This weekend had the potential to be life-changing, as uncomfortable and awkward as it was. She could hardly believe that the last time she’d seen James was the summer after their graduation.
In all her life no one had ever loved Katie as much as James Harper had. He’d been willing to sacrifice everything for her. As much as she had loved him in return, Katie couldn’t allow that. If he’d given up college for her, it would have forever tainted their relationship. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and forced herself to think positive thoughts.
Because she wanted it so badly, she pictured seeing James at the reunion and his reaction once he saw her. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d changed. She had. Not physically so much—the years had matured her, shaped her, and she assumed they had him as well. She wondered if he knew she’d gone into social work, helping young teens. He’d been the one to suggest she’d be good in that line of work. Was it possible that he remembered saying that to her all those years ago? She hoped he did.
The car door opened, momentarily startling Katie. Coco was back, holding two cans of soda. She handed one to Katie. “I brought you one anyway.”
“Thanks.” The can felt cool in her hand.
Her friend joined her and they both opened the soda cans. The cracking sound seemed to echo in the confines of the car.
“Worried about the reunion?” Coco said before she took the first swallow of her drink.
“A little.” A lot, actually, but admitting that didn’t come easily. “You?”
Coco shifted in her seat. “Not at all.”
Katie snorted her drink. “You never could get away with a lie. Your body language gives you away, hon.”
“Okay, I’m a little nervous, but no more than you or anyone else.”
“Yeah, right.”
Coco grinned. “I haven’t kept in touch with a lot of people.”
“Me neither.” Between working two jobs, attending night classes, and finally obtaining her degree, there’d been little time for socializing. Other than Coco and one or two others, Katie hadn’t made a lot of friends from their graduating class. She’d started Cedar Cove High School in October of her senior year. If it wasn’t for swim team she probably wouldn’t have connected with Coco, either. Their friendship had been key for her. If not for Coco, any connection Katie had with her classmates might have completely dissolved. Thankfully, almost from the first day Katie arrived at the school, shy, withdrawn, and feeling out of place, Coco had taken her under her wing.
They sat side by side for several moments without speaking, each caught up in her own thoughts.
“Can I ask you something?” Katie asked softly.
Coco shrugged. “Anything.” Then she hesitated. “Let me revise that. Except if I don’t know the answer, find it embarrassing, or just plain don’t feel it’s any of your business.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” Katie said, not bothering to disguise her amusement.
“Okay, fine, what’s your question?”
Katie set the soda can aside. “Have you ever had a hard time forgiving someone?”
Right away Coco bristled, and Katie realized it was a loaded question and one she should never have asked her friend.
“What makes you ask?” Coco wanted to know.
Katie exhaled hard enough for her shoulders to lift as she expelled her breath. “I’m trying to look at this meeting with James the way a wronged party would.”
“Have you ever had to forgive someone?” Coco demanded.
“Of course.” She couldn’t have made it this far in life without learning to let go of hurts from the past, especially the pain her parents had brought into her life. To the father who’d been a drunk and who’d abandoned her and her mother when Katie was a toddler. She’d had to move past the anger she carried about a mother who had then sought release from the pain of that rejection in drugs and alcohol as well.
“Was it easy?”
Katie wasn’t sure how this all had gotten turned around and she was the one answering the questions. “No. It was hard, but I knew it was necessary.”
“Why?”
“Why did I forgive or why was it necessary?” Her friend had grown quiet and intense. Coco’s fingers clung to the soda can as if trying to strangle it.
“Both.”
“I haven’t seen or heard from my father in over twenty-five years. He didn’t ask for forgiveness, nor did he seek me out. As a kid, especially when I got into my teens, I wanted to see him just so I could cuss him out. It never happened, though, and I suppose it was just as well.”
“Did you hate him?”
Katie considered the question. “Hate him? No, not really. I figured in the end he probably got what he deserved. Life is like that, you know?”
“Like what?”
“It’s the old ‘what goes around comes around’ philosophy. At least that’s the way I like to think it works. My father treated people badly and he ended up alone.”
“That gives me hope,” Coco murmured.
Katie reacted quickly. “Hope?” she blurted out.
“I mean without hope. Those kinds of people usually end up without hope, right?”
“Right.” Katie was fairly certain she hadn’t misunderstood her friend. She studied Coco with fresh eyes. Although Coco never talked about what happened with Ryan, Katie was well aware her friend longed for some kind of payback. But then, how could she not? If the situation were reversed, Katie was fairly certain she’d feel the same way.
“You forgave your father, though,” Coco asked.
Katie glanced down at her hands. She didn’t want to mislead her friend, so she told the truth. “It took time. It didn’t happen overnight.”
“But how?”
