All of These Things (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Checking his watch, Alec declares 4:17 pm the official time I, Caroline De Andreis, finally learned to swim.

“I’m still doing it. I did it!” I shriek, probably looking very clumsy and graceless, but I’m flat on my tummy, with my head over water and my feet definitely not touching the ground. My legs stay extended, splattering behind.

“I thought we agreed to no splashing, love,” Alec teases, rubbing water out of his eyes. “Keep going, Caroline. I’ll be right back.” He dives in and swims away.

I stand with my feet firm on the ground, slowly starting to spread out forward and swim in the opposite direction. I can’t believe I’m doing this! I’m actually doing it.

I’m finally swimming!

I stop once more and get on my mark. I want to head in the ocean’s direction. Even with the sound of breaking waves, I go, swimming to the infinity edge. I hear a splash and turn to find Alec back again with two glasses and that bottle of champagne.

I experiment with a flirty smile.

“Are you expecting me to admit that you were right?” I say, being my feisty self around him again.

“I’m not daft enough to expect that,” he says, and hands me the goblets.

“Well what about a thank you? Would you expect a thank you from me?”

“The pleasure was all mine, sweetheart.” Alec winks, and the cork pops.

I raise the glasses for Alec to pour, and we walk, locating a safe spot to deposit our drink.

“To you, Caroline. A now, all accomplished, over-achieving, magnificent woman.”

I giggle.

“To the best instructor a girl can ask for,” I respond, clinking my glass against his. “I can’t believe you brought champagne.”

“I had a good feeling.” He grins, resting his torso against the edge of the pool, staring out to sea. I do the same.

“You were incredible with me, Alec. Thank you. And thank you for contemplating this whole day, and then going ahead and making it happen.”

“I told you, it was my pleasure. I probably enjoyed the day more than you did.”

“There’s no way that’s possible.” I turn my head to look at him.

“Caroline?” he says my name coyly.

“Yeah?” I mutter. He gazes at me; his eyes warm even as they get darker.

“I’d wait,” he says.

I perk up, my head lifting away from my wet shoulder.

“I’ve never felt this way. So I’d wait. Even if it’s the last thing I do, or if you’re the death of me,” he says, achingly serious. “I’d wait.”

The candour of his open-heart is entrapping. I surprise myself because I don’t feel a desperate need to look away, and in fact, I’m lured by his unguarded revelation. For someone like me, who’s forever wary and perpetually cautious, Alec’s honesty is beguiling.

“But you don’t know me,” I whisper.

“And I imagine I never totally will because you amaze me every day.”

His voice comes to me like an extension from the wind, chilling my wits, my body, and streaming through my reason. I’m enraptured in this funnel cloud of possibilities and seduction, travelling from a former self and into a brand new start. The black and white confines of my life, a life I steered on a one-way road toward my idea of a model world, pull to the side and revel in the unexpected.

“Alec,” I whisper.

“Don’t.” He draws back, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “I told you. Don’t leave me with nothing.” He readies himself to swim away, leaving the glass and champagne—deserting our private paradise.

It’s just as well because it’s not like I know what I want to say, anyway, even when every cell in my body screams for the chance. I don’t want this day to turn heavy or discontent, and so I poke around in my brainpower to find a truce.

“Hey!” I say, grabbing his attention back my way. Completely inept, I swim towards him until I jolt him out from a brooding state.

“Does this mean, as a newbie swimmer, I’m all out of luck with piggy-back rides?” I say, jumping onto his back, wrapping my arms around Alec’s neck. My legs cross at his waist, and I watch his smile grow.

“You get free access, love.”

“Free access?”

“Indeed,” he says, lowering us into the sparkling water.

“Good. So bring us back to our glasses and drink champagne with me, okay?” My cheek presses at his ear, and my breasts up against his back. He smells divine, a blend of sunscreen, chlorine and musk.

He concedes, and we’re adrift.

“Alec?”

