Take This Regret (28 page)

I could sense Natalie hovering in the same spot where Matthew had been. She was fidgeting and feeling as unsure with me as I felt with her. I wasn’t exactly
mad
at her, but I wasn’t thril ed with how she’d acted last night either.

She released a soft but audible sigh as if she needed to make herself known, to warn me of her presence, or maybe even needed reassurance of her welcome.

“Hey, Natalie.” It came out low with a hint of disappointment, but it was mostly fil ed with my need to make things right between us.

It was enough to bring her across the room, her feet light. She rose up on her tiptoes behind me, rested her chin on my shoulder, and wrapped her arms around my middle to hug me to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Liz.” Far from flippant, her apology was solemn and sincere. “We were just messing around. I shouldn’t have . . . I know how . . .” She swal owed heavy with remorse and shook her head. “It was rude, Liz. We made light of something that causes you pain, and for that I’m so sorry.”

I tilted my head to hers in a smal embrace, and I set the knife I was holding on the cutting board so I could reach down to cover her hands with mine. “It’s okay.” I rubbed my thumbs over the back of her hands.

We stood like that for a few moments, looking out the window into the backyard. Matthew and Christian sat at the smal patio table, chatting as they sipped their beers, laughing as if they were old friends. Lizzie was perched on Christian’s knee, grinning while she played with the smal dol s in front of her. It seemed that without thought Christian would run his fingers through Lizzie’s long hair flowing down her back and play with the ends.

“Sweet, isn’t it?” Nat murmured, her attention focused on Lizzie and Christian.

“Mmm hmm,” I said from somewhere in the back of my throat, unable to voice how it real y made me feel; how it made my heart soar and made me question everything I’d held onto for so long. How it made me want to
believe
he would treat me the same way.

“You don’t have to be miserable anymore, Elizabeth,” Natalie whispered as she pressed her cheek into mine, a gentle encouragement.

I closed my eyes to block my mind from what I so desperately wanted, shook my head ever so slightly, and disagreed. “I’m not miserable.”

She snorted although it sounded like sympathy and hugged me closer before she walked to the back door, only to pause just before she stepped out. “That’s not what it looked like last night.”

She slid the door closed behind her, pul ed a chair out from the patio table, and sat down with her back to me.

I gazed out at my family, the family that had grown by one, and couldn’t imagine it any other way. Christian caught me staring and looked up at me with eyes fil ed with adoration, need, want, tender affection, and overt desire.

For once, I didn’t look away, and I hoped he’d see in my expression that I felt the same, that he’d know that I loved

him even though I’d never al ow myself to say the words.

The afternoon stretched on, peaceful and without strain. For once, my nerves were quiet as I rested at the table with those closest to me. We’d eaten, joked, and shared the trivial events of our week. Matthew and Natalie never mentioned the night before, the incident forgotten. Lizzie played on the grass, soaking in the last few rays of light as the sun hung low in the horizon, each day shorter than the last as October threatened to give way to November.

It was odd to witness the trust that had emerged between Christian and Matthew, their conversation casual and unlabored, genuine. Years before, when Christian and I had been together, the disdain Matthew had held for Christian had been clear. It had been as if he could foretel the future and he’d known of Christian’s betrayal before it had ever been committed.

I couldn’t help but wonder what he saw now, what had changed as the two men talked as friends that I now believed they considered themselves to be. Our conversation continued on, uncomfortable silences unheard of on this perfect Sunday afternoon.

Christian was laughing loud and unhindered when his phone rang out from within the confines of his jacket pocket. Stil chuckling, he patted his coat, feeling for the phone, pul ed it out and said, “Excuse me a second.” We al quieted, lowering our voices so he could take his cal .

I tried to focus on what Natalie was saying but couldn’t ignore the way Christian stiffened and his tone hardened when he answered, “Yes, this is Christian Davison.” Natalie stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes darted between Christian and me, her brow creasing with worry as the silence on Christian’s end wore on. I watched as Christian slumped forward and dug his elbows into his thighs. His knuckles were white from the force with which he held his phone, and his other hand jerked incessantly through his hair.

“What?” he final y choked out in anguish. There was another long break, this time his hand fisting in his hair.

When he spoke again, he sounded detached, stunned, his voice so quiet I was sure whoever was on the other line didn’t hear him. “Okay, thank-you.”

I wanted to drop to my knees to draw his face to mine, to comfort him for whatever was causing him this reaction.

But I was frozen, the blood sloshing in my ears, making me sick with unease as I waited.

Christian sat up, his face portraying nothing, void of emotion, pale and unfeeling. Shocked.

“Christian?” I began but stopped when he glanced in the direction of my voice and then back ahead, unseeing, muttering in disbelief.

“My father is dead.” He squeezed his eyes shut, blinked them open, and said again, “My father is dead.”
Oh no.

