Surviving Goodbye Read online

  “You’re here,” he said, a little surprised as he looked up from his laptop. Then his tone shifted. “Shit, Elliot, you’re here. Take a seat.”

  I dropped into the chair, raised my eyebrows because I knew what was coming. “This doesn’t have to be awkward, or difficult—”

  He interrupted me. “No, it doesn’t, but let me say my piece, Elliot.” He removed his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose, and gave me the most sympathetic eyes I had ever seen from another man. “When Karen passed away, you were lost. Elliot, we understood that, we accommodated you, approved all of your time off so that you could properly grieve the loss of your wife. Everyone knew how she was your center, how she kept you focused, grounded, and happy, and living and all of that. So in many ways, we mourned your loss right along with you because what you and your wife shared was something most people spend their entire life seeking.”

  I gave him a thankful nod. “It wasn’t easy.”

  That was when Tom’s face hardened a little, and he frowned the kind of frown that said I had forgotten some kind of confidential material on the general-area photocopier, or peed with the stall door open in the co-ed bathroom. “But then something changed in you, Elliot. We noticed that, too. You went from being this guy who lost the center of his universe to this guy who lost…” he searched for the words and, since I knew first-hand how annoying it was when someone else didn’t want to help you, I decided to pitch in, help him out.

  “I lost hope, didn’t I?”

  At first, he liked my choice of words, but then he shook his head, no. “You didn’t lose hope so much as you hated the prospect of it. You refused to step outside your comfort zone, you balled yourself up and wrapped yourself in that hatred.” At that, he seemed to hug himself, his hands squeezing opposite shoulders before dropping his arms back to his sides. “You became the kind of guy that doesn’t work in the Finance department of one of the world’s largest logistics companies, but the kind of guy that works in—”

  “Sales?” I suggested.

  Tom closed his eyes and wrestled back the hints of a smirk. He shook his head slowly, and when his eyes opened he was back to being Tom, my boss, the Finance Manager of, you guessed it, one of the world’s largest logistics companies. “Hang on to that sense of humor, Elliot. Don’t lose that.”

  With that, he reached into a drawer and produced an envelope that he slid across the desk. He watched me dig inside and read the opening paragraph of my termination notice, my eyes lingering there a whole lot longer than they should have. I saw a number, but no date (they used “immediately” instead of giving me an actual date).

  “I’ll write nothing but glowing reference letters,” Tom promised, standing up and settling his glasses back on his nose. “But I just can’t have you working here any longer. I’m sorry.”

  I tucked the paperwork back into the envelope, shook Tom’s hand and left without saying anything. I had just lost my job, the first time I’d ever been “fired,” and it didn’t hurt quite as much as I had expected.

  During my casual stroll back through the business unit, out through reception and to the parking lot, I made some mental calculations to see just how long I would burn through this severance while I fulfilled the one commitment I should’ve tackled the day after Karen died.

  It seemed absurd, really. Worrying about the length of time my severance would last seemed counterproductive. But once I settled behind the steering wheel and got the engine started, I reached for my phone and accessed the calculator application. I tapped the numbers out a dozen different times, always with the same result.

  “Nine fucking months,” I breathed. I wanted to scream, not because it seemed like enough money to carry me through to the end of my mission, but because it didn’t seem like nearly enough.

  Because nine months wasn’t very long when I didn’t know where to start.

  Chapter 3

  What-ifs had haunted me in the days and months following Karen’s death. Her confession had opened so many doors. And those doors led to the darkest rooms, rooms filled with demons, demons that crushed all of my beliefs in life’s good things—like love.

  I sat at the kitchen island for a long time, my termination notice before me on the counter, and many of those what-ifs returned, distracting me from the words on the page that promised two cash deposits over the course of the month. Tom’s final words before shaking my hand reminded me of Karen’s confession about Lena. He had said those things as a way to clear his mind—you didn’t lose hope so much as you hated the prospect of it. His words were not intended to make me feel any better. Karen’s confession had had the same selfish, self-liberating feel to it. Her words weren’t meant to comfort me; they were meant to transfer the guilt from her shoulders onto mine.

  I fucking hated her for that.

  When the front door opened, I spun around on my stool and watched Elena rush inside, tossing her bag with a heavy thud onto the foyer floor. She rushed to the bathroom without acknowledging me, probably without even seeing me.

  The bathroom door closed, which surprised me. Lena normally preferred to annoy me, peeing with the door open and leaving the toilet un-flushed like she might be leaving a gift of some sort.

  But then I heard the sounds that made most men cringe.

  Vomiting. The sploshing sound of stomach fluids dropping into water followed the unmistakable, guttural gagging that accompanied the act of vomiting. I hadn’t noticed until now that I had walked down the hall and stood next to the bathroom door, my hand on the wooden frame, holding my breath and hoping that my daughter—who wasn’t biologically mine in the first place—would be okay.

  When I heard the toilet flush, I nearly fell over. Not because my feet felt clumsy and numb after witnessing those sounds from the young woman I had essentially neglected for the past year, but because I had come to believe that she didn’t know where to find the lever. This day had truly been one of surprises.

