Never forever calico cov.., p.14
Never Forever (Calico Cove), page 14
“Matt, it’s your dad. We can go there now,” I said. “You told me to stay away from him and I did, but if you’re worried about him we should go.”
“You sure?” he asked, unable to hide his relief. “He thinks there are kittens in the rafters of the garage. I’m scared he’s going to get on a ladder.”
“Go,” I said, and Matt turned right instead of left.
Nothing in town was more than a fifteen-minute drive away and so we pulled up to the old Sullivan cottage in no time. Even in the rain it looked the way it did in high school when I spent every afternoon here after school when Patrick was doing the afternoon ferry. When Patrick finally accepted the inevitability of me and Matt, he’d started inviting me to Sunday dinners.
Those Sunday dinners were some of the happiest moments of my life.
It had gutted me not being able to talk to Patrick since being back. But Matt had asked me to stay away and I got it. It wasn’t lost on me that more than one heart had been broken the night Matt dumped me.
I’d seen Patrick in town, but I always pretended not to and I walked away before he could notice me or come over for one of his chats and legendary hugs. But seeing him the first time had been a shock. It looked like he’d aged more than the ten years since I’d known him. Enough that I worried about him, not that I could do anything about that worry.
Matt killed the lights and turned to me. “You want to stay in the truck?” he asked.
I already had the door open. If I was being given permission to see Patrick again, I was going to take it.
We ran through the rain again, but Matt didn’t go to the front door, he ran along the side to the garage and I followed, my hands uselessly over my head.
The garage door was open, the mellow light from one light bulb falling over Patrick as he stood with his hands on his hips looking up at the rafters. He wore athletic shorts and a baggy tee shirt. New Balance shoes and his white socks pulled up high on his wide calves.
My heart squeezed at the sight of him. Familiar and sturdy. The kind of dad a dad-less girl could only dream of.
“Dad!” Matt said.
“Matt!” Patrick said, hugging his son even though they probably saw each other every day. It was one thing I always loved about Patrick, the way he loved his son.
“Hi Patrick,” I said with a small wave.
“There she is,” he said, smiling at me. “You must know I’ve been forbidden to speak to you these many months. And let me say, I’ve had something to say about that. Looks like this bozo has finally wised up.”
I turned to glare at Matt. What a stupid and terrible puppet master.
“Dad,” Matt groaned. “We talked about this.”
“I made the same promise, Patrick. It broke my heart.”
“Ah, but you’re here now and you’re a sight for sore eyes.” He wrapped me up in those arms. He smelled like Old Spice and good memories.
“The movie still going well? I’ve walked by a few times just to see how all the action works. Would have been by more, but I’m still getting my legs under me.” He held me out by my shoulders and took a good look at me.
“We just wrapped,” I said, trying not to think too hard about what Matt told him about our break-up.
Had Matt just come home that night and told Patrick he’d dumped me? Changed his mind about Boston and school and all of it?
I couldn’t fathom how Patrick would have taken any of that. He adored me. Or he used to. And he’d been so proud of Matt for going away to college.
“Wait,” I said, catching something he’d said. “Getting your legs under you? What from?”
“Dad?” Matt interrupted, turning his attention up to the rafters of the garage. “How did that cat get up there?”
“There’s two of them. Dumb and Ass. They’re brothers,” he said it like it made sense. “The storm has them rattled and they went up there, but they won’t come down.”
“Well, maybe they’re happy up there,” I said.
“Do they sound happy?” Patrick asked. It took me a second to hear them over the pouring rain on the roof. But there it was, kittens crying. And an answering cry from another cat.
“That’s the mama, Jenny,” Patrick reached down and picked up a brown tortie who immediately hissed, scratched him and jumped out of his arms. “She’s coming around.”
“Dad. They’re feral. They don’t want to be house cats.”
“I’m not asking them to be house cats. I’m asking them to be garage cats. Dumb and Ass are on board.”
I swallowed my smile. Patrick and Matt Sullivan always had a good routine. A million years ago I would laugh through every dry Sunday night pot roast he made and ask for more, just to watch them tease each other.
Matt grunted and got the ladder from the corner and put it up under the kittens who were crying in the crook of the rafters. Matt pulled them free by the scruff of their necks and handed them down to Patrick who cooed and hummed at them, curling them up against his big bushy beard.
“They’re going to crawl right back up there the second you turn your back,” Matt told his dad.
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll take these into the house.”
As if she understood her babies were about to be kidnapped, Jenny yowled.
“Okay, okay, don’t get your tail in a knot,” Patrick muttered, and set the kittens down next to their mama. They ran right to Jenny who gave them licks, and with another crash of lightning, they scattered into the shadows.
“Now!” Patrick clapped his hands together. “Tea?”
“I’ve got to get Carrie back to The Dumont,” Matt said.
“No, she just got there!” Patrick cried. “One cup. I insist.”
Patrick shambled off like the decision was made and I made the mistake of looking at Matt.
He looked after his father with love and resignation and…worry?
