Christopher and Jaime (Pianos and Promises #1) Page 5

  I set the journal down and went back to staring at him. He began to stir some. Hope said he might and it was normal. She said patients in this state dream vividly and that he might be able to hear me.

  I took the journal and blanket with me and sat near his bed. It was almost midnight and though I was exhausted, I wasn’t tired. I took Chris’ manicured hand in mine. He was more of a girl than me sometimes when it came to his grooming habits, but his nails and cuticles did look nice, and I always enjoyed the smoothness of his hands. We had held hands for so long that I had his hands memorized, right down to the small scar near his index knuckle on his left hand. The hand that still wore his grandfather’s gold band I had placed on it over two years ago. I wasn’t sure why he was still wearing it. I had given his grandmother’s ring back to him. We thought the rings would bring us luck. We were so wrong.

  Chris had come home in the middle of the day at the end of June. We had barely spoken to each other since our disastrous anniversary in May. I was startled when I saw the door open. He never came home early, or even when the sun was still out. Allie was napping in her room and I was opening my own bank account online. I had just accepted my teaching position and I knew my piano money needed a home. Chris was always after me not to keep that kind of cash lying around, but it was a reminder of reaching my goal, it beckoned me on. But like everything else in my life, it was going to have to wait. I needed that money to fund my new goal.

  “Hey, Jaimes.” He waited by the door for my response.

  “Hey,” I said, more into my laptop screen than to him.

  I guess that was enough incentive for him. He found his way next to me on the couch. “I have something for you.”

  I gave him my attention. He looked so unsure of himself. I couldn’t recall if he had ever worn that expression before.

  He reached into his suitcoat and pulled out some neatly folded papers and handed them to me. I took them and unfolded them. Right off, I recognized an online travel site logo. I scanned down to see he purchased a trip for two to Italy in August. It was on my bucket list. It was one of the places I hadn’t been able to visit during my Au Pair days.

  I hated and loved him all at once for the gesture. I handed him back the papers. “I can’t go.”

  He was taken aback. “Why? I already talked to Bianca’s parents and they can watch Allie.” I was surprised he made that arrangement.

  Allie was a consideration, but . . . “I accepted that teaching position.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything? What are we going to do with Allie after school?”

  “I want to pull Allie out of the charter school we signed her up for. She can attend the school I teach at.” I never wanted to sign her up for it in the first place. They were strictly focused on the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. They didn’t have any art or music programs, but they were highly touted and right up Chris’ alley.

  “Were you going to discuss any of this with me?”

  “When do you discuss any of your decisions with me?”

  His clenched jaw relaxed. “You’re right. I should be better about that.”

  “Chris . . .” I set my laptop down and turned toward him. I tried my best to really look at him, to peer into his eyes to find any reason to stay, but I couldn’t forget the last couple of years, the memory of broken promises. So I removed his grandmother’s ring from my finger. I watched his eyes dilate and follow my every move, right down to me placing it in his hand. He refused to close his palm where the ring lay. He kept staring at it.

  “I’m filing for divorce.”

  “Don’t do this,” he pleaded, his eyes begging.

  “Why?” I was waiting, hoping he would say he loved me—that might have given me some pause.

  “What about Allie?”

  The pit grew in my stomach. “I’m her mom; that not’s going to change. I want joint custody of her. I’m signing a lease for a small house near the school, so she’ll have somewhere to stay when I have her.”

  “You rented a house already?”

  “I’m moving in at the end of next month.”

  “Well hell, Jaime, what else should I know about?”

  “Lots of things, but none of them matter to you.” I stood up to leave, but he caught my hand.

  “Jaimes, I’m trying to make up for what happened on our anniversary.”

  “You don’t get it. I don’t want fancy trips. I love you, Chris. I’ve always loved you, but I can’t do this anymore.”

  “I need you.” His eyes pleaded with me.

  “I know. The problem is, you never wanted me.”

  He hung his head and stared down at his grandmother’s ring.

  “Next time, make sure you give that to someone you really love.” I walked off to call my attorney to let him know to proceed. Chris was served divorce papers the following week. And his five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer had done his best to slow down the process ever since.

  We spent those last few weeks together in a mostly silent abyss.

  Now here I was, staring at my old life, the life I thought I wanted.

  “Chris,” I whispered and squeezed his hand, “Why couldn’t you love me?”

  Chapter Four

  I fell into a fitful sleep holding onto his hand near his bedside. I woke up with a start. I swore I heard him call my name, but when my eyes came into focus, I could see he was still unconscious. I looked at the time, it was only four in the morning. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my head on them. My mind wandered back to his first year of graduate school at Duke.

  We’d missed each other again in passing. I had come home to start school after four years of traveling just as he was leaving for North Carolina. He hadn’t been gone a month when I got a phone call from him. I could hear the loneliness in his voice, and some homesickness. He wouldn’t admit it.

