Return to Me

  Without waiting for Jackson’s response, I hung up. Even though I set the cell phone far from me on the balcony floor, no amount of distance could fend off the foreboding that there was yet more hard news ahead. Jackson’s secret was a boulder that had sheared without warning off a mountain cliff, marooning me on one side of a trail, him on the other.

  Around midnight, I vacillated in that infuriating state of being exhausted but unable to sleep. Every time I thought I might drift off, my mind replayed the conversations from the day until they jumbled into one giant morass of Mom-Dad-Jackson confusion. The thought of organizing my space—despite my moving out in a few weeks—felt comforting. So I methodically opened the boxes stacked neatly against the back wall.

  The first box contained everything I held most dear: the artifacts from my summer architectural program and the first present Jackson ever gave me. I set the smooth river rock down beside a framed photo of us, so easy with each other from the start that I had convinced myself we were fated to be together. But if I could be stunned by Dad and his ability to cheat and his capacity to lie, then how well did I truly know anyone?

  What other secrets, unknown and untapped, resided within Jackson?

  I dove back into the moving box and retrieved my clock, the one Grandpa had given me shortly after Grandma Stesha left. That clock had lulled me to sleep night after night, each tick a heartbeat of steadfast love. The journey across the country had broken its delicate inner workings. No matter what knobs I pushed or dials I twisted, the timepiece had stopped when none of us were looking, freezing us in the unchangeable past.

  On my desk, my phone lit up with Jackson’s text: Rebel, call me.

  I yanked the comforter off my bed, draped it around my shoulders, and escaped to the small balcony outside my bedroom. For the first time since we moved, I deliberately left my cell phone inside. The air had cooled off drastically from its earlier mugginess.

  How was it possible that on this day when my family fell apart, the stars could twinkle so bright—especially the North Star, which Jackson, stargazer, had pointed out to me once. “Just look up in the sky and you’ll find your way home, wherever you are.” What we had lost in our home, I wasn’t so sure we could ever find again. An invisible fault line had lurked beneath my family, and this move had triggered an unexpected seismic reaction.

  A car came to a crunching halt in front of the house. In the dark, I could barely make out Dad’s silhouette as he climbed out of his car and sauntered down the driveway, his arms swinging, absurdly carefree.

  Dad had come home, just as I knew he would.

  I sprinted through my bedroom to the hall. Mom must have been holding vigil for him, too, because she beat me to the stairs, racing down with hope-lightened footsteps.

  “Thom?” she called softly, not wanting to wake Reid or me.

  From upstairs, I leaned over the railing to find Dad in the living room. He looked neither somber nor brokenhearted. Not even guilty. With a start, I recognized the way his chin jutted out: defiance. That expression stopped me at the top of the stairs.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” Dad actually looked proud of himself. Proud that he had conducted the affair so clandestinely that not even Mom’s purported sixth sense could detect it.

  “So when did it start?” Mom lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa. Her fingers were woven together like mine, gripped tight while I huddled in the shadows.

  “You want to know how it started?” Dad smirked. I recoiled from this stranger masquerading as my father. This wasn’t how I wanted to view him, even if, in a way, I could understand what Dad was doing. And why. Was it any different from how I wanted to skewer Mom with the truth, especially when she was caustic with impatience?

  Dad remained silent for so long, arms crossed, that Mom had to ask: “How did it start, Thom?”

  “It started in March. In Florida.”

  March…

  I sucked in my breath. March was when we went to Tuscany. March was when we celebrated Dad’s forty-fifth birthday and the launch of his new game. The back of my head rested against the cool metal slats, my mind stuck in March.

  This last spring break, my family went on our first and only vacation where Mom was forced into the backseat, literally. Instead of Mom driving every decision down to the order of the sites we’d visit, a fancy tour company managed the details: the bikes waiting for us in Tuscany so we didn’t need to ship our own. The air-conditioned van for riders who weren’t fit enough to handle long, hot rides. The guides who pointed out all the interesting spots they’d scouted earlier so we could maximize our sightseeing.

