Crossing Oceans (5 page)

When my mother died, he retreated into a world all his own, casting a shadow over our house and over my life. Did he care that he left me to suffer alone? If he did, you wouldn’t know it. If he wasn’t yelling, he was giving me the silent treatment. At my mother’s funeral, I buried not one parent, but two.

And now this. How dare he reveal Isabella’s existence in that manner! I could just picture him standing on Dr. Preston’s porch, screaming for him to come down. The way he probably spat the words, red-faced, eyes bulging from their sockets. Did he growl Isabella’s name? I gritted my teeth at the thought. My daughter was precious, not something to be spewed out like a curse word.

My mouth felt suddenly dry. I patted around the passenger seat, under my purse and a pile of CDs, for the bottle of water I’d left in the car. Securing it between my thighs, I kept one hand on the wheel vibrating from the roughness of the country road and, with the other, twisted the cap off and took a swig. It was warm, but at least it was wet.

Nearing the paved main road, I began to wonder how exactly I planned to talk with David when I had no clue where he lived. From Mama Peg, I had learned he’d become a type of accountant called an actuary. So I figured he would more than likely be home on a Saturday.

I had no idea where home was, of course, but with the small fortune his grandparents had left him, I felt sure it would be a lovely place in an affluent neighborhood I could never afford to live in. Nor would I want to. His tastes had always seemed extravagant to me, and mine too simple for him.

He used to say,
“If you’re going to dream, dream big. You want a cottage; I’ll build you a castle.”
I didn’t want a castle. Like Goldilocks sitting in Papa Bear’s chair, I found his dreams too big. I preferred my smaller ones, which felt just right.

Never in my dreams had I imagined I would be the big bad wolf in David’s fairy tale. I had meant to be his princess. But he had chosen another. Even after all this time, that fact brought back the stabbing pain of rejection. I knew I wasn’t being rational, but emotion seldom cares.

I made a sharp right onto Elm. Gravel crunched and sprayed as my tires kicked off the last remnants of the back road onto pristine asphalt. The stuffiness of the car, all closed up and stale, suited me somehow, but as I neared a large, dusty home with an older man rocking on its porch, I felt a sudden desire to disturb the peace. I opened the front windows and cranked the music louder, relishing the dirty look he sent my way.

The warm wind whipped at my face, pulling strands from my once-tidy braid. I tilted the rearview mirror down and glanced at my reflection. Long, untamed hair hung partly in its braid, partly slapping at my oval face. I yanked out the ponytail holder and ran my fingers through to loosen the tangles. The wind finished the job. Long, crimped tresses flew about me like kite tails.

My lips, neither full nor thin, were as red as if I’d applied a lipstick too bright and then wiped it off. I smiled at my wild reflection. She didn’t smile in return. While I had my mother’s shape, face, and mannerisms, I had inherited one thing unmistakably belonging to my father. His eyes. Gray and disapproving, they glared at me under my own long lashes.

I pushed the mirror back into place and turned the radio down to a less obnoxious level.

A sickening feeling came over me as I glanced through the windshield at the sun, fully risen. What if I got to David too late? The clock on my dashboard read 9 a.m. The dreaded conversation between father and son might have already taken place or could be taking place at that very moment. I could almost hear it.

“David, I have news, Son. Remember that girl you were seeing that I couldn’t stand? You know, the one whose mother died and her crazy father keeps accusing me of murdering her? He always said he’d get even. Well, he finally has.”

Sick of my rampant thoughts and being whipped by my own hair, I put the windows up and concentrated on a plan of action. Surely half the town would know where David lived. I sped past Theodore’s Café, which looked more like Ted’s truck stop—a long, characterless building, once white, now yellowed from sun and age.

Theodore was David’s uncle. David’s uncle would have David’s address. I threw a glance in the rearview mirror, saw only an empty road lined with overgrown grass behind me, slammed my brakes, and burned rubber as I sped in reverse. The crowded parking lot offered only one unoccupied spot, wedged between two pickups, which I squeezed into.

The owner, Theodore Preston, better known to everyone as Uncle Ted, was Dr. Preston’s stepbrother. Though Theodore’s Café was a classless little establishment, Ted made a killing. He lived two houses down from his doctor brother and matched all the luxuries Dr. Preston enjoyed—Mercedes for Mercedes, summer home for summer home—everything, that is, except his superiority complex.

