AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She curled up on top of the bed as he removed her shoes. He was usually strict about things like tooth brushing, the amount of TV she watched, and bedtimes. But he decided she could brush for four minutes instead of two in the morning to make up for tonight's cookies, and pulled up the blankets over her.
He kissed her on the forehead. "I lov
e you, little sister."
Her faint response, slurred with sleep, came as he closed the door. "Love you too, big brother."
He had just closed her door with a soft click when he heard it--the sound of tires on the gravel behind his house.
Sarah.
He was waiting for her on the porch when she walked over. Every instinct he possessed had him wanting to pull her against him, but he knew he needed to let her lead tonight.
"I needed to come back, to talk to you, to explain things."
He'd known she was too brave to hide out in her house all night. He'd known she would come right back here, that she'd be unable to resist something neither of them should have been resisting all along.
"Jordan's asleep. How about we talk out on the dock?"
The two of them walked silently across the sand, then out to the end of the wooden dock. But unlike the hundreds of times they'd come out to the end of a dock together since they were little kids, she didn't immediately sit and swing her legs over the edge. Instead, she turned to face him, looking as serious as he had ever seen her.
"I'm not going to stay. And you're not going to leave."
"Distance, miles, those are things we can live with over time. Those are things we can figure out together. As a couple. As a team."
"You make it sound so easy, but I know better. Growing up, whenever my father was around, it was as if my mother was floating on air. She was so happy. But when he left--and he always left--she'd deflate like a balloon. She didn't want me to see it. I know she didn't, but how could I not? You and I have tried it already. We tried having that commuter relationship like my parents had when I first went away to college." With that sad, resigned look firmly lodged in her beautiful blue eyes, she continued, "And now, I couldn't stand to be the one coming to the lake for a long weekend here or there. I couldn't stand to always feel like I was leaving you behind."
"Neither of us wants that." And it was true--he wanted the woman he married, the woman he had his children with, to be there with him every day, every night. The other half that made him whole. "But just because it was like that with your parents, just because we couldn't pull it off when we were kids, doesn't mean it has to be like that now."
"It's more than location and time and distance," she insisted. "It's the fact that you're so easygoing, so happy to just be out in your canoe with a fishing pole--and I'm so type A, always reaching, just like you said."
He had to smile at her then, at the fact that she really was going down her list of reasons why not, one bullet point at a time. But he had his own list ready of all the reasons their love was going to work. Because he was fighting for her this time. Fighting for his own heart. Fighting for their love.
"Don't you know that's one of the things I love about you?" he said. "The fact that you're never going to let things stay static? I need you to pull me forward, and you need me to sit you down beneath the stars and hold your hand while we wait for them to start shooting. Together we can make our wishes come true, sweetheart. I know we can."
She looked up at the sky then, almost as if she were waiting for a shooting star to make a wish on. Too soon, she looked away, before she could make one. "I grew up with two people who should never have fallen in love with each other," she said. They wanted different things, different places, different lives. My mother should have had a half-dozen kids to bake chocolate chip cookies for. My father went off to live the life he needed to live in Washington. And I honestly don't think he regretted being gone, because he was enjoying his work so much there, because he was so committed to his path, his purpose." Softer now, almost to herself, she said, "He hurt my mother by leaving all the time. Badly."
Calvin almost couldn't stop himself from reaching for her then. Just as he couldn't stop himself from saying, "It's not just your mother who was hurt, Sarah. He hurt you too."
"No. You're wrong. I always knew he loved me."
Her words pierced his heart. But he'd been there for all of those moments when she'd needed to look into someone's eyes and know how much she was loved. Calvin knew the truth, even if she didn't want to admit it to herself.
"James was a great senator; he gave everything he had to strangers, but he wasn't there enough for you. Not when you were learning to swim and singing in the choir and giving speeches."
Her beautiful face was stubborn. "My father had an important job helping people. And when he was home, he was great. He was the best father in the world."
"Yes, he was great," Calvin agreed. "When he was here." He paused, weighing his words again, not wanting to hurt her, but knowing there couldn't be anything left out. Not when it felt as though their entire future was resting on this conversation. "But it wasn't enough. And now you're so afraid of loving and being left again the way he left you--and so afraid of being the one who leaves and hurting me--that you're grasping at any reason you can find to push me away first."
