(Present Day)
This vacation is on eight day and I haven’t talked to Abbey since day three. It was foolish, I guess, to call her back after that third glass of wine. I’m not sure why I asked her to come out, or if she still loved me. My mind was playing tricks, or…feeling sentimental. I know better now. After a week I know I was just a little out of it, because I definitely don’t love her anymore. Not that way. She’ll always have a place in my heart of course. We went through too much for her not to be, and she’s the mother of my children.
She’s right though. It’s over. We’re divorced, and just…moving on. I snapped out of my wine induced gush fest in time to realize why I had originally decided to call Abbey in the first place. I had been mulling the subject over my head for almost a month and to be honest I was terrified of bringing it up, but I knew it had to be done. There’s things…other things I didn’t take when I first moved out, and things I know Abbey will want for herself in Vic’s bedroom. I was only in there for ten minutes. I needed that picture of us from her nightstand to take with me. It was my favorite one of us and it had always been Vic’s favorite too. But that’s all I had the stomach to take before I had to walk out of there.
Now it’s time though. It’s time to go through her things, take what we want and donate the rest. It’s bad to remain in the past for too long. That’s what my therapist has told me time and time again. Going through her things will help us move on, I’m sure of it.
But Abbey…Abbey just seemed terrified of the idea, even after she agreed to do it.
I’m almost positive she hasn’t set foot in that bedroom since Vic passed.
I know I’m going to have to get her through it, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I haven’t been emotional with her in a really long time. The funeral was probably the last time I held her while she cried, and even then, it was only briefly because I couldn’t stomach it. I was too angry at her for not doing what I thought she should have done while Vic was sick. Hell, I can’t deny that a part of me still wants to be.
But I won’t let it. Not anymore. I just want to be happy, and I’d eventually like us to be friends. She seems to think the idea is too far fetched, but I have hope for us.
I believe in the little part of us that’s still left.
We’ve been in Nice, which is my favorite part of the French Rivera, since yesterday. The boys are having the time of their lives running up and down the beach with the rest of the kids staying at our resort, and Trace has been otherwise preoccupied with the non english speaking members of the beach community. Me? I’ve just been settled on a comfortable chair on the pristine beach, beer in hand and waitress on call for hours on end. Trace has deemed me a loser for the vacation since I haven’t made an effort to “get” with anyone, but I told him…this trip wasn’t about that for me.
Or maybe I’m just a little scared to get my feet wet.
I know I said I was ready but…just thinking about it, bringing other women into Conner’s life, into Mason’s and my brother’s lives, scares me a little. It’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve thought about anybody else.
It could be a big reason why I was so compelled to talk to Abbey about our love life the other night.
I can’t be scared though. If I am, I’ll never move on.
“Excuse me…I’m sorry, but did you see a group of kids running around here?”
I lift my sunglasses slightly and squint up at where the voice has come from. Half expecting to see a middle aged woman, I find myself staring in awe when I see the heavenly creature looming over me. Young, nice tan, nice smile, nice…well…nice everything, and she’s American.
Trace would be proud, or just call me stupid lucky.
“You mean them?” I smirk slightly and sit up, point over in the direction of the group of kids throwing sand at each other by the water.
She shields her eyes and gazes in the direction I’ve told her, shoulders seeming to sag in relief after a moment. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“One’s yours?” I chuckle, and take a sip of my beer.
“Two,” she groans. “And they just lo-ove to leave the room without telling me. I’ve been running around here like a lunatic for a half hour.”
“You shouldn’t worry. They can’t go far. I found that out yesterday when I thought my son had run off. There’s staff at either end of the beach. They’re safe.”
“Good to know, although my boys would find a way to escape if given the chance. Do you mind?” She motions to the lounger next to mine.
“Not at all.” I smirk just slightly, and wave over one of the staff while she takes a seat. “Can you get her something…” I trail off and look back at her. “What do you drink?”
She laughs nervously. “I’ll just have a club soda.”
“Come on now. You’re on vacation right?”
“Well…” She seems to fight a battle with herself for several moments. “I…I guess I could go for a Long Island Iced Tea.”
“Done.” I nod at the waitress, and she rushes away.
“You can just put it on my room,” she tells me quickly.
“Don’t even go there,” I sigh and settle back against the lounger.
“Well…thanks.”
“No need to thank me. Where ya from?”
“Well, I live in Los Angeles for the moment with my boys.”
“But?” I chuckle.
“We’ll probably be moving in a couple of months. I’m just here to…get the boys away from their father for awhile. We’re in the middle of a divorce and since his girlfriend has the run of the house, I wasn’t about to let my kids live there too. Fortunately, even though our marriage has become non existent, his credit card limit hasn’t. He didn’t care if I spent a whole month here if it meant he could do whatever he wanted with his new found love interest, kid free.”