The so-called café was a strange little place, complete with vinyl tablecloths, schoolhouse chairs, and plastic flowers in chipped vases. A stuffed gopher stood guard over the rickety cash register, and the place reeked of grease and cigarette smoke. But what the atmosphere lacked, Ted’s cooking made up for.

While breakfast patrons shoved biscuits and gravy into their mouths between words, I stood nervously near the counter full of men on stools drinking coffee and reading the want ads.

I asked the waitress if I could please see Ted. She jabbed a pen into her bun and disappeared into the kitchen.

Uncle Ted emerged. He took off his paper hat, revealing a bald head shimmering under a layer of perspiration. Shoving a hand out for me to shake, he spoke around the toothpick jutting from the corner of his mouth. “Jenny Lucas, I’m pleased to see you back in town.”

I could tell by his expression that
horrified
was more like it.

“I’m trying to find David.”

He sucked on his toothpick and stared at me unblinking. Dishes clinked in the background, and behind the kitchen doors someone yelled for someone else to move it or lose it.

He slurped on wood. “You know he’s married now?”

“I know.”

“Happily married.”

“Listen, Ted, I’m not trying to cause trouble. I just have something of David’s I thought he might want.”

The way Ted eyed me gave me the impression that he thought he knew what that something was and didn’t care for it one bit.

The elderly couple occupying the booth behind me threw down two dollars, picked up their bill, and shuffled to the register to pay. Ted grabbed a soppy washcloth from under the counter and hurried over, clearing away two mugs and several empty creamer containers they left behind. He wiped the table, then gestured to it. “There you go.”

“I really can’t—”

“You can’t very well visit David on an empty stomach.”

I gave him a pleading look, which he ignored. Good grief. No wonder the man was rich.

When I sat, he puffed his chest out triumphantly. “Because you’re basically family, I’ll take your order myself.”

Oh, joy. “I’ll have an English muffin and glass of water.”

He crossed his arms and stared me down. “You want his address or not?”

I glanced at my watch. “What do you recommend?”

“Now, that’s better. I’ll fix you a stack of pancakes with bacon and sausage.”

My stomach lurched at the thought. “Fine.”

“How do you want your eggs?”

“Eggs?”

He raised his black eyebrows peppered with silver.

“Surprise me.”

“You like surprises, eh? David’s wife, Lindsey, sure don’t.”

“Don’t tell them I’m coming, okay?”

“Don’t tell them I gave you the address.” With that he scribbled something on the back of my bill and laid it on the table.

Without waiting for my food, I read the address Ted had written—43 Sweet Mountain Court—paid the eight-dollar-and-forty-two-cent bill, and made the bell above the glass door jingle as I exited.

* * *

Outside a grand, stone-faced home, smack-dab in the middle of a cul-de-sac, surrounded by manicured boxwoods and other grand, stone-faced homes, I stood. My heart threatened to slam through my chest. For what seemed like the hundredth time, I wiped damp palms down the front of my jeans.

Every minute I hesitated meant another opportunity for his phone to ring. For David to find out about Isabella from someone other than me. The thought was unbearable.

My car keys clanked against my cell as I dropped them into my purse, then slid the bag over my shoulder. I sucked in a deep breath of humid summer air and tried to exhale away the worst of my nerves. Refusing their eviction, they clung to my insides like thirsty little leeches.

I talked myself forward . . . left foot . . . right foot . . . left foot . . . right. I could do this. I had to. Gathering my last remnant of courage, I pushed the doorbell, adding a knock for good measure.

As I waited, my hands wrung together nervously, my pinkie sliding over the smooth opal of my delicate ring and the gold prongs holding it in place. Another knock and more waiting. I glanced at the garage. One of its doors was open, and inside I spied a gleaming Infiniti Coupe.

Unaffected by the storm brewing within me, the morning sun rained down a warmth I could not feel. Maybe David and Lindsey were out back, working on the yard, basking on the deck . . . sitting in matching rockers on the patio, holding hands and sharing secrets. I cringed at the thought.