  I swear, the entire time leading up to the trip, Mom was fixated on the exorbitant cost because she could have done all the organizing herself. So when her “This is so expensive” monologue began yet again that first morning in Italy, I rolled my eyes. They landed on Jackson, who was standing across the posh hotel lobby. If I thought my first look at Jackson was thorough, that was nothing compared with his gaze: wholly male, wholly appreciative, and wholly disconcerting.

  Maybe it was because Jackson flushed, embarrassed at being caught staring, but I found myself grinning at him reassuringly. That was invitation enough for my Jackson. Later, he’d tell me, “Oh, yeah. That was as come hither as a smile could get.” In any case, he hithered around the couches in the lobby toward me.

  Less than two minutes later, Mom ascertained from his parents that they had moved to Seattle at the beginning of the school year—“My husband went to Viewridge Prep, too!”—and that Jackson’s dad, Stan, was a Navy officer turned real estate tycoon—“My husband’s family is in real estate development, too. Muir and Sons.”

  “You’re Adam Muir?” Stan said, looking at my dad, impressed.

  “No, that’s my brother.” Dad shrugged without meeting Stan’s eyes.

  “What are the chances of this?” Mom marveled aloud, echoing my thoughts uncannily, as we followed the bouncy, cute tour guide outside. “Meeting you all the way here in Italy? Right, Thom?” Mom nudged Dad’s arm. If she had elbowed me instead, my mouth might have opened. Words I didn’t want to say aloud might have leaked out as I stared at Jackson and he stared back at me. Words like “Behold: proof of God.”

  “Before you know it,” Dad said with a chuckle, “Bits will be telling you that this was”—his fingers waggled in the air—“fate.”

  “Why not fate?” Jackson asked so softly, I had to lean close to hear him.

  “You actually believe in that?” I whispered as the soft breeze caressed my cheeks.

  Jackson’s grin was so roguish, I could feel my entire body flushing with sudden heat that had nothing to do with the temperature. With that, Fate herself might as well have caught me in one hand, Jackson in the other, and thrown us together with a stern command: “Connect.”

  Who was I to disobey?

  How could Dad have started an affair in March when we had just had an enviable family vacation? When he and Mom announced our move to New York a few weeks afterward? How could Dad, my forever hero, the one I could count on to be the cool parent, do this to our family? And if he was going to leave us, why hadn’t he told Mom back on Lewis Island? Why move her and Reid out in the first place… unless he loved us? Unless deep in his heart he wanted us to remain together?

  I stood up now, heart and hope racing. There was a chance to keep our family together if Mom played this right. Profess her love, beg him to reconsider, apologize for being so critical. Instead, Mom asked as if she were checking off a list of prepared questions, “So, how much of our money have you spent on her?”

  “Not our money,” Dad corrected, and paused deliberately. “My money.”

  “Wow. Really. That’s just… wow.”

  His shrug was nonchalant, as if they were talking about him buying whole milk instead of nonfat. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you more. But Giselle. Well, she reminds me of you before we had kids.”

  The impact of his words—his damning words—slay
ed me. I knew I had been an unplanned pregnancy, a shocking rerouting of their lives: Dad forced to move back to Seattle from San Francisco, Mom eventually giving up her career. But didn’t he want me at all? Or Reid, who was deliberately planned down to the hour when labor was induced? Didn’t we, at least, make Dad feel loved?

  As if Mom could feel my pain, as if his statement was a sin far worse than sleeping with another woman, she spoke loud and firm: “But we have kids, Thom.”

  Dad flinched, rearing back with an affronted expression, as though he were the victim. Even though Dad barreled toward the front door now, Mom didn’t say anything, nothing at all.

  That was it? That was all Mom was going to do to stop Dad from leaving us? Without thinking, I flew down the stairs. “Dad, wait!”

  Too late. My father had already vanished outside.

  “He left—and you didn’t stop him!” I yelled at this frozen sphinx of a mother.

  “There was nothing I could do,” she said helplessly.