“Sounds like a jerk.”
“Yeah well, as my mother would say, I sure can pick a man.”
I laugh. “Well, don’t feel so bad. I just got divorced myself.” I swallow back the hurt in my voice.
“Was it messy?”
“I wouldn’t say messy. Just bitter.” I take a long swig of my beer. “It’s been a rough year for Conner, so I wanted to take him away for a couple of weeks. He’s been having a great time. Going back to face reality is going to suck though, I’ll admit.”
“Isn’t that always the case?”
“I dunno.” I turn my head to look her in the eye and find that she’s staring back at me. She’s really pretty up close, about my age, with brown, hypnotizing eyes and a flawless complexion. She looks like someone from my New York days, but I can tell she has a real personality. “I never really dreaded going back home before this. I guess right now, there’s just a lot of difficult things waiting there for me.”
“My name is Reese.” Her cheeks turn pink. “I guess I should have said that first.”
“Justin.” I stick out my hand for her to shake and hers gently slips inside mine. It seems to fit like a glove and I start to get this weird sensation in the pit of my stomach that…that just seems all too familiar.
The waiter returns with our drinks and we sit for a while, talking about where we grew up, and what we’ve done with our lives so far. I leave out Vic and I’m sure she leaves out things as well. The best part is she doesn’t seem to care that I’m a billionaire entrepreneur, and I could care less that she’s loaded up with two kids and in the middle of a messy divorce with an NBA star that includes a custody battle.
It seems real with her, down to earth, and relatable.
We just…click.
I don’t even think I can afford to click with anyone right now, but I don’t want to leave just yet either. Something inside is begging me to get to know her better, and that means she’s captivated me.
I’m not sure if it’s good or bad. It’s confusing.
“MOM! MOM! KEVIN PUSHED ME!”
“I did not!! I did not Tanner!”
Two little boys race up to where we’ve been sitting and pounce on top of their mother, bickering back and forth about who pushed who first. She’s got her hands full, I guess. She scolds them both for running off without telling her, and for interrupting her conversation with ‘the nice gentleman’.
Her boys turn and give me a dirty look.
“Let’s go mommy.” The older one says, tugging on one of her shoulders. “I want to go now!”
“Just ‘cause you say you wanna go doesn’t mean we’re gonna go Tanner!” The younger boy sticks out his tongue. “You’re not the boss!”
“Dad says I’m the boss cause I’m the oldest Kevin!”
“Boys!” Jennifer yells.
They go wide eyed and silent. It makes me laugh.
It reminds me of how Abbey is with our kids…how she was with my brothers.
I can’t do this. I can’t compare every woman I meet to my ex wife.
“Conner!” I yell for him, and motion him to come to me. “Hey um…I’m probably gonna go get him ready for dinner.”r32;
“Yeah,” she smiles tiredly. “These two need to go…somewhere. Preferably bed, but that doesn’t happen at four in the afternoon.”
“Sure doesn’t,” I smirk.
She laughs nervously.
“How long are you here for?” I say as Conner reaches me, and I ruffle his hair a little while he climbs on top of me and lays his head against my bare chest.
“Just til Sunday.”
“All right, well, we leave Saturday for London, and we’ll go home on Sunday. Maybe tomorrow night we can…have…um…” I pause and chuckle, feeling my cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.
“Are you asking me to dinner?” She says with a sly smile.
“Let’s gooo Mommy!”
“I guess, yeah…I am.”
“How about tomorrow night at seven thirty?”
“Great. I know the area well. I’ll rent a driver and take you on a tour. The town is really pretty at night.”
“MOMMY!”
“I better go.” She shoos the boys off of her. “It was nice…running into you, Justin.”
“Likewise,” I smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Bye.” She flashes me one last dazzling smile and then jogs off after her boys.
Well, that was random. Random, but…maybe it’s a good thing.
“Daddy who was that lady?”
I kiss the top of his head. “That’s just my friend. She’s nice huh?”
He shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
“Buddy what’s wrong?” I laugh. “Were her boys mean to you?”
“No, I liked ‘em.”
“Then what is it?”
“I want you to like mommy again. I don’t want you to like another lady, Daddy.”
I sigh heavily.
And this is why I’m scared to get my feet wet. “Con, you know…things aren’t going to be the same. You understand right? Remember the long talk Mommy and I had with you about this?”
“You said you won’t live at the house.”
“Right.”
“That don’t mean you don’t like mommy no more though.”
He’s not getting it. I shouldn’t expect him to get it. Neither of us should because he’s a little boy.
“Con I like Mommy, it’s just…different, between us now. We’re friends, you know? We’re friends and we love you and Mason, but we do different things too. We like to meet and be with other people who make us happy, because we weren’t happy when we lived together.”
“Okay.”