  He got a C on some big test, and it had floored him. He was a straight-A student, and a perfectionist. I think it finally hit him that he was now a little fish in a big pond. He didn’t ask me to come, but I was always up for a road trip. I skipped classes on Friday and drove the eight hours to surprise him. He lived in an apartment with a couple of other guys, but I stayed with him anyway. It’s not like I could have afforded a hotel, and besides, we never left each other’s side. I brought all of our favorite movies and made caramel popcorn. That first night, we stayed curled up together on his couch. We hardly said a word to each other, only our presence was needed. I remembered him squeezing my hand repeatedly, as if he was checking to make sure I was really there. It had been a while since we had seen each other, though we emailed every day. I still hadn’t gotten a cell phone and he always teased me about it.

  I remembered resting my head on his shoulder that night, wishing he would kiss me. We had both recently broken up with someone else, and it seemed like the perfect time. I had almost kissed him, but I had too much girl in me at that point to be so forward. I wanted him to make the first move. I couldn’t stand the thought of being rejected by him.

  I grabbed his journal to see if he had any thoughts about that weekend. I wondered if it even registered on his radar. I flipped through page after page. I noticed some of his pages had several days on them, like he had only written a line or two about the day’s events. I caught a passage about Bianca as I was flipping through. They met while undergrads at the University of Tennessee. She was a couple of years older than us.

  It was dated a few days before my visit to North Carolina.

  Bianca called, she thinks maybe we should give ourselves a second chance.

  I didn’t know they had dated during their time at UT. I couldn’t think about it right then. I already felt ill. I fast forwarded a couple of pages and found what I was looking for.

  Jaimes showed up this weekend. It was just what I needed. I’m glad she’s finally back in the states. My buddies all wanted to hook up with her. I noticed the way Beck looked at her especially, but I told them all to keep the hell away
from her. They all want to know why I haven’t hooked up with her yet. I kept staring down at her while she slept on me Friday night, wondering the same thing. Maybe because I can get a girlfriend anytime I want, but real friends are hard to come by and she is the only friend I’ve ever needed.

  I don’t know why we watch movies together. She falls asleep every time and we always watch the same ones. She has some weird obsession with eighties movies. In particular, a film called Some Kind of Wonderful. I watched it after she fell asleep. I think it was the first time I noticed that the best friends ended up together. I wonder if that’s why she likes it. Maybe someday that will be Jaime and me, but she needs to finish school and I need to focus on grad school.

  And then there’s Bianca, she does something for me. She has her act together and the thought of her in a sexy suit in a courtroom drives me wild.

  I slammed the journal shut. I had my act together, too, just not in a way he always agreed with. I learned way more traveling the world than I ever did in a classroom. So what if I didn’t go to some expensive private college and get a degree in law, or if I didn’t wear sexy outfits every day? I got to help villages in Africa get clean water. I helped the Red Cross vaccinate children to protect them from measles. I toured Mozart’s home in Vienna and the Bach House is Leipzig. I experienced the beauty of the Louvre and picked pineapples in Hawaii. I played piano on a cruise ship. I met dozens of people that impacted my life and that I made forever connections with. I helped people raise their children. And I was raising his child.

  So maybe I would never make millions with my music and teaching degrees, but at least I was helping people and wasn’t consumed with myself or my career. He and Bianca were perfect for each other—two self-absorbed people that wouldn’t know what real love was if it bit them.

  And he was right, I did adore that movie because I thought maybe someday he would see I was the perfect woman for him. That what we had was real love. And when we first got married, I thought he had finally gotten it. But it was short-lived. I wasn’t sure he knew how to love anymore. He hadn’t always been that way.

  Deep down, I knew he had it in him. I had been the recipient of it. I saw how he took care of his aging grandparents with such tenderness and dignity. And there were moments when he read to Allie or played with her on the floor that I saw the man he could be. He was the man that held me all night long when my mom was diagnosed with cancer eight years ago. He didn’t hesitate when I’d said I needed him. He’d dropped everything on his plate and drove from North Carolina to be with me. He helped me have hope that it would all work out, and thankfully it had. He sent me flowers a year later when my mom got her first clean bill of health. The card read, I told you so. He was the man that spoon-fed his grandfather, wiped his chin, and kissed his cheeks.

  I wanted that man back. I don’t know why he was so consumed with success and making money. His grandparents had left him a nice nest egg from the sale of their estate and what they had in cash and holdings. Chris was set, but for some reason he felt like he had to prove he could be just as, or more, successful on his own. But didn’t he realize the success he was after was fleeting? Did he not see what his grandparents valued most was him and each other? Not their possessions or status. Was this really the legacy he wanted to leave Allie?

  Around six in the morning I decided to go home to shower and change. And I needed a dose of Allie. My mom was going to come up and stay with her at my place.

  I kissed Christopher’s bandaged head and lingered. I missed kissing him. One thing our marriage hadn’t lacked was physical intimacy. I thought it might be awkward at first since we had known each other for so long, but that only made it better. I slept in his arms every night for two years. I still dreaded going to sleep without him. I missed the way he kissed my neck every morning before he got up to run on the treadmill. I missed watching the sweat drip off him and jumping in the shower with him before Allie woke up. Every day, for those brief moments where I had him just to myself, I felt like that was where I always belonged. I thought maybe he had felt that way, too.

