Deeper Water_Once and Forever 3

  “Where’s all of your artwork, Mom?”

  She had taught me how to love art as much as she taught me how to love myself and my family. I knew how impossible it would be for me to stop creating it, and it couldn’t have been much different for her.

  “It was taking up too much room, and I like having pictures of our family where I can see them all the time. They’re good memories.”

  I nodded. Because I agreed, and also because I understood. She missed me. She missed the family we used to be, the people we used to be.

  “Darn it.” She patted my leg and stood up before I could stop her. “I need to go shopping before the boys get back with the catch of the day.” She grabbed her bag, keys, and sunglasses and headed through the door.

  “Mom!” I called after her. “Can we talk more?”

  “Later? Of course we can.”

  Of course we could. But would we?

  29

  Carson

  As Bill and I drove toward what might soon be my watery grave, I stared at the profile of the man Lane had put on a pedestal when she was a little girl. Seemed like a pretty solid pedestal too, since he was still up there.

  Honestly, it looked like a fairly normal middle-aged guy profile, nothing remarkable or heroic about it. Bill was just a man. A good man, but still just a man. And all men got stupid when it came to women. I’d guess that went double when it came to their daughters. Hopefully I’d never know for sure. Not because I didn’t want to have kids—I definitely did. I just didn’t want girl kids. Because I’d know what the boy kids were thinking when they looked at my girl kid. Perverted little pricks.

  Must be hell having a daughter.

  When he nodded, I realized I’d said it aloud. “You have no idea.”

  “You did a great job, though. Lane is an amazing woman, and you’re not in prison.”

  “Only because I know how to hide a body.”

  He was joking, right? I let out my breath when he turned and I could see his smile.

  “Laney said you have a sense of humor, Carson. So where is it?”

  “I left it in my other pants.” The clean ones. “To be honest, sir, I’ve never done a meet-the-parents thing before.”

  “Never? You’re what? Twenty-five? And you’ve never met a girl’s parents before? What’s wrong with you?”

  I glanced at my watch. “How long you got?”

  He chuckled briefly, keeping his eyes on the road. “So you’re the type who never gets serious about anyone?”

  “I used to think so. Now I know I’m the type who only gets serious about the right one. I figured that out the day I met your daughter. Haven’t doubted it a single moment since.” Except when she forced me to watch the first few episodes of Sex and the City. That was almost a deal-breaker. Talk about a misleading title. I couldn’t be the only one who assumed it was soft porn, could I?

  “How serious is this relationship?”

  Ugh. Here we go. The unavoidable conversation I’d never be ready for. “Serious enough that I want to marry her.”

  “Are you saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?”

  “Not at all. If I said what I think you want to hear, it would’ve been something like: ‘Your daughter is too good for a bum like me. I’m going to go crawl under a rock so she can find someone better.’”

  He chuckled again. “Sounds about right. Nothing personal, though. You seem like a nice fella.”

  Huh. I’d been called a lot of things, but “nice fella” wasn’t one of them. Neither were either of those words separately.

  “That said, I don’t know if I’ll ever believe any man is good enough for my daughter.”

  “Me neither. But I’d like to be. Which is why…” Deep breath. Don’t make eye contact. Hold onto something secure, just in case he decides to toss me out of the moving car. “I want to marry her. Soon.”

  The only sound I heard for a minute was the pounding of my heart. Finally, about three thousand beats later, he spoke.

  “Why?”

  “Um…” Why was I clutching onto the armrest? Why was my heart pounding loud enough for him to hear? Why was this man’s approval so damn important to me? All good questions.

  “I asked you a question, son. Why do you want to marry my daughter?”

  “I heard you, sir. I’m just wondering why you asked. I mean, if you know your daughter at all—which you obviously do—you already know why. It makes more sense to ask every other man she’s ever met why they wouldn’t.”

  “Alright, then. Why do you think they wouldn’t?”

  I understood his intent immediately—the sneaky bastard. This was like in those job interviews, when they asked what your worst quality was. And everyone always says, “perfectionism,” which, for the interviewer, translates to: I’m a big, fat liar. They’d heard it fourteen billion times and had never, ever believed it.

  “My guess is you want me to tell you what I think is wrong with your daughter. Then you expect me to lie about it and say something I think you want to hear.” Which would be the smart thing to do. Unfortunately… “I don’t do that, Bill. I don’t lie to your daughter, and I won’t lie to you. I’m going to try to answer your question honestly.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Fair? Not even a little. None of this conversation was fair. Any interaction between a father and his daughter’s lover was innately unfair. If it were fair, I wouldn’t be sweating this badly.

  I cleared my throat. “None of those men wanted to marry Lane as much as I do because she didn’t let them. Because she never found someone to trust and love enough to be herself, to show them who she really is. For some crazy, I’ll-never-understand reason, she decided to show me. I’m not particularly special and, to be honest, she could probably do better than me, at least on paper.”

