Southbound Surrender (24 page)

I can hear Big Dave’s voice now and his hand on my shoulder and the gentle encouragement of his words that both drove me wild and comforted me when life was unfair. Like when our dog Gigi that we inherited from Aunt Linda got hit by a car only after having her for a week. He said it then, and I know he would say it now if he was standing next to me,
What is meant to be is meant to be
.

I sit down next to her in the sand, and I finally say, “At least you would be a pink balloon.”

She smiles through her tears. “I just –” She stops again, and I don’t blame her. I don’t want to have this conversation either. I wish it wasn’t happening. I wish her father didn’t kill my mother. But you know what I say about wishing.

“I know this is going to be hard. And right now, I want to be the jerk who flies off the handle and throws a fit by kicking sand and knocking that garbage can over.” I nod to the green can ten feet over. “Believe me, I want to scream and punch someone, anything. You see that guy out there?” I point to a guy wearing a hat that’s strapped under his chin and a Hawaiian shirt about three sizes too big. “I want to punch that guy for no reason other than that he’s wearing a ridiculous shirt. I’m furious right now. I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me. That my dad didn’t tell me. I feel betrayed and angry and hurt...”

She wraps her arms tighter around her knees and it makes my stomach drop. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“But we have to have this conversation. You have to tell me everything. I have to know what we’re dealing with here. And I promise that I’ll be civil even though I’m ready to go all Green Hulk right here on this beach.” I lean toward her and softly lift up her chin so I can see her eyes. Another tear rolls down her cheek, and I catch it with the back of my hand.

“You’re too good to me,” she sniffles. “I don’t deserve you. I should have told you right away, but I was scared, and I was young. My dad told me that night when he sent me away, and I just didn’t have the courage to tell you. I didn’t give you any way to get a hold of me because I couldn’t come to terms with it. I mean, how do you tell someone that your dad killed his mom? ‘Hey, I really love pizza and by the way, my dad killed your mom.’ How do you have family dinners at Christmas? How do you deal with telling your kids that their grandpa killed their grandma? I mean, it’s just …it’s insane.”

“All of that went through your head that night?” I ask, pressing my hand on her knee. “The family dinners at Christmas and everything? The grandpa and grandma thing?”

“Yeah.” She lets out a small laugh. “I just didn’t know how to deal with it. So I left you the note and put it in the hands of fate I guess.”

“I’m pissed but kind of flattered at the same time that you were thinking about family dinners at Christmas. It’s a weird feeling,” I reply slowly. I know what I am about to ask is going to hurt, and I know as much as I want to be left in my blissful ignorance, I need to know the answers to my questions. “How did it happen? I thought she died in a car accident.”

“She didn’t,” Piper says deliberately as she takes a deep breath in. “How much do you want to know?”

“Everything that you know.” I squeeze her knee. “Everything that your dad told you.”

“Your mom was a patient of my dad’s back in 1992. He had just joined a private practice in Chicago with a well-known oncologist that specialized in brain tumors and other malformations. She was referred by her doctor in Appleton to undergo a specialized surgery to remove the tumor. Your mom had a lower grade glioma. It was aggressive but operable. It just so happens that my dad was leading the revolutionary surgery that she needed.” She pauses, resting her hand against mine.

Piper inhales, and I give her hand another squeeze. “My dad said that it was a tough surgery. There are so many risks with surgeries. So many things that can go wrong…so many complications…”

“What happened?” I whisper.

“She died on his table, Cash. My dad couldn’t save her. The tumor was too attached. It just …” She breaks down and covers her face with her hands. “It was because of me.”

“What do you mean? It was because of you?”

“My dad was in a rush because my mom was in labor. My birthday is April 24, Cash. April 24,” she whispers again.

I’ve hated the date since I can remember.“The day Luella died.”

“The day I was born,” she whispers in between tears.

“Couldn’t someone else have done the surgery? Couldn’t someone else have fixed it?” I sputter, feeling the anger rise in my throat. I ask although I know Piper doesn’t have the answer to the question. Deep down, I know it’s a question that Big Dave has never found the answer to.

