The Topsail Accord (15 page)

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Authors: J. Kalnay

Tags: #Romance, #Fiction, #General

BOOK: The Topsail Accord
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When Colleen died, I put all her life insurance money into the foundation. The life insurance company didn’t want to pay because she killed herself. But in the end they did pay after the lawyers and doctors agreed that the court battle to decide the degree to which Colleen’s act and Caitlin’s disease were related would be more expensive, and much worse publicity, than simply paying.
The two faced bastards wrote a “photo op” into the confidential settlement that allowed them to be photographed donating the dollars to the treatment center. I was ‘out of town’ that day and missed the photograph.
Over the years the Foundation has grown and the treatment center has grown along with it. I give half my corporate profits to the Foundation. Twenty years ago, with one coffee shop, this was quite a modest sum. Now, with 12,752 coffee shops in the United States and another 7,513 worldwide, it is substantial. So substantial that it needs lawyers and board members and full time staff. All of whom have been touched by this terrible disease. So far all have honored their memories and none have been corrupted. We have not become top heavy with self-important bureaucracy and national media campaigns and forced corporate giving. We are just a bunch of people who believe in this Foundation and who donate our time.
I re-arrange the knot in my tie one more time and enter the meeting room.
“
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you again for your dedication and devotion and for the time you have given to this Foundation, to Caitlin’s memory, and to the treatment of all these children here in Wilmington. As you know, not every child is saved, but so many are because of the transplants and treatments we are able to provide here through the Foundation. Thank you again. Thank you a hundred times.”
“
Now, let’s get this business done with so we can get over to the dinner on time, where I understand a record four hundred plus guests who have each donated a thousand dollars will be waiting. I suspect having the opportunity to meet the NBA, NFL, and NASCAR legends who have volunteered their time has something to do with that, not that I’m not a big enough draw by myself...”
Polite laughter spreads across the room.
We dig into the board level summaries. Tomorrow I will dig deeper with the lawyers and accountants. And tomorrow I will visit the patients. I do this as much as I can, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how freshly it makes Caitlin appear in my waking moments and in my dreams.
Soon the board meeting is over and it is time for the dinner. I have a celebrity ‘date’ tonight with Danny, the first woman NASCAR driver and current Daytona 500 champion. She is my one time girlfriend. It is the first time I will have seen her in a long time, the first time since she won Daytona. Our regular emails have become somewhat formulaic, perhaps because she is so busy with her celebrity.
Her niece’s diagnosis and treatment and cure at the Foundation is well documented. Her unprecedented and very private philanthropy is not. Only I and a few others know about the millions she has donated personally and the tens of millions she has raised publicly. She is my ‘date’ only in the sense that we will be sitting at the head table together, and only in the sense that we are both tasked with making sure that every guest meets their favorite celebrity and ends up with a photo and a story to share with all their friends. Although at one time our date may have been something more. Danny is expert at making each guest feel like they are the only person in the room, the same way she used to make me feel like I was the only man in the room.

 

Drinks are served and sipped, dinner is served and eaten, and more drinks are served and sipped. Danny and I circulate and shake hands and hug until the night is over and the last guests have been seen off.

 

“
Thank you Danny, for everything,” I say.
“
Anytime Joe. You know that. There’s a kid I want you to be sure to meet tomorrow. Actually I want you to go with me to meet her.”
“
You got it. See you at nine,” I say.
We hug the brief hug of former lovers and then separate and go our individual ways. Me to my hotel room, her to her private helicopter to whisk her back to her home in Durham.
Shannon

 

I have just saved the latest changes to my paper when my email dings. There is a message from my sister.

 

Hi Shannon.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought you ought to see this.

 

