“Where’s Rachel?”
He frowns and looks up from his phone. “She’s just finished talking to the interior designer.”
I dismiss him, already dialing Rachel’s number. I’m paralyzed with worry about Aidan, but I’m also seized with a deep hesitation to leave her, even for a day.
She takes the call. “Hey.” I can tell from her voice that she’s smiling.
Happy to hear from me.
We’ve come a long way from when she was mad at me for showing up in her office.
“I have to go to New York.” I tell her, regretful. “I’ll leave in about an hour. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She sounds so disappointed it causes an ache in my chest.
“It’s very important, or else I wouldn’t leave…” I stop myself. “Or else I wouldn’t go.”
She is quiet. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
I let out a breath. “You’d better be.”
In the car, on the way to the plane, I reflect on the words I’d been about to say. Or else I wouldn’t leave you.
I stopped myself from saying them, because they’d have communicated much more than I am supposed to feel, and yet exactly what I already do.
On the plane, I snatch a few hours of sleep. In my dreams, my parents are happy. My father, home from one of his many trips, is teaching Aidan to ride a bike while I show off the skills I’ve already mastered, luxuriating in my mother’s praise. Later, they go out to dinner and return in time to tuck us in bed.
I wake up with an intense sensation of nostalgia and sadness, and the questions no therapist could ever answer. Why did everything go wrong so fast?
There were no external factors. My parents were in love. They were happy. We were happy, and without warning our lives fell to pieces, leaving us broken, wounded souls, unable to deal with memories of pain.
Perhaps if my mother had been a less passionate creature, she wouldn’t have tried to leave my father based on unsubstantiated rumors from a busybody. If she’d loved him less, she wouldn’t have been speeding that day, barely able to control the car. Perhaps if my father had been more considerate of her feelings and spent less time on business trips, she’d still be alive. Maybe if he loved her less, he wouldn’t have died when he lost her. Because that’s what happened—he died too, and only a shell remained, a shell that couldn’t bear to live, even for his sons.
Beside me, the screen of my tablet shows a picture taken outside Cameron’s restaurant last night. In the picture, Rachel’s face is turned away from the camera. An accompanying article speculates about the mystery woman with me and Cameron.
Off the market? the headline screams.
I grimace as another headline squeezes in through the walls I’ve constructed around my memories.
Ballerina Alicia Creighton dies in fiery auto inferno.
Almost as if it’s happening right now, I can hear my brother crying, asking for our dad, my mother’s voice as she loses her temper and then loses control of the car. I remember carrying Aidan out of the wreck, and the hands, strong hands, holding me back from the burning car, forcing me to watch my mother burn…and do nothing.
My soul is tearing all over again. “Let me go,” I mutter under my breath.
“Do you need anything, Mr. Court?”
I shake my head, and the stewardess retreats.
Calming myself, I direct my mind to Aidan. Wherever he is, it’s my job to make sure he’s okay.
He’s all that matters now.
And Rachel.
I close my eyes as she slips into my mind.
Rachel.