Her eyes widened at the truth of his statement, but resolve came quickly on its heels. "I'm not grasping at reasons. My father said he loved my mother, acted the part in front of the crowds, in front of me, but when it came right down to it, he never really let her be a part of his life. I know you want me to say I'll try to make things work with you, but how can I, when I know that we'll be heading down the exact same path?"
"Has Denise told you that's how their relationship was?" he asked. "Have you actually asked her if that's what was going on with her and your father?"
"He hasn't even been gone a year. I'm not going to hurt her by asking a question like that."
"Is that really why you aren't going to ask her for the truth? Or is it because you're afraid of her answer? Are you afraid she won't let you use her marriage as a reason not to risk loving me all the way?" The words were barely out of his mouth when it hit him that it was time to admit something big to her. And to himself. "You're not the only one who's scared, Sarah. I am too."
Not once in the past ten years had he said those words. He hadn't ever let himself think them because he'd thought that admitting fear meant he wasn't strong enough to take on everything that he had. Only now, as they stood on the dock beneath a clear night sky, he could finally see that the truest strength of all was admitting he didn't want to be alone anymore. That he'd always needed support. Sarah's support.
And most of all, her.
"I'm not afraid of loving you," he told her, laying every last piece of his heart on the line. "The only thing I'm afraid of is what it would be like to try to make it through another day, another week, without you. I've already done it for ten years. I know how bad it is, how long and dark the road can be."
Her eyes widened at his honesty. At the risk he was taking in leaving his heart wide open like this. But still she said, "I'm not good for you. You let me file those papers at city hall for the condos without a fight. We both know you'd be fighting harder if it were anyone else but me. I've read all about your stance on development in the Adirondacks. If a stranger had come in with this proposal, you'd be shooting down these condos with everything you've got." She stepped away from him, and he felt the separation as keenly as if their connection had been cut with a knife. "You're putting aside your own moral code for me. What if someone in town thinks I'm sleeping with you to win you over to my side?"
He had promised himself he would calmly listen to all of her arguments. But he hadn't expected this one. "Anyone who would think that clearly wouldn't have a very high opinion about you or me."
"What else could they possibly think?"
"That I love you. That I can't help but want to protect you because you're mine. Mine. They're going to think I'll never be able to hurt you. Never, no matter what."
"But shouldn't the person you're with, the person you love and who loves you back, make you a better person rather than make you compromise your values? Rather than make you hurt yourself to keep them from being hurt?"
"You're the smartest person I've ever met," he said, "but you're dead wrong on this. We cou
ld sit here and debate those condos for the next sixty years, but at the end of the day, they're just buildings. As far as I'm concerned, there are only two things that matter in any of this." He cupped her face in his hands and made sure she was looking at him. "You. And me."
"But it isn't just you and me," she protested. "Jordan is the most important person in your life. And she should be. I would never want to do anything to hurt her. Because I love her too, right from the minute I held her after your father died. Every time I saw a little girl her age on the street, I'd think of her, wonder how she was doing. And I'd always know that she was fine. Because I knew you were taking care of her better than anyone else could have. I can't risk hurting her. I can't risk saying I'm going to stay and then realize later that I can't. Not when I know exactly how much being left behind hurts."
"If the other choice was living without you," he told her, "if it meant I'd fall asleep with you in my arms every night, if it meant I'd wake up holding you every morning, I'd deal with a city." And he meant it, wasn't just saying what he thought she wanted to hear. "I'd find a way to make it my home. And I'd make sure Jordan was happy there. We both would."
"Please." There was anguish in her voice. "Don't ever leave Summer Lake for me. It would kill me if I did that to you--to Jordan."
"Can't you see," he said, desperate for her to understand, "it's not black and white. Leaving doesn't have to mean cutting ties."
"That's exactly what it means. That's exactly what we did. We cut ties. I cut them."
"We were young. Both of us, not just you. We can make it work this time, I know we can." He'd been working like hell to give her space, to give her the room to let it all out, but now he had to move closer. Had to push harder for the love he believed they deserved. "You picked Summer Lake for those condos for a reason."