  I crept back to the kitchen island, grabbed my notice and pretended to read it, just like I had pretended to read it back at the office with Tom’s eyes watching me. Except now, after I heard the bathroom door open and Lena’s footsteps stomp up to the refrigerator—I called them elephant feet because she moved with the ninja-stealth grace and silence of a full-sized elephant—I felt my daughter’s eyes on me instead.

  “What are you looking at?” she hissed.

  I raised my attention from the paper and watched her reach into the refrigerator for the water container. She curled her lips around the spout. Nicely done; I reminded myself to avoid the spring water.

  “I feel much better now,” she breathed, replacing the water container in the refrigerator then setting off on a rampage through the pantry. I glanced back toward the foyer where I caught a glimpse of the Liberator package, just the edge of it because the wall cut into my line of sight.

  “You received a delivery today, Lena.”

  “Uh huh, okay, where are those blueberry-cream cookies?” she asked. “I’m fucking starving.”

  “Did you see the delivery from Liberator?”

  That seemed to stop her. Peeing with the door open and puking her face off didn’t nudge her off-balance one little bit, but the mention of a Liberator delivery sure seemed to do the trick.

  “Something about a wedge being the best sex invention since the—”

  “Shut up,” she said and spun around.

  I expected rosy cheeks and a somber expression, so the smile and elation that I saw instead came as a bit of a shock. She sprinted from the kitchen, straight to the foyer, and studied the humiliating box that Veronica had delivered. She giggled at the reality of it. I couldn’t help but smile at her reaction, but deep down I found her interest in this kind of thing rather disturbing. At sixteen, she should be enjoying battery-operated karaoke microphones, not sex toys.

  Now it was my turn to feel a little queasy. Her boyfriend was a little older….

  “Lena,” I asked, coming up behind her t
o carry the package downstairs. “What are you doing with this kind of thing? You know I can’t allow that guy to come around anymore.”

  “Shut up,” she groaned with a hiss in her tone that sounded forced, insincere. Had something happened with her boyfriend?

  I prayed for what every father of a young daughter prayed for: a break-up. That guy had enough ink on his arms to make a stationery store blush. Fuck, was I getting old?

  “This box,” I answered, giving it a curt nod as I started down the stairs, “has given me an image of my daughter that would drive most fathers absolutely insane.”

  I heard her trailing behind me, and her lack of a smartass response suggested she (still) liked my protective nature. At the bottom stair, I dropped the box on the floor and faced her, finding her with her arms crossed over her chest and a sudden scowl on her face.

  “That guy you don’t like is Joffrey.”

  “Like your uncle? That’s gross.”

  She made a disgusted face. “No. Joffrey, with an ‘O,’ like Game of Thrones, like ‘O’ for orga—”

  “Okay, okay,” I shouted, covering my ears. “La-la-la-la-la.”

  That did it. Lena burst into laughter, covering her mouth with a shaking hand and trying to hide her perfect teeth (courtesy of my dental benefits, which would carry forward for the next six months, according to the severance letter) and glowing eyes (courtesy of Karen’s genetics, and possibly her biological father’s. Something I would only know once I finally tracked him down). “I was going to say organism.”

  I rolled my eyes, then pointed to the package with finality. “You can use it for chiropractic purposes only. Deal?”

  Back to the staring contest.

  “If I have any suspicions, I’ll come down here and take it to the…”

  An eyebrow rose. “Where would you take that kind of thing, Papa Bear? The homeless shelter?”

  I huffed and walked back up the stairs.

  “I love you too,” she called after me.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Can you please, please, please go get me some of those blueberry-cream cookies?” she begged.

  I ignored her request and said, “I hope you feel better soon, Lena.”

  Closing the basement door, I returned to the kitchen island and checked the time. Just as I began to re-read my termination notice for the fifty-ninth time, the phone rang. My cell phone, the iPhone that I couldn’t locate in my pocket where I normally kept it. I looked under the paperwork then scanned the kitchen area, finally tracking it down next to the Keurig where a now-cold cup of chai latte was waiting for me. Frowning, I wondered how I had forgotten about the tea. Regardless, I grabbed the phone, swiped my finger across the screen and answered.

  “Elliot, don’t say anything. Just listen.”

  I recognized Jamie’s voice immediately.

  “Are you there? Are you listening?”

  I cupped my hand over my mouth. “I thought you said to not say anything?”

  “Right, but I wanted to make sure it was you, Elliot. Just in case Elena picked up your phone.”

  I waited for him to continue, but the heavy white noise of silence clung to the line instead. This silly exchange annoyed me almost as much as the wasted K-cup. Removing my hand from my face, I let out a sigh. “Jamie, are you high?”

  He chuckled, and I figured that was an affirmative. “Maybe a little. And drunk too, but that’s not why I called.” He cleared his throat and his tone changed. A lot. Back to the dead seriousness from when I first answered. “I lied to you earlier.”

  I closed my eyes, relieved and feeling a little emotional at the same time. “I need that letter.”

  “Don’t say anything,” he reminded me. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at Toast for lunch.”

  I thought about the termination letter as I glanced back over my shoulder at the papers on the island. Spending twenty dollars for lunch didn’t appeal to me while my income was limited. Then again, Jamie had the letter I needed.

