “When I look at you, I feel your pain.”
Oh, God, what have I done?

“Do you want to stay home with me today?” I ask her.

She nods her head slightly as a small smile touches her lips and she lies down in the crook of my arm, nuzzling her head against my chest.

“Olive, we have to go,” Mom says from the hall.

“I’m keeping her home with me today,” I respond.

Mom walks into my room, her hands on her hips and an unsettled look on her face. “Hunter, you can’t keep her home for no reason. The school frowns upon that.” I squeeze Olive a little tighter. “Hunter, did something happen?”

I can only offer her a weak, pitiful smile. “What’s wrong with me, Mom?”

“Olive, sweetie, go downstairs and turn on the TV for a bit. I’ll let the school know you’ll be staying home today,” Mom directs her.

Normally, Olive would be elated to find out she’s staying home, but she’s upset, and it’s because of me. She takes her time climbing out of the bed and brushes by Mom at the door without another word.

Mom comes closer, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “I am very concerned about you,” she begins. “We need to find you some help.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I remind her. “What the hell is wrong with me? It has been five years and I’m no better today than I was that day at the hospital and now things are pretty much over with Charlotte, too.”

Mom runs the back of her fingers down the side of my face, making me realize this conversation is not one a grown adult has with his mother. I’m not a grown adult at this moment, though. I’m her little boy again. I’m losing it. I’ve lost it—my mind is gone. “Oh, sweetie,” Mom exhales. “They say it takes the same amount of time to get over a person as it took to fall in love with a person. You loved Ellie since you were five years old. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

“You’re saying I’m going to feel like this for another fifteen years?”

“Not this amount of pain, but some pain. For now, though, you need to talk to someone. This is affecting Olive now that she’s old enough to understand. We’ve had these talks, Hunter. You just keep pushing us away, and we can’t do anything to help you if you don’t want our help.”

Everything she is saying is true. I’ve acknowledged it all before but have ignored it for a long time. “Ellie was keeping a secret from me.”

Mom snaps up straight, her brows pulling in toward one another. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Ellie knew she was going to die. She told the woman from the letters—the woman I met last night. She knew Ellie, and Ellie had promised her heart to this woman.”

Mom looks as baffled as I felt last night. “I thought you were meeting with a client last night?”

“I lied.”

“You met that woman?” She closes her eyes and shakes her head, probably trying to clarify everything I’m saying. “She knew Ellie? Ellie knew she was going to die? Hunter, that makes no sense at all.” Redness webs across her cheeks as she stares through me. “I speak to Ellie’s parents all of the time and not once have they ever hinted at knowing this could have happened. Don’t you think that’s something they would have shared with us—with you?”

I shrug because I don’t have a good response. I’m questioning a lot right now and I wouldn’t put any kind of secret past Ellie’s parents.

“If this is true, they didn’t know, Hunter. I can tell you that much,” she continues. “Did that woman tell you any more than what you just said?”

“No, she said she didn’t feel right sharing Ellie’s secret.”

“Oh my.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MARCH

-One Month Later-

You know you’re
on a downward spiral to nowhere good when you cancel jobs to get out of working. AJ is pissed at me, or I’ll assume he’s pissed at me because I haven’t called him back in an entire week and I don’t even know if he went to get a paternity test he had scheduled or how that all worked out. I’ve been a shitty brother, as well as a shitty co-worker, and yet part of me doesn’t care, which is even shittier.

I can look in the mirror and tell myself I have a problem and I need help. I just haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve picked up the phone to get help. Everything hurts all of the time whether I’m awake or asleep. I have spent every day these past few weeks sitting on the frozen ground in front of mine and Ellie’s tree. It’s fucking cold out here but this pain is only skin deep and it hurts far less than everything in my stomach and chest.

“You fucking dickwad,” his voice echoes between the snow banks. “How many jobs are you going to make us lose? Get your head out of the clouds and get your ass in the truck.” AJ rounds the slight corner from the stone stairs, holding his arms tightly around his body, shivering against the frigid temperatures.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, wondering why after sitting here for at least an hour I feel far less cold than he looks.

“Looking for you, jackass. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls? Or Charlotte’s? What the hell is going on with you? First it was the unusual silence and now you’ve just been completely MIA. I’ve seen this before, Hunter. You’ve been down this road already. You aren’t going back down it again. I won’t let you.”

I can only stare back at him because I have no good response, as usual.

“Get up and get in the truck, Hunter,” he demands. “I’ve let this go on long enough.”

