The Space In Between (11 page)

I COULD FEEL my heart pounding as we
walked into the nursing home. Andrea had no idea about my mom’s condition. She
held on to my arm the whole time. I walked over to the front desk and received
a warm smile from the old woman sitting, reading a magazine. The old woman was
Ms. Wells. Her warm grin welcomed me and her small arms wrapped me in a hug. I
bit the tip of my thumb, looking down the hallway in the direction of my mom’s
room. “How is she?”

“We had a rough morning. But after her meds this afternoon,
so far so good.” Her hand rested on my arm. “How are you, dear?”

I gave her a halfway smile and she nodded in understanding.
At least it was nice to know Mom wasn’t at her worse. “What year?”

Ms. Wells escaped into her mind. Searching for the exact
detail I was requesting. She ran her hands through her silver hair and I saw
her eyes sparkle as she retrieved the information. “2009. It must have been a
happy time for her. She hasn’t stopped grinning.”

Shit. I glanced back to Andrea. She was standing there
trying to connect the dots of what was happening. Hell, if I were her I
wouldn’t know what to think. Digging into my jeans pocket, I pulled out my
wallet, grabbed my wedding band, and slid it onto my finger. The light in Andrea’s
eyes slowly faded as she gave me a sad grin.

“You can wait out here if you want,” I told her. I didn’t
want to drag her too far into the craziness that was my family. I just wanted
her to see me in a different light than the bedroom. It wasn’t until that
moment when I started to regret my decision to invite her.

“I would like to come, if that’s all right.”

Dammit. She’s perfect.

We walked over to my mom’s room and I could feel the
heaviness of the situation growing on my shoulders. I was praying. Praying she
was all right. Praying she would know what was happening. Praying she was my
mom today.

As Andrea and I walked into mom’s room, I saw her sitting at
a table, working intensely at something. I held up my hand to Andrea as a
signal for her to wait by the doorway. I didn’t want Mom to have too much of a
commotion with me entering with another person.

She heard my shoes squeak as I walked inside. I sighed out
loud when she turned to look at me and didn’t appear frightened—she
looked…Excited.

“Cooper!”

There was nothing sweeter than hearing my name from my mom’s
lips. She knew me today. She was quick to stand up and rushed over to me,
wrapping her arms around me. I held on to her for quite awhile. Maybe Ms. Wells
was wrong. Maybe somehow Mom’s mind had traveled back to present day. Maybe she
wasn’t trapped in the sick time capsule that kept her wandering down a dark
path of memory lane.

But quickly my grin faded.

“I thought you weren’t coming back from the honeymoon until
next week, honey.”

Shit. It was 2009. And I’d just married Iris.

Her eyes shifted to the doorway and landed on Andrea. “Well,
what are you doing out there, Iris? Come on in! Let me get you two some coffee!
I can’t wait to hear all about it!”

“No, Mom, we don’t need coffee. We had some on the way.” I
walked over to Andrea and spoke softly. “I’m so sorry…”

She shook her head and smiled. “What’s her name?”

“Grace.”

Andrea approached her and pulled her into a hug. “It’s so
great to see you, Grace.”

I laughed. I was amazed by how okay Andrea was with all of
this. She was going out of her way to make the situation seem somewhat normal.
The weather here was in the 70s. It was pretty damn nice to walk outside
without coats. But what was nicer was seeing Andrea in a tank top and tight
jeans. No makeup. It wasn’t needed. She seemed so simple. So perfect. She never
worked as hard as Iris did with her appearance, which made it so easy to fall
for her natural beauty.

“Honey, what did I say about that? Don’t call me Grace! Call
me Mom! Come on, now. Sit, sit.” Mom ushered her into the room and sat us down
on her bed. She took the chair across from us. It was so strange. We were
sitting in a nursing home, yet in my mom’s mind we were sitting in her living
room. How could that be? I wished I could take a drive through her brain to see
what was happening.

“So how was Thailand?” she questioned.

Andrea looked at me and nudged my arm. “You tell her, babe.”

I went into explaining the beauties of Thailand. The
wonderful elephants we rode. The beautiful buildings, the museums, the amazing
stone structures. The pandas at the Chiang Mai Zoo were pretty astonishing, but
the fact that the word panda was now forever engraved in my heart as a
connection to Andrea made it even more remarkable. It was her favorite animal, and
there was not a doubt in my mind that the woman I wished I could have taken to
Thailand was sitting next to me.

I found myself falling for her each moment our eyes locked.
Each time she caressed my hand. I knew I wanted to fix Andrea, to help her move
on. But the truth of the matter was that she was somehow fixing me.

