Second Chances (21 page)

"I'll look after him, Julie. I promise," Sarah said, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

Julie shocked Sarah by grabbing her in a tight hug.

"Thank you," was all she could manage before she dashed away down the path.

Sarah was overwhelmed and found herself wiping at a tear or two herself. She came around and knelt down in front of Jason.

"That's a keeper you got there," she said. "She loves you very much."

And Sarah knew her words were true. There was no question how much Ms. Murphy loved Jason. However, looking at him now, staring off blankly into the distance, she once again couldn't deny that part of her wished she would stop her visits. She could already tell, like he seemed to do after each of her visits, Jason was retreating further into himself.

Paige woke to find Nathan looking down at her. She had her arms wrapped around his right arm and had been using his shoulder as a pillow. He smiled at her and she returned it. She untangled herself from him and was surprised to find she was a little sad when she did.
 

"Good morning," he said.

She looked around the cabin, sunlight was streaming in through the windows.
 

"Morning? What time is it?"

Nathan let out a short laugh. "I honestly have no clue. I am not sure what time zone my watch is set to anymore. I think we are supposed to land around ten or so local time. Now when the heck I will adjust to local time, that is anyones guess."

Paige shook her head and laughed as well. She got up from her seat and moved out into the aisle to stretch. She had thought that the flight was only supposed to be three or four hours. She didn't feel as if she had slept very long and yet waking next to Nathan, she actually felt somewhat rested. She still felt butterflies swirling in her stomach and believed that if she spent any real time thinking about what they were doing then the tremors might return, but for now she decided to live in the moment and enjoy it.

"It looks good," Nathan said, looking at her.

Paige looked around the cabin before turning back to Nathan, a puzzled expression on her face.

He reached up and tapped his chest and then pointed at her. Paige looked down and noticed the cross dangling on the chain. She blushed and covered it with a hand.

"I...it fell out of your pocket back in...umm"

He smiled and laughed again.

"It's okay, Paige. I bought it for you. To be honest, I have to say I had completely forgotten about it. I think it looks great on you. I am glad you like it."

"I really do. It's beautiful and I love it. Thank you."

"But it is not quite right, is it?"

She was quiet a moment, then looked down at it and a frown appeared.

"Sorry, Paige. I know you said you hate me doing that."

She touched the cross and her smile returned.

"Believe it or not, part of me had completely forgotten the craziness of this entire situation until you said that."

"Then let me say again, I am really sorry."

She nodded and then sat back down, taking the aisle seat.

"I guess it is okay. I mean I guess we need to deal with this situation as upfront and honestly as we can." She was quiet for a minute before saying, "And you are right. It's not quite right, but it is lovely. Thank you."

Nathan nodded, but turned, looked out the window and silently cursed himself.

"I guess I need to...I don't know, lighten up about it a bit. I mean if we intend to figure it all out then we are going to have to discuss it, right?"

Again Nathan nodded. "Yeah, but I could have waited for you to be up longer than two minutes before throwing it in your face."

Paige reached over and patted him on the arm. "I admit that is not my preferred way to be woken up."

"I know," Nathan said and instantly regretted it when he saw her shiver at his response. He silently cursed himself again before asking, "So do you want to talk about it?"

Paige sat in silence for several minutes. He waited, unwilling to push any further. She turned to say something when a ding sounded in the cabin and the pilot came on the intercom and announced that they would be starting their descent into Providence shortly.

"Well I guess I was saved by the bell," Paige said.

"Okay, but we are still going to have to address it."

"I know," she said, looking away. "How about we make a decision then. I really do not want to discuss it now and I think you agree. I would also not like to discuss it while we are driving. Can we maybe get settled a bit first? Then I promise, we can start trying to talk about it."

Nathan understood what she was saying. She would be willing to start discussing it, but was making no promises how far they would get. There were so many questions that needed to be asked and answered. So many things to be uncovered and she wasn't sure how well she would handle the search for those answers. Nathan wasn't sure how well he would either, but they both knew they would have to at least start the process.

"Okay, I can agree with that. We will have to make a few stops anyway. I am definitely going to have to pick up some more clothes and stuff."

"Isn't there anyone you need to check in with? I mean this trip was rather unexpected for you."

"No, I don't imagine people are expecting to hear from me. Ever since...well ever since, I haven't kept up with many people. Hell, I have actually alienated almost everyone I know. Most of the business is on autopilot and what isn't is being handled by our partner Toby Richards."

"Your partner, Toby Richards," Paige corrected.

"Sorry."

"He won't be worried about you?"

Nathan was silent for a minute. Part of him wanted to say that didn't they just agree not to discuss this, but he realized discussing his current life wasn't the same as discussing their past. Her past.

"No. Well maybe a little. Toby is a good guy and has been a great friend. However, he knows how hard things have been for me. How much..." Nathan stopped and shook his head, dismissing what he had intended to say. "Let's just say that he wouldn't be surprised by me dropping off the radar for a little while. It certainly wouldn't be the first time."

"No other family?"

Nathan was quiet for a minute. "It's so odd. I feel like this is stuff you should know. Stuff you knew so well and yet..."

"I'm sorry I..."

"No, its okay, really. Just feels surreal, but then so much of this does, doesn't it? I guess we only got so far the other night. As I told you before, I was an only child. I lost both my parents just after high school. Drunk driver. It really messed me up. I ended up going to live briefly with an uncle I never knew I had. He was my mom's brother. He was much older than my mom. I don't know what or even if their were problems between them. Though I expect there were, since I didn't learn he even existed until the day I was told I would be going to live with him. I was with him for less than a year before leaving for college. I am not sure we said more then a couple dozen words to each other."

Paige frowned. She regretted asking and wanted to let him know he didn't have to explain any more.