  “Still there, Elliot?”

  I faced the annoying Keurig again. “What about Panera? Or even the Cosi.”

  “You want this letter or what?” he asked. “I’ve got a meeting at the B of A until noon, so I’ll need a nice lunch. Do you want this thing or not?”

  I asked myself whether delivering Lena’s biological father to her was worth the twenty bucks for a grilled cheese sammy and a cup of soup or salad. “Yes,” I said, answering my own question. “Okay, tomorrow at Toast.”

  He chuckled. More than just a little buzzed, I thought. “Okay, okay, you win. Tomorrow at Toast. See you then, Elliot.”

  Before he could disconnect, I called his name.

  “Can’t wait, can you?” he asked, chuckling.

  “No, that’s not it,” I answered. “I’m just wondering why you lied to me this afternoon. I drove all that way, Jamie. I thought we were tighter than that.” I sighed, let those words sink in, and hoped for some kind of response that he never provided. “So what’s the big deal with the letter, Jamie?” This time, I maintained my resolve and allowed the silence to evolve into an uncomfortable space between two men on their respective phones.

  Jamie groaned. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine him scratching his head, rubbing his red, puffy eyes and maybe even pacing a little. He didn’t want to answer my question, but I refused to break that silence.

  “Hey, Elliot?” he said at last, and the softness in his voice suggested he didn’t want to speak about this. “What my sister did—I mean, what she wrote? It’s not something I’m proud about.” His voice cracked, but he quickly regained composure.

  I swore that I heard him pulling a swig from a bottle, something heavy like Jack Daniels, and the wispy breath he released a moment later only reinforced my personal theory.

  “I loved Karen more than anything,” he confessed. “She was my sister. She wasn’t supposed to die. She wasn’t supposed to get cancer.” He huffed again, and this time I heard him drop into one of those cozy armchairs in his office. “And she sure as fuck wasn’t supposed to do what she wrote about in that letter.”

  My eyes were closed, so I snapped them open again. The house felt empty, about as empty as my chest. “Goodnight, Jamie. Tomorrow. Toast. I’ll see you tomorrow at Toast.”

  I disconnected before he could say anything else, or change his mind.

  Chapter 4

  Will, Samuel, and Nathan. Nathan, Samuel, and Will.

  These names bounced and pirouetted through my mind while I waited at the table for two, sitting there with a glass of water and wondering how much longer it would take Jamie to arrive. The Bank of America branch where he’d had his meeting was literally less than a block away. But even at a quarter past noon, he hadn’t yet arrived.

  When the waitress returned, I ordered my sandwich because I hated taking up a table at this busy time of day, and those three names, those three other men that I knew Karen had slept with before we ever met brought the reality of my mission a lot closer to home.

  Am I really thinking about approaching past boyfriends and sexual partners? What were the chances she would have a second go with one of them and get pregnant in the process?

  It seemed so incredibly unlikely that Karen would return to one of them. Will never gave her an orgasm, probably because he was her first. Samuel was something of a germophobe and refused to go down on her, or have sex if it had been more than twenty minutes since she had last showered (I didn’t completely understand where the twenty-minute rule had come from, I would have to look it up online). Nathan had allegedly been her best, but she didn’t like the curve of his dick or the way he would get a little rough as he came closer to his own orgasm. Then again, she had known him pre-Fifty Shades of Grey, so maybe in those months leading up to our wedding day, she had wandered back for more of the rough stuff.

  Without these three men—I would start with Nathan, then Samuel and finally Will—I didn’t know where else to begin my search for Lena’s biological father.r />
  At last, I felt a hand pound the upper part of my back.

  “Hey, Elliot,” Jamie said, sliding into the seat across from me. He glanced at his menu briefly, then placed it back on the table. “I forgot the letter,” he admitted right away and laughed.

  “Fuck’s sake,” I whispered under my breath, glancing at the time on my wrist. I didn’t know the first thing about Nathan, including his last name. I started to rise when—

  “Ah, come on, Elliot, let’s eat at least—”

  —the waitress arrived with my sandwich. So I sat back down, refusing to meet Jamie’s stare, and started eating as he recited his own order. Once the waitress walked away, he cleared his throat.

  “Elliot,” Jamie said, placing his palms upright on the table in an offer of vulnerability. “Listen to me. I shouldn’t have called you last night.”

  “But you did,” I answered, speaking with a mouth full of food. “And it’s my fucking letter, Jamie.” I poked at the table to hammer my point home, swallowing the food so my words didn’t leave him with any question about what I meant. “I’ll meet you at your house at five-thirty tonight. I want the last letter my wife ever wrote to me.”

  Those face-up palms curled into fists before he drew them off the table and planted them in his lap. His eyes shifted a little before settling back on me. “You don’t want to read what she wrote.”

  “But I do.”

  “You don’t.” He sighed. “She was on another planet, jacked up on morphine and everything else they had her taking. I’ve read Morgan Parker novels that made better sense.”

  “Did she sign her name?”

  He frowned, confused. “Pardon me?”

  “At the bottom of the page, what name did she put on the letter, Jamie?”