He gives me a curious, lopsided look.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

We reach the edge once again, and he refills our glasses, handing me mine. I stay wrapped around his torso.

“You told me last night at the bar that the rose represents your grandmother.” I trace his tattoo. “But why do you have a shield back here?”

“I’m afraid that story isn’t as romantic.”

“So? I still want to hear the story of Alec.” I tilt my head away from his scruff and give him expectant eyes. He returns it with a quiet laugh.

“Have I told you how much I care for those two tiny dimples that surface at the corner of your mouth when you smile?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t change the subject. Go on about that tattoo...”

He pulls in a deep breath from the misty air, and I watch him assemble the courage to speak.

“The shield is exactly what it’s meant for, to screen from harm, but most importantly, it provides you with a chance to fend for yourself,” he says, sounding valiant and fearless. “My father was an alcoholic, a well-to-do business man with a temper. His occasional outbursts were entirely unexpected. He hid it from society very well, but from time to time my mother had to escape with my sisters to Grandmother Rose’s.”

My brows furrow. “But what about you?”

“I was the only other male in the house, so I’d distract my father until they could get away.”

He’s still unbelievably prim and poised, and I tuck my head in the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“But you’d make it out, right?”

“We learnt the hard way that father would find us at my grandmother’s, and then it was worse for Mum. He’d reprimand her for taking his children, but Grandmother Rose was tougher than her daughter and very inclined to intervene. One day, she was hurt in his indignation, and I decided never to join them again. Better I stay behind distracting him while they found a few days of peace.”

I wince, muscles tightening.

“Is that why you knew how to fight… the night of the break-in?”

“Partly, yes. I did practice fencing and martial arts, though.”

“How old were you?” I ask, and my head has not moved from its resting spot.

“You mean, when I was letting them go off on their own? Maybe eleven or twelve,” he says. “My father also had another secret family. Quite the underground man he was, and although he really wasn’t around for them, he did treat them lavishly. He rather preferred to control Mum, instead.”

Concurrently, we put off adding anything else and just look out to sea.

“Alec?”

“Yes?”

I turn my mouth to the crook of his neck. “What are you doing to me?”

His eyes close fleetingly and reopen at once. Alec looks down at me. “I could ask you the same thing, sweetheart.”

“But you’re not scared.”

“You’re so wrong. You terrify the hell out of me, Caroline.”

Now, I’m the one beseeching more.

“You can tell me,” I say. “You said you wanted to tell me everything.”

Stupefied, he stares at me. When Alec’s lost for words like this, my body mewls from excitement. But a mask—fused of sadness and fear—is suddenly on his face.

My defiant stare leads him on.

Alec shifts, detaching me from him, and his hands claw at my waist, hoisting me out of the water, and I’m plonked on the ledge. His trepidation distorts the temperature, swapping the mild, tepid air and water to harsher conditions.

I choke back, fighting the chill as his eyes look searchingly at mine.

“Tell me your everything,” I bid him.

My accelerating heart has me wondering on the state of his. Alec regards me fretfully—his desperate eyes leaping up from where he stands somewhere under my chin. He’s wet and gleaming, brilliantly intense.

“Like this, you’re more than ready to quit me. You can up and leave, Caroline.”

My eyes skim his face for clues.

“One time,” he begins, “I wolfed down all the anger and all the fear my mother had—what my sisters carried, and my grandmother stomached. That fear and anger was so real—I could see it in front of me until it became my own on top of what was already mine. I was almost fifteen, tall like my father, and learning tricks of defense, imparting them on my family because my sister, Olivia, seemed to conduct herself a lot like my mother, and that scared me to no end. I wasn’t going to let that pattern infect another generation in my family. I wanted them stronger. Only now is my sister, Naomi, a force to be reckoned with, but she was touch and go while we were growing up,” he says, entirely implicated in his story.