My hand covered my mouth as I tried to suppress the cry that bubbled up, a seemingly inappropriate sound for a man I had only despised but couldn’t help but mourn if solely for the fact that he had fathered Christian.

“I have to go,” Christian said in words that were barely audible, directed at no one at al . He stood and moved as if on instinct but without comprehension. The three of us watched in shock as he disappeared inside my house before my senses final y caught up and I shook off my stupor.

Christian needed me.

I jumped up, knocking my chair over in the process, and raced inside to catch him only to trip over my feet when I got to the living room. Christian was on the couch hunched over, his hands clutching his head, bal ed up in a position so similar to the one he had been in just seconds before.

Faster than I could give myself time to think, I was on my knees in front of him and whispering soothing words. I pried his hands from his hair, held his beautiful face, and ran my thumbs under his eyes.

It was as if he didn’t even know I was there.

I’d never seen him act this way, and I heard myself pleading. “Christian,
please
say something.” He shook his head and stood as he once again said, “I have to go.”

Natalie and Matthew stood in the archway, watching with horrified expressions. I looked helplessly to them and mouthed, “What should I do?”

Christian was halfway out the front door when the soft sound of Lizzie’s voice hit our ears, scared and shaking.

“Daddy?”

With it Christian halted mid-stride, her voice enough to break through whatever barrier had his heart and mind trapped.

The release of tension was visible as his rigid shoulders went lax, his eyes clear as he turned and drew Lizzie into his arms when she ran across the room to him.

I turned the key in the lock, wary, my mind stil muddied, trying to make sense of the news I’d received.

Gone.

Just like that, without warning. I guess I’d always viewed my father as unshakable, an indestructible force—

immortal until the day he was not.

The door swung closed behind me, and I stood in the dimness of my condo, lost, the sun burning a thin line as it sank and disappeared at the edge of the ocean, the end of my perception. I stood in the same spot, watching it fal until it faded, and darkness swal owed the room.

It scared me that I didn’t feel anything. At the same time, I felt weak as if I might col apse and not know why.

Excruciating numbness.

With arduous steps, I walked to the end of the hal and into my bedroom. I flipped on the light in my closest, hesitating at the door before I built up enough courage to tug at the smal brown chest shoved in the back corner of the top shelf. It was light, its weight the box itself. The contents shifted as I crossed the room and set it beside me on the bed. The metal latch rattled as I unclasped it and opened the lid to the photos I kept inside.

For a moment, I sat motionless, wondering why I was doing this and what I hoped to find, before I reached in and pul ed them out.

The stack was smal and contained the few printed memories of my childhood—each formal and posed. It was probably senseless to look for something other than pride from my father, but I felt compel ed to search for a glimmer of something more—a sign of warmth, a glimpse of a love he’d never proclaimed. But in each one, he was there only because I’d done something notable, something that he’d deemed worth his time.

I shook my head with a harsh snort.

He’d lived in arrogance, had died in arrogance.

A stroke had taken him, something that would have been treatable had he not ignored the symptoms, but he’d been too prideful to believe anything could ever take him down. I’d learned through my father’s attorney that he’d started slurring his words at the office during the day, but he’d disregarded everyone’s concerns, told them he just had a headache, and had his driver take him home. Even my father’s wife, Kendra, as self-absorbed as I believed her to be, had urged him to seek care. Instead, he’d said he had work to do and had locked himself in his office upstairs. She’d awoken the next morning to an empty bed.

When they found him, he was in a coma, and too much damage had already been done. He was lost apart from the machine that kept him alive.

They’d left him on it for three days, and no one had even bothered to tel me until they had removed him from life support and announced his death.

Sitting on my bed, I stared down at the pictures in my hand, my jaw clenched as the first real wave of emotion hit me.

Anger.

Had he thought so little of me,
his own son
, that no one around him had thought it important enough to cal me and let me know what was happening with my father? That I might have liked to have known that he was dying?

Had he ever cared at al ?

And why
did
I care?

Why on the fringes of the numbness I felt was there pain? Why had the emptiness in my chest begun to ache?

I dropped the photos back into the chest and pushed away the reminders of how little I’d meant to my father. I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling, hating that this was al we’d ever been, al we’d ever be. That to him, I’d been nothing more than a disappointment; and to me, he’d forever be the asshole who didn’t care.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I glanced at the nightstand.

nightstand.

Seven fifteen.

The ache in my chest expanded but in an entirely different way. Our seven-fifteen cal s had become rare, only because I was usual y with Lizzie during that time, but I stil always cal ed if it happened I wasn’t spending the evening with her. Tonight, she had beaten me to punch. I wondered if it was Lizzie or Elizabeth who had known how badly I’d need to hear their voices tonight.