The Light of Hidden Flowers (27 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The high of daring greatly, of acting brave, was short-lived, clobbered only hours later by a much stronger force: self-doubt. The malaise of breaking up with Lucas over
nothing
, really—over the idea that I wanted more from my relationship with a man—left me in a flushed, light-headed daze. When Joe called only an hour after Lucas had left and asked to see me before leaving town, I told him that we’d better not. “You were right,” I said. “We need to tie up loose ends before anything else.”

Each day I called Lucas. “I’m
fine
,” he seethed through clenched teeth. “You don’t need to call me.” The fact that I had hurt him caused me significant shame, leaving me feeling wobbly and uncertain. I wasn’t used to upsetting people. With so few people in my life, my starting point was to “do no harm.” That Lucas was wounded at my expense made my chest ache.

And each night Joe called. We talked openly about his kids, the divorce, and his work. I told him about the orphanage, our efforts to turn it into a school. Without my telling him much, Joe knew of my breakup with Lucas.
Are you okay?
he’d ask.
Are you at peace with your decision?

Days passed, and more than anything, I craved Lucas’s forgiveness. As if I couldn’t go on until I got it. I decided to employ my own twist on Dad’s version of Dale Carnegie: get Lucas to talk about the things he loved.

“Don’t hang up!” I blurted when Lucas answered the phone. “I need some tax advice, and I know you’re the guy.”

“I’m busy, Melissa,” he said wearily. I could hear him pounding on his keyboard.

“I’ve been looking for hours on the Internet,” I fibbed. “And I can’t seem to find the answer I need. The orphanage/school in India is going to be tied to our 501(c)(3) charitable organization here in the States, but I can’t seem to figure out how to apply for that: a US-based nonprofit benefiting an overseas operation.”

He stopped typing, and I could almost hear him straighten up in his seat, tap his perfectly sharp pencil tip against his desk mat. “That’s pretty standard, actually,” he said. “Any tax attorney could help you with that.”

“But what about filing the articles of incorporation?” I asked, not wanting him to hang up.

“You have to wait until your tax-exempt status has been approved,” he said.

“What else?”

“Missy,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to talk right now.” His angry typing resumed.

“Just one more question!” I exclaimed. “How do we set it up so that we can accept private and public donations? Just write that in?” I knew my nonchalance would rattle him.

“I get what you’re doing, Missy,” Lucas said, “and it’s not going to work. I don’t want to talk to you. You can’t
fool
me into answering tax questions. You fooled me once already. I trusted you. I know you want forgiveness. I know you want us to be friends. I know you want me to say it’s okay that you broke my heart. It’s not. Please leave me alone.”

He didn’t wait for a response before he ended the call.

The weight of being an adult grew heavier by the day. Only a year ago the burden I’d borne was featherlight. A child’s share. My default had always been to let everyone else take the lead. I didn’t argue against it. It fit my personality, to walk in the shadow. I didn’t crave the freedom to forge my own path. The old me would have never been in this position, because the old me would have never broken up with Lucas. The old me would have never asked for more.

The new me wasn’t just asking for more, but demanding it, no matter how uncomfortable it made the old me, who still hung around, usually wringing her hands. The new me didn’t care. She was making up for lost time, strapping on the yoke of responsibility and shouldering all of it, all at once: the future of Fletcher Financial, Paul’s and Jenny’s jobs, our clients’ financial plans and assets. The hopes of forty girls in India. My renewed love and affection for Joe Santelli—a man with children and an ex-wife and PTSD and a prosthetic leg.

And now I’d added to the load Lucas’s hurt and the knowledge that I alone caused it.

The following week, Joe asked if I could take the train up for the weekend. His wife would be home and would have the kids. He thought it would be fun to take in some “Jersey” sights: the shore, his favorite restaurant. “There is a nice hotel near my house. I could make you reservations.”

