“If it’s too hard though…”
“I’ll share whatever you want to know,” Daisy said. “There’s no point holding back or avoiding.”
“True. But—”
“Erik, listen. Let’s not shelter each other. I’m not defining what’s going on here. I’m not even assuming we’re friends again. And it’s kind of liberating, don’t you think? Put it all out on the table, there’s nothing to lose. I’d rather know everything and be hurt. I hated not knowing where you were. God, it made me crazy…” She trailed off, and the lost years swept through Erik, a biting, gnawing pain of regret for the time he had thrown away.
“It seemed so important at the time,” he said, shaking his head. “So necessary. And now I can’t understand how I managed to completely shut down.”
It was the only way I knew, he thought. It didn’t make him feel any better.
“You’re here now,” she said. “I still can’t believe I’m talking to you.”
“I might not ever shut up.”
“Say anything then,” she said. “I’m not afraid. I want to know everything. I need to have everything so I can figure out what I’m going to do.”
“Do with what?”
“Do with you,” she said, as if it were obvious.
*
They talked nearly every night as the reunion crept closer. Ten days away. Then a week. Two days.
Then tomorrow.
As he packed his bag, Erik called down to Key West and spoke to his mother. “I’m going to Canada tomorrow,” he said. “Not sure how long I’ll be gone.”
“Canada? Why there?”
“I’m going to see Daisy.”
A beat of silence. “Well,” Christine said. “How did this come about?”
“I went looking for her.”
“All these years. What finally made you decide?”
“It was time. It was time a long time ago. Unfortunately, Mom, my father set a shitty example of how you leave a woman, and even more unfortunately, I followed it. Not knowing there was an alternative. A better way to leave. Or a different way to stay. I know now, and I’m going to Canada to set a better example. Even if I never have a son someday.”
“I think that’s wonderful, Erik,” Christine said.
“I’m slightly terrified.”
She laughed. “Because you loved her.”
“I did,” he said. “Possibly I still do.”
“Leaving isn’t always the end of loving. Love doesn’t give a shit about geography, Erik. It’s not a thing you can abandon at will.”
He sat on the bed next to his open bag and ran his hand through his hair. “Look, Mom, I never asked you this,” he said. “But is there part of you still waiting for him?”
“For your father?”
“Yeah. Waiting for him to call or something.”
“Of course there is, honey.”
“If he did call…would you hang up or listen?”
He heard her draw her breath in and let it out. “I hope I say this the right way,” she said. “I would slam the phone down on the father of my sons. Because I will never forgive him. I would listen to the man I loved. Because part of me needs to hear what he has to say. Am I making any sense, Byron Erik?”
“Perfect sense, ma’am,” he said. “And I’m sorry he never came back and set you free.”
A soft laugh caressed his ear. “Sometimes people surprise you.”
“Or they don’t.”
He waited. For dismissal of the past. For platitudes or philosophy.
“You know, Erik,” she said. “While your father was here, he was a good man. And I see a lot of him in you. The good things. Don’t be ashamed of them. Because I also see how you’re different from him. Especially right now. You couldn’t be more different.”
If he had crafted her response it couldn’t have been more perfect. Erik swallowed hard, curled up tight into her words. Basking in them, he told her he loved her.