“You don’t even know what happened . . . what he did to me!”
He laughed in an almost incredulous way. Coming from Matthew’s mouth it stil sounded a lot like sympathy.
“What? You two slept together? Did you real y not see it coming, Elizabeth? Because the rest of us sure as hel did.” His voice softened, and he took a step forward. “I get it, Liz
. . . why you’re upset. The timing was wrong, and he should’ve waited . . . he knows he should have . . . but you know as wel as I do it was going to happen, and it’s not right to make Lizzie pay for it.”
I flinched and stepped back against my car, both embarrassed that Christian had told him outright and confused that it hadn’t angered Matthew.
My throat constricted as I, once again, used my daughter as a way to justify my fear. “He’s just going to end up hurting Lizzie.”
Matthew snorted in disbelief and took another step forward, lowering his head to look me in the eye. “I think it’s about time you questioned just who you’re protecting, because it sure as hel isn’t that little girl.”
“I thought you were on my side.” Tears wel ed in my eyes, hurt because I’d believed Matthew would always stand by me but more so, because I knew he was right.
He glanced at the ground, then back at me, and took the last step to bring us face-to-face. His words were intense as if he wanted to shake me to make me understand. “I am on your side. Al I’ve ever wanted was what’s best for you and Lizzie, and if you’d stop being so goddamned scared for once in your life, you’d see that it’s Christian!”
With that, I broke. The tears flowed, and I fel into Matthew’s arms. He held me up just as he always had. He rocked me, shushed me, and told me, “It’l be okay, sweetheart.” He ran his hand through my tangled hair and whispered again, “It’l be okay.”
He stepped back, gripping my upper arms with both hands and squeezed me in reassurance as he pled, “It’s time to al ow yourself some happiness, Elizabeth. You’ve loved that man since the day I met you, and running from him now isn’t going to change it.”
I gasped and tried to catch my breath as I admitted, “I don’t know how.”
He kissed me on my forehead and squeezed me again. “Yes, you do.”
Then he touched my cheek and left me standing there while he walked back into his house.
Reeling, I sank down into my seat. I wiped at my tears with the back of my hand and glanced at Lizzie through the rearview mirror. For the first time since her father had walked out our door almost a week before, her expression was something other than numb, and tears stained her precious round face.
In silence, I drove us home. As soon as I pul ed into the garage, I hurried to Lizzie’s door and gathered her into my arms desperate to erase the distance I’d placed between us over these last few horrible days.
I felt sick, final y realizing what I’d done, that I’d kept my daughter at arm’s length when she needed me most. And I’d done it to shield myself from the blame—and from her pain.
I stood in my garage, holding my child. I breathed her in, nuzzled her with my nose, and kissed her for the first time in a week. I ran my hands through her hair, her father’s hair, and apologized again and again, “I’m so sorry, baby girl. Mommy is so sorry.”
She dug her fingers into my skin and wept.
I swayed us in an attempt to console the inconsolable little girl in my arms.
She hiccupped, climbed up higher as she wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, and spoke for the first time. “I miss my daddy.”
I released a heavy breath and drew her closer.
“I know, baby. I miss him too.”
Leaving Lizzie that way was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
The door slammed behind me harder than I’d intended, and I’d felt the intensity of Lizzie’s stare through the window as she watched me walk away from her. I couldn’t stop the sound of her begging me to stay from persisting in my ears.
The muscles in my chest coiled and constricted, and I had to force myself to get in my car and drive away.
At the end of the street, I stopped, buried my face in my hands, and tried to make sense of how everything had fal en apart and how in one hazy night my near-perfect life had been destroyed. It was a life that I’d known only for a handful of months, but one that had erased every lonely day I’d had before it began.
How could I have been so stupid? Why did I have to push and take when I knew she wasn’t ready?