  This wasn’t getting any easier. “But your daughter chose me. She loves me. Enough to open herself up and not be afraid I would judge the parts of her that she doesn’t like. And, at least in that, she’s right. I won’t judge her, and I will love all of her. Even the less-than-perfect parts.” Like her obsession with Sex and the City. “Believe me, I know how lucky that makes me. And as implausible as we seem, I know how good we are for each other.”

  Bill was quiet for a while, long enough to make me worry. “Jane and I barely knew each other when we got married. Made sense—we barely knew ourselves. So I never felt what you feel about my daughter. I still don’t think I know my wife that well. We had a good life together, didn’t fight, were close. But we didn’t grow together—we didn’t even grow apart. I think we just grew up. Unfortunately, only then did we understand we were never really meant to be together to begin with. I’m glad my daughter found someone who understands her.”

  “Thanks.” Then it hit me. “Wait. Go back a second. What do you mean you were never meant to be together?” That went against everything I knew about Lane’s parents, everything Lane had told me, everything she believed.

  Bill and Jane had the picture-perfect happily ever after. They had the relationship Lane had always been searching for, the kind she wanted us to have.

  He sighed. “Laney doesn’t know. We’d planned to tell her eventually but…”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re splitting up, Bill.” Every muscle in my body cramped, and every cell screamed, “No!” This would hurt her so much. “Please don’t.”

  “No.”

  Thank God.

  “But things seem to be moving in that direction.”

  I leaned on the dashboard for balance. “So you’re, what, just pretending to still live at the house? For Lane’s benefit?”

  “Hold up, son,” he said, with his voice and a hand. “I still live in the house.”

  “Oh, okay.” I’d never been happier to have misunderstood something.

  “I’m pretending to sleep in a marital bed for Laney’s benefit.”

  Oh, shit.

  “For the last few months I’ve been sleeping in
the guest room. We’ve been putting off the inevitable conversation, mostly so we don’t hurt Laney. That’s why Jane suggested you stay for a few days. I’m sure you being here when we tell her will help her get through it.”

  Why the fuck would he think that? Obviously, I had no issues with divorce. My mother had gone through enough of them, and Hayden did it when he met Andi.

  But the news that Lane’s parents were going to split up and were planning to tell her now completely screwed up all of the romantic proposal plans I hadn’t made yet.

  Lane would not take this news well. Maybe I could fake an emergency back home and get her out of here before they had a chance to tell her.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “I just got the upholstery cleaned, damn it!” Bill yanked the car to the shoulder of the road and knocked it into park, reaching across me to open my door.

  I’d been speaking metaphorically. But as soon as the door opened, I can’t say the idea of jumping out and running for the bushes didn’t cross my mind. I finally understood why they were called freeways—the side of a road had never looked this much like freedom to me before.

  In ten seconds, I could be across the dead grass and over that stone wall, terrifying the family whose backyard I landed in.

  I couldn’t run. Not from this. Definitely not from Lane. When I’d made a commitment to her, my family had become her family just like Bill and Jane were my family, along with all the baggage and issues families carried along with them.

  Holy fuck, did I have a lot of other people’s shit to deal with now.

  “Your upholstery’s safe, Bill. But we have a problem to fix. And yeah, I mean we. And yeah, it’s going to involve a lot more talking than either of us is comfortable with.”

  30

  Carson

  We never made it to the boat, so any plan Bill might have had for tossing me overboard was ruined. My nausea comment in the car might’ve made him think I couldn’t control my gag reflex. Instead, the poor guy had to actually listen to all the verbal vomit I spewed, as if I knew what the hell I was talking about. So, yeah, we talked—openly and honestly. But, to prove we were still men, we didn’t look at each other even once.

  “That the best you got?” Bill asked. No, the question wasn’t directed at me. At least I hoped it wasn’t.

  “It’s Chilean Sea Bass, and we’re standing on a dock in California,” the fishmonger at the little shop on the pier said flatly. “If you wanted something fresh, then no, it’s not the best thing we got.”

  “Why are you selling it, then?”

  The guy shrugged. “Tourists. They watch too many cooking shows and think ‘California Cuisine’ only includes Chilean Sea Bass, avocados, and granola. We got those too, if you want ‘em.”

  Bill sighed deeply as if it were one of his last breaths. “I need something local. Give me two of them. Biggest ones.” He pointed to another chunk of fish, one that had its head still attached.

  I stared into the poor bastard’s dead eye and swore to never eat fish again. If I hadn’t talked Bill out of the whole boat-bonding thing, that could’ve been me.

  “How am I supposed to convince my wife I went fishing in the bay if I bring home something Chilean?” he muttered.

  The truth hit me when we were waiting for our “catch” to be wrapped in paper and rung up. What? We had to bring home something, or the women would know we hadn’t been fishing. Normally, I would’ve just gone with the we-went-to-a-strip-club-instead excuse, but it didn’t seem right with Lane’s dad. Plus Lane never believed it anyway.

  “Got a question for you, Bill. When’s the last time you really talked with your wife?”

  “I talk to her every day.”

  “Not talk to. Talk with. Completely different. When’s the last time you had an honest conversation about what you both want from life?”

  He scratched his chin. “Only young people ask that kind of question.”

