If You Could See Me Now (30 page)

“New York.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “That is not a New York accent I hear.”

“No, you got me; I’m from a place called Haxtun in Colorado, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard of before. It’s well known for a great number of things.”

“Such as?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Absolutely nothing. It’s a small town in a big dust bowl, a good strong farming town with a population of one thousand.”

“You didn’t like it there?”

“No, I didn’t like it,” he said
firmly. “You could say I suffered from claustrophobia,” he added with a smile.

“I know how that feels.” Elizabeth nodded. “Sounds like here.”

“It’s a bit like here.” Benjamin looked out the window. He relaxed then. “Everyone waves at you as you pass. They haven’t a damn clue who you are but they wave.”

Elizabeth nodded and laughed, not realizing it until now. She pictured her father in the
field, cap covering his face, holding his arm up in an L shape to passing cars.

“They wave in
fields and on the streets,” Benjamin continued. “Farmers, old ladies, kids, teens, newborns, and serial killers. I’ve studied this to a
fine art.” His eyes twinkled at her. “You even get the one-finger wave with the index
finger raised off the steering wheel as you pass traffic. You’d leave the place waving at cows if you’re not careful.”

“And the cows would probably wave back.”

Benjamin laughed loudly. “Have you ever thought of leaving?”

“I did more than think about it.” Her smile faded. “I went to New York too, but I’ve commitments here,” she said quickly, looking away.

“Your nephew, right?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Well, there’s one good thing about leaving a small town. They all miss you when you’re gone. They all notice it.”

Their eyes locked on each other. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “It’s ironic though, that we both moved to a big city where we were surrounded by more people and more buildings than we’d ever known, just so we could feel more isolated.”

“Huh.” Benjamin stared at her, not blinking. She knew he wasn’t seeing her face; he was lost in his own world. And he looked lost for a moment. “Anyway.” He snapped out of his trance. “It was a pleasure talking to you again, Ms. Egan.”

She smiled at his address.

“I better go and let you stare at the wall some more.” He stopped and turned at the doorway. “Oh, by the way, without running the risk of making you uncomfortable, I mean this in the most innocent way possible, maybe you’d like to get together outside of work sometime? It would be nice to have a conversation with a like-minded person for a change.”

“Sure.” She smiled, liking his casual invitation. No expectations.

“Maybe you’ll know some of the good places to go. Six months ago when I just arrived, I made the mistake of asking Joe where the nearest sushi bar was. I had to tell him it was raw
fish before he directed me to a lake about an hour’s drive away and told me to ask for a guy called Tom.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was an unfamiliar sound that was becoming more familiar to her these days, echoing around the room. “That’s his brother, the
fisherman.”

“Anyway, see you.”

The room was empty again and Elizabeth was once again faced with the same dilemma. She thought of what Benjamin had said about using her imagination and putting herself in the place of a child. She closed her eyes and imagined the sounds of children hollering, laughing, crying, and
fighting. The noisy clatter of toys, feet pounding on the
floor
as they ran around, the sound of bodies falling, a shocked silence, and then wails. She pictured herself as a child, sitting alone in a room, not knowing anyone and it suddenly occurred to her what she would have wanted.

A friend.

She opened her eyes and spotted a card on the
floor
beside her. Looking around, she saw that the room was still empty and quiet. Someone must have crept in when she had her eyes closed and left it there. She picked up the card, which had a black thumbprint on one side. She didn’t even need to read it to know it was Benjamin’s new business card.

Maybe imagining had worked after all. It looked like she’d just made a friend in the playroom.

Sliding the card into her back pocket, she forgot about Benjamin and continued staring at the four walls.

Nope. Still nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Elizabeth
sat at the glass
table in the spotless kitchen, surrounded by gleaming granite work tops, polished walnut cupboards, and shining marble tiles. She had just had a cleaning frenzy and her mind still wasn’t clear. Every time the phone rang, she leaped at it, thinking it was Saoirse, but it was Edith checking up on Luke. She still hadn’t heard from her sister, her father was still waiting in her old bedroom for her mother; sitting, eating, and sleeping in the same chair for almost two weeks now. He wouldn’t speak to Elizabeth, wouldn’t even let her come as far as the front door, so she had arranged for a housekeeper to call around to cook him a meal a day, and tidy up now and then. Some days he let her in, others he didn’t. The young man who worked with her father on his farm had taken over all the duties. This was costing Elizabeth money she couldn’t afford, but there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t help the only two members of her family if they didn’t want to be helped. And she wondered for the
first
time if she had something in common with them after all.

They had all grown up together but separately and still they stayed together in the same town. They hadn’t much communication with one another but when somebody left ...well, it mattered. They were tied together by an old and fraying rope that ended up being the object of tug-of-war.

Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to tell Luke what was going on, but of course he knew there was something. Ivan was right, children had a sixth sense for that kind of thing. He was such a good child that as soon as he sensed Elizabeth’s sadness, he knew to retreat into the playroom and she would hear the quiet clatter of building blocks. She couldn’t bring herself to say more to him than to tell him to wash his hands,
fix
his speech, and order him to stop dragging his feet.

