The Way We Break Read online

  I leaped off the sofa and raced to the front door, glancing over my shoulder at my mother’s worried face as I reached for the doorknob. Turning the knob, I braced myself for the inevitable fury that would hit me the moment I saw my father’s face. But when I pulled the door open, I wasn’t prepared for the avalanche of grief that cascaded through me.

  Each breath I took came in short deliberate gasps as the tears flowed freely from my eyes. Overwhelmed with heartache and the images painted in Hallie’s letter. I had not been allowed to grieve properly when Hallie died. I’d been denied the answers I needed for closure. Now, I had the answers, and the sickening mental images, and the one person who could have prevented it all was standing right in front of me. The grief slammed into me like a freight train, violent and unstoppable.

  My father stood in my doorway in his gray suit and black overcoat, his brow furrowed below his closely cropped dark hair. “Rory.”

  “How could you?” I whispered, my voice strangled by the knot in my throat.

  He reached for me as I clutched my chest, as if I could physically hold the splintered pieces of my heart together.

  I held out my hand to stop him. “Don’t touch me.”

  He took a step back, his face flushed with frustration. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he insisted.

  “How could you?” I bellowed from somewhere deep inside me, a place where my memories of Hallie weren’t distorted by the knowledge of their affair. A place I longed to get back to.

  The door across the hall opened immediately, as if Mrs. Vernor had been waiting for this confrontation with as much anticipation as I had. Her silver hair curled and poofed, her dark-brown eyes widened when she saw my father.

  “Are you all right, honey?” she asked me.

  I didn’t want her to know that this man who had never once visited me at my apartment was my father. He was always too busy. For the past two years, he’d insisted we meet for lunch downtown instead of at my place or his. Lord knew how many young minxes he kept at his downtown condo.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Vernor,” I replied, then I opened the door for my father to step inside. “Sorry if we disturbed you.”

  Mrs. Vernor didn’t look convinced, but she retreated inside her apartment as I closed my door behind me.

  I needed to get a grip on my emotions. But as I turned around to face my parents, all I could see was the words I’d read in Hallie’s letter. No matter how many times I read it, I couldn’t figure out if Hallie was trying to cover up for my father. What if their affair didn’t begin three days after Hallie’s eighteenth birthday? What if it started when she was underage? And even if it did begin when she was eighteen, did that make it any less wrong?

  My mother and father glanced at each other and exchanged a curt nod as he stood awkwardly next to the coffee table. They had spent more than twenty years together as each other’s most intimate confidantes, and now they were reduced to brusque gestures. This affair had torn my family apart and yet I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with Hallie. She had gone through a very similar situation when her father was caught cheating on her mother. Only, Hallie had to go through it at a much younger age. It was no wonder she pursued my father. Just like it was no wonder I got caught up in an affair with Houston.

  I am my father’s daughter.

  I swallowed hard at this thought. As I opened my mouth to voice my disgust with what my father had done, a knock at the door interrupted me. Sighing with frustration, I yanked it open, prepared to tell Mrs. Vernor to mind her own business. But it wasn’t Mrs. Vernor. It was Houston.

  Liam’s truck hits a bump and I’m yanked out of my thoughts. The scene before me materializes, then reality punches me in the gut. We’re now bumping along a narrow road at Pioneer Cemetery. The rain is coming down so hard, I can barely see the grave markers. But I remember quite clearly we have to take the first right and go all the way down until the road begins to curve left.

  Liam parks the truck and reaches for the umbrella in the cab.

  I place my hand on his arm to stop him. “I need to go alone.”

  He nods. “Okay, but you need to take the umbrella.”

  I take the green umbrella from him and gaze into his crystal-blue eyes. “Thank you for bringing me here. It means a lot to me.”

  He smiles faintly. “I know.”

  I push the passenger door open and stick the umbrella out of the truck so I can open it before I step into the downpour. The rain batters the nylon and a few fat drops hit the back of my head as I hop out of the truck. Landing in a shallow puddle, I mentally curse myself for wearing sneakers instead of rain boots.

  I slam the truck door shut behind me then slog across the soggy grass toward the second-to-last gravestone in this row of markers. The ground sloshes under my feet as the rain batters my umbrella, making it almost impossible to hear my own thoughts. The smell of wet stone and decaying earth is overwhelming.

  A deep chill settles into my bones the nearer I get to the end of the row. I walk between the banks of stone crosses and Gothic tablets memorializing people who were once as alive and vibrant and loved as Hallie. Finally, I reach the plain stone marker with Hallie’s name on it and my fingers tighten painfully around the umbrella handle.

  The stone reads “Hallie R. Cavanaugh. May 14, 1990—December 4, 2008. A much loved daughter, sister, and friend. Forever in our hearts.”

  Six years later and I still can’t believe it. Like it’s just an elaborate hoax and Hallie is going to walk up behind me right now and say, Gotcha! The rest of my life seems hazy and incomplete when I try to imagine it without her. She won’t be my maid of honor. I won’t be her firstborn’s godmother. We won’t be playing bingo together in a nursing home. She’s just gone.