Like a lightning bolt, an awful one, it all came together. How he’d aged, getting his legs under him…
“Has he been sick?” I asked, forcing his attention my way.
For a second I thought Matt wasn’t going to answer me. He’d grunt or just ignore me. But his eyes met mine and he nodded.
“When?”
“Do you want to stay or go to the hotel?”
“I want you to answer my question.”
He rubbed his hand over his face and into his hair like my questions were just so exhausting. That me standing here in this garage with his father waiting inside was almost more than he could take.
He walked to the door and then stopped. Just stopped. He didn’t turn to face me.
“About a year ago,” he said. “Thyroid cancer. He finished treatment a few months ago. That’s why he’s not in town much.”
“Cancer,” I whispered, letting the weight of the word settle over me. “He looks like he lost weight, too.”
“He did. And all his hair in the beginning.”
“It grew back all white,” I said with a sense of relief. “He looks like Santa now.”
“Don’t tell him that. He’s convinced he’s going to take over as Calico Cove’s Santa, but that’s a lot of kids to have sit on his lap.”
I reached out a hand to touch Matt’s arm, to get him to turn to me. Look at me. Talk to me. But I pulled it back. It would have been a stupid thing to do.
“You must have been scared.” Terrified was more like it. Patrick was everything to Matt.
Matt ducked his head, as much of a nod as I would get.
“One cup of tea,” he said firmly. “Don’t get chatty.”
17
Matt
Itold her the truth and not at all the truth. Dad did have cancer, he did go through treatment. The word we weren’t saying, because it would blow up everything was:
Again.
The adrenaline from sitting in this kitchen wondering what Dad might say made my skin crawl. Made me giddy and sick to my stomach. Having her in my Dad’s house made me want to bash my head against the wall.
My worry was useless. The two of them could chat for days about nothing. And Dad seemed hell bent on dissecting every moment of her career in the last ten years.
The tea turned quickly to whiskey, and one became two before I could stop it.
We sat around the kitchen table, the lamp casting its nice familiar glow over all of us. The dishwasher hummed in the background and the rain pattered against the windows.
I stood and pulled Dad’s Irish cheddar from the fridge. I put it on a plate with some probably stale crackers. They both ate it though. I cut up an apple, put that on the plate.
I watched quietly as Carrie answered questions about famous stars. Dad wanted to know who was nice and who was mean. She piled a piece of apple on a piece of cheese on a cracker and handed it to him. He ate it and she made one for herself.
I turned away and refused to get emotional. I refused to think about why that was so satisfying. Like feeding them was the most important thing I would do all day.
“Enough about me, I want to know more about how you’re doing,” Carrie said. “How are you feeling?”
“Right as rain. I’m totally fine,” Patrick said and waved her off.
“It’s not totally fine. It’s thyroid cancer,” she said, her expression grim.
Dad shot me a hard look.
“Yes, well, this time,” Patrick said, spinning his whiskey glass in a little circle.
“What?” Carrie looked at me, then back at Dad. “Wait? There was another time?”
“Dad!” I barked too loudly. “Ask her the question you really want to know.”
Patrick’s eyes twinkled and he leaned forward, his face golden under the light. “Yes, Carrie. I’ve got a question for you. Very serious.”
“What’s that?” she asked, leaning into the light too. The two of them such clowns.
Dad waggled his eyebrows. “Tom Cruise?”
She smirked. “You want to know if he was a good kisser?”
I had to sit on my hands not to reach for her. I had to turn my head away.
Dad blushed bright red. “No!” he said, and then dropped his voice. “Is he?”
“Everyone asks me that. Everyone. All the talk show hosts ask me that. And you know what I do?”
“What?”
“I lie. Every time. I say he’s the world’s best kisser. The best kiss I ever had.”
“Hey now,” Dad said, nodding his head my way. “Matt’s sitting right over there and you two used to get up to a fair amount of kissing.”
It wasn’t even awkward. That was the thing with Dad and Carrie. It was so easy with them. So real. It made me realize all over again, how rare she was.
How rare we’d been.
It made me miss her like a knife to the gut.
“The truth is,” she said. “I don’t remember kissing Tom Cruise. I kind of blacked out. Between the kiss and the stunt it was all just too much for me.”
“I don’t believe it,” Dad said, pouring a little more whiskey in her cup. “Nothing was ever too much for the likes of Carrie Piedmont. Remember when we took first place at the… what was it, Matt?”
God, I wanted to fight these memories. I’d put them aside. Away. Like they’d happened to a different person.
“You remember,” Dad said looking over at me. “That bar where we stopped for dinner after your sectional meet. You remember.”
“We sang together,” I said, my eyes closed. “It was like a talent show thing.”
“We sang!” Dad cried and Carrie started laughing. Soon the two of them were singing that stupid Billy Joel song they sang that night. The one about the guy playing the piano.
I stood up so hard my chair screeched across the old linoleum I’d been planning to replace for two years now. “We should get going. Carrie’s got an early morning.”