“During the last, brutal confrontation with my father, he had come round to collect my family, or at least my mother. He would not be defied. He had to have the last word, and I fought him. I fought him off knowing how much I could hurt him—how able I was to make this permanently stop.”

I shudder, my upper body drawing back somewhat, and my eyes frantic.

“I knew how and where I could strike him, to finally immobilize him, and that it could have deadly ramifications. Perhaps, it’s exactly what I wanted. I killed my father, Caroline. I killed him,” he confesses, keeping his voice calm.

I don’t prompt him by asking questions; in fact, I don’t even say a word. There’s probably some judgement on my face, definite lines of panic and alarm.

“Murder?” I whisper.

“Mainly self-defence,” he inserts.

“But it sounds like you were more than able to just protect yourself by then, or your entire family. You could have defeated him without killing him,” I explore.

“The last time I ever used that kind of force, and felt that kind of fury, was when those men attacked you, but I didn’t kill them. I hurt them a lot less than I wanted to and painfully let the officials do their job. I can do that. I’m not a murderer, but I’ve killed,” he maintains, relatively calm as I border on hysteria.

“My mother dragged us in a rut, and then she couldn’t pull us out of it. Sometimes, it felt like she wasn’t trying to change things at all for us—like my sisters and I weren’t enough, and in the end her husband meant more. My grandmother was sick over her daughter’s weaknesses. My family was crumbling, and I was completely reactive, taking things in my own hands, succumbing to a fever of adolescent, testosterone-seething behaviour. I know what I did. My grandmother knows, and my family knows, and an investigation lasted all but two minutes because I was young and ultimately guarding myself and my family.”

Darkness shrouds him tenderly, but it’s darkness just the same. Alec steps back, jaw clenching, and eyes erratic.

“Have I finally done it?” he asks. “Are you finally quitting me?”

PASSAGE

Alec:
According to my sister, nothing holds more gravitas for a man than an act of true divulgence, especially when it’s at his own expense. I’ve wittingly jeopardized my future and happiness due to my admiration for another human being, and this, Naomi says, means everything. My admission was not just a declaration of responsibility or conscience, but an affirmation to Caroline that I’m totally and completely in love with her flawlessness. It wasn’t difficult for me to work out it had to be done, no matter the courage I had to uproot, because the urge automatically came with the infinite respect I harbour for this woman. Naomi tells me not to imagine or expect the worst, but she has never met Caroline, has she?

I received quite an ear-bashing from my sister; currently I’m regretting ever responding to her call. Hearing about Caroline has fuelled her interest, and I surrendered, forwarding a picture of her to Naomi. Therefore, I’m quite positive Grandmother Rose will have a chance to study Caroline, if not my mother and Olivia, too. It’s easy to picture them all giddy kipper around Naomi’s mobile. If there is one thing my father’s callousness helped our family achieve over the years, it’s the impulse to act as one. Grams, Mum, Olivia, Naomi, and me—we coexist imperfectly perfect, and periodically, when there is a vast distance between us, it remains painless and uncomplicated to manoeuvre through it. I suppose the one good thing to come from this is Naomi’s promise to finally bring her hankering to a standstill about me getting it on with her best friend Chloe.

The truth is, I’m absolutely gutted. If I never hear from Caroline again, I don’t know what I can possibly do with myself. How do I go from living around the most fabulous person I’ll ever know, to her becoming someone I used to know?

Chapter Seventeen

“Hey,” I say softly, joining Sofie by the unlit fire pit. I can’t believe how possibly broken such a small word can sound, coming out like a bombardment of implications.

I drag what’s become my favourite chair in the world to face the sea, slumping into the pacifying, cavernous depth of the wooden Adirondack. My chest releases another small sigh of grief.

As I slip to the far back of the seat, I encircle my arms around my knees. Sofie’s choosing not to intrude on the silence. Instead, I feel her breaking down my affected air—calling me out on the artificiality of it. I can’t decide if I’d rather she come straight out with an inquisition, or ignore me completely. She goes on this way, looking right through me.