  I wondered if he missed me. Did the bed feel empty to him? I know he used to watch me sleep on the couch almost every night once I left our bed. He would sit on the square coffee table and watch me, sometimes for minutes, but sometimes much longer. He thought I was asleep, but I was always drawn to his presence. I could hear him breathe, shift his position, and sigh. At times I was tempted to turn toward him, to ask him why, to beg him to change. But I lay there in the still of the night, mostly wondering why he didn’t say anything to me. Why was he watching me?

  “I love you,” I whispered to his still form. I gathered up his belongings, including his journal, and took them with me. I knew he wouldn’t want those things lying around. And I knew I couldn’t tell him how much I loved him when he woke up.

  I ran home to clean up before I went to get my Allie bug. Walking into my unpacked house was a glaring reminder of how much my life was in chaos. It reminded me that I had a slew of phone calls to return. The insurance company of the woman who hit Chris had called and left messages, as had Chris’ company. I couldn’t deal with it yesterday. And I didn’t want to today, but I knew I had to. But first, a shower, some food, and my baby.

  I let the warm water engulf me. The worry began to creep in. Was Chris going to fully recover? How was Allie going to deal with this new turn of events? We had already put her life in upheaval. All she wanted was for Mommy and Daddy to live together again, preferably in our new place. She was so over the loft. Our new home was small, but it had a big backyard and she could laugh, play, and sing at the top of her lungs without disturbing the neighbors or her dad. He was never harsh with her, but when he was home, he was always asking her to keep it down.

  I guess he forgot how loud he was as a kid. Sometimes when I was at his house for piano lessons he would howl like an idiot. And when he and his buddies got going, it was deafening. I missed that kid.

  Right now, though, I would take arguing with him just to know he was okay.

  The water ran cold. I forgot I no longer lived in a place with an endless supply. One perk of the loft. At least the cold was invigorating.

  I wrapped myself in a towel and called to check on Allie.

  “Hey, sis. How are you holding up?” Caleb asked before I could get a word in.

  “Just fine.”

  “You would say that even if your house burned down.”

  “Probably.”

  “How’s Chris?”

  “The doctors say his EEG patterns look normal, and they’ll check later today to see if the swelling has gone down. It’s weird to see him so helpless.”

  “You sound tired. You’ve sounded that way for a long time. I’ll bring Allie to you this morning.”

  “Look at you being all big brotherish.”

  “I’m here for you if you ever want to let it out.”

  “I’m just trying to get through the days right now.”

  “Let us know what we can do to help.”

  “Thanks. Taking care of Allie last night was perfect.”

  After my phone call to my brother, I fell onto my unmade bed. I still hadn’t unpacked the bedding. I had slept on the couch the first night here, it had seemed less lonely and real.

  I needed a part of Chris. I leaned over the edge of the bed to grab the journal. I propped myself up on my hand and let the journal choose its page. It fell open to a place in time that still haunted my memories. It was almost seven years ago, the night before Chris married Bianca.

  My last night as a single man. Jaimes came to my bachelor party and wiped us clean at poker. She looked good with my ball cap on backwards, pretending to smoke a cigar. She had been distant since we announced our engagement, so I’m glad she showed up. Except watching her turned my feet ice cold. It doesn’t help that Gran is unhappy about my decision. Bianca’s good for me. She pushes me. I wish she could see that. And Jaimes is dating that professor. The guy can bore you to deat
h talking about music theory.

  Am I making a mistake like Gran says? Jaime and I are night and day, but what is one without the other? I asked Jaimes tonight when I walked her out to her car if she could give me one good reason not to marry Bianca. She didn’t answer for the longest time. Instead she pulled me to her and rested her head on my shoulder. I held her there in the parking lot. I could feel her shake. In the end, she whispered, “I can’t.” She kissed my cheek and took off. I almost went after her, but I thought about Bianca. We make sense.

  I closed the journal and rolled on my back. I felt a pit in my stomach. I feared I made a critical error that night. Why hadn’t I told him I loved him? Maybe he would have changed his mind. I wanted to, and I almost did, but he and Bianca had already bought a place together and I was with Julian, who was a great guy even if Chris thought he was boring.

  I had sat with his grandmother at the wedding the next day, feeling like I would puke. She leaned over before it began and whispered in my ear, “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you stand up to object.” She wasn’t kidding. “You should have told him you loved him. You missed your chance, darling.” Unfortunately, Julian was sitting on my other side and he heard her. It didn’t help that he stared at me during the whole ceremony while tears streamed down my face. We broke up that night. Not a tear was shed for that event.

  I thought nothing would ever be more painful than to watch Chris marry another woman. I was wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Holding our baby in my arms did me a world of good. I kissed her head and cheeks dozens of times until she giggled.

  “Stop, Mommy.”

  “Never.” I kissed her some more.

  Her laugh was infectious. I needed that more than anything today.