Mom was happy. I hadn’t seen her happy in such a long time.
Whenever I asked Iris to come visit with me, she said she felt uncomfortable
with nursing homes. And she hated lying to my mom about the time period. She
thought it was unhealthy the way I played along with her illness. But I didn’t
think of Mom as being ill. I thought of her as being lost. And if I were lost,
I would hope to have someone around me who was willing to help me find my way
home.

Her eyes shifted to Andrea’s ring finger and she gasped.
“Where’s your ring!?”

Shit. There wasn’t a ring. At least there wasn’t until
Andrea reached into her purse, pulled out her engagement ring from Derrick, and
slid it onto her finger. Holy crap. She was as fucked up as I was, and I found
it pretty damn sexy. I knew it was messed up.

The three of us talked for hours, discussing stories of the
past and welcoming Andrea into my history. “You know, I bought him his first
camera.” Mom smiled like she was the proudest woman on this planet. It felt
good to see her feeling well.

“Yeah, he told me. He said you inspired him to be great.”
Andrea leaned near my mom, her expression filled with care and compassion. “He
also said you’re the greatest artist he knows.”

“Yeah, well you know. Cooper’s a liar like that.” She winked
at Andrea as we all laughed. I couldn’t think of the last time I was able to
actually sit down and have what felt like a real conversation with my mom.
Sure, she thought the year was 2009, but it was turning out to be the best year
of my life. Who said you couldn’t rewrite history?

“YOU WERE BRILLIANT!” I exclaimed as
Andrea and I walked out of the nursing home. “I haven’t seen her like that
in…forever. Thank you, Andrea.” We walked over to the rental car we picked up
from the airport, and before opening the door for her. I stared at her. She
leaned her back up against the car and her soft lips curved into an easy smile.
I stood close to her and repeatedly kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for allowing me in.” Her eyes shifted to the
ground, and I could tell there was something on her mind.

“What is it?”

“Can I ask what happened to her? Or you can still call panda
on this situation.”

My foot began to tap the concrete beneath us as I started to
relive the accident. It was right after I’d moved my mom away from my dad. I
was out of state doing a photo shoot spread for a magazine and I received a
frantic call from my mom.

My father had showed up and forced her to take a ride with
him in his piece-of-shit pick-up truck. I was sure his breath was drenched in
its normal whiskey cologne. At some point on the line, I could hear my mom
screaming. She seemed absolutely terrified and she dropped the phone in the
car. “I should have been there.”

“You didn’t know. There was no way you knew.”

“Yeah but, didn’t I? I should have moved her out of the
state. Away from him.” I continued to tell her how the truck got wrapped around
a pole and my mom slipped in and out of coma. My father died on impact. And
when she finally woke up, she thought it was 1992. She thought I was her
brother, Travis, and she was so deeply in love with my father and hurt that he
wasn’t there.

“The doctors thought her mind would start to unscramble
itself over time, but after the first year, there was little hope.”

“Is that why you don’t drink?”

No. I didn’t drink because it landed me in the mental
hospital. But I didn’t want her to know that. “Part of the reason.”

“I’m so sorry, Cooper.”

Her blue eyes grew very blue, something that happened when
she became emotional about a topic. The idea of a car accident still had to tug
at her bruised heart. This trip wasn’t about making her sadder, so I needed to
let her know it was okay. “Today was a good day. Let’s hold on to that.”

She wrapped her arms around my back, and pulled me closer to
her. We stood there for a moment, taking in what we had witnessed with my mom.
The nurses glowed with how we left Mom in a better state than she had been in
awhile. I planned to return tomorrow. But right now, all I wanted to do was
hold on to Andrea.

She pulled my lips to hers, lightly kissed me, and nibbled
on my bottom lip. “I’m hungry.”

I raised an eyebrow and felt a sudden twitch in my jeans. “A
soda pop hungry?”

She tossed her head back and laughed as she rolled her eyes.
“I’m hungry, Cooper. Food hunger.” She climbed into the car and I closed the
door for her. Wandering over to the driver’s seat to get in, I couldn’t help
but smirk at her reaction to my question. Hell, you gotta try.

IT FELT GOOD to laugh. I sat across
from Cooper in the Italian restaurant and I was famished. For the first time in
a long time, I felt like I could eat everything around me. The conversation
with Coop was so easy; he made me feel comfortable, and he never came on too
strong. I glanced at the rings still on both our fingers from earlier with
Grace. Holding my hand up to him, he slid off the engagement ring, and I did
the same for him.

