“Yeah, and where he is, and his phone number too.”
My heart was pounding fast as hell when I heard the tiny, barely audible voice of Lucinda through the ear piece. “Hi, I was wondering if I could talk to Jaxon,” said Lexi. “I’m just a friend of his from Winthrop. I’ve been gone a little while and came back to his apartment and he’s not living there… Oh, right. Do you know where he is then? No, I didn’t know about that. Do you know the name of the work place? Oh…” Her face fell and she looked at me with pressed lips as she listened. “Would you happen to have his phone number? Tried calling that too but couldn’t get a hold of him… Okay, no that’s alright. I gotta go. Thank you very much. Bye.”
The second she hung up, I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Well?”
“She said he’s moved away.”
“Where?”
Lexi paused and then sighed, looking away from my eyes. “She… She said he’s taken some job overseas. A long term one.”
I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. “What? Where overseas?”
“She said he didn’t want to disclose that information to anyone, so she couldn’t say. But that it was a really good job, and he’s expected to be gone for a long time.”
“What’s the job?”
“I don’t know. She was being really vague, like she didn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t have a number either. She said he just wants to focus on his work, but that he’s doing really well and he’s very happy, and that she’d let him know I called. Then she asked for my name and I just told her I had to go.” When she saw the look on my face, she brought me in for a hug. “I’m sorry, Sara. Maybe you should give her a call too.”
“She already told you everything I needed to know,” I whispered, closing my eyes as tightly as possible, as if that could prevent the tears from falling.
Just like now, in the car, with my head down and my shoulders slumped. He’s doing really well and he’s very happy. That knowledge was akin to someone taking a hammer to my heart and beating it to shreds. My leaving had given him a good job overseas somewhere, and he was happy. The break-up had been the right thing to do after all. It’d given him purpose to excel in other things in life, and the fact I’d been so miserable and he’d been so happy in that month I’d been gone just confirmed to me how toxic I’d been. It must have hit him like a truck. He would have woken up the next morning and not have heard me bitch and moan about something he’d done wrong. He wouldn’t have had to get up, count to ten to calm his patience down, and then try to thaw the ice that was my personality. God, he’d tried so hard in our relationship. He deserved so much better.
Five years was a long time, and in that time I’d come so far. Therapy and anger management were just some of the things I’d undergone to change. I’d also taken up meditation, and yoga. At one point I took an art class with Lexi, but I butchered that skill after three classes and never returned. My therapist continued to press me to try more things. Nothing held my interest for long, but I was still at it years later. Lexi and I were currently in cooking class, so our baking skills had dramatically improved and we’d been indulging in many forbidden treats – and eating was a kind of therapy too.
I was lucky, or so Dr Shipton said. I’d caught my problem early on, and the taming of my inner beast was easier than it would have been had I let it sit there and simmer any longer. There were triggers to the anger. Though Lucinda had given me that speech on independency, the only reason it’d sunk in so far was because of witnessing my mother’s hopeless relationship with my devil of a father. She had done nothing for herself, and even after he’d left, she’d depended on me to take care of her addiction. Witnessing that kind of dependency in a figure that was meant to guide me through life had impacted me more than I thought possible.
But she’s dead now. She’s dead. Dead. The word still hadn’t sunk in. My mother wasn’t alive anymore. She’d died horrifically, and had I had a fucking phone I’d have made it to her funeral. I suppressed the guilt because it wasn’t really my fault. The last time I’d contacted her was through a text, letting her know my number had changed. She’d never called me from the time I left home. We were strangers, and always were. I knew nothing of the woman that died. Never did either. Memories reminded me she’d left me to fend for myself.
“Get a grip on yourself,” I mumbled. “Get this fucking done and go back home.” Back to the familiarity of Lexi and Daniel – that was my present bliss.
I started the car and followed the directions of the GPS. God, Daniel’s car was the sexiest thing I’d ever driven.
What was supposed to be a three-hour drive had taken me five, but after that last stop, I got my shit together and rode all the way into town. When I saw the sign of Gosnells, I internally shuddered and then the nostalgia flooded in when I drove past a familiar farm. I couldn’t stop looking around the place. The other farms were gone and replaced by large suburban developments still in the works. There were signs out front of every developing area, and one that said, “Maple Springs can be your future home. Low interest rates, buy now!”
If it hadn’t been for the GPS tracking my whereabouts, I would have been completely lost. Gosnells was on steroids; new streets, so many shops, and so many people. When I drove through the center of town, I marveled at one of the major shopping centers. It’d been extended and refurbished; no longer looking like an old derelict warehouse I used to buy groceries from with Lucinda.
Fuck, when her name sprang up, I cautiously looked around the streets as if she would sprout out in front of me at any second. I panicked knowing I was in the same vicinity as her. I was not ready to face up to her, and deep inside I knew I never would be.
When I hit my small neighborhood, I gasped at every townhouse I drove past. Every lawn was manicured and had a bush or a small section of flowers. The townhouses looked the same, but there was something different in the air. I just didn’t know what.
I parked in the parking lot that belonged to the aisle of townhouses ahead of me, one being my old home. I pulled out my phone and dialed the landlord’s number. I told him I’d arrived. Ten minutes later, he rocked up in a van and came out with the key in his hand. Mr Diaz was a cheery, fat little man with rosy cheeks and a grey beard.
“Sara Nolan, yes?” he asked in a thick accent.
“Yes,” I said with a pretend smile, walking with him to my old home.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Sara.” He cast me a sympathetic look as I took the key from him. “Your mother was a very lovely tenant. When I took over from the previous owner, I went around and introduced myself to all the tenants, and she invited me in for tea and biscuits. I’ll never forget how kind she was every time I was in the neighborhood.”
I blinked and my smile faltered. What the fuck did he just say? Lovely tenant? Tea and biscuits? “Right,” was all that escaped me.
“Very sweet woman. I went to her funeral last week. So many people there. She was very loved.”
“Was she?” I couldn’t hide the disbelief in my voice as we stopped at the front door of the townhouse. I faced him with wide eyes. “Who went to her funeral?”