Page 12 of Second Chance

8

Upset and Whiskey

[Denton]

I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.

I’m still waiting for a response. I’ve crossed another time zone, and I’m an hour behind her. It’s midnight, but she was awake. Now, she’s ignoring me, or she’s closed the chat in anger. I can see her, glaring at the computer, huffing away from it. I remember her spitfire.

Because of Kristy. I didn’t hear it then. The jealousy. The hurt. I’d betrayed our kiss by sleeping with Kristy, but I only did it after they went on a date. She no longer let me come to her as my haven, because of Kristy. The girl I fooled around with too often in high school. The girl who followed me to California and I married when she told me she was pregnant. The girl who lost our baby and then lost me. I didn’t blame her or the baby. I blamed her for using me to get out of Blue Ridge. The wrong girl went with me.

Because I did what Chris asked of me.

Bitter thoughts fill me. If I hadn’t listened to Chris in the first place, if I hadn’t agreed, my life could have been so different. So would Mati’s.

“I took Mati to the movies.”

“Without me?”

“Yeah, you don’t mind, right?”

“Why would I mind?” I lied. I wanted to punch him.

“Just checking.”

“Did you kiss her?” I teased, holding my breath in hopes he hadn’t. Would he tell me? I hadn’t told him.

“No, dude. We aren’t like that.” But he hesitated, and in the awkward pause, I knew everything. Chris liked Mati, just like me. I hadn’t told her yet. I was still freaked out by my reaction to our kiss. Not the boner she gave me, but the fact I wanted to move fast as if I needed to race, or I’d never catch her.

How true it had been. I didn’t get the girl.

When Mati doesn’t respond to my message, I chuck my phone toward the end of the bed and roll to my side. I’m already in my boxer briefs, hoping for another night of self-soothing release with the help of her banter. Instead, I went too far—asking if she was alone, asking if she sought relief, asking if I could be in her bed. I’m losing my mind over her. Again.

I’m also repelling her. I need to be cool, but the closer I get to Georgia the more my heart races, as if I won’t get there fast enough. Again.

+ + +

I haven’t thought too much on my mother’s situation, although she’s the purpose for my return. Dolores said this was the end, and I’m torn with how I feel about her impending death. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken. Maybe last Christmas. The one before. I can’t even remember. I check-in with Dolores once a month. Maybe every two. I’m not certain there either. Mati says it’s been twenty-seven years. Where did the time go? What have I been doing?

I can answer the second question, but I can’t say I have anything to show for the years. Grammys. Honors. A great condo on the beach. Superficial things, which is what I think of my life as I reflect on it the closer I get to Georgia. I’m privileged, and I know it, but I sense I’m missing more important things as I wind up the mountains of Georgia—climbing, climbing, climbing—back to the past.

The forest around me is dark, the road illuminated from my headlights. I should be tired, but I’m wired. Sorrow is my companion.

I make a stop just outside of town. The space is spooky, but I know I can’t pass it up. This needs to be my first visit. Death is the whole reason I’m here.

There’s one grave I won’t visit in this cemetery, but I feel its presence. Too soon my mother will lie next to him once again. I shiver with the thought.

Staring at the name etched in granite, I stand over a different tombstone.

Christopher John Rathstone.

Forty-four years old. Gone too young and I’m a year too late.

“I’m sorry, man.” My fingers jiggle change in my pocket. I stopped at the liquor store just before I got here. Olde Benny’s. The man must be a hundred years old by now, I think. Swallowing against the sharp sting, I take a deep pull of the Irish whiskey in a brown bag. Chris and I shared our first drink with this cheap-ass liquor. I wanted a taste of what my old man felt was more important than his wife and children. Chris, being loyal, said he’d share the experience with me.

The alcohol flows bitterly down my throat. I never understood the old man’s love for this flavor, but tonight, I stand at this grave to toast my love for one of my oldest friends, not to recall my hatred for my father.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” A car crash on a mountain road we knew well—a curve we risked a million times in the dark. A deer on the pavement and his life was taken. Poor Mati. At forty-four, she’s too young to be a widow.

I didn’t attend Chris’s funeral. Too busy. The same excuse I used for my father’s, although there was more bittersweet vengeance in my intention than the lie. My absence from my best friend’s burial had to do with his wife. Her tears for him. Her sorrow. Her loss. It would have broken me all over again, just like the first time I gave her up. I’m a selfish man.

“You fucker,” I curse. “You weren’t supposed to die. You promised to take care of her forever.” I pour a heavy dose of whiskey on the grass blanketing his permanent resting place, sharing another drink with him. Chris and I shared everything, especially our feelings for his wife. Only, I loved her first.