  The cold seeps inside my twill jacket and I instantly begin to shiver. Wiping the tears from my face, I kneel before the gravestone, paying no mind to the muddy rainwater soaking through the knees of my jeans. I reach out and trace the H of Hallie’s name.

  “Hallie.” I whisper her name aloud. “I miss you so much.” The patter of the rain on my umbrella fills the spaces between my words, a solemn drumbeat. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry I never saw this coming.” Once the first apology tumbles out of my mouth, the rest come in a relentless torrent. “I’m sorry I didn’t see how badly you were suffering. I should have pushed you to talk to me, or someone. I should have known something was wrong with you that morning instead of thinking everything was about me. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend.”

  I rub my fingertips over the pain in my chest as I take a long draw of cold December air, letting out each caustic breath slowly in an attempt to calm myself. After a few deep breaths, the pain in my chest lessens to a dull ache.

  “Most of all,” I whisper, “I’m sorry for all the times I’ve been angry with you the past six years. You were my sister, Hal. I’ve never hated you. And I never will.” I kiss the tips of my fingers and touch them to the rough wet stone as I stand. “I’ll never stop wanting you back.”

  My tattoo starts burning as I walk back to the car. Glancing at my arm, I see my left sleeve is soaked with rain from touching the gravestone. The bandage is probably wet, too. Liam hops out of the car and rushes around to the passenger side to open the door for me. I hand him the umbrella and he closes the door behind me before making his way back to the driver’s side. He shakes out the umbrella a little before he sticks it in the backseat, and Skippy and Sparky finally wake from their doggy nap.

  Liam’s face is impassive as he scratches Skippy’s head. “How do you feel?”

  “Better.”

  “Good. So you’re ready for an eleven-hour road trip?” He flashes me that perfect smile that always warms my insides and I have no choice but to say yes.

  Even if I’m actually terrified I’m making a huge mistake. The truth is, I’ve been living my life too carefully for the past six years. My world has been hermetically sealed off from any possibility of pain or mistakes for far too lo
ng. It’s time to tear off the wrapper and take some risks. Maybe stumble a bit. That’s the stuff that makes every story more interesting.

  I’m certain that’s why I had trouble finishing my book before Houston came back into my life. And why, ever since he returned, I’ve been writing more pages than my fingers can keep up with.

  “I’m ready,” I reply with a genuine smile. “Let’s move to California.”

  September 5, 2014

  I didn’t know there was such a thing as pre-divorce counseling until I handed Tessa divorce papers last week and she responded by handing me a business card with the name of a therapist who specializes in it. Now I’m sitting in this therapist’s office, gritting my teeth and trying to convince myself the next four to six weeks of my life won’t be a complete waste of time, when I can go back to Rory a free man. Four to six weeks is how long it will take for the divorce to go through, which isn’t very long compared to some other states, where it can take as long as six to twelve months. But it still feels like an eternity.

  “How are you feeling today, Houston?”

  Dr. Mansfield crosses his ankle over his knee as he asks the question, making himself comfortable as he’s in the process of making me uncomfortable. I want to ask him if he has any compassion for me. Can’t he see I’m suffering? Isn’t there an unspoken bro-code that says he’s not allowed to indulge Tessa’s need to draw this out?

  “I’d be better if I didn’t have to be in this bogus counseling session,” I reply, trying to sound as bored as possible.

  Tessa crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “See? This is what I have to deal with every time I try to talk to him. He doesn’t take me seriously.”

  “I take you very seriously. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You don’t take me seriously. You just want this divorce to be finalized.”

  “You’re right about that. If it were up to me, the divorce would be finalized today.”

  She turns to Dr. Mansfield. “See?” she shrieks, her blonde hair flying as she points her skinny finger at me, like I’m not sitting three feet away from her. “That’s what I’m talking about. He doesn’t even want to try to talk about it. He just wants it over!”

  “What do you expect when you emotionally blackmail me into staying with you for three years and then you lie about being pregnant?”

  She leans over the arm of her chair as if it’s the only thing stopping her from charging me. “I didn’t lie! I thought I was pregnant!”

  I lean back in my chair, shaking my head. “Stop lying, Tessa. It’s over. This is over. There’s no reason to lie anymore.”

  Tessa opens her mouth to shout something, but Dr. Mansfield holds up his arm to stop the madness. He begins speaking again, but my thoughts drift to the day I found out Tessa was lying about the baby.

  After Tessa got clipped by that car on Raleigh Street, I wanted to ride with her in the ambulance, but the EMT wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t until I pulled my SUV away from Wallace Park to follow the ambulance that I realized I couldn’t see Rory anywhere. I thought of getting out to look for her, but I didn’t have time. I had to get to the hospital. I had to make sure the doctors and nurses knew Tessa was pregnant. Besides, after what Tessa did, I doubted Rory would want to see me. She’d probably already left the park.

  I didn’t think it was possible to hate myself more than I did when I left Rory five years earlier. But the moment I drove off toward the hospital to try to save the child Tessa was carrying was a defining moment for me. It wasn’t that I loved Tessa or our child more than I loved Rory, or the child I had conceived with Rory. It was that I had changed. I was ready to come clean with Rory about the letter. I was ready to live the truth instead of the lie. And if the truth was that I was going to become a father, I had to accept my new role and all the consequences that came with it.