“So my cousin is dating your brother.”

“Yup. Since middle school.”

“And they are throwing the big Christmas party.”

“Yup.” My mom had been calling me nonstop since I missed
Thanksgiving, and now she was getting heavy on my case because I wouldn’t be
home for Christmas. I wasn’t ready to return. I felt I was slowly moving to
Order, but I knew the moment I stepped back into Derrick’s and my hometown, I
would slide back down to Chaos. It was the curse of the small town.

For the past few years, Eric and Michelle had thrown big
Christmas parties at Michelle’s family’s mansion. Every year there was a theme
to the party. Each year, I would be in charge of the group dance that happened
at the beginning. Not this year. This year, Rachel was in charge of it. The
whole town would come to drink, laugh, and gossip. That was all too much for
me. The bruise was still too painful. So I made up lies. I told my mom if I
weren’t working, I would lose my ‘jobs.’ I told her I had auditions for dance
schools in the next few weeks. I told her I was pulling my life together. I
told her anything and everything to try to get her to back off a bit.

Of course she didn’t care. She just wanted me home. So she
kept badgering me, asking me—no, begging me—to come home at least for the
holiday. That was when the ignoring of her calls happened.

“Are you going?” His eyes stayed on me. At times it was hard
to look at his handsome self. I watched as he wiped the sweat falling from his
forehead with a napkin, thinking about how I would love for him to make me
sweat. But I remained focused on the conversation at hand.

“No. I’m not.” He looked surprised, I shrugged my shoulders.
“Are you?”

“Nah. I haven’t seen or spoken to them in years. And it’s
pretty short notice for me…” That was good. It would have been awkward for both
of us to attend the party. After the connection we had discovered, I could see
going back to Albany, Wisconsin, as a terrible idea. The whispering, gossiping
ladies of the town would have a field day with us, making up nasty lies to keep
their minds busy for a few hours each day.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a young girl, probably
ten or so, arguing with her father as they gestured towards Cooper. “I think
you have a fan.”

Cooper saw the uneasy father, smiled, and waved the two
over. Excitedly, the daughter came bouncing over to the table, pulling her
dad’s arm. The girl gasped with joy. “I don't know who you are!”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. If she didn’t know who
Cooper was, why was she so excited to see him? The girl’s dad rolled his eyes
and joined in. “So sorry. My daughter saw you from our table. Her mom and she
are huge fans of your show.”

Cooper turned his charm on high, and I melted inside as I
listened to his soft southern tones directed at the girl. He made the
interaction feel completely comfortable. A gift of his, I supposed—making
anyone feel comfortable.

“Is that so? You like my show?”

“I don't know who you are,” the girl repeated.

Her father sighed. I could tell he was exhausted from a long
father-daughter day. Daddy used to have the same look when I was a kid. “It’s
opposite day. She knows who you are. Right, April?”

Her lovely smile brightened the room as she nodded. “You are
not going to take my wedding photos when I'm old enough to not like boys.”

“Of course not. Well, don't have your daddy and mama call me
when you're not getting married.”

“Who aren’t you?”

Cooper’s eyes shifted to me for a brief moment before
turning back to the southern belle. “This is not my date.”

I could feel my cheeks redden. I was—er, well,
wasn’t
—his
date.

The father grabbed his daughter’s arm and started to pull
her away. “Okay, I think that's enough. Time to leave them alone.”

Cooper smiled. “Happy Opposite Day, April.” The two walked
away, and I sat there speechless. He was so smooth with the way he handled
situations. He grabbed my hand from across the table and kissed it. “It's
opposite day.”

“That's what I hear.”

AFTER DINNER, WE pulled up to
Cooper’s house he kept in South Carolina. It was beautiful—a perfect, southern,
large piece of property. It was gated off from the outside world, and had green
grass and wildflowers gracing the front yard. As we pulled into the drive-way,
I noticed some detailed cars sitting there.

I had a strong feeling Cooper was a lot richer than I had
known. Yet, it seemed that it didn’t go to his head. He was nothing more than a
kind-hearted guy who happened to have a heavy checkbook in his pockets.

“It’s so stunning here.” I looked at the white house with
the large porch and yellow shutters on the windows. I felt as if I’d walked
into a movie. Ladasha would have loved it; it looked like a place that belonged
in a Nicholas Sparks movie. Cooper stepped out of the car and wrapped his arm
around my waist as I dissolved into the curves of his body.