My mind still hums with confusion. The questions I hashed up during my long walk back to the cottage from the O’Malley’s are abuzz. I’m wrestling the instinct to tell Sofie about Alec’s past, mildly miffed with myself for trying to respect his name and privacy. I don’t know if he deserves that consideration. Every atom in me is exerting itself—straining to speak up or react even when they have no inkling on what exactly there is to say or do with the matter. As it was by the pool, I still have nothing to offer Alec. I was disoriented earlier—completely outside myself and couldn’t work through the little clarity in my brain. I felt muddled, utterly dizzy by a host of feelings, my loss of nerve instant.

Face-to-face with him, in that moment, I was awkward and self-conscious. I don’t know why. There’s no sane reason for my discomfiture. Sitting there, on the lip of the pool, looking in Alec’s scared eyes, I felt irrationally mortified and embarrassed to be privy to his disclosure. I was grappled by an unrealistic, desperate yearning to turn back time. I wish he never told me. Maybe the confession is one I’d prefer to live without—something I don’t want the weight of knowing. It makes me feel like an accomplice, and perhaps, if I could, I’d scroll back further in time, never connecting with this man at all.

The most overwhelming part is the absence of fear I’m contending with. That truth rings perpetually in my head, causing a commotion as it wracks my nerves. The lack of panic and fright isn’t calming or reassuring as it should be. It alarms me—maybe even demoralizes me to know I’m not instinctively afraid of Alec, of his capacity and his capabilities. Something like this should immediately scare me and turn me off, and it hasn’t.

“Bad day?” Sofie asks, clearly starting her investigation.

“Bad ending,” I say.

Across from me, her torso crumples. The frustration in Sofie’s face is unmistakable, and I clutch myself harder before my gaze flicks back at her.

“Wow. That’s a shit load of information—however restrained you’re trying to be. How long do you expect me
not
to put my nose into that?” Sofie’s brows furrow, and she pauses, examining me. “How did you fuck things up for yourself this time?”

I pull my hands free from their grip around my knees, falling deeper into my funk.

“What did you do?” Sofie asks savagely, lobbying my mood to further disbelief.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. What happened between you and Prince Harry over there?”

I shrug, avoiding her gaze. “Nothing. We ate, we talked, and we both said too much. It was a mistake.”

There’s a pang of pain laced in that statement. I expel a breath after a sickening squeeze to my stomach, sinking deeper into a struggle I shouldn’t have allowed in the first place. Was meeting him today wrong, or did I just admit meeting Alec at all was the mistake? How can I feel so conflicted when I know in my heart of hearts I should stop him cold turkey? It’s crazy how confused he makes me. I’m split down the middle with urges to both laugh and scream.

I should feel a gush of outrage towards Sofie’s attack, but I’m a hardening well of incredulity. I’m as good as numb now that Alec has renewed my misgivings, adding on gruelling, inconceivable doubts out of the blue like this. I’m too heavy and replete from his confession, and finding a snappy tone, or peeved voice to use on Sofie feels like it would be too much work for me at this point.

“Is this about Ryan again?” she tests. “For God’s sake, Care, it can’t be that hard to get over him, so why don’t you just get on that bandwagon and do us all a favour. Dump his ass!”

I look skyward, adrenaline spiked.

“What exactly is your problem with Ryan?” I fire. “Is it that he’s smart? Or maybe it’s that he comes from a solid background—one that’s simple and stable, so refreshingly undramatic. He’s kind, Sofie! Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

She gives me a sly look, amused I’m pitching him so hard.

“These days, guys his age—they’re potheads still finding themselves. Ryan’s a good guy. He’s on a good path to building a prosperous career for himself. So, once and for all, Sofie, what is it? Just come out with it already.”

She stares at me, intimidatingly. “He’s not right for you.”