  I grabbed the fish, thanked the guy behind the counter, and walked to the register. “No offense, but that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, Bill. Unless you are on your deathbed or are one of the nonexistent people who actually have everything they want in every way, you should be asking yourself that question. People are either living or waiting to die. I could be wrong—it’s happened once or twice—but you don’t seem like the waiting-to-die type to me.”

  He seemed more like the type who was about to smack me. It had happened a lot more than once or twice.

  “Am I wrong about you, Bill?”

  He glared at me for another moment. I took the opportunity to slide my credit card from my wallet and set it on the counter next to our big catch. He nabbed the card and gave it back to me, reaching for his own wallet.

  “We gonna fight about this?” I asked, shoving my card at the cashier before he could.

  “My daughter is an artist living in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Keep your money and use it to take her out once in a while. For something better than a burger.”

  “She really hasn’t told you anything about me, has she?”

  He froze in place, thinking about something I wasn’t privy to long enough for the cashier to swipe my card and hand me a receipt to sign.

  Shit. How badly did I offend him? And why? And what should I do now? “You okay, Bill?” If this trip ended with me putting Lane’s dad into the hospital over a stupid comment, she’d never forgive me. I glanced at his heart, then his left arm. If anything on television was real, I knew the signs of a heart attack.

  I dropped the pen and reached for him, just in case he fell over. “Bill, you still with me? Say something.”

  He blinked. Then again. But I’d need words before I felt safe.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, something. Say something. I need to know you’re okay.”

  “She doesn’t talk to me.”

  How bad is it to be thankful someone is only having a nervous breakdown?

  “Who you talking about, Bill?”

  “Laney. Jane. My daughter didn’t tell me anything about you. What I know I know because she told her mother. And that’s just about all Jane ever says to me—what Laney’s doing. My wife and daughter don’t talk to me because I don’t listen. Because I…” His eyes glistened with the realization, and then he looked straight at me and silently asked for help. “What if it’s too late?”

  In a moment neither of us would ever forget or mention to another living soul, we connected.

  “It’s going to be okay, sir. Let’s go home and make it right.”

  31

  Laney

  My mom asked me to watch the rice so she could wrap the fish in foil and put it in the oven. I’m not sure why the rice needed watching. I think she just wanted me to keep her company and didn’t trust me with anything more complicated.

  The men folk were “resting”—i.e., having a beer. Evidently, they’d expended a lot of energy pulling two dying fish out of the water and needed a break. After my mom was done prepping, and the rice no longer needed a babysitter, she suggested we go sit down with the men until it was all ready.

  They stopped talking as soon as we came into the living room, which made me a little nervous. I sat next to Carson on the couch, and my mom took the chair across from my dad’s. They looked at each other, something passing between them that made my mom sit up a little straighter and take a deep breath.

  I knew it. My dad hated my boyfriend. Carson’s normal charisma had failed, and now my parents were going to give me the we-don’t-approve talk. Then my mom and I would start crying, I’d start yelling at them for being so judgmental, and we’d spend the next twenty-four hours not speaking to each other. Maybe Carson could switch our plane tickets again—get us both out of here sooner.

  “Laney, we need to talk.” Dad set his drink down on the coffee table, and I steeled myself for the impending argument. “I’m just going to come out and say it. Your mom and I have been having some problems for a
while now and were headed toward a separation.”

  Carson's “what” was even louder than mine, but that wasn't saying much considering how hard my throat had just clamped down.

  They were headed toward a separation? What did that even mean? “You’re splitting up?”

  “For future reference, sir,” Carson said. “That wasn’t a great way to come out and say it.”

  I looked at him, eyes and mouth gaping. “You knew? You knew about this, and you didn’t fucking tell me?”

  “Language, Laney!” my mom sputtered.

  “Right, Mom. Me using a bad word is really the shit we should be focusing on right now.”

  Carson looked at me.

  My dad looked at me.

  My mom looked at me.

  And I broke.

  My eyes stung, and my lungs couldn’t fill with air. I looked around desperately before realizing that, for once, I couldn’t go to my parents for help. They wouldn’t be there for much longer.

  “Laney,” my mom said softly, “wait. Let us explain.”

  Explain what? My parents were in love and then they weren’t. Pretty sure that summed it up, didn’t it? Oh, except for the added bonus that the three of them had all been very careful not to tell me what was going on in my own family.

  Without saying anything, I ran. I was halfway down the hall before realizing I didn't want to be in the room I’d grown up in, the one where I’d dreamt of having the kind of relationship my parents had. Pretending I couldn't hear sounds no kid ever wants to hear coming from their parents’ room.

  I didn't want to be in the house where every day I came home and tossed my backpack onto the fourth kitchen chair and pulled out my homework while my mom cooked and my dad helped me. Except when I was doing math.

  I didn’t look at them as I went through the living room and out the front door, slamming it behind me without waiting to see if it actually closed or not. I jogged down the street, following the path I’d taken every day from kindergarten until high school. But this time, I didn’t know where I was going. How could something so pure, so comfortable and safe, suddenly feel so unrecognizable?