“Beth…”
“Tell me, Keith,” she demands in a tone not to be ignored.
“I did everything I could to save her when she could not be saved.” I collapse to the ground. I don’t even know where I am. The air is mild, and the ground is hard and my heart hurts. “I couldn’t save her.”
“No. You could not.”
My eyes blink open. Staring. Unseeing. But seeing everything I never saw before.
“You do not need to save Maia. She is not Amy. She will not be in that bathtub. You’re not going to lose her the way you lost Amy. You need to find faith in that, Keith.”
I nod. I know this. Maia is not Amy, and Amy was not Maia. “The dream felt so real.”
“And you might have others. Grief is a multifaceted thing. It is not stationary. It moves. It flows. But you have all the tools you need to combat it. You’re ready. You deserve love. You deserve Maia.”
I do. I deserve love and I deserve Maia.
“You need to talk to her about your dream. About what happened. About all the work we’ve been doing these weeks because if she’s not a part of it, then she can’t help you the way you need her to.”
“I ran out on her,” I manage on a strained whisper. How will she ever forgive me after that? After the things I said to her?
“Then you might have to chase after her, so she knows you’ll never run from her again.”
32
Maia
* * *
My mind races, flying through ugly thoughts and even uglier directions. The things he said. I don’t know how to make sense of the things he said. He was panicked. He wasn’t himself. He had just woken from a nightmare.
I know all of this.
But for some reason, I find no solace in that.
It’s impossible to be there for someone when they won’t open up to you. He told me what happened to Amy and that he needed time to work everything through but that was the last we spoke about it. He ran out of here and called someone immediately to talk to them.
Someone who isn’t me.
How can one man give so much and so little at the same time?
What if your past is just too much to overcome, no matter how hard you try? No matter who loves you in the present? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to reach him. I don’t know what to say or how to comfort him.
I just know that I love him and I’m afraid of losing him.
I also appreciate that I might have already.
I can’t lie on this bed any longer waiting for him to return, so I finish packing up the remainder of my stuff and then take a shower. I get myself dressed and ready though it’s little more than three a.m. and our flight doesn’t leave until ten.
Then I sit. And then I stand. And then I pace.
I hold my phone like it’s a lifeline and I debate texting and calling him so many times I’m shocked my phone doesn’t reach out and bitch slap me. It’s been more than an hour since he left and I… I don’t know what to do.
“Tell me what to do,” I demand of my phone who just stares blankly back at me. It’s like it’s mocking me now and I think I’m going just a touch crazy. And when my phone lights up like a lighthouse in the stormy night sky, I jump only to realize it’s not Keith calling me.
It’s a number I don’t recognize from an area code I wish I didn’t.
I don’t want to answer but I’m so flipping angry and frustrated and scared and upset because it’s not Keith calling that maybe taking out my ire on my father isn’t the worst of ideas. “Didn’t I tell you never to call me again,” I spew into the phone as I answer, only to be greeted with silence on the other end. I pull the phone away and stare at it. Yup, whoever called is still on the line. Suddenly I’m considering that this may not be my father calling from a different number. And at this hour. “Hello?”
“Um. Yes. Hello. Is this Maia Angelo?”
Oops. Not my father. “Yes. Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“Maia, this is Travis Gold. I’m not sure if you remember me or not. We lived in the same park growing up.”
I blink into the darkness of the room. “You were three trailers down and across the way. You graduated the year I entered high school.”
“Yes,” he says, sounding so relieved that I remember him when all I can think is, why is he calling me at three-thirty in the morning. “I apologize for calling you at this hour. Maia,” he says my name in such a way that has me sitting down, my hand over my heart that’s suddenly pounding in my chest. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I am the deputy police detective for Brookside. I don’t know how to do this other than to just say it. Maia, I’m sorry to inform you that your father is dead.”
I feel like I should gasp. Cover my mouth in shocked horror. That’s what they always do in my films. Old and new, that’s what they do. But I’m not doing that. I’m not in shocked horror. Strangely I feel numb.
“What happened?”
He clears his throat. “Your father was shot and then his trailer was set on fire. Your neighbors called it in immediately, and the fire was put out before the entire trailer burned.”
“I’m sorry, did you say he was shot?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night before last. We had some difficulty obtaining your phone number.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Giovanni Carvalo was arrested almost immediately after, but I cannot speak to the specifics of an open investigation.”
Carvalo?!
I fall back onto the bed, throwing my arm over my forehead, my mind spinning. “You’re telling me Giovanni Carvalo is in custody and my father is dead?”
“Yes, Maia. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I’m so sorry for your loss. There’s a lot to explain, none of which I can do over the phone.” He clears his throat again. “We’re actually going to need you to fly here if you’re able. Part of this case has fallen under the jurisdiction of the FBI—”
“The FBI?” I bark incredulously.
“Yes. The FBI.” I stare sightlessly up at the ceiling, unable to wrap my head around what he’s telling me.
“My father?” Really? The FBI?
“Are you able to come home?”
Home? Is that a joke? I have no home. At least that’s how it feels right now.
“The FBI would like to meet with you and ask some questions. I’m sure you’d also like to start making arrangements for your father.”
Ummm… yeah, not so much. Not sure if that makes me a bad person or not, but no, I honestly don’t want to make arrangements for my father. And truth be told, I don’t want to meet with the FBI either. I swore I would never step foot back in Brookside. That my father was no longer my father. That I put that life behind me even if I was stuck paying down those debts.
Carvalo is in jail. My father is dead. Shot.
“Maia?” he says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yes.” I pull my phone away and see it’s still so early it’s almost comical. “I’ll catch the first flight up and be there as soon as I can be. I’m in Texas at the moment and I have no idea how long it will take me.”