I burst into laughter. “And you think Alec is right for me?” I say, probably looking more demonic than rattled. “You hardly know Alec yourself, and yet you keep throwing him at me. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, Sof! Even Alecsander Vaughn, I can tell you that.”

“So?” she says. “Like you said,
everyone
has skeletons. I’m just saying his closet suits you more than Ryan’s.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, Alec wears his heart on his sleeve, and if there are skeletons in his closet, well, at least they’re right behind the door. Ryan’s are behind Italian suits and Italian shoes and expensive travel cases, and then probably behind another door into a secret wardrobe.”

I baulk. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Ryan has always been upfront with me. In fact, he’s the most unambiguous person I know.”

“In other words, he’s a boring shithead.”

“He is
not
a boring shithead!”

“Fine. Then let me ask you this,” she starts, “has he asked about Amalia, or is he just going on about how much he hates the idea that I dragged you away? Has he even offered to pitch in while you’re here, or has he ever had a round with you, challenging you to open up instead of thinking about his own comfort zone, ignoring the sometimes scary and unattractive side of your mother’s condition?” Sofie leans in.

“The thing is, you think Ryan feels safe because he keeps topics in a safe zone. Don’t, for one minute, think he’s respecting the fact that you’re a clammed up control freak. It suits him fine that you’re not some needy, whiney chick because he really doesn’t know what to do with that. Sure, he’s totally into you, and he’s studying to get a good career going and probably already has a good chunk of money to put down on a house. He’ll marry his dream girl, have babies, drive a sexy car, and give you the keys to something safer. He’s a fucking minivan commercial, Caroline! He’s not a life.”

I’m awash with disbelief. Sofie’s roaring with protruding, cold eyes, and doesn’t look like she’s ready to give up, either.

“You and I have more in common than you want to admit,” she says. “I can see the wheels turning in your head when there are signs of adventure. You get a buzz from living, but you’re so eager to step on any remote chance of a life because you’re scared to put your guard down. You’re too worried about losing track of Amalia, or even becoming like her. You
are
your mother’s daughter, but you are
not
your mother.”

I’m suddenly overstocked with gloom.

Growing up, I’d always heard about my odds. Adults didn’t shy away from speaking aloud when I was in the room, and they shared their lists of notions and statistics about children with narcissistic mothers. It was so utterly despicable of them to talk about me, or Mom, like I wasn’t there. I remember Noni stepping in, always a front runner in my life after my father—immediately bringing inappropriate discussions to an end. How long have I been trying to prove these people wrong? I could never do that to a child—badmouthing her, her future, or her mother.

I’m at my moment of truth as my mind revisits thoughts of Ryan.

“What about what I’m doing to him?” I ask meekly. “I’m the bad one here, Sofie, not Ryan. Look at what I’m doing to him.”

“So, it’s not an ideal situation,” she says at last. “But you didn’t exactly plan to figure out there were more fish in the sea. Give yourself a break! It’s not your fault you met someone more cut out for you than he is.” Sofie slides back deeper into the chair.

“Maybe Alec popped up in your life for a reason. Whether he stays in your life or you toss him back in the water isn’t the point. The point is you learned a lot about yourself because of him and definitely more than you have in over a year with Ryan. You can’t deny that, Caroline,” she tacks on, effectively applying pressure and logic.

My brain pitches vivid scenes from today, flashes of superlative moments. Alec’s revelation swims to the back of my mind, horrifying me a little less because everything else is undeniably first-rate in my head and in my heart. Since meeting him, my time with Alec is unrivalled, but I think I’ve had enough of a stretch to let the confession sit, and I need to get back to knowing more.

“Do you know where he’s staying?” I ask cautiously, and Sofie displays a wide grin.

“Kind of, but I don’t know the exact address. Jay does. Do you want me to call him?” Sofia-Marie looks up at me with eager, frenzied eyes as I rise from my seat.

“Yeah. Call Jay, and then plug the address into my GPS. I want to go upstairs and freshen up before I pay Alec a visit.”