I’d wakened to an empty bed with the taste of stale alcohol on my tongue and a hint of Elizabeth on my skin. It al rushed back, how the night had escalated out of control and had erupted in pent up passion, fast hands, and impulsive reactions. I was hit with the magnitude of the mistake I’d made. I hadn’t even asked but had come undone inside of her, careless and irresponsible. I should have known where Elizabeth’s mind would go, what it would remind her of. I’d stumbled from her bed and downstairs to seek her out. I’d wanted to reassure her of my love, to show her that no matter how imprudent our actions were from the night before, I was there to stay. I’d felt a fleeting sense of relief when I’d come upon her holding my shirt to her face.
That relief had been shattered when she’d pushed me away, demanded that I go, accused me of taking advantage of her.
She thought I’d used her.
“Damn it, Elizabeth,” I said aloud in the confines of my car as I rammed my head back against the seat. I contemplated turning around and going back to her house.
Instead, I turned out onto the main road.
While I drove back toward my condo, I tried to convince myself that Elizabeth just needed some time to calm down, and just like so many times before, any measure of progress we made was met with a step back.
Somehow, though, I knew that this time it was different. I’d touched Elizabeth in a place that never should have been touched, had unleashed something deeper than I’d ever acknowledged existed—something I’d created in her many years before.
There was no other explanation for her reaction. This woman was one of the best mothers I knew. She was a woman who loved our daughter just as deeply as I did.
Something had to have snapped inside of Elizabeth for her to put Lizzie through what she had this morning. I’d wanted to shake her, to grab her by the shoulders and demand that she wake up and see what she was doing to Lizzie—to open her eyes so she could see the fear in Lizzie’s.
Instead, I was left struggling to comfort our daughter the best I could, to promise her that it would be okay even when I real y wasn’t sure that it would.
Never had my condo felt more desolate than when I stepped through the door this Sunday morning. My head pounded with the remnants of last night’s excess, a reminder of my indiscretions. I crawled under the cold sheets of my bed and forced my lids closed, hoping for escape, a few minutes reprieve. Behind them I only saw my daughter’s face and heard the echo of Elizabeth’s words, I hate you . . . I want you out of our lives.
And I didn’t know who to blame.
I’d messed up, I knew. I should have been more cautious. Elizabeth was fragile and should have been treated with care. But I knew, even stil , even after everything that had been said, that she had wanted me just as badly as I had wanted her. It had been building for weeks, for months.
Besides that, no matter what Elizabeth and I had done to each other, regardless of any mistakes we may have made and whatever consequences we had to face, there was absolutely no excuse for making Lizzie suffer because of it.
Eluded by sleep, I sat up and cal ed Mom. I just needed someone to talk to, someone to offer me hope in a time when I felt entirely hopeless. I told her everything with as little detail as possible.
She sighed, whispered, “Oh, Christian.” Her disappointment was clear. I could see her shaking her head, sad and worried, as she told me, “Give her some time.”
Time. Always more time.
I tried, but it was nearly impossible.
The hours ticked by, second by excruciating second.
The sun fil ed the sky and then dove toward the ocean, al the while I sat static on my couch, waiting.
At seven fifteen, I cal ed, and a new fear gripped me when it went to voicemail. Seven fifteen wasn’t about Elizabeth and me. It was about Lizzie. Would she real y try to keep me from my daughter?
I want you out of our lives.
A stunning pain tore through my chest as I listened to the unbearable silence on the other end, and I final y pled low, “Please, Elizabeth, don’t do this.” I prayed she would come to her senses.
I’d almost forgotten what insomnia felt like, the exhaustion coupled with a racing mind and thundering heart; only now it was so much worse than ever before. In place of nagging guilt and what-ifs was agonizing loss.
Shadows that had once concealed an unknown child were replaced by the face of my precious daughter, by her glowing spirit and the pinked roundness of her cheeks, by the trust in her smile and the faith in her eyes when I promised her I would never leave her again. Those images blurred and mixed with thoughts of Elizabeth, the woman with the sweet, insecure smile and wary heart that I’d come to know over the last months, the woman I loved even more now than the girl I’d fal en in love with years before, only because I’d grown to be capable of that kind of love.