“Yes!” I said, without giving thought to the logistics. The fact that I couldn’t breathe, for one. When I hung up, I called Jenny. Dots materialized in front of my eyes, my chest squeezed, and my throat constricted. “Are you free for lunch?”

Jenny and I met at Ellie’s and though she had made two of my favorite soups—roasted red pepper, and vegetable and kale—I declined to order either. Instead, I ordered a cup of tea and a lemon bar, and even that sat untouched.

“I’m in foreign territory here,” I said. “Going to Jersey for the weekend! Who do I think I am?”

Jenny led me through it. “Let’s talk about your expectations. What do you think this weekend will be about? What do you think will happen?”

Her question was a good one because if I was being honest with myself, looking at this as a dispassionate outside observer, this weekend would need to be characterized as nothing more than a first date. And maybe not even a date—more like old friends getting together. And even though I wanted it to be more, I was terrified of it being more. “It’s Joe,” was all I could manage to say, as if those words alone were adequate to explain fifteen years of caring for this man who once loved me.

Two days later, I boarded Amtrak’s Acela Express en route to Newark. In my shoulder bag I had the latest
Businessweek
, the
WSJ
,
Barron’s
. I had the latest Kellerman novel. I had my iPod loaded with music and podcasts. At the snack bar, I added a bagel and cream cheese and a yogurt/fruit parfait to the Starbucks latte I’d purchased earlier. I had enough food, beverage, and entertainment to last me across country. Spread out on my folded-out table, in the comfort of my reclining train seat, the food and entertainment sat, because all I could do was stare out the window and wonder what this weekend would bring.

Three hours later, I exited the train and made my way up the escalator toward the lobby. In the sea of people, I found Joe immediately, dressed in a black chauffeur jacket and hat, and holding a sign:
MELISSA FLETCHER
.

We ate dinner at Joe’s favorite restaurant, a seafood place right in Newark. When he insisted I try the lobster bisque, I nodded eagerly. When Joe asked if I liked sautéed calamari, I told him I loved it. When Joe couldn’t decide between the swordfish or the tuna, I told him I was having the same exact dilemma. We decided to split.

Because of our history, there was a familiarity that fooled us into thinking that time hadn’t passed. Eventually we learned to offer a preamble to every story, the backstory of our narrative. Joe spoke of the birth of his children, what it was like when he was deployed, the guys he’d lost in war and the ones who came home, with whom he would always have contact.

And I chattered mostly about Dad, how we built the business and what it was like to help our clients solve their problems, but mostly I talked about my trips to Italy, then India, and what it was like to feel true elation for once.

Through the hotel lobby, past a pianist playing a shiny grand piano, amid the glow of golden table lights and the muffled sounds of conversation and low laughter, we walked toward the elevator. Joe pressed “Up,” and when he released his hand, it brushed against mine. I reached for it, squeezed it tight.

In the hotel room, Joe and I sat on the edge of the bed, our knees bumping against each other. He reached for my face, kissed me deeply. After years of researching myself in and out of every decision, listing the pros and the cons via spreadsheet, weighing the risk against the reward, I was now reckless and careless and fully willing to walk down this dark alley without my mace or safety whistle. I didn’t care whether it worked out or if I was clobbered in pain from the rejection afterward, I just wanted Joe.

I lay back on the bed, pulled him onto me. We kissed and kissed, and then I reached for his belt buckle. My only goal was to touch every inch of his body, to have him entirely. Any thought of holding to a schedule of appropriateness had evaporated.

He moved my hand, though. “Just let me kiss you tonight,” he said, and we lay there, staring at each other—two mirages from the past.

“I want to be with you,” I whispered.

“I want to be with you, too,” he said, kissing me again. “But let’s wait, at least until tomorrow.”

“You’re turning down a sure thing,” I joked.

“It’s taking every ounce of strength,” he admitted.