“Sure, then,” Dad said, looking at the clock over the stove. “Look at that time. It’s way past my bedtime.”
“It was really good to see you, Patrick” Carrie said, standing up to hug my Dad, kiss his cheek. “Take care of yourself, please.”
“Oh, that’s what I have Matt for. Good night you two,” he said and clapped me on the back. The old man gave me a cheeky little wink and headed for his bedroom. Which was now a suite we’d built off the living room so he had access to a bathroom, the kitchen and his garden without going up and down stairs.
Upstairs it was just my old room, which I kept clean with sheets on the bed for nights I needed to stay over, and Dad’s old bedroom, which had been turned into storage.
Carrie watched him go and turned back to me. There was some suspicion in her eyes and suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
“When was he sick before?” she asked. Our distraction hadn’t worked, apparently. “And how could you not tell me that?”
The hurt in her voice pierced my heart. She’d cared about Patrick like he was her own father. Which was why she would be gutted by the truth.
So, what was the point of bringing all that back up again now?
“Carrie, you’ve been gone for ten years. Shit has happened, okay? It’s not like we were on speaking terms. He’s okay now. I’m taking good care of him. That’s all that matters. We should go.”
She pursed her lips like she wanted to disagree, but then relented.
“Fine. Let me just hit the bathroom…”
“Upstairs,” I said. “Second door-”
“I know where the bathroom is, Matt,” she snapped.
Of course, she did.
It’s what I knew might happen. The longer she stayed in town.
All the memories would start to come back.
Her in this house. Her and Dad. The memories of that dive bar with the contest. How hard we’d all laughed. Dad got drunk and I drove us home. It had been about as good a day as I could’ve had. My whole world had been ahead of me and the two people I loved most were right beside me.
On nights like this it was hard to believe he was ever sick.
On nights like this it was hard to believe I pushed her away.
Upstairs I heard the toilet flush and the water run and I expected to hear the creak of the second step as she came down the stairs, but instead I heard the squeal of my bedroom door opening.
“Carrie?” I called up the stairs to her.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m just looking around.”
Immediately, I was pissed. All this useless yearning sharpened right into anger.
She just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I took the steps two at a time, settling into my frustration. Just holding onto it with both hands. Like a sword and a shield. I pushed open my door to find her standing in the middle of my old room in her cut off shorts and her sweatshirt.
“Carrie?”
“Look at this room, Matt. It’s the room time forgot.” She pointed at the wall of trophies and ribbons and medals. The pictures Dad had framed of the newspaper articles and the scholarship offer letter from BostonU.
I grunted. I really needed to take all this shit down.
I knew what she saw when she saw it. Her gasp gave it away.
The pictures of her. Of us. I had a wall of them, beside my bed. Dates and trips to the beach and the Fall Festival where we dominated the three-legged race for two years. The ferry. Dad. Us at meets. Her in stage make up carrying flowers I brought her. Endless pictures.
Never with her family, though. Not one.
“We were such babies,” she said quietly.
Her face in this room, against the blue walls and the posters and single bed where we’d fooled around so often and dreamed impossible dreams. It wrecked me.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”
She walked by me, where I stood in the doorway, and her shoulder brushed my chest and the smell of her – whiskey and stage paint was like a drug.
It was the buoy closet all over again. Suddenly I was out of control. I grabbed her wrist and she stopped still. Not looking at me. Just breathing.
“You never answered me,” I said, growled really, like an animal.
“What was the question?”
“When are you leaving town?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
I pulled her back into the room. I shut the door, trapping us here with the memories and each other and the threat of what I wanted to do to her. Her eyes narrowed.
“Matt Sullivan, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Tell me when you’re leaving.”
She kept her mouth shut. Her lips tight.
I had no choice. I swear to God, I didn’t.
She was daring me to do it. That leash on my control…it was frayed and threadbare. Too old to do any good against the need I had for her.
I kissed her. And if she wanted me to stop, I kissed right over it. If she had something to say – which she undoubtedly did, I kissed her quiet. I kissed her until she kissed me back. I kissed her until we were pressed up tightly against the door. My knee between her legs. Her arms around my neck.
It was the buoy closet but worse. Because we’d been laughing. Because she was in this room and she had no makeup on and her hair was falling down and she looked like a kid and made me feel like a kid.
I’d fought this for months.
Who the fuck was I kidding? I’d fought this for years.
I couldn’t fight another minute.
18
Carrie
In that moment, I made myself a dozen promises.
This wouldn’t mean anything.
I would stop after one more kiss.
One more touch.
But that was a lie.
It was happening and I couldn’t fight it anymore. Months of resisting him. Who was I fucking kidding? Years of resisting him.
I was exhausted.
He pulled off my sweatshirt and I let him. Telling myself it would only be one piece of clothing. Just one so we could have skin to skin contact.
He tore his mouth from mine, kissing my neck, the tops of my breasts, through my thin tank top. He grabbed my ass with both of his big hands. I loved this and he knew it. I felt control slipping away.