Katie leaned her head back again. “It was around Christmas one year. At the time I must have been about twenty, maybe twenty-one. I was getting out of class. The night was cold and dark, and snow was threatening. As I walked to the bus stop I saw a man spread-eagle on the lawn, passed out with an empty liquor bottle at his side. Someone had called campus security and a couple of officers were trying to rouse him. My bus arrived and I wasn’t able to follow what happened after I left. While I was on the bus I had the weirdest sensation that the drunk man could easily have been my father. I didn’t see his face clearly or recognize anything about him that would remind me of my dad. Right away I felt sad and this overwhelming sense of pity came over me. I pitied him. His was a life wasted.”
“So you went from hate to pity?” Coco took another long swallow of her soda.
“I don’t think I ever truly hated him. I was angry and hurt and as little as I was when he left, I felt responsible somehow. That doesn’t make sense, but in my line of work I see it all the time. Kids, no matter how young, blame themselves for what happens to their families. Even though this makes about as much sense as a kid thinking that not finishing his homework is the cause of global warming.”
Coco’s look grew intense and thoughtful. She went quiet for several seconds. “Some things can’t be forgiven though.”
“Not easily, that’s for sure. The thing I’ve learned—and trust me, I’m no expert—is that forgiveness isn’t a gift we give the offender. It’s something we do for ourselves.”
“That’s easy enough to say…”
“I know.” In the distance the Bremerton ferry dock came into view. In order to distract herself from the inevitable, Katie looked away. All this talk about forgiveness had brought to the surface her hopes, and in equal measure her fears. Just because she’d learned how to forgive, that didn’t mean that James had the will or the desire to lay the past to rest when it came to her.
“Do you feel it’s in you to forgive?” she asked, hoping to turn the questions around on Coco.
“What makes you ask that?”
“You know why…”
“Well, I guess all of us have fallen short now and then…”
“Amen,” Katie said with a halfhearted chuc
kle. “And just as easily we might have inadvertently hurt someone without even knowing what we’ve done.”
“That’s not true,” Coco darted back. “We know.”
Although she disagreed, Katie wasn’t going to argue.
This reunion would certainly prove to be interesting. Coco was outgoing and friendly, whereas Katie was much quieter, intense, and shy. Their differences were one reason why they were such good friends. They balanced each other.
Katie remembered the first day of school and how dreadful it’d been to start yet another high school, especially in her senior year. She’d been moved to the third foster home in twelve months. It wasn’t that she was a problem case or difficult to place—she’d never been in trouble in her other foster homes. Each move had been plain old bad luck. One set of foster parents had gotten a job transfer to another state. Then, with the second family, the wife had been diagnosed with cancer. Two major moves within a short amount of time. Her next family, the Flemmingses, were wonderful, as far as foster parents went.
“It looks like we’re almost to Bremerton,” Coco said, as if eager to change the subject.
The ferry docked near the Bremerton shipyard, which could be seen in the distance. Several mothballed battleships and carriers lined the waterfront, along with a number of nuclear-powered submarines. The shipyard and navy base were a large part of the local economy, both in Bremerton and Cedar Cove.
Ralph Flemmings, her foster father, had worked as a nuclear engineer at the shipyard until his recent retirement. Soon afterward the Flemmingses had sold their home in Cedar Cove, purchased a motor home, and traveled around the country. Every few weeks Katie got a postcard from a different part of the country. Ralph and Sue had taken to their new lives like a helium balloon to the sky, drifting in whatever direction the air took them. They were good people, and Katie would be forever grateful for their generosity toward her, especially that last year of high school.
I stood for a long time staring at the Realtor’s FOR SALE sign in front of Mark’s house. It shouldn’t have been this much of a surprise. Mark hadn’t misled me. He was doing exactly what he’d said he intended to do. He was moving away. And yet I was shocked.
I don’t know how long I stood in front of the house as a gnawing sensation attacked my gut. Like the liquid in a cauldron, it churned and brewed and swelled, and then all at once I was so angry I could barely contain myself. And at the same time I was unbearably sad. A profound sense of loss settled over me, that familiar pain I experienced in the first weeks after I’d gotten word that Paul was missing in action and presumed dead.
Rover sat on his haunches watching me as if he expected some sort of response on my end. I had none to give. The Realtor’s sign blurred before my eyes.
It went without saying that any further attempt to talk Mark out of leaving would be pointless. I’d already tried that, but my words appeared to have no impact on him. It was as if he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Well, so be it.
The return trip to the inn was taken at a much slower pace than when I left, as my head and my heart assimilated what I’d found. As I drew closer to the inn, my thoughts whirled around inside my head. I was saddened and angry in equal measure.
When I walked up the driveway, Rover strained against the leash in his eagerness to get to Mark. I held on tightly, but Rover half dragged me forward even while I struggled to hold him back.
Mark glanced up, but when he saw it was me, he returned to his task at hand, indifferent to me. My intention had been to walk directly past him without a word and get inside the house without a display of emotion.
The silent treatment was what he deserved. If I could pretend I didn’t care, maybe he’d feel the need to explain himself. Okay, admittedly, my thinking was probably skewed, but I was starting to feel desperate and lost. I had to believe there was some logical explanation for Mark’s behavior, something he wasn’t telling or couldn’t tell me.