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, because Joe was still as good a man as he was fifteen years ago and the fact that he put the brakes on made me want him all the more. I loved that he was being respectful, offering me boundaries, because he didn’t need to. I was already his. He could have me as soon as he wanted. I would follow him anywhere.

Or perhaps he was self-conscious about his leg. And then I questioned my motives, whether my wanting him was true desire, or my way of proving to him that I loved him completely, leg or not.

An hour later, Joe and I resembled teenagers who had staggered from the backseat of a car after a marathon make-out session. Our mouths and faces were red and swollen, our hair tousled and tossed, our clothes wrinkled and askew.

“I should go,” Joe said. When we stood at the door saying good night, I—Missy Fletcher, the brave girl on a weekend trip to see her high school sweetheart, the cartographer treading into new territory—decided to stake my flag. “I love you, Joe,” I said. “I’ve always loved you.”

“I’ve always loved you, too,” Joe said, and it wasn’t until later, after he left, that I turned that phrase over and over, until I had examined it from every side. That Joe “had always loved me” wasn’t exactly the same as his saying that he loved me now.

In the morning, I showered and dressed, and then waited in the lobby for Joe to pick me up for coffee. When I saw him from across the room, my heart thumped. “Does he do it for you?” I remembered Dad asking about Lucas.

We drove for a few blocks until we were at Rise N Shine. “I’m here every morning,” Joe said as we approached the door. “Wait’ll you try their butterscotch scones.”

His face turned glum when we saw a sign hanging from the door:
CLOSED FOR A ONE-DAY RENOVATION
.

“Closed?” Joe said. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’ll die without a butterscotch scone,” I joked.

“There’s another good shop, just down the road.”

We drove a mile farther and parked in the lot of Earthly Paradise. We pushed through the glass doors. The aroma of dark-roast beans and sausage-biscuit sandwiches filled the air. We stood in line, then put in our order and lingered off to the side, commenting on the good smells, the artsy décor. Joe held my hand. I stared into his eyes and grinned crazily. The knowledge that I was here with Joe was a reality; I knew that. But still. This was
Joe
, the guy I had dreamed about for the past fifteen years.

Maybe Dad had been right all along, that I had been putting a ceiling on my happiness because I didn’t think I deserved to have it all. Somehow I’d relegated myself to the back of the room, pushed against the wall, the girl with the glasses and the laptop who spoke only when spoken to, and who never offered an idea of her own. Why? And why did I think I didn’t deserve Joe? There was no reason to think that this couldn’t be the start of a brand-new future.

I thought of my old life on a spreadsheet: work, Rosetta Stone,
Jeopardy!
, Italian gelato, lurking on Facebook. Now my new life: jet-setting to Italy, setting up a school for girls in India, “gambling” with a portion of my investable assets, reuniting with Joe—the man I had loved for two decades.

A smile poured through my entire body. I was allowed to be this happy. The sky was not going to fall on top of me because my happy meter was smacking against the rails.

Suddenly, Joe dropped my hand and took an awkward step back. When I looked up at him, I followed his eyes to the front door. In the entryway was a woman and three children. I didn’t need a translator. The warmth that had infiltrated me turned to nausea, as if the knowledge that I’d chugged sour milk had just hit my stomach.

Lucy, Katherine, Olivia, and Jake. Joe’s family, only feet away.

I looked up at Joe, who—to his credit—was remarkably calm, but clearly uneasy. When the kids saw their father, a unified chorus of “Daddy!” sang from the mouths of the younger two. The older daughter appeared to eye her father and me somewhat skeptically, but joined her little brother and sister in encircling Joe in hugs. If I could have melted into the earth, I would have. I was cornered, and felt utterly exposed. If only I had a drop of my father’s DNA to get me through this.

“Hi, Joe,” Lucy said.

She was gorgeous. Of course she was. A thick mane of auburn waves, glowing and fresh-scrubbed skin, thick eyebrows, and mile-long lashes. The type of girl who hated me in high school because I was smart and she was pretty and we didn’t mix well.