Part of Jacob’s nightly habit is talking to Melanie right before I tuck him in. At her suggestion, I ordered a few books so she can read to him on speaker phone and we follow along. I don’t know why, but he would rather do it this way than have me read to him. As with everything else in my life, I do it because it works best for Jacob.
Our conversations are still stilted at best. I want to stay mad at Melanie for not doing more to save Alyssa, but I’m learning to accept the fact that she was doing what Alyssa wanted, so I can’t hang onto that anger. Part of me wonders if we would have had a better chance of maintaining our friendship had Alyssa not talked to us before she passed away. The two of us had, to whatever extent possible, found closure on our past after Nassau. There may have been tension between us, but both of us knew the full truth of what had happened and were more capable of putting all of our energy into Alyssa’s needs. But hearing her encourage us to be co-parents to Jacob, without coming right out and saying she was okay with us pursuing something more, has put us in an awkward predicament. I’m not sure either of us know how to act around one another at this point.
I would assume the situation we’ve found ourselves in isn’t entirely unlike divorced parents. We talk when it’s necessary and related to Jacob, but otherwise there is uncomfortable silence between us. The fact that she’s not Jacob’s mother only makes the situation that much more bizarre. She wants to keep her promise to Alyssa, which means she can’t fade into the background as much as I know she would like to. And I’m in this strange place where I can’t trust myself to be near her. I miss my wife and it would be far too easy for me to seek comfort in the arms of a familiar woman. The one woman left who fully understands me.
Melanie deserves a man who will cherish her and lift her up, not someone who is grieving the loss of his wife and has already crushed her spirit once. Now that I know she was waiting for me six years ago, there have been nights when I sat in this swing wondering what more I could have done to show her how much I loved her. If only I had pushed harder to see her instead of listening to that bitch, Stacey, things could have been so much different. At the very least, we wouldn’t have become strangers to one another. I didn’t have the answers then, but now, I know that the best way for me to prove what I feel for her is to keep her at a distance. until we’re both certain we’re doing whatever it is that we’re doing for the right reasons.
Only how am I supposed to keep her at a distance when she’s going to be knocking on my door tomorrow morning? I’m beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to tell her where we’re staying. She is on some sort of self-discovery road trip and just happened to be driving along the east coast and asked if she could see Jacob. Knowing how much he misses her, I quickly tamped down my reservations and gave her the address. I haven’t told him that she’s coming yet, just in case she has a last-minute change of heart.
My road trip hasn’t quite turned out the way I thought it would. Rather than spend a day here and a day there, I’ve decided to use this time as a way to work on a hobby I have ignored for far too long. The morning after I got to Memphis, I picked up a new SLR camera, the one I had drooled over since it first came out but always told myself wasn’t worth the investment because I would never have time to use it. Since I walked out of the store, my days have been spent documenting each city I visit and my nights editing and scouring the internet for tutorials on how to take better pictures. It’s a pipedream, but it would be awesome if I could find a way to do this for a living. Just me and Brody on the open road. No death, no suffering, no sapphire blue eyes melting my heart.
It’s the memory of those blue eyes, the smaller set that caused me to change course on my way to Boston. Almost nightly, Jacob asks me when I can come to see him. Until a few nights ago, Xavier and I quickly changed the topic to something safer. I highly doubt it’s a coincidence that Xavier gave me his top secret location the same night I told him I was planning on spending a week in a hostel in New York so I could explore the city before heading north to Massachusetts. Despite the fact that our friendship is still strained, he has made it abundantly clear to me that he thinks a single woman walking around strange cities carrying a thousand dollar camera is asking for trouble.
Originally, our plan was for me to get here around mid-morning, so he could get Jacob fed and dressed for the day. I’m hoping he won’t be upset with me, but I couldn’t wait that long. Knowing I was less than two hours away from them last night made it nearly impossible to sleep, so I loaded Brody into the Prius just before five-thirty this morning. Now, I’m sitting in the parking lot of the condo complex at the edge of the earth, waiting for the clock on my dashboard to read seven so I can text Xavier and let him know I’m here. I hope he’s not too upset about that.
7:00 I’m here.