As much as I ran from the memory, I couldn’t help but think of the way Elizabeth’s skin had burned under my hands the night before and how perfect she had felt; and even though it had been wrong on so many levels, it stil had been completely right—because we were right.
Groaning, I rol ed over in bed and gave up on getting any sleep. I stood and stretched my sore muscles when the first light seeped through my bedroom windows.
I went into the office early and left just as soon as I’d come. I couldn’t focus on anything but the relentless throbbing in my chest.
From my car, I cal ed Elizabeth again and again. I knew I shouldn’t, that I should give her time, but I begged her to cal me. I told her I had never intended to make her feel used, that she and Lizzie meant the world to me, hoped if I told her I loved her enough she would final y believe it.
Matthew showed up at my condo that evening. I buzzed him in and wasn’t surprised at al to see the rage set deep in the lines of his face when I opened the door. It drained when he saw me, catching him off guard before he stepped inside and demanded to know what the hel was going on.
I didn’t spare him the details I had spared my mother.
“Goddamn it, Christian. What in the hel were you thinking?”
That was the problem—I wasn’t thinking.
I sank onto my couch, buried my head in hands, and looked back up at him. “I love her.”
He scratched at the back of his neck in discomfort, softened his demeanor. His commitment would always be with Elizabeth, but I also felt somewhere along the way we’d become friends and he believed me when I told him I loved her.
“That was real y stupid, Christian . . . you should have known you needed to take it slow with her . . . she’s . . .
she’s . . .” He turned away and blew out a long breath. “You real y fucked her up, man.” He cut his eyes back to me, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about what happened this last weekend.
“I know.”
“Give her a couple of days . . . she needs some space.
She’s not doing so great right now.”
I nodded, and I real y did try.
But it didn’t take long for the guilt I felt over Saturday night to transform and for my anger to grow.
I couldn’t believe Elizabeth would al ow this to happen to our daughter. I sat outside Lizzie’s school on Tuesday afternoon. I expected Natalie to be there, that Elizabeth would have asked her to pick Lizzie up rather than me as I had for so many months, but I needed Lizzie to see me, to understand that I did not intend to leave her.
Looking at Lizzie was like looking at ghost. My child was missing and in her place was a shel with an ashen face, pale and wan. She plodded along dragging her feet, her only lifeline the dol she clutched protectively to her.
From the car, I watched her from across the street.
Only when she felt me did her numbness subside, a second’s recognition and a flicker of life. Natalie trailed her gaze to mine, and smiled sadly, as she nudged Lizzie forward and into her car.
For the first time, my cal s to Elizabeth were not fil ed with apologizes but with accusations.
As much as I loved her, I hated her for placing our daughter in the middle of something that was so obviously about the two of us.
My anger and concern only grew as the next days passed, and by Thursday when every cal I’d made had been unreturned, I made a cal I had never wanted to make.
A few hours after first speaking with him, my attorney Lloyd Barrett cal ed back and laid out what he had found. I sat at the smal table in my kitchen with my elbows grinding into the tabletop, palming the back of my head as I listened to him first read through the record of eviction during the first year of Lizzie’s life just months after Elizabeth had moved to San Diego. I hadn’t known about it and was stil trying to digest the information when Lloyd continued. His next words were like daggers that went straight through my chest as he read word for word the police report of the 911
cal from a little girl screaming for someone to help her mommy, the beaten woman identified as Elizabeth Ayers, the paramedics, and the arrest of Shawn Trokoe.
With a hint of disappointment he said, “That’s al we have, but it should be enough to at least provoke some doubt in her judgment.”
That’s all?
I cursed myself, wanted to curse him and ask him how either of these things didn’t reflect upon me and my judgment.
