The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (36 page)

“So, Christian . . . ,” Natalie said, cutting in before placing a forkful of eggs in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed
before she continued. “What do you think of living in San Diego?” I looked across the table at her, aware she was trying to make me comfortable and welcome me into their circle. She’d always been kind to me, giving me the benefit while everyone else had remained in doubt.

My gaze flickered between the girls on my left and right before returning to rest on her. “I love it here.”

“Me too,” Lizzie added as she shoved half of a piece of bacon into her mouth.

Yes. I
absolutely
loved it here.

“And work?” Natalie asked.

“Uh . . .” Honestly, I really didn’t know how to answer her. I knew I had a dream job and I wished I could appreciate it more, but in the end, it really only served to remind me of what I’d walked away from to attain it.

Natalie laughed. “Work’s work, right?”

I chuckled at her observation even though it went much deeper than the obvious. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Elizabeth tensed beside me as we broached what I knew was going to be a very touchy subject for us. Elizabeth had never been in it for the money, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have aspirations. And she was right, what she’d said that afternoon—we could have figured it out.

Lizzie jumped on the topic. “At my Daddy’s work you can see the ocean
and
at his house too,” she said with wide-eyed exuberance. Months before, I’d taken Lizzie to my office to show her where I worked, and of course, she’d been to my condo a number of times. She’d clearly been impressed by the fact that they looked over the water and had declared that one day she’d live by the ocean, too. It was a wish I’d be all too happy to grant.

Elizabeth joining the conversation caught me off guard. “So, what’s it like working for your dad?” She studied me with a
genuine concern-filled gaze. She’d known how turbulent my relationship with my father had been, and he’d been nothing but a self-righteous asshole to her. I was surprised she’d even mention him.

I looked directly at her and expelled a weighty breath before I answered truthfully. “Miserable.” I shoveled some scrambled eggs into my mouth to cover up the disdain I felt for my father. He ruled his company with an iron fist and treated every single one of his employees like garbage, including me. Why he’d asked me to “head” the San Diego office when he thought me incapable of doing anything right was beyond me.

She nodded softly as if she’d expected it. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” For everything.

Her attention dropped to her plate, absorbed with spearing eggs onto her fork.

It was all so disconcerting, the way Elizabeth and I had to tiptoe around each other as if every simple comment came with a threat to sweep us away in the undertow and to drown us in our past.

I turned back to Natalie in hope of a safer topic. “What do you do, Natalie?”

Her brown eyes lit up as she jumped into a detailed account of the last four years of her life—her goals, school, meeting Matthew. While she was young and viewed the world through an almost childlike awe, there was still a depth to her. I liked her and could easily count her as a friend. “So right now, I’m taking classes in the mornings to finish up my bachelor’s and taking care of this sweet little thing in the afternoons.” She poked Lizzie in the belly with her finger, causing Lizzie to squeal.

Matthew watched his wife with tenderness, his face glowing as she spoke. I glanced at Elizabeth, then back at him, searching for any sort of unease with the interaction while
wondering how their lives seemed so simple when the situation was anything but. Elizabeth merely watched them both with fondness. Maybe when I had seen Matthew at Elizabeth’s side that night I’d been too blinded by my own self-pity to see clearly, but I could plainly see it now. He’d stood beside Elizabeth devoted as a protector, her guardian, but his touch had lacked what poured from him when he looked at his wife.

He’d never
loved
Elizabeth—not the way I did, not the way he loved Natalie.

I was such fool, every realization an amplification of the mistakes I’d made.

For the remainder of breakfast, I listened and learned. Matthew directed nothing toward me other than an occasional penetrating stare as if he would give anything to know my thoughts.

Elizabeth’s little family carried on the way I imagined they always did, relaxed, enjoying each other, and chatting about what had happened throughout their week.

Elizabeth laughed.

And the world was right.

“Can I help with anything?” I stood in the doorway of Elizabeth’s kitchen as she loaded the dishwasher with the aftermath of Sunday morning. I’d just come downstairs from Lizzie’s room where I’d spent the last hour playing with her on the floor—everything from dolls, to cars, to a game that required me to wear plastic earrings and a princess tiara.

I won.

Elizabeth smiled over her shoulder. “Nope, just finishing up.” She closed the dishwasher and twisted the dial to start.

“This was great, Elizabeth. Thank you.”

She shook her head indicating it wasn’t a problem. “I’m glad you were here.”

“I’m glad I was, too.” More than she could ever know.

Seeing Lizzie three days in a row had been wonderful, and even though I was aware this request would count as pushing again, I couldn’t imagine not seeing her for an entire week. “So, I was thinking . . . maybe I could pick Lizzie up on Tuesday from school to take her to lunch?” I felt nervous, shifting my feet, worried of her reaction. So I rambled. “I’d only keep her for a couple of hours and I could bring her back to Natalie. You wouldn’t even know she was gone.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I don’t see why not. Just let me check with Nat.”

Natalie agreed, which didn’t surprise me. She seemed thrilled with the idea. The arrangement would be for me to pick Lizzie up from school and then drop her back at Natalie and Matthew’s house afterward. I typed the address Natalie had given me into my phone while she and Matthew hugged and kissed Elizabeth and Lizzie goodbye, their affection great as they promised they’d see each other tomorrow.

Natalie hugged me. At first it caught me off guard, but I was quick to reciprocate with a murmured, “Thank you,” low against her ear. She nodded and squeezed me harder in return, a clear understanding taking place between us.

The greater shock was when Matthew stepped forward and extended his hand. I accepted it, though my grip was weak and unsure. He shook it, firm and without reproach. “Thanks for being there last night.”