"What little I learned of him was actually after the fact, while cleaning out his house after he died. It was during the summer before my junior year of college. Heart attack. He had at one time been married with two daughters. Drunk driver again. I think perhaps that is why he agreed to take me in and why...well why we never bonded I guess. I was a reminder of his own loss. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but that is how I felt at the time. I don't want you to get the impression that he was mean or anything. Anyway, he left everything to me. At the time I didn't know what that entailed. It turned out that besides his home, he owned a sporting good store."

Nathan was silent for a moment and then let out a little chuckle.

"To think all that time I was there, I never had a clue what it was that he did. He would leave every morning for work and come back later. I never once asked him what it was he did."

"You were coping with the loss of your parents."

"Yeah, maybe. I think part of it was that I didn't want to know. Didn't want to know his business, didn't want to know him. I think I was afraid of getting to know him. And not just him, anyone really. I shut myself up. I can definitely see that now. I was afraid of losing anyone else. If you don't let anyone in then they can't leave you. Can't hurt you."

"Toby was the first person who made it back in and that was simply because he was too damn stubborn. He was my roommate at college. Computer nerd and business wiz all in one. Not to mention a bit of a party animal. I owe everything I have today to him."

Paige smiled. She could tell that it pained him a bit to talk about it, but it was also therapeutic.

"What the heck did I know about running a store? Not to mention I was still in college. Of course I was majoring in screwing around. I switched majors so many times, I don't even remember what I was studying when I left school."

"You didn't finish?"

Nathan shook his head. "Toby was there for me after my uncle died. I tried to push him away, but like I said he was stubborn. I didn't know what to do with the store and the warehouse full of equipment. Toby on the other hand came up with a plan. He had me close down the physical store and we went virtual. To this day I still don't understand all the moves he made, but before long we had contracts with schools and playgrounds, you name it. Success was handed to me. I should have been happy. Maybe I was, a little."

Paige understood what he was saying. Moving forward despite the loss. You could fake it fairly well if you tried. When the ground gets ripped out from under you, you can make a show of getting back up, but inside you might still be there huddled in a ball on the ground.

"So things went on for years. I went through the motions. I don't know that many people noticed there was anything wrong. And maybe there wasn't. Maybe I had convinced myself that I actually was happy. I still didn't let people in, but..."

She nodded in understanding.

"I guess part of me had settled and come to accept that my life was basically how it was going to be. And then you...then Paige came into my life and everything changed. I was woken from a sleep I never knew I was in. The rest...well you've seen the journals."

Paige wanted to reach out and hug him. If she was truly like his Paige, then it was easy to see why they had bonded. She had many questions, but she was aware it was unfair of her to expect only him to be the one answering them and she still wasn't ready yet. Besides, she saw that a flight attendant was making her way down the aisle asking people to bring their seats into position for landing and could feel the plane dropping in altitude.
 

A moment later the pilot came back on the intercom and announced that the local time was ten thirty-seven, the temperature was fifty-six degrees and it was partly cloudy with a thirty percent chance of rain. Paige decided she would be optimistic. There was a seventy percent chance it wouldn't rain. She only wished the butterflies in her stomach would agree to be optimistic as well. The more the plane descended the more active they seemed to become.

Not giving into the pain, maintaining a calm outward appearance was hard, but trying not to look her in the eyes, that was the hardest part. It hadn't been bad for the first twenty minutes or so. The injection site hurt a little, but after that he had felt completely normal. Well what passed as normal these days, which he was clear enough to know was a far cry from what anyone else would classify as normal. He'd continued to do what he had been doing for so long now, playing as much of what Julie had said to him over and over again in his mind. Playing her words in an endless loop was the only way he could hope to remember them. He was certain he had lost much of what she had said and he cursed himself for it, but he couldn't help it. He had to sleep, no matter how hard he tried sleep would eventually take him. And when sleep released him from its grip it always took some of her words from him. Important words, he was certain, but he was powerless to recall them.

Sarah was kneeling by him, saying something to him, but he refused to look at her. He could hear the frustrated sadness in her voice. He knew her as well as his brain would allow. She was constantly with him. She cared for him he knew. Not just in the physical sense that she was his caregiver. He believed she had come to care for him as a person. They had been together a long time, though he did not have a clue just how long that actually was. Time had stopped having any real sense of meaning for him long ago. It pained him to do so, but he ignored her words and focused on Julie's and sadly he couldn't even remember them correctly, but he knew what they had meant.

Paige was in trouble.

The pain was returning now, slowing building. He did his best to ignore it, to shift his focus.

He knew that Julie had started to lessen the dose of his medication. Was it daily? Weekly? Monthly? How often did she come? He wished he knew, but he didn't. He was certain she had started some time ago. She had told him that. That he did remember. She had actually given him precise details of just how much she was decreasing the drug, but he couldn't hold onto those details. Hell, he couldn't even remember what the drug was called. He was quite certain at one point he knew that information quite well. He was quite certain he knew a great many things at one time and prayed one day he would again.

Paige was in trouble.

Sarah reached out and touched his chin, turning his head to face her. He kept his gaze off to the side as much as possible, even though he knew it would distress her. He feared meeting her eyes. He was certain that if he did then she would see immediately that something was different. How she might view that, better or worse, he didn't know, but certainly she would see it.

Paige was in trouble.

"I know she loves you, Jason," Sarah said. "So very much. And it kills me to see the effect the visits have on her. But its the effect they have on you that bother me even more. I see the difference in you when she is here and I can't tell you how happy it makes me, but when she leaves you..." She stopped and took a slow breath in and out. "When she leaves you, you leave us a little bit more as well. I'm sorry, but I wish she would stop coming. Either that or that she would simply stay."