Lloyd pushed on through my silence, knew me we wel enough that he sighed through the phone as he offered advice. “Listen, Christian, I know this is rough on you, but with your history, you’re going to have to use this, or you won’t have a leg to stand on. You had no contact with this child for five years, and that’s not going to sit very wel with any judge that I know.”
I sat with my phone to my ear, saying nothing, having no idea how to proceed. The last thing I’d wanted to do was drag Elizabeth’s name through the mud, shed her in a negative light, and paint her as a bad mother, because I truly didn’t believe that she was. I just wanted mediation, a legal agreement saying I had some right to see my daughter.
“Chances are we’l settle this thing out of court, and we may not even need to use this, but you have to have
somewhere to start.” I knew he meant it as encouragement, but he real y didn’t understand the consequences of what he was asking of me, because I knew, giving the go ahead on this would seal our fate. Elizabeth would never forgive me, and I’d never be given another chance to prove to her how much I real y loved her. It destroyed me to think of shutting that door forever, but the truth was she had broken my heart—had broken my daughter’s heart.
I didn’t want to break the promise I’d made to never put her through a custody battle, but I would never break the promise I’d made to Lizzie; that as long as I lived, I would never leave her.
Matthew’s and Mom’s voices played loudly in my mind, Give her time . . . give her time. I just didn’t know how much time I had left, how much longer I could tolerate watching my little girl suffer.
I raked a hand through my hair and slumped further onto the table. “Just . . . give me a couple of days, and I’l let you know what I decide.”
Thursday night was fraught with nightmares I wasn’t entirely sure were dreamed as I wrestled with the decision that had to be made. I contended with the part of my heart that said I would wait for Elizabeth forever, the part that loved her so much it caused me physical pain.
I pushed that part aside as I rose from my bed Friday morning so fatigued and drained that I could barely stand. I went into the office in a haze with no idea how I would survive this, but knowing for Lizzie, I wo
uld let Elizabeth go.
By late afternoon, I felt myself ripping apart, coming unglued. The pain and guilt and anger I’d shouldered al week had become too much. The last bit of hope I’d held onto withered when I entered the hol ow space of my condo.
I shed my suit for jeans and a tee, wishing for the Friday before when Lizzie and I had shopped and made plans, how she’d buzzed in excitement as I’d helped her dress for her mother’s birthday. It was the same night Elizabeth had agreed to go to New York with me—the night she held me in her arms at the foot of her staircase.
Instead, I sat on the couch with my phone in my hand building up the nerve to make the cal that would sever Elizabeth from my life forever. I looked out at the boats bobbing in the bay and pictured Lizzie’s face and hands pressed to the window, could hear her sweet voice as she counted them, and knew there was no other choice to make.
The light tapping at my door stopped me in mid-dial. It was a tiny sound coming from low on the door—a knock I knew could come from no other person than the one I wanted most.
Crossing the room in two steps, I tore the door open.
For a moment, I froze as I came to the realization that I wasn’t hal ucinating, and Lizzie and her mother were actual y standing in my hal way. Lizzie stared up at me. She looked sick, her little body weakened with the wear of the week. Her deadened expression was gone, though, her cheeks pink and chapped and stained with tears. The emptiness had vanished from her eyes; in its place was both hope and despair. I lowered myself slowly, reached for her, and pul ed her into my arms.
She wrapped her sweet arms around my neck and stuttered over the tears that began to fal , “Daddy.” The emotions I’d repressed the entire week in my shocked grief now fel free in an overwhelming surge of relief, and I sobbed into her neck as she sobbed into mine.
I chanted her name, hardly able to believe she was real y here.
“Lizzie,” I said again as I pul ed away just enough to see her and to wipe the tears from her cheeks. I held her face between my hands, probably a little too tight. “I missed you so much, baby girl. Do you understand how much I missed you?” I stressed the words desperate for her to understand I’d never wanted this separation. She nodded and cried as she spoke in her soft angel’s voice, “I missed you so much too, Daddy.” She scraped the nails of her fingers against my skin, dug in, and hung on.