He says it but I know he’s totally confused. All I can seem to do though, is give him another kiss on the head and say: “C’mon, lets go get ready for dinner.”
Halfway back to our room I almost decide to cancel the date because I’m afraid of what will happen to Conner if I go through with it. But then…I don’t want to cancel. I don’t want to cancel because I owe it to myself to be happy and start dating again. I don’t want to be single for the rest of my life. I spent too much of my life happy and in love, and the more I’m alone, the more I feel myself slipping back into that other version, the person I was before Abbey, and I don’t want to be him. I want to be in love again, somehow, even if it’s not with Abbey.
So I’m going on that date.
***************
We went with The Room on Main, thank God. I emailed Justin the details two days later, and he told me while it was little small for his liking, he would put up with it for his brothers sake. I was just fine with that. I was able to send my son back to New York with most of his wedding finalized and a very happy son in law to be just a phone call away.
It’s been a huge load off my mind, to say the least.
Unfortunately, once I was able to take my focus off of that, the next thing on my list became that much more prominent.
My seventeen year old.
He’s hasn’t been home except to get clothes, in weeks. Instead, he’s been bouncing around between his friends houses since summer began. Two nights ago I managed to get a hold of him by cell phone and begged him to come home for just a couple of days. Because he’s always listened to me, he showed up, but it wasn’t the version of my son I was expecting.
He’s so pale, and seems worn out. I don’t know when he started to slip, but it was probably sometime between Vic’s funeral and now. I haven’t been there for him like I’ve wanted to be, and since he won’t speak to his father, their relationship has become non existent. Between Conner, my emotional shit, the divorce, and everyone else in my life, I guess I’ve overlooked Mason’s well being. He’s always been so independent though, that he never would have admitted to me that he needed some help.
I’m paying for it now.
“I’m not going to talk to a fucking therapist.”
“Nice language.” I plop the plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. “I think you need to talk to somebody, and since you refuse to talk to your father, and you barely talk to me anymore, I don’t see there being another alternative.”
“Why do I have to talk? You two don’t talk out your issues. That’s why our lives are like this now.”
“There’s a lot of reasons why your father and I got divorced Mason.”
“He messed up. It’s his fault…all of it.”
“This is why I want you to see the therapist.”
“I’m not going.”
“You haven’t even talked to me about…about Vic, you know?”
He leans the side of his head against his fist and miserably stabs at his eggs. “What’s to say? She died…I can’t do anything about it.”
“I’m not saying…that you can do something about it Mason, but it’s okay to grieve.”
“We didn’t even get along. Our lives were completely different.” He rolls his eyes.
“She was still your sister, Mase.” I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder.
He shrugs me off. “I don’t need you coddling me right now. I came home because…I thought you needed me for something. I thought Conner was having an issue, but now I find out you sent him off on some luxury vacation with dad. You know, he didn’t even ask me to go. Some father.”
“He thought you would say no,” I sigh.
“So? He should have asked me anyway.”
“Point taken.” I take a seat across from him. “But since there’s nothing I can do about that right now, how about you tell me what’s been going on with you outside of hating your father.”
“Nothing. I’ve just been hanging out.”
“I’d really like it if you would come back home, you know? I…I miss you, Mason.”
“You’re just lonely. You don’t really care who’s here as long as you don’t have to be alone.”
r32;He’s never talked to me like this before. It’s a completely different version of my son, and I guess…I blame myself for the change. I don’t know how to get that sweet boy I love so much to come back to me.
Maybe he can’t come back.
Maybe he’s lost.
“I am lonely,” I admit. “Sometimes, Conner is the only thing that forces me keep going, but I miss you a lot Mase. I miss all the things we used to do and all the talks we used to have.”
“Yeah? Well I’m different now. I’m practically an adult, and…and I want a fresh start, mom. I don’t want to go to college in the fall. I want to take a year off. I think you and dad owe me that.”
“Well, if that’s what you really want, maybe you should talk to your father about it when he gets back from Europe.”
“Why? You have plenty of money you can give me to live on.”
“It’s not the money, Mase. I think your father needs to be included in the conversation, that’s all. You’ve already heard back from Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth. We thought you were still making up your mind about those.”
“He didn’t talk to me the whole time Vic was in the hospital!” He yells and rises to his feet. “All of a sudden he’s just allowed to make decisions in my life? No…no I won’t let him! I’ll leave first!”
“Mason!”
He runs out on me. I do my best to catch up with him, but he’s too quick for me, gets into the silver Audi convertible his father got him two years ago, and peels out of the driveway, creating a loud screeching sound that forces my hands over my ears.
Fuck.
I debate whether to call Justin.
No. It can wait until he gets back. It’s only a couple of days.