  When I arrived at the hospital, the ER nurse informed me that Tessa was conscious and had already been wheeled away to Radiology for X-rays.

  “Didn’t the EMT tell you she’s pregnant? I told him to tell you.” I tried to keep my voice even, but the nurse could see by the way I gripped the counter I was about two seconds from jumping onto her side of the desk.

  She didn’t look very impressed. “Sir, please head down the hall and to the right to complete the registration forms for your wife.”

  “Did you hear a single word I just said?”

  “Sir, please step back and take a breath. Your wife is in good hands. We will update you as soon as we have more information.”

  My mouth fell open in disbelief. “Did you just tell me to step back and take a breath?”

  “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. Please go down the hall to complete registration, then have a seat in the waiting room. When we know more, we’ll call you.”

  My nostrils flared as I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I marched my ass to Registration to sign all the paperwork. Two and a half hours later, another nurse called me out of the waiting room to take me to Tessa’s room. But first, she had to tell me they were ordering a psychiatric evaluation. In her words, Tessa seemed “a bit confused.”

  “What the fuck does that mean? Does she have amnesia or something?”

  The nurse’s brown curls bounced as she shook her head adamantly. “No, she doesn’t have any head injuries. Her only injuries are a few scrapes and bruises and a broken arm. Her arm is in a temporary cast, but you’ll need to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to get a permanent cast.”

  I followed as we turned the corner into another hospital corridor. “I don’t get it. Then why is she confused?”

  The nurse cleared her throat and I had a sense she was trying to find a delicate way to break the news to me. “She seems to think she was pregnant, but the ultrasound and blood tests don’t show any evidence of that. She told us to contact her fertility doctor to ask him and he said she was never pregnant. But she insists this doctor helped you two conceive a child. Was your wife pregnant?”

  I stopped in the middle of the corridor, my vision blurring as fiction and reality seemed to be blending together. “She’s not pregnant?”

  “Have you been to a fertility doctor, Mr. Cavanaugh?”

  I shook my head in utter disbelief. “She was never pregnant.”

  The nurse glanced at my clenched fists and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Dr. Mansfield’s voice cut through the fog of this memory. “Okay, okay. Let’s move on to something else. How do you both feel about this divorce? And by that I mean, do you feel you will be stigmatized by this divorce? Do you fear this may affect your chances of finding a romantic partner in the future?”

  Tessa laughs at this. “It won’t affect him. He already has a romantic partner just waiting in the wings for him. Don’t you? Why don’t you tell the doctor how I caught you cheating on me with that slut?”

  I grip the arms of the chair I’m sitting in and clench my jaw so I don’t say anything I’ll regret in front of the therapist. “Watch your mouth, Tessa.”

  “See?” she cries again. “He defends her and he hates me. He treats me like I’m nothing.”

  I want to storm out of this office and never come back, but I promised myself I would do the mature thing and make it through at least four counseling sessions. This therapist better up his game and start reining in Tessa’s hysterics. I can’t take much more of this.

  “Okay, let’s try something different,” Mansfield says, sitting up straighter in his chair. “How about we do an exercise? Why don’t the both of you each give me three positive things that will come out of this divorce?”

  My mind instantly conjures Rory’s face. The one positive thing that will come out of this divorce: I’ll be free to make room for her in my life. Then I try to think of three things I love the most about her, but it’s hard to narrow it down. Her vanilla-scented hair is pretty high on the list. Her constant movie references. Her creamy skin and the way it feels when her le
gs are wrapped around me. Her many facial expressions: adorably confused, scary angry, her come-fuck-me expression, and, my personal favorite, her smile. But it seems all she’s done lately is cry.

  Which is why I’m stumbling my way through these counseling sessions. It’s why I’m giving Rory the space she needs to work things out with her parents. I just hope her father took my threat seriously.

  I’ve wanted to throttle that son of a bitch for nearly six years, but I’ve put it off because of Rory. After she tossed me out of her life last week, I had nothing left to lose. I showed up at his law offices in downtown Portland and managed to finesse my way past the receptionist. I found the glass-walled conference room where James stood at the head of a long mahogany table. He was in the middle of a meeting, but not for long.

  I stepped into the conference room and pointed at him. “You and I need to talk. Now.”

  “We’re in the middle of a meeting,” said a blonde woman sitting in a chair a few feet away from me.

  “No, it’s fine, Christina,” James said, making his way toward me. “Carry on without me. I won’t be long.”

  I clenched my fists as I followed him to his corner office. The first thing I saw when I stepped inside was the row of framed pictures on the console table behind his desk. There were two pictures of James and Rory together, one of him kissing her forehead as they stood next to a backyard grill. The other picture was obviously from the family vacation they took to Hawaii when Rory was in high school. I couldn’t remember how old she was during that vacation, but I found myself wondering if Hallie had already developed a crush on James by then.

  This thought made me more sad than angry. How would Hallie feel if she knew why I was here? What would she think of the way I’ve handled her secret?