I wasn’t halfway onto the property when, against all reason, my mouth took over. “You couldn’t wait, could you?” I demanded, so angry that I barely sounded like myself.
Mark paused, turned around, and looked at me. He frowned as if he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. “Wait? For what?”
“To list your house.” My anger was front and center and seemed to throb with every syllable.
“What’s the big deal? I told you I was moving on.”
“You had to rub it in…you couldn’t put it off until you were sure this was what you wanted, could you?” My anger was to the point that I had trouble speaking coherently.
He set aside his paintbrush and turned to face me directly. “There was no reason to wait. The decision to leave has been made, so I listed the house.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Why should I?” he snapped.
“You’re right,” I shot back, unbelievably hurt. “Why should you? Our…friendship, our relationship, means nothing to you. Why would you want to share anything with me?”
He appeared perplexed by my outburst, which said everything. He hadn’t given my feelings the least bit of consideration. Any hope I’d clung to that he would change his mind dissolved like ice in boiling water.
He braced one hand against his hip. “I don’t get why you’re so angry.”
I couldn’t explain it myself. I felt the compelling urge to lash out and hurt him in the same way I was hurting. “I should have known I couldn’t depend on you. You’re doing what you’ve always done. You’re running away. So run. Be a coward. If friends, if relationships, if love is more than you can deal with, then good riddance.”
We squared off face-to-face. His face was red with anger and I felt the heat radiate off my own. My hands were bunched into tight fists at my sides, my nails digging hard enough into the skin of my palms to leave indentations.
His eyes narrowed and hardened. “I don’t owe you any explanations. I’m my own person.”
“Fine, be your own person. You don’t need anyone; you’re an island, an entity unto yourself. That’s great. Perfect, in fact. Have a good life, because I don’t need you, either.”
Rover howled, but I ignored him and so did Mark.
“What I do or don’t do is my own business,” he reminded me. “If I choose to put my house on the market, then it’s none of your concern, got it?”
Oh yes, I got it. “Loud and clear.”
Neither one of us moved. The leash wrapped around my hand bit painfully into my flesh, cutting off the blood supply to my fingers. I ignored the discomfort.
“You’re not my mother, or even my sister,” he said between gritted teeth.
He’d never mentioned either his mother or a sister before, which served only to punctuate how little I knew about him. I’d wanted to introduce Mark to my family and he’d refused. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he chose to ignore his own relatives, if indeed he had family. Nor should I be shocked that I meant little or nothing to him. People flowed through his life like creek water, never standing still for long.
“In other words, I’m nothing to you. Absolutely nothing.”
He blinked, as if my accusation hit too close to the truth. “If that’s the way you want to look at it, then go right ahead.”
It irritated me that he had the ability to hurt me like this. I blinked furiously in an effort to hold back tears.
All at once without prior warning, all the anger drained out of me. I felt emotionally and physically exhausted. For a long moment all I could do was stare at him.
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Now you’re purposely being cruel. I would have thought better of you,” I whispered. In the months I’d known Mark, I’d never seen him like this.
Turning away, I returned to the house, softly closing the door behind me. Bending down, I released Rover from his leash and then, without meaning for it to happen, I crumbled to my knees and hugged my dog close. Adrenaline surged through my system. Such intense emotion needed a
physical outlet, but still the shaking took me by surprise.
Rover licked my hand as though seeking to comfort me. When I could control the trembling, I stood on wobbly legs and walked aimlessly into the kitchen. Standing at the sink, I looked out the window and breathed in deep, even breaths in an effort to calm my racing heart.
Several minutes passed and I was just beginning to come to grips with my anger and frustration when I heard the front door open. I didn’t immediately register that it was Mark until I heard his footsteps approach me. I had no desire to continue our argument.
“Jo Marie.”
I ignored him.
He stood directly behind me. I could feel him as strongly as if he’d pressed his body flush against mine.
“Jo Marie,” he tried again.
I refused to face him. “You can go, Mark…or Jeremy, or whatever name you prefer to be called these days. I won’t hold you to the contract for the gazebo.”
“I’ll finish the job.”
“No need. You’re free to go.”
“I said I’d finish the job.”
I didn’t think I could bear to see him again. “Frankly, I’d rather you didn’t.”
He paused and then reminded me, “I gave you my word. Don’t worry. It won’t be long; I should be done today, tomorrow at the latest.”
“I’m absolving you from any further obligation.” Despite my best effort to be cool and detached, my voice trembled.
Mark cupped my shoulders and I reacted by holding myself stiff. “You can mail me a bill for your services to this point.”
He edged closer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
Shivers scooted down my spine. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” I tried to sound flippant, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.
“The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”
If that was the case, he’d failed miserably. The hole in my stomach had doubled in size in the last thirty minutes. “I’d rather you left now.”