I do everything I can to take my mind off of Mason for the rest of the afternoon. I get a pedicure, scan Netflix for a few hours, and I talk to my sister. She lives in New York, works at the Natural History Museum. She and Mark have been married for years, have two boys, and live a nice life together. I try to see her and talk to her every chance I get, but she’s always so busy with her big time Archeology career that it’s hard. She always asks me if I’m okay these days, because she knows that I’m not, even when I tell her I am.
I need to go and see her.
But it’s just really hard for me to leave right now with the way things are. Although, Justin didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but thats how he handles things. He knew Mason would want no part of the vacation, so he brushed him aside to make sure Conner could have a good time.
r32;I still don’t know if I’m mad at him for it, or if I would have just done the same thing
Mason won’t talk about it now, but in the beginning when Vic started to get really sick from Chemo, he would do anything he could to help me out with Conner. He was there for me because I guess…he could tell that Justin wasn’t. I shouldn’t have let him do all that. I should have been the adult and told him to go live his life because he was just a kid. I was just so wrapped up in everything…I didn’t have time to take a step back and think about how he was being affected. I told him once…after I packed us all up and moved us to my parents that time, that I thought I was a terrible mother.
He just smiled, shook his head, and said: “I couldn’t ask for a better mom.”
But that’s not Mason anymore.
I don’t even know when I doze off on the sofa. When the sound of the phone ringing wakes me, I stare, bleary eyed, at the clock on the wall and find it’s after eleven. I stagger to my feet and groan a hello when I pick up the phone.
“Mom?”
It’s Austin, and I force myself to wake up a little more. “Hey baby. What’s going on? Is Rebecca okay? Kristy?”
“They’re fine. Kristy is home with the baby. God…” He trails off and sighs. “Mom it’s Mason.”
Everything seems to freeze in that moment. My voice catches in my throat and I can literally feel my heart stop. All I can think is that something has happened. Something awful. That’s I’ll have lost both my son and my daughter in just over a year. Is that even feasible? Does fate really have the capability of being that cruel? “Austin…” I whimper. “Wh-what happened?”
“He’s…they said he’s going to be okay.”
I fall to my knees and sob into the phone. “They said he’ll be okay? What do you mean? Where are you?”
“I’m at the hospital,” he sighs. “Mason was in an accident and I was the person he told them to contact, but…this…it’s not something he can just walk away from. He’s in trouble.”
My heart jumps up into my throat. Immediately a million different thoughts race through my mind as I wonder what the hell could have happened to my son. “Trouble? Austin?”
“Just get down here, all right? It’s…I’d rather talk to you face to face.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I hang up, grab my purse and rush out the door, speed dialing Justin as I jump into the car.
Straight to voicemail.
I dial again.
Voicemail.
r32;
I leave a message, but he doesn’t call back.
He’s just not around. Just like all the other times in the past year I’ve needed him by my side.
He’s has his own life now, outside of us, and suddenly, I remember just why it was that we got divorced in the first place. It wasn’t Vic. It wasn’t the pain.
It was because he wanted to move on.
“Austin!” I yell for him the moment I burst through the hospital doors. He races over to me and wraps me up in his arms. I cry. I hate it, but I do, and he lets me calm down for several moments before I’m able to pull away and look him in the eye. “Austin…”
“There was an accident. He’s got a broken arm and a concussion but…he was drunk and…” he trails off.
“Tell me,” I whisper. “Austin?”
“He broke into…Justin’s new place, and took the new Maserati out. The electric blue one. They said he flipped the guard rail and was lucky he wasn’t injured more severely. The car was totaled though. They said once he’s well, he’ll be arrested for driving under the influence and they are also going to have to ask Justin if he wants to press charges.”
“Oh God,” I whimper. “I…he left…he left the house so angry and I…”
“Momma listen.” He grasps my hands. “I know Justin won’t press charges, that’s just ridiculous. We’re gonna get him out of this okay? I already called Mac. He’s coming out first thing in the morning, and he’s going to do his best to get him released to us as soon as possible. Mason didn’t say anything, and I told them we wanted our lawyer the minute I got down here. Did you get in touch with Justin?”
I just stare at him, sick to my stomach with worry.
“Mom.” He shakes me slightly. “Did you get in touch with Justin?”
“Voicemail,” I whisper. “He’s still in Europe with Conner and Trace.”
He helps me sit down. “I’ll try.” He whips out his phone and frantically dials.
I just gaze out into nothingness.
This is my fault.
Our fault.
He was slipping. My Mason was slipping and I couldn’t take the time to realize it. I should have helped him, but I was too caught up with everything else, and by the time I said something, he was already too far gone. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time he got into that car intoxicated.
He needs his father now. He needs his father to protect him, to help him.
But he’s not here, and I haven’t been here mentally for our son in a long time.
That’s why he wanted them to call Austin. He wasn’t afraid, he just didn’t think he could count on his own parents to be there for him.
And that’s the saddest thing.