  “You’re giving up because of some stupid family curse that isn’t even true!” I pushed past her, wrenched the door open, and yelled, “Dad! Dad! Wait!”

  Immediately, Dad stopped at the car door and smiled sadly at me. “Hey, Rebecca.”

  “Dad, why are you doing this?” I trotted down the driveway to stand in front of him. No plan, just pure need. “Please, don’t go.”

  “One day you’ll understand. You can call me anytime you want, Rebecca. This has nothing to do with how much I love you and Reid. And always will. But I’ve been miserable.”

  I shook my head, uncertain how misery could justify Dad’s actions. Even more unsure how I could commiserate with him about Mom and her dictator ways and still convince him to stay.

  Then I recalled my conversation with Jackson. I said, “You could go into counseling with Mom.”

  “No,” Dad recited patiently, as though he had rehearsed this speech—and I could guess who his adoring audience was. “I don’t think people change. I just don’t.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m with someone who really cares about me.” He jiggled his key chain as though he wanted to retreat to that someone now.

  I wanted to tell Dad he was crazy. He had a family who adored him. Didn’t Reid show it to him by playing football when he hated the sport? Didn’t I? That question came so fast, so unbidden, I was shocked as the answering thought spooled from my heart to my head. And for the first time, I admitted the truth: I only wanted to create corporate buildings à la Sam Stone to please Dad. I felt empty now, deflated of both dreams and illusions. Still, I managed one last volley: “But, Dad, you’re not just leaving Mom. You’re leaving me and Reid, too.”

  “You’ll be in college soon. On your own. It’s just been so hard. All of it.” Dad ticked off Mom’s transgressions on his fingers and spoke as though she were standing in front of him, not me. “Your mom never supported me. She is always so task-oriented. And Giselle’s so optimistic all the time, totally laid-back.”

  I stumbled back from Dad at this litany of wrongs. However much Mom annoyed me with her cross-referenced matrices and mission statements for our family, there was one thing I never questioned: Mom put us first. Besides, Dad was the one who had cheated. How could he blame Mom?

  “Rebecca, I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Dad said conversationally, as if we hadn’t been talking about his affair or Mom. He dropped into the driver’s seat, inserted his key in the ignition, and paused.

  My whole body tensed as I leaned toward Dad. “What?”

  “You should go to UW. It’s a great school, close to your friends, and you could intern with Peter. Plus, you’d be with Jackson.”

  “What?” I shook my head, utterly confused. Dad wanted me to go back home? “Why are you telling me this now, Dad?”

  “I shouldn’t have moved you guys out here. You’ll be better off back at Seattle.”

  “But we want to be with you.”

  Dad didn’t answer me. What he did answer was his phone. In the middle of ending his marriage with Mom and hacking apart our family and urging me to go back home, Dad actually took the call, placed a finger in his ear to block out the sound of my stunned silence. Who could have been so important? My mind raced to the only answer: Giselle.

  Now, to my horror, I realized why he had sanctioned my long-distance relationship, assuring me that some were worth the effort. He wasn’t justifying Jackson; he was justifying Giselle.

  Dad mumbled a few indistinct words, hung up, and fired up his engine. “I have to go.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Let’s say you’ve been unceremoniously dumped. Let’s also say you’re angry or distraught or confused. It is still a girl-truth universally acknowledged that for a week, a month, or—God help us—possibly a lifetime afterward, whenever your cell phone rings, your heart will lift, and you will think: Is it? Is it him?

  So when the doorbell chimed the next morning, I trilled a long, high flute note of longing. Is it him?

  We all must have believed at some level that Dad would return to us, because as one we wrenched from our breakfast to face the front door like antelope at the watering hole. Dad, it had to be him. Who else would visit on a Sunday morning at eight? He was going to explain the last couple of days away with a cavalier chuckle and an abundance of logical reasons: Oh, it was nothing but your overactive imaginations, everyone! I would never leave you.