As I walked over the cushion of manicured lawn to the back of the house, I pictured an older David reading the morning paper while his beautiful wife encircled her adoring arms around his waist—long, wavy tresses spilling over him like a shawl of spun gold. The intensity of the hatred I felt for a woman I had never even met alarmed me.

The privacy fence’s wooden gate stood ajar, and I poked my head through. To my surprise, an English garden bloomed on the other side. Stepping inside for a better look, I marveled at its beauty. Stone paths led to scrolled iron benches. Ornate trellises dripped with flowered vines . . . and then I caught a strange sight that stole my breath.

Large, paper-white cherry blossoms burst from otherwise-bare branches. Shocking. Lovely. . . . Wrong. This tree was an early spring bloomer, not summer. I stared at it, wondering if I were really here or if I could be dreaming.

Maybe I was really fast asleep in my city apartment. The alarm clock would soon sound and I would throw off the covers, plant my feet on the soft chenille carpet, slip into my business suit, and call for Isabella to rise and shine.

Maybe I had not gone home to my father’s. Maybe I hadn’t had a reason to. Maybe it was still just Isabella and me, the two of us, not needing anyone but each other. I wasn’t standing in David’s yard about to tell him he had a daughter. I wasn’t dying.

Hope budded as I smiled dreamily.

As I gazed at the blossoms clinging to bark, a feeling of déjà vu came over me, and I tilted my head, digging through the recesses of my mind, trying to recapture the memory on the tip of my consciousness. A sweet smell drifted by me on a whisper of wind. Vaguely familiar. Very comforting. Popcorn tree. That’s what I’d called it as a child. Popcorn tree.

A mosquito landed on me. I swatted it and felt the pain. I touched the smear of red left on my arm and brought my fingertips to my nose. They smelled of blood, rusty and real. Not a dream. Not a chance.

Dejected, I scanned the yard for signs of human life, past the morning glories opening their mouths to drink in the sunshine, the lavender swaying to a melody only it could hear, and the crow glaring down at me from the weather vane atop a small shed.

And there, at the edge of the yard, on a hammock sandwiched between two maple trees, lay a man. An overturned coffee cup rested on the grass beneath him and an opened
Wall Street Journal
fluttered in the wind, held by his listless hand.

The back of his head faced me, covered in curls the same shade as Isabella’s. My hand flew to my chest and time seemed to slow.

David.

He lay so still I began to wonder if he was alive. A grumble came from his direction as the newspaper dropped from his fingers. When he turned toward me, even my blood seemed to freeze in response. Closed. His eyes were still closed. I exhaled in relief.

I hadn’t seen him since the night he’d broken up with me. My heart ached as I studied the familiar angles of his face, the lips I used to love to kiss. That I would have liked to kiss even now. Especially now.

A sudden breeze launched the cherry blossoms from their branches. They floated through the air like fairy snow. Soft, fragrant . . . magical, twirling and fluttering left and right. I reached my hand out, but not one landed on my palm, open and ready.

Not a single one.

Carried by the changing wind, they fell instead over David. His eyes twitched. I tried to move, to back away, but my feet remained anchored. When he opened his eyes, panic stopped my heart. He smiled as though seeing me after all this time was the most natural thing in the world. A warm smile. Familiar and kind. And then his eyes grew large and he sat up suddenly, the smile replaced by alarm.

We were still for a moment, taking each other in—David on his hammock in his beautiful garden, surrounded by flowers, birds, and sweet fragrances, and me, an intruder, sneaking into his yard, hiding an ax, sharpened and ready. His life would come crashing to the ground with one swing of my blade.

David’s gaze moved from me to the back of his house. In the window, a dark-haired woman watched us. David stared at her.

She stared at me.

Chapter Six

The woman in the window disappeared. David turned to me, panicked and pale. “Jenny, what are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“You couldn’t have called?”

“This isn’t the kind of thing you say over the phone.”

“You know I’m married?” He held his left hand up. The gold band on his finger glistened in the sunlight. “Five years now.”

Jealousy bit hard as I regurgitated a smile. “Wow, that’s great.” A gust of wind scattered the carpet of white blooms and whipped my hair into my eyes. Hurriedly, I pushed it away, wishing I could’ve taken a moment to pull my hair back and myself together.