“Yeah, I forgot how much I loved this place. Iris and I only
stayed here awhile before she decided she wanted to move to New York. But
this…” His eyes sparkled as he looked around and opened the door to the house.
“This is home.”

We spent the rest of the night in his bedroom, discovering
more gems about each other. The only things we didn’t speak about were Iris and
Derrick. Those two were off limits.

Cooper had played baseball when he was a kid. His middle
name was Michael. He once did the cover for a magazine involving tigers, which
was terrible for his fear of cats. He got in a fist fight with a guy who was
cussing out a bartender who made a mistake in a restaurant. He wasn’t
religious, but he believed in Jesus.

Little known facts about Cooper Davidson.

He was lying down on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. I
watched his chest rise and fall each time he inhaled and exhaled. “I mean,
think about it though…” He said, lifting one of his arms and resting his head
in the palm of his hand. “What if there was something or someone bigger than
all of this? Bigger than us? And what if he appeared to us in our darkest
moments? Just as a person to give us a little extra push? I mean, what were the
odds? Me walking into the strip club in New York City that night to meet you.
Andrea…this
has
to mean something.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe there was some kind of higher
power that pushed Cooper and I together that night. Who knew? I didn’t believe
in much after the accident. I doubted everything and everyone. But if there was
something out there…Something bigger, like a grand order to this crazy world,
then I promised myself that I would thank the higher power if I ever got the
opportunity. I would thank them for sending me Cooper so I wouldn’t feel so
alone.

His eyes met mine and he grinned, falling back onto the
mattress. “You think I’m crazy.”

Shaking my head, I scooted closer to him, and brushed my
fingers across his chest. “No. I think you’re passionate about your beliefs.
And I think I like it. I like how you get lost in your thoughts sometimes.”

The right side of his lips curved into a halfway smile. He
placed his hands on my sides and lifted me up, so I was now straddling him.
“Yeah? What else do you like about me?”

I grinned, knowing that the list was growing daily. My
fingers traced his lips, feeling him sigh against my touch. “I like your lips.
But not just because they deliver kisses in the gentlest way, but because when
they move, they are sincere with their words. I believe whatever comes out of
them.”

I moved my fingers across his cheek. “I like your dimples,
because they only appear when you are happy. And I like that you’re happy when
you’re around me.” His smile grew wider and his dimples grew deeper, making my
heart skip.

My hands wrapped around his head and I lowered my lips to
his forehead, resting them there. “I like your mind. How it works, how it
cares.” Next my eyes locked with his, our lips almost touching, as I continued
speaking. “I like your eyes, and how they focus on whoever’s around you. And
you don’t just notice them, but you
see
them. Many people look, but they
don’t see.”

And lastly, I lifted myself up, and placed my hands on his
chest. I tried to hold back the tears as I cleared my throat, realizing what I
liked most about him. “And most importantly, I like your heart. I
really
like your heart. Because when you walked into that strip club, you didn’t judge
me. And when your mom was lost, you didn’t scold her. And when that little girl
said it was opposite’s day, you didn’t demolish her beliefs. Each time you just
smiled with those dimples, saw us with those eyes, and comforted us with those
lips.”

The playful energy grew extremely serious as the two of us
just sat there. I smiled his way and he smirked back to me. Shoving him
lightly, I climbed off of him, and turned away. I poked fun at him, trying to
take away from the seriousness of it all. “Come on, this is clearly the point
when you tell me what you like about me.”

I felt him sit up and position himself behind me. When he
started to give me a back massage, I pretty much died. He had the hands of Gods
and knew exactly how to work them.
His hands…I liked those, too.
I was
his the moment he touched me. My eyes closed and I allowed my body to relax
into him massaging my lower back.

“What time is it?”

Opening one of my eyes, I glanced to the nightstand and
looked at the alarm clock.

“11:58.” My eyes shut again, too comfortable to remain open.

“It's still opposite day.”

“For two more minutes.”

I could feel his breath on the back of my neck as he
whispered to me. “I don’t like how you smell like honey and cotton candy. I
dislike your blue eyes that I don’t get lost in. I
really
dislike the
seventeen freckles on your face. You know the eight on your forehead, six on
your cheeks, and three on the tip of your nose?
Sooo ugly.
” I felt every
word he said run through me as he continued speaking.

“I haven’t thought about you every day since we met that one
night.” He kissed my ear over and over again—my favorite kisses. I felt the
butterflies flying into my stomach. I was growing more and more nervous with
each word. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, but he kept going. “In
your eyes I don’t see the missing pieces I’ve been searching for. And I know
this isn’t crazy… but I think I hate you, Andie.”