  Reid reached the door first, displaying never-before-witnessed track star speed. Plus, he body-blocked me with a fierce elbow-jabbing technique that would have shocked any number of his football, soccer, and baseball coaches. The pacifist on their teams actually showed some killer aggression?

  “Hey!” I said, expecting Mom to run her normal interference, but she stayed behind, poised on the barstool like a hummingbird in torpor, alive yet dead to the world. As for me, I was prepared to launch myself into Dad’s arms, forgive him everything.

  Reid yanked the door open.

  It wasn’t Dad filling the doorframe, but our grandfather, a polar bear of a man whose profuse white hair sprang with riotous abandon from his head and eyebrows. In his wrinkled button-down shirt, Grandpa looked ill at ease, born instead to wear tattered flannel shirts and jeans faded light blue from honest, backbreaking labor.

  With an arthritic slowness that concerned me, Mom rose to her feet and whispered, “Dad?”

  Reid and I parted in the doorway, the guardians of a mother we never knew needed protecting. But once she reached the door, Mom hung back, shifting her weight from foot to foot like an uncertain girl, until my burly grandfather swept her into a tight embrace.

  “You were right about Thom,” she said softly against his shoulder.

  “No, your mother was.”

  “He left me.” Then she struggled out of his arms, transforming back to the tough woman who could author a divorce plan when other jilted women would be a puddle of heartbreak on the bathroom floor. “We’re moving back to Lewis. And we’ve got a ton to do.”

  “What?” Reid asked.

  Confused, I shook my head. “You and Reid are going back to Lewis?”

  “You too. Until college starts,” Mom said so sharply, I recoiled. Her tone spun me back to the hundreds of times I had felt that edge. That edge I never remembered as a little girl, never heard until after I almost drowned. Each word was hot oil. “We’re leaving. The movers are coming back on Monday—”

  “Wait, Mom, are you kidding?” I placed my hands on my hips. Was she for real? One measly day, and she was entrenched more firmly in drill-sergeant mode than I had ever seen. “Movers?”

  “And I have meetings set up back home with an accountant.”

  “Betsy, stop,” Grandpa said.

  Mom continued, “And a counselor for you guys…”

  “I can’t believe you! You’re not even giving Dad a chance. I mean, whatever happened to second chances? Whatever happened to learning from your own mistakes?” I said flatly
, “I bet you have a meeting with a divorce lawyer, too? Don’t you?”

  Grandpa quelled me with a glare. “Stop. She’s making a plan to protect you.” Without another word, he placed his arms around Mom and tugged her close.

  “Dad,” she protested, trying to push herself free, “we’re way behind. You have no idea how much I have to do.”

  “Shhhh.” Grandpa rubbed her back like she was a child.

  “Dad!”

  “Shhhh.”

  Finally, Mom let out a sigh, her body shuddering, her face relaxing. I could feel her tension release. Her shoulders sagged as though she had laid down armor I’d never known she was wearing. I took the clipboard clenched in her hand like a shield. But who had she been protecting herself from?

  My mind circled back to Dad smirking at her. Dad rolling his eyes at her… with me.

  Grandpa continued in a voice gruff with emotion: “I’ve come to take you home, sweetheart.”

  Even I who dismissed Grandma Stesha’s scrawled postcards about auras, I who laughed with Dad about how anyone could believe that colorful, angelic halos represented people’s true spirits—even I could see the net of love my grandfather cast around my mother, as real as any used at sea.

  Despite Mom’s repeated hints and outright demands that Reid and I leave her to talk with Grandpa privately, we remained like stubborn ants unwilling to leave a newly discovered food source. Finally, Mom sighed and told Grandpa, “I don’t want to discuss Thom now, okay?”

  “You can’t hide what’s happening from them,” Grandpa said, staring her down.

  It was odd to see my mom being parented, after years of her managing Reid’s football teams, my college admissions, and Dad’s career. She drummed her fingers on the kitchen table, her short nails clicking the quick beat of her frustration. Finally, she sidled an uncertain look at first me, then Reid, before asking Grandpa, “So Mom told you to come? Just like that?”