I nodded even though I didn’t want his thanks. No father should need to be thanked for participating in what was his responsibility, but I had to accept that my past choices resulted in the judgment of my actions now.

“All right, we’re outta here.” Natalie tugged on Matthew’s arm, taking his hand. With a final goodbye, they filed
out the front door, their departure signaling that my time here today had ended as well.

“I guess I’d better head out, too.” My tone was less than enthusiastic.

I knelt in front of my daughter and gathered her in my arms. There was nothing worse than telling her goodbye. “I love you, baby girl. Daddy’s going to pick you up from school on Tuesday.” I smoothed her hair and drank in her eyes. “Would you like that?”

“Yes!” She squeezed her arms around my neck. “You’re the best daddy in the world!”

Her perception of me was so skewed, so far removed from the truth, but there would be no good purpose in correcting her now. I needed to talk to her about it, I knew, just as much as I needed to talk to her mother, but not as I was walking out the door. So I drew her closer, held her tight.

“Goodbye, princess.” In disinclination, I let her go and stood to leave.

“Bye, Daddy.”

Elizabeth regarded us from where she stood, leaning against the wall under the stairs, a new sadness on her face. It was a sadness I knew all too well. I wore it all the time.

“Goodbye, Elizabeth. Thanks for everything.”

“Goodbye, Christian.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the warmth of the summer sun.

Elizabeth followed me to the doorway to see me out.

“Elizabeth?” I turned to her, pausing on her stoop. This wasn’t an afterthought. It’d been on my mind, weighing on me since last night. “Why didn’t you come back to class?”

She stilled as the meaning of my question dawned on her face. Her voice was quiet and cracked when she answered. “I was sick.”

Closing my eyes, I nodded as I rode out the suffocating wave of guilt, and in my shame, I turned and left Elizabeth with no further words.

~

The preschool was a large, white building with colorful letters splashed across the front and shrubs growing against its walls. A wrought iron fence painted bright blue encompassed the grounds, and playground equipment filled the yard that was protected from the heat by a matching blue sunshade.

At exactly noon, I walked through the door and into the office, feeling a bit out of sorts and nervous. The room was mostly quiet, only the distorted sound of children playing seeping through the thin walls. The young woman behind the counter asked if she could help me.

“Yes, I’m here to pick up Lizzie Ayers.”

Her face lit in recognition. “Oh, yes, we were told to expect you.” She thumbed through a stack of files on her desk and produced a folder with Lizzie’s name on the tab. She pulled a sheet from it, passed it across to me, and set a pen on top of it. “I just need you to fill this out and I need your driver’s license for verification.”

Most of the form had been filled out by Elizabeth, her distinct handwriting adding me to the list of people authorized to pick Lizzie up from school. There was only a small section where I needed to add my personal information.

My heart palpitated as I realized the huge leap of faith Elizabeth had taken in me.

I now had control of signing my daughter in and out of school.

With a shaky hand, I added the information and passed the form back to the receptionist along with my license.

She looked it over, put up a finger, and said, “Just a minute.”

She made a photocopy, added it to the file, and showed me where to sign out my daughter. Then she led me down the hall to Lizzie’s classroom.

“Daddy!” Lizzie spotted me the second we walked through the door and ran across the room with outstretched arms.

“Hi, sweetheart.” I picked her up and kissed her on the forehead, rocking her as I held her to my chest. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Daddy.”

“Come on, let’s get your things.”

Lizzie showed me her cubby stuffed with her day’s work, proud as she presented me with a picture she’d painted. Although the picture had been drawn with the crudeness of the hand of a five year old, the two adults and one child standing hand-in-hand, one with yellow and two with black hair, made it clear who she’d drawn.

“This is beautiful, Lizzie.”
So beautiful
.

I helped her wriggle her backpack over the sling she still wore on her arm and then took her good hand and led her out.

“Where to, Lizzie?” I looked at her through the rearview mirror where she was buckled in her booster in the backseat of my car.

“I want pizza!”

Then pizza it was.

Soon we were seated at a round table for two at the small pizza parlor I’d looked up on my phone. It was the kind of place where the owner cooked in the back while he yelled orders to his employees up front, a place where a person could order pizza by
the slice and sit at tables covered in red and white checked cloths, a place where the intoxicating smell of fresh-baked dough hung in the air.

Lizzie sat on her knees, sipping a clear, bubbly soda through a straw, the two of us conversing about our day. She told me of the fight between two little boys on the playground, her voice disapproving as she described how they had to sit in time out for the
whole
recess.

I chuckled and then told her about the board meeting I’d had to sit through the entire morning, leaving out all the boring details, instead telling her how I’d spent the entire time gazing out on the sailboats on the water while thinking of only her.

The server arrived with our food and refilled our drinks. The slices of pizza were huge and dripping with grease, and I convinced Lizzie to allow me to cut it into pieces so she could eat it with a fork rather than trying to balance it with her one good hand.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said with a soft expression of appreciation on her face as I set her plate back in front of her and handed her a fork.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” I smiled as she speared a piece of her cheese pizza and popped it into her mouth. Only then did I turn to wrestle the huge piece in front of me.

We ate in peace for a couple of minutes while I contemplated the best way to bring up a discussion I was certain would be one of the hardest of my life, but one I couldn’t put off any longer.

“Lizzie, honey?”

Grinning, she looked up from her plate and across the table at me.

“Are you happy Daddy’s here . . . now?” Really, I knew what she would say. I just didn’t know a better way to break into the conversation.