Now we’d talked and he’d apologized, I was able to relax a little.
“I think I will have that drink now.”
Before I could stand up to go to the bar, he was on his feet.
“I’ll get it. A red wine?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I slumped in my seat, watching him lean against the bar while waiting to be served. The last time we’d spent time together like this, he hadn’t been old enough to buy alcohol.
I was surprised when he returned with two glasses of wine; I’d assumed he’d be hitting the whiskey again. I was very glad to see he wasn’t.
“I got you a Barolo.”
“Mmm, my favorite.”
“I know. I remembered you liked it.”
I stared at him in amazement. How on earth did he remember something like that?
“Oh, well… thank you.”
I suddenly felt awkward again, his gaze was too intense. I sighed. It was time to have that conversation.
“How was it… after I left?”
He leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes, as if in pain. When he opened them again the old wounds were raw.
“Bad.”
He swallowed, and I could tell he was trying to find the words.
“Mom and Dad were… in the end Mitch went to see them – I didn’t know what he said at the time but he and Shirley took me to live with them. Later, I found out that Mitch had threatened to go to my dad’s CO and tell him that he’d been… beating up on me.”
My hand fluttered to my mouth, trying to block the rising nausea.
“On my eighteenth birthday, I enlisted in the Marines.” He looked up. “That’s pretty much it.”
“And Mitch and Shirley? Ches?”
“Mitch and Shirley got posted to Germany soon after that. Ches was studying at UCSD so when I had leave, I used to hang with him and his college buddies.” He smiled briefly. “He’s married with two kids now.”
“You’re kidding me? Really?”
I tried to imagine happy-go-lucky Ches as a responsible father of two. And then I remembered a time when Sebastian and I had thought about having children. An impossible dream.
“Did he enlist?”
“He was going to, but then he met Amy at college and she talked him out of it. He’s the manager at La Jolla Country Club now.”
I had memories of the country club, the brief few weeks of my membership while Sebastian had worked there as a lifeguard. In particular I remembered one very steamy session of illicit sex in a changing room storage closet, of all places.
From the heat in Sebastian’s eyes, he was currently on the same page. I had to look away.
“Are Shirley and Mitch still out in Germany?”
“No. Mitch got sent to Parris Island as an instructor. But last time I saw them, they were talking about going back to San Diego. I guess they want to be near their grandkids.”
“Where did Donna and Johan go?”
An odd expression crossed Sebastian’s face. “How did you know they went away?”
I hesitated, wondering if an honest answer was in anyone’s best interest after so many years. But, perhaps, after all, it needed to be said.
“I wrote to them.”
He leaned forward, staring at me.
“When?”
“Around the time of your 21st birthday, Sebastian. And to Shirley and Mitch. My letters were returned to sender, unopened. I assumed they’d either gone away or…”
I didn’t need to finish the sentence. He let out a lungful of air in a long sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath for a very long time.
“So, you did try to contact me?”
“Yes and no. I wanted to believe that you’d gone on with your life and I didn’t want to… disrupt anything. That’s why I tried to contact Shirley and Mitch. I wanted to find out if my approach would be a positive thing – or not. When my letter was returned…”
I looked up at him. His expression was skeptical and I felt both hurt and annoyed: he didn’t believe me.
“Everyone said I should just forget about you,” he said, his voice deep with regret. “As if that was even possible. I tried to find you, Caro, but I didn’t know your surname – your unmarried name – and the only person who knew…”