“I don’t know…” she whispers and shakes her head. “I asked the same thing and all he could say is that he never has forgiven himself for that moment. He regrets not being more cautious with the surgery. He wishes he would have spent more time with her, but he was just so preoccupied.”

“How could he not have someone with him? Why didn’t they reschedule? Why?” I ask, letting go of her hand and slamming it into the sand. I grab a fistful of sand and clench it, letting it slide through my fingers. The grit rubs against my skin as I clench over and over, thinking about Big Dave and the pain he’s endured for the last twenty-one years.

“I don’t know, Cash. I don’t want to sit here and make excuses for him. I mean, he said he was in the middle of the surgery when my mom went into labor,” she says, throwing up her hands in the air. “He says not being more thorough that day is the only regret of his entire career. I mean, he’s lost a lot of patients in the last twenty years, including the love of his life, but hands down, he said this was the single-most influential moment in his career. A career that since has consumed his life.”

Piper pauses, and I can feel her eyes penetrate me, but I don’t meet her gaze. I stare at the sand that’s squeezing out of my fingers because I’m afraid to say or do something I’m going to regret. I know she’s only the messenger, but damn, it hurts. The betrayal of Piper and Big Dave and God knows who else is crushing me.

“You have to believe me. He’s a neurosurgeon first and foremost, and that’s why he moved us to Appleton five years ago. He was convinced that he needed to right his wrong. That somehow, working with a community that has one of the highest rates of brain cancer in the U.S. would clean his slate. He had no idea that Big Dave would still be there, and he had no idea that we would cross paths. He knew that your parents had a baby at the time of surgery, but he thought that Appleton should be big enough. I was only going to be there for a year,” she says. There’s panic in her voice now, a sense of urgency. Deep down, I want to believe everything she’s saying, but the blind rage is pushing away her words.

“So you knew this for five years?” I ask, trying to control the anger laced in my voice. It’s coursing through every single inch of my body.

“I knew the night that I left Appleton. My dad went back to the office to do his surgery and then came home. After he told me everything, he helped me pack my bags. How could I argue with him? It would have been torture to be with you, and I just didn’t know how I would tell you,” she replies softly.

“And what about the so-called accident? You seem to know everything else about me and my dead mom.” I finally look at her. I hate the words that come out of my mouth, but I can’t stop them. She’s silent at first and her small shoulders slump forward.

“Maybe your dad should…” Piper’s voice is strained, on the verge of breaking into a million pieces.

“My dad should what?” I ask, barely audible. The words disappear into the crash of the waves, and I’m uncertain for a moment if I even spoke them at all. I don’t want any of this conversation to be real. I want all of this to be washed away into the ocean. I want the water to swallow all of our words and memories surrounding this moment. I close my eyes and feel my throat constrict the air that should be filtering into my lungs. My head is light and faint as my mind tries to process the information. Piper’s words float around my head in a fog.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I manage to ask. “I feel like a jerk that no one told me. Am I too weak that you couldn’t tell me? That I wouldn’t be able to handle it?”

“I didn’t know how to, Cash. I just…” Her voice is louder now, and she throws her hands up, surrendering to the impossible universe.

I close my eyes again and concentrate on the soothing sound of the waves crashing into shore. I try to concentrate on my breath, and I suddenly wish that I would have listened to Big Dave’s lectures about meditation. I could use some of those skills to try to control the anger and hurt and feelings of betrayal overwhelming me.

Most of all, I’m flat-out pissed at the universe. I’m angry that she took my mother away before I had the chance to really meet and get to know her and love her like a son should. I’m angry that Luella never got the chance to meet me and get to know me and love me like a mother should.

And I’m pissed at the universe for making me love the only girl that I shouldn’t love. Piper Sullivan truly is an impossibility in an impossible universe.

The noise of the waves and my thoughts cloud over me until I feel like I’m about to implode right on this beach. It consumes me so much that I don’t notice the movement next to me. I try to categorize my feelings into manageable sections that make sense, but I don’t even know where to begin. I finally open my eyes after what feels like an eternity. The reality is that it’s only been a minute or two. I look over expecting to see a gorgeous tear-stained, pink-flushed face, but all I see is sand. She’s gone.

