“What do you mean?”
“I mean you and your sisters have school and I have work and our family is here and we have this house. I have a lot of responsibility, and my biggest and most important responsibility is to create a good life for you and your sisters. I promised your mom I would do everything in my power to make you three happy.”
“What about you? Didn’t Mama want you to be happy too?”
Sometimes Jana’s death feels decades past. Sometimes, like now, it feels like it happened last month. “Of course she did, but she also understood that sometimes a parent’s happiness has to come second to their children’s.”
Violet thinks about that, her brow tight, her lips twisting along with her brain. I stand and kiss her head. “Good night, honey.”
Before I turn off the light, she says, “Gia’s parents travel all the time.”
My shoulders sink. This conversation is clearly not over. So I sit back down on her bed.
“Her dad is in the army, and they’ve lived all over the world. She has an older brother and a little brother, and their dad used to go away for work, and he was gone a long time, and their family didn’t like it. So now they go with him wherever he travels. Her mom homeschools them when they aren’t in a town where there are good schools. Gia says they love it.” She pauses, meets my gaze deliberately, and asks, “Why can’t we go with Kat when she travels?”
I smile and stroke Violet’s hair. “She travels in a tiny boat out in the ocean where there’s nothing for miles.”
“Not always. She told me her favorite way to sail is along the coastline. That way, if she sees something interesting, she can investigate to see if she wants to stay awhile.”
“Do you two talk about sailing a lot?”
“Not anymore. Since you two don’t like each other anymore, it’s hard to get her to talk about it, but when she does, you can tell she loves it. She gets happy.”
“Which is exactly why she should go.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t go too.” Violet’s frustrated with me. I’m clearly not explaining things to her satisfaction, which usually means I’m underestimating her ability to understand a topic. “That catamaran she showed us was big.”
I laugh. “Maybe to someone your size.”
“It had room for everyone. Poppy and Jazz and I could even have our own bedrooms.”
“Sweetie, this house isn’t free, and I have a job. I can’t exactly work out on the ocean where there are no people or even work when we’re moving from place to place. Employers want to know you’re going to come in every day. That can’t happen when you’re sailing the way Kat does. I also think it’s important to mention the fact that we weren’t invited to stay permanently, only to visit.” I fluff her covers. “Now, come on, get to sleep.”
“Kat doesn’t need a job. She saved her money, and now she doesn’t have to work.”
I stand and sigh. “We can’t all be independently wealthy.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I heard you talking to Aunt Jackie, and I know you have a lot of money saved from when we sold our house in San Diego.”
Man, I forget how much they hear and see. Nothing like a heart-to-heart with your kid to see yourself in a different light. “That’s called a college fund.”
She crosses her arms with a frown and a pmph, then mutters, “I think it’s called an excuse.”
I laugh. She’s certainly picked up Kat’s quick retorts. I turn off her light.
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” she asks.
I recognize the question as one Jana used to ask the kids all the time. I always loved the way it tore down mental roadblocks for the girls. Now, my eleven-year-old is turning the question on me. “Honey, I’m tired, and I still have to clean up. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
I close her door halfway and head down to the kitchen. “I think that’s called an excuse,” I say smiling. “Smartass.”
But what continues to play over and over in my mind is “I don’t understand why we can’t go too.”
That isn’t something that even came into the realm of possibility in all this chaos, nor should it be. Not only don’t I sail, I don’t travel. Jana and I never had the money, or the kids were too little, or I was at a new job, or she got cancer. There was always an excuse.
But when I think about the possibility, that glimmer reappears, the one that sparkled to life when Kat suggested the idea on a smaller scale, and it’s begging me to come closer for a better look.
Only, that’s not what Kat offered. She didn’t say come away with me, she said come visit me, two very different ideas. The former holding one hell of a lot more responsibility and commitment. And Kat isn’t big on commitment.
With my hands braced against the quartz countertop of the ten-foot-long island, I stare blankly into the family room. “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
My mind drifts back to the night Jana died. I held her hand and cried while she told me what a good husband and father and friend I’d always been. How she had no doubt the girls would flourish in my care. How this chapter of my life with her was ending, but that a new one was just beginning for me. She wanted me to grab hold of life with one hand and the girls with the other and live like I was living for her too.
“What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” The question seems simple on the surface, but it’s not at all. There are levels of fear. Waves and surges. I think through my feelings for Kat and all the fears entangled in those emotions.
I’m afraid I’m not enough for Kat. I’m afraid my feelings for her are blinding me to where I really need to focus, and I’m afraid of being naïve and foolish. I’m afraid she’ll find a man she wants more than she wants me. I’m afraid of losing her after I’ve invested myself, heart, body, and soul, and I’m afraid of letting the girls get in deep with her, only to lose another woman they love.
“Jesus Christ.” I straighten and rub my face with both hands. I have so many fears, it’s shocking I can function at all.
I have some serious soul searching to do, because it’s clear fear has been running my life for the last four years, and I have no fucking idea what I’d do if I wasn’t afraid.
21
KT
Warm air brushes my skin and joy pulses through my veins as I take in the last sail and secure it before trolling toward the dock and positioning the boat in her slip.
Hayward Croft, the boat’s owner, comes out of the marina’s office and approaches the slip, smiling. I toss him a line, and he ties it off as I work on another. He’s American, but hops between several different countries, where he has a home in each. He’s probably in his sixties, and he’s fit, definitely still fit enough to sail this boat.
“She sure looks good out there,” he says, straightening. “Nice to see her in such capable hands.”
“She’s easy to run.” And damn fun too.
I start to clean up, but Croft waves me off. “The guys will do that. Take a walk with me.”