Instead of moving, I relax my head against the tree and close my eyes, lifting my chin toward the sky. Flakes of snow are feathering down over me as particles of ice rest on the tip of my nose. While inhaling the painful air, AJ yanks me from the ground and pins me to the tree. With my back scraping against the engraved letters I once carved, anger floods through me, and the desire to swing at my brother is nearly irresistible. Exercising restraint, I grit my teeth as AJ’s face stops only inches from mine. “Get in the truck, now,” he says again.

I didn’t agree or disagree but he’s dragging me up the stairs and I’m complying with little effort. Suddenly, I’m freezing and my muscles are aching below my numb skin. The steps become a blur and I don’t regain my strength until my back is pressed up against AJ’s truck. The passenger door opens and AJ shoves me inside. Never in our lives has he been stronger than I am. I’ve always been the bigger of the two of us but right now I don’t have the energy to fight back.

He slams the door and makes his way around to his side, sliding in and slamming his door in the same fashion. His fists drop against the steering wheel as he releases a brash growl. “I’ve had it, Hunt. We’ve all had it.”

I let him talk because it doesn’t matter what I say, it won’t make a difference and it won’t diminish his anger. That’s AJ. He wears himself out until the steam goes away. He starts up the truck and peels out of the lot. The snow is coming down harder now, making visibility tough as we continue down this road. I glance down at my watch, noting the time. It’s only noon but if the snow is going to continue like this, they might dismiss Olive earlier than normal. “Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles through a shiver. Reaching over to the center console, he turns the heat all the way to the max and then does the same with the volume knob, allowing the sound of the heater to mix with the harsh tones of Metal Rock.

I turn both down, glaring at the side of his face, waiting for him to tell me where the hell he’s taking me because at this point I know it sure as hell isn’t home. “AJ, don’t be a dick.”

He laughs and looks out his window as if he doesn’t want to acknowledge my statement. “The baby isn’t mine. I’ve contacted a lawyer to draft up the papers and at the end of this week, I’m checking out of the hotel I’ve been crashing at and I’m staying with you.”
All of my answers in one simple sentence
. Regardless, I should have called him, especially since I thought he had already sort of moved in with me and yet he didn’t come home this past week. Part of me just assumed he was working things out with Alexa but I should have asked. I get it.

“What the hell were you doing at a hotel all week?” I ask.

He shrugs and looks over at me with defined anger staining his eyes. “If you had answered any of my calls, you would have known but when you nicely ignored my tenth call, I figured you didn’t want me crashing at your place. Then Mom filled me in on your bullshit behavior.”

“Of course she did.”

“Dude, you fucking need help. This isn’t okay and it isn’t fair to Olive.”

“Don’t you dare bring her into this,” I snap back.

“Yeah, no, see, I am bringing her into this because this is
all
about her. She is the only thing that matters and should matter in your life and yet you can’t even get your ass to work right now so you can continue to support her. So as Olive’s God-dad, I’m here to step in and get you the help you need to give that little girl as normal of a life as she can have without a mother.” His words stun me, they taser me, holding me hostage along with the truth I would rather deny.

As I’m considering everything he said, the truck jerks around and we pull into a nearly empty lot against a small house-looking structure. “What is this?”

“Let’s go,” he says, stepping out of the truck. He’s out of his mind if he thinks I’m following him into whatever this place is.

“Tell me what this is, AJ,” I demand as he opens my door. “Quit it with the bullshit.” I’m losing steam and I can see he’s only gaining more of it.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Choice is yours,” he says, folding his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, I’m not walking into some deserted building just because you want to threaten me.”

I remain seated in the truck as he smashes his fist down on the roof. “Fine.” He pushes off of the truck and walks off and into the building, leaving me sitting here watching and waiting for him to come back out. I glance around, looking for a sign or a hint of where we might be, but there’s nothing.

Since he took the keys with him, I close the door, trying to lock in some of the remaining heat.
This is stupid
. Yanking my phone out of my coat pocket, I check it to make sure I haven’t gotten any messages from the school about an early dismissal.

Nothing yet.

With my phone blaring in my face, I tap on the text message app and thumb in a quick note, hoping for a response this time.

Me: Ari, I really need to talk to you.

The message falls below the last five messages I sent over the past few weeks. I’m beginning to assume she gave me a bogus phone number just to shut me up. I’m not sure she was planning to offer me her number, but I asked. She definitely battled with a moment of internal debate before finally offering it up.

I hold my focus on the message I sent, waiting to see a
delivered
note pop up. As I’m waiting, my door reopens, bringing along a drift of snow. A woman stands behind AJ, draped by a down jacket and a black ski hat with her salt-and-pepper-colored hair hanging loosely over her coat. She doesn’t appear cold, annoyed, or uncomfortable while standing behind AJ as he presses his finger against my chest. “Don’t be an asshole.”