She wasn’t capable of holding her arms out to him. Her lips couldn’t form the words “I love you,” though she tried in her own ways to make him feel safe and wanted. But she knew what he really wanted. She had been in his position, knew what it was like to want to be held, cuddled, kissed on the forehead, and rocked. To be made to feel safe for just a few minutes at least, to know that someone else was there looking out for you and that life wasn’t just in your own hands—you weren’t stuck living it all alone in your head.

Ivan had provided her with a few of those moments over the past few weeks. He had kissed her on the forehead and rocked her to sleep and she had fallen asleep not feeling alone, not feeling the urge to look out the window and search beyond for someone else. Ivan, sweet, sweet Ivan was shrouded in mystery. She had never known anyone else who could help her realize just exactly who she was, help her
find her feet. But she was struck by the irony that this man who jokingly spoke of invisibility actually did wear a cloak of invisibility. He didn’t know himself, where he came from, where he was going,
who
he was. He was putting her on a map, showing her the way, yet he had no idea where he was going himself. He liked to speak of her problems, help heal her, help
fix
her, and he never once spoke of his own. It was as though she was a distraction to him and she wondered what would happen when the distraction ended and the realization would dawn.

She got a sense that their time together was valuable, as though she needed to hold on to every minute as if it were their last. He was too good to be true, every moment spent with him magical, so much so that she presumed this couldn’t last forever. None of her good feelings had lasted forever, none of the people who lightened her life managed to stay. Going by her previous luck, from pure
fear
of not wanting to lose something so special, she was just waiting for the day he would leave. Whoever he was, he was healing her, he was teaching her to smile, teaching her to laugh, and she wondered what she could teach him. With Ivan, she feared that the sweet man with the soft eyes would reach a day when he would realize that she had nothing to offer. That she had simply drained him of his resources and had none to give.

It had happened with Mark. She just couldn’t give him any more of herself without taking away the care she had for her family. That’s what he wanted her to do, of course, cut the strings that connected her to her family, but she couldn’t do it, she would never do it. Saoirse and her father knew how to pull those strings and so she remained their puppet. As a result, she was alone, raising a child she never wanted with the love of her life living in America a married man and a father of one. She hadn’t heard from him or seen him for
five
years. A few months after Elizabeth had moved back to Ireland he visited her, while on a trip home to see his family.

Those beginning months were the hardest. Elizabeth was intent on making Saoirse bring up the baby herself and as much as Saoirse protested and claimed she didn’t care, Elizabeth wasn’t about to let her sister throw away the opportunity of raising her son.

Elizabeth’s dad couldn’t hack it anymore, he couldn’t take the baby’s screaming all night while Saoirse was out partying, Elizabeth supposed it reminded him too much of the years before, when he was left holding the baby, the baby he subsequently passed on to his twelve-year-old daughter. Well, he’d done the same again; he’d thrown Saoirse out of the bungalow, forcing her to arrive on Elizabeth’s doorstep, cradle and all. The day that all had happened was the day Mark decided to take the trip over to visit Elizabeth.

One look at the state of her life and she knew he was gone forever. It wasn’t long before Saoirse disappeared from Elizabeth’s home, leaving her holding the baby. She thought about giving Luke up for adoption, she really did. Every sleepless night and every stressful day she promised herself she would make that phone call. But she couldn’t do it. Maybe it had something to do with her fear of giving in; she obsessively strove for perfection and she couldn’t give up on trying to help Saoirse. Also there was a part of her that was intent on proving that she could raise a child, that it wasn’t her fault the way Saoirse turned out. She didn’t want to get it all wrong with Luke; he deserved far better.

She cursed as she picked up another of her sketches, scrunched it in a ball, and threw it across the room to the bin. It landed short of it and, not being able to cope with something out of place, Elizabeth walked across the room and delivered it to its rightful position.

The kitchen table was covered in paper, coloring pencils, children’s books, cartoon characters. All she had succeeded in doing was drawing doodles all over the page. It wasn’t enough for the playroom and it certainly wasn’t the whole new world she aspired to create. As usual, the same thing happened that always happened when she thought of Ivan; the doorbell rang and she knew it was he. She rushed to her feet,
fixing her hair, her clothes, checking her reflection in the mirror, gathering her coloring pencils and paper. She jogged on the spot in a panic, trying to decide where to dump them. They slid from her hand, and swearing, she dived down to pick them up. Her papers
flew out of her hands and
floated to the
floor
like leaves diving and landing in the autumn breeze.

While on the
floor, her eyes fell upon red Converse runners casually crossed over each other at the doorway. Her body slumped, her cheeks pinked.

“Hi, Ivan,” she said, refusing to look at him.

“Hello, Elizabeth. Have you ants in your pants?” an amused voice asked.

“How good of Luke to let you in,” Elizabeth said sarcastically. “Funny, he never actually does that when I need him to.” She reached for the sheets of paper on the
floor
and got to her feet. “You’re wearing red,” she stated, studying his red cap, red T-shirt, and red Converse trainers.

“Yes, I am,” he agreed. “Wearing different colors is my favorite thing now. It makes me feel even happier.”