Twilight picks up speed as I leave the town’s perimeter. Night-time shadows turn up sooner in the woods, darkening the serpentine roads that are tucked away from the sea. For the most part, York continues to be the kind of place where first kisses happen on porch swings and underneath fabrics of patriotic pride. The nation’s symbol dolls up everything between grungy cabins and magnificent restorations. Everything fits in on this winding road.

Even though far and few between, glass masterpieces thrive in a mix of craftsman and Victorian styles. I’ve made up my mind about these contemporary designs. Personally, I don’t find them entirely disagreeable for the plain reason that their avant-garde exterior is actually consistent with the jagged slopes of the coastline. The navigational system alerts me that I’ve reached my end point.

There’s a high probability Alec’s home given that his red Rover is parked on the gravel driveway. I sidle the property, and hopefully my Gulf is put out of view behind a tall, slim deciduous grouping. I consider he may be preoccupied with business calls, or he may be painting, and abruptly, I’m concerned Alec may even have a woman in there with him. In fact, the scenario is so plausible that the realization aptly hits me, and I’m chilled by a foreign sentiment of dread and possessiveness. My fear doesn’t deter me. I’m significantly emboldened, and I know I have to act on it quickly.

I steer my car next to Alec’s hefty vehicle, making very little noise as I park it. On a concrete base, the cabin gives the impression it’s built into a hillside, with a sage green garage door directly below one of three protruding decks. The amalgam of wood, metal, and cement work well together, and I can appreciate it since I was raised in a brick block and live inside the walls of my mother’s well-ordered, spick-and-span vintage arrangement. I’m hoping not to give away my being here just yet and reach for my phone that’s safely contained in an empty, sticky cup-holder. I call him.

“Caroline?” Alec answers straightway, and his perfect voice thaws my apprehension.

“Hi,” I say, dissolving in my seat.

“Hi,” he utters.

“Can… Are you… Can I…” I stop, and try again. “
Er
… Do you have a minute?”

“Of course. Yes,” he says, briskly remedying the awkwardness. “I was hoping you’d ring me. I must say, I’m in awe that you have.”

I struggle to come up with an ingenious response, something to keep the conversation rolling, and I fumble with making a decision about where to start. Alec’s silence tells me he’s allowing me all the time I need to find and muster up the willpower.

“I’m… I’m sorry I left so quickly after you… you know… started telling me about yourself,” I say, pulling in a mouthful of air and slowly release it.

He’s quiet, so mute and voiceless I can’t detect a breath.

“I…”

“How can you say that?” he finally cuts in. “Caroline, I prepared you to leave. I told you that you could run. You have nothing to apologize to me for, love. You could never have anything to apologize to me for. I expected you to run. I knew you would.”

I close my eyes, riding a wave of remorse, feeling contrite. I hate that he expected that from me. I hate that I couldn’t swallow the pill well enough to deal with the upshot of side effects immediately. Alec predicted I’d freeze and panic, that I’d run off faster than he could jump out of the water. This takes me totally off course. His estimation of me suddenly feels like the be-all and end-all to my existence. Alec’s become the reason for everything—the most important part of my survival. The rest of the world has fallen away.

“I thought about what you said,” I start up again. “I replayed the images in my head and talked myself through it, trying to understand what you were implying, and…”

“You don’t have to try to understand. You’re not like me. You’re better.”

I sink further into the seat. I glance up at the house, trying to determine where in the hell he could be. I could run up to the door, but I can think better from a distance. His face will distract me, and at least confined in my car, I’m better equipped to think.

“I want to know more about what it was you started to tell me,” I say, matter-of-factly. “I need to understand that better if I’m to spend any more time with you.”

It dawns on me that it’s already Thursday. Sofie and I are due to leave here on Sunday, and I’m to return to my responsibilities and the people waiting for me there.

“Of course,” he answers breathlessly. I sense he’s gripped with emotion, tense with anticipation.

Join the club,
I think to myself.