AJ moves to the side, allowing the woman into the opening of my door. “Hunter, I’m Amy Torris and I’m a therapist who specializes in helping widowers such as yourself. Your family seems quite concerned with your well-being and I’d love to offer some guidance if you’re open to it.”
Does it look like I’m open to it?

He brought me to a goddamn shrink. He out of all people brought me to this chick.
Un-fucking-believable
. “You don’t have to answer any questions or even talk,” Amy continues. “Maybe you could just come inside for a few? I have a fresh pot of coffee brewing.” Is she trying to lure me in like a creep offering a child candy? Not working.

“You’ve hit rock bottom, Hunt,” AJ chimes in. “Do this for Olive.”
Olive
. Her name could put me in a hypnotic trance and he knows I will do anything for her. If he’s telling me I’m hurting her, I will do what it takes to undo that. I unclick my seatbelt and step out of the truck, going against everything I want to do in this moment. Passing by the therapist and AJ, I make my way up to the front door of this ratty looking building.

I let myself inside, looking in each direction for which way I should continue walking in. Before I approach the gold-plaque directory on the wall, Amy’s voice interrupts my question. “Take a left and it’s the first door on the right.”

Rather than walking ahead, I allow her to lead the way and AJ follows behind me. Her office looks nothing like the outside of the building. In here, it’s warm, swathed with a bright yellow paint and cream-colored furniture. Magazines line the small tables between each chair and it smells like fresh coffee, just as she promised. “I don’t need therapy,” I warn them both.
But maybe I do.

“This doesn’t have to be considered therapy, Hunter. It can be two friends chatting.” Her words are ridiculous, and the meaning behind them is even more ridiculous. People don’t become friends after two minutes, especially when one is forced to meet the other. “Hunter, if you don’t want to talk, you can leave. You have to walk in at your own will.”

“Do it for Olive, Hunt,” AJ says again.

I groan silently and follow Amy through a wooden door that squeaks a melody when opened. AJ remains in the waiting area, leaving me alone with this woman I met ninety seconds ago. As we enter her office, a new scent, which accompanies the roasted coffee, fills my nose. Lavender mixed with lilac, likely aromatherapy oil. Ellie was obsessed with those in the winter since it was as close as she could get to the scent of a flower in the cold months.

It takes me a moment to look around the room noticing the decor is similar to the waiting area, but with the addition of psychiatry degree plaques lining the wall behind her desk. I take a seat on the couch, trying to make myself comfortable, but I notice a box of tissues on the oak coffee table in front of me. Is this woman’s job to make people cry?
Maybe I should be a therapist. I make people cry.

“Your family is very worried about you,” Amy begins. “Normally, I don’t work in this fashion since it trifles with the line of patient confidentiality but oftentimes I find that men and women in your situation need a little shove in the right direction.”

“Look, I appreciate you going along with my family’s concerns, but maybe they left out the fact that my wife died over five years ago. This isn’t a new life for me and I’m not crying for help.” A thin line stretches across her mouth. I want to say it’s a condescending look but it’s probably not. “Really, I’m fine.” I wonder if I could send less convincing.

“To be defined as fine is all relative to each person’s thoughts. Would you have considered yourself fine if you looked ahead and saw yourself in this moment ten years ago?” This is a trap. Of course I can’t say yes to this question, which by process of elimination suggests her accusation is true. “Why don’t we go this route? Your willingness to speak with me only for the sake of your daughter tells me that you will do just about anything for her, so we can focus on that?”

While her words float in through my ears and out of the top of my head, I hold my focus on the box of tissues, wondering how many widowers she has spoken to here, how many of them have sat on this couch crying so hard their organs hurt. Widowers know that organs do in fact hurt because our hearts get tired of enduring all of the pain and eventually allow it to spread elsewhere to ease some of the weight.

“I’m not going to pour my heart out to you and tell you all about my daughter and then tell you how sad my life has been for the past five years. I’m not even going to tell you why I’ve been so miserable for the past week. I internalize my thoughts and while it might not be the healthiest method of dealing with problems, it works for me.” I will admit I’m a little shocked to see she isn’t writing down my every word. I’ve been to therapists before, even ones who specialize in widowers. Typically, they start with a pen and paper and jot down every mentionable moment of my life up until the current day. So I’ll give Amy that respect, she’s truly soaking it in rather than creating parts of a research paper on the inner workings of a fucked-up man.