I put my hand on the sand where she used to be and search frantically along the beach, but I don’t see her. All I see are sporadic pockets of people lying on their towels or chairs, and a couple walking hand-in-hand near the water. In the distance, I see the pink balloon the boy was holding like a speck in the sky. It’s flying out near the peak of the Ferris wheel, about to set sail across the ocean. The pink balloon is free.

And all I can think about is Officer Singh’s words that he spoke less than an hour ago. “Never let this girl out of your sight. Don’t let anything come between you.”

So I decide that I’ll be damned if I ever let Piper Sullivan go. There’s no way that I will spend the next five years looking for her again. I’m not going to let her walk out of my life a second time.

This is where you cheer me on and tell me to RUN! RUN LIKE THE WIND, CASH! GO FIND HER! The soundtrack picks up to a light drumbeat, slow at first and then faster and faster as thoughts circulate in my head and the people move on the beach like synchronized swimmers.

I’m listening friends, I’m listening. It’s now or never.

I grab the bag, shoot up from the sand, and try to assess which way Piper went. The ocean: she’d be crazy to go in the ocean with the shark warning. Piper’s crazy, but not that crazy. I turn around. Roads and storefronts: it would be easy to get lost in the crowd there, but she wouldn’t head back to Wisconsin. Yet. I don’t think anyway. And then I see it. What I should have seen right away, and probably what you’ve been thinking since you saw the pink balloon float over the Ferris wheel.

The carnival.

I’m sprinting across the sand now barefoot, the thought of losing Piper pushing me forward with a strength and speed I’ve never experienced before. I feel like Jesse Owens cruising in the sand, the breeze blowing through my hair and my muscles exploding with every step. You know, minus the weight of four Olympic gold medals and everything.

She has to be there. I know she does.

I run up the incline that leads to the dock and soon my feet are pounding against the wood platform. The faint song of a carousel is playing in the distance. I come barreling up to the entrance, my legs burning while I push my way forward in desperate search of the pink-striped sweater. I pause for a second to put on my shoes. I step into them as fast as I can, pounding them onto my feet with my steps. My eyes are peeled, hoping for just a glimpse of familiarity. But all I see are workers ebbing and flowing to finish setting up the rides and tents. I slow down, checking every hidden space around me. Just as I’m coming to a fast walk…

BAM!

A loud crash sounds, making me stop. A large wooden slab swings down on a food stand, and a face appears through the opening. Bags of popcorn hang above her. She smiles at me for a second with bright red lipstick before returning back to the popcorn machine. The other side of the stand is open and through the window I see more rides on the dock. The vendor looks friendly enough so I take a few steps toward her.

“Have you seen a woman in a pink-striped sweater and blonde hair?” I blurt out. I’m panting now, so I put my hands on my knees.

She nods her head but keeps her eyes on the popcorn machine and continues to work.

“Oh, thank God. Please, tell me which way did she go?” I ask, leaning up against the stand now. My head is half-way into the stand when a hand clasps my shoulder.

“Sir, the carnival isn’t open. I’m sorry, you’re going to have to leave.” The voice is deep and rough, and I’m afraid to see where it’s coming from. He spins me around, and I look down to see a short, surly man with a curly beard that fills up the entire space of his neck. His mustache is wiry and is twisted up on the ends with a serious amount of wax. I stare down at the sheen of his bald head that glistens in the sun and follow it to his torso. He’s wearing a black t-shirt that exposes the veins in his incredibly superhuman biceps. This guy looks like the strong man at the circus act except he’s missing a red and white-striped leotard and big barbell with ball weights on the end.

“There’s a woman I need to find…” I start.

“Sorry, sir. You have to go,” he repeats with a shake of his head. “We don’t open for another hour.”

“Please let me look for her, and then I’ll leave,” I say. “I promise.”

He looks at me with a blank expression, as if he’s bored. I realize that he’s not going to budge under the current circumstances. I never thought I’d do what I am about to do, but it’s Piper that we’re talking about here. So I slide my hand into my pocket and retrieve my wallet.