There is a link attached to the email.
I open the link and see a photo of a very handsome Joe in an expensive and finely tailored suit with his arm around an incredibly attractive and curvaceous celebrity who I sort of recognize. They have been photographed with brilliant smiles that can only be shared between the best of friends. I read the accompanying news story about the fundraiser and its founder and longtime benefactor and president. I read about the celebrity. Joe only said he had ‘business’. This story and this photo are unexpected, but I suppose they qualify as ‘business’.
I am not sure how to feel. Cara must be delighted to know that Joe is so generous and active with this charity. But like me I suspect that she is mortified about the celebrity, by the obvious familiarity and comfort of the couple.
Well. I kissed Joe first after all. Practically threw myself at him, me and Thursday. What did I expect? That this man that the online newspaper describes as a multi-millionaire philanthropist would be celibate? That some other women might not find him attractive? Him and his millions? That’s not fair. He is the president of a philanthropic foundation established to honor his daughter.
I stand up from my computer and walk into the back room through whose windows I can see a scrap of the road. As I stare into the darkness I see first one car and then another move past at the regular speed. Just before I turn away I see another car move past at a slower pace. Is it a pizza kid looking for an address on a mailbox? Or is it my ex? I have felt something not quite right in the past day or two. Like someone was watching me. I felt this way at my lab for a week before seeing him in the parking lot one day. When I walked towards his car to challenge his presence he stood up and waited for me.
I remember asking him what he wanted and I remember him saying that he just wanted to know that I was alright. That if I would answer his letters that he wouldn’t have to do this. Made it sound like it was my fault that he was stalking me at my lab. We installed a perimeter fence and a guard shack at the lab after that and I never saw him at the lab again. I have seen him a few times since, at least I think I have. But there is no way he can know about my cottage. Even though I am certain he knows about my beach house. Family members are on Facebook and other social media and post pictures and talk about their month at the beach. It would be too easy for him to find the beach house.
Did he find the beach house? And follow me here?
What would I say to him if I saw him here? Would I say anything? Or would I just call Bill and ask him to move him along?
I check that the alarm is set and that my doors are locked. I am not scared of my ex. He is not that kind of man. He really was a kind man. He never did anything to hurt me. He was kind and gentle. Especially with the kids. Especially with my nephew. Perhaps if I would return one of his letters he would give up this obsession. Perhaps if I honestly answered his questions about why it ended he would leave me alone. But perhaps it would just give him some hope where there is none. There was no hope near the end. I know I cut him off completely. Cut off conversation and caring and sex and everything. We lived in the same house but would go hours and weeks without sharing a word or even a note. At times I would not acknowledge that he had entered a room. No man and no relationship could have withstood that.
Our routine carried us through the last months and even through the counseling we tried as a last measure. But I had cut him off, like I cut myself off in this cottage, on the island, in sight of my beach house. I don’t like to think about what I did to him. I will not think about him in the same moments that I think about Joe. Joe and the celebrity. At least my ex never cheated on me. He was devoted. But perhaps that devotion was too much. I didn’t want it, not all the time. Is it asking too much to be loved only when we want to be loved, and to be left alone the rest of the time?
Joe

 

I did not sleep well. I rarely sleep well when I am away from my Sleep Number bed. But that’s not the issue here because this hotel in Wilmington has a Sleep Number suite that they reserve for me when I visit. It is a thoughtful gesture from a kind and savvy manager who is grateful for the business and who respects our work.
So it wasn’t the bed. It was Shannon. Erotic dreams intruded on my fitful sleep, tormenting me with their build up and lack of release. Danny’s cameo appearance in the dream was also a surprise. Though we had our moments, and had
those
moments, they are in the past, except, it seems, in my erotic dreams about Shannon.
I shower and dress for the morning in the clinic with Danny and the kids and one special kid. I want to call Shannon, but she told me she does not like calls, or texts, or emails. She likes talking face to face and she likes letters. Just that. She has her rules, which I will respect. So I do not call her. I will simply arrive at her beach this afternoon, on this Thursday.
Why didn’t I invite her to the fund raiser? With her sister’s cancer research and with her own lab she must be an old pro at it all. I know my sister filled in some of the details of my life for her, through her sister, and Wikipedia or Google must have filled in nearly all the others.
Friday, at the cemetery, after our Thursday at her house, at the end of the mile where we pick trash, I will fill her in about Caitlin and Colleen. In my own words. Not the words that might be found online somewhere, or the second hands words from my sister. There are details she would like to know. No, ‘like’ is the wrong word. There are details she wants or needs to know, but will not like. No one likes these details.

 

I meet Danny and we begin our tour. There are so many sick kids, so many Caitlins, and hopefully some not like Caitlin, some who will be cured, not killed, by the treatments and transplants. While the treatments can save their lives, the treatments can also be cruel. Killing their bone marrow, killing them just enough, and then the transplant, which is excruciatingly painful.
I am still unsure whether the slight hope of a cure for a patient outweighs the agony of the treatment, and the uncertainty of the result. It is not my job to judge or to second guess. They choose the treatment, like I chose for Caitlin.

 

Danny and I meet with the girl who has asked to meet Danny. Danny has asked me along because she knows she will be stronger with me there. This is the hardest part of it all, granting the wishes to the kids whose treatment has failed and who are certain to die. This woman who will strap herself onto an engine and hurtle around the track at two hundred miles per hour with men who would enjoy nothing more than wrecking her wants me by her side for this appearance.

 

We stay for an hour, and then another. I will be late returning home. I should call Shannon, break her rule. But this child is so close to the end, and all she wants to do is talk to Danny and to let her dad and her brother talk to Danny.
“
They’re your biggest fans,” she tells Danny. “That’s why I wanted you to visit. So they could meet you. It will give them something to think about other than me being sick.”
I can barely contain my tears, and my awe, at this selfless child who beams as her father and brother talk race strategy with Danny. This child, who knows she will die soon, perhaps today, perhaps next week, but soon, has asked a wish for her dad and brother. I will stay with Danny and this child until the end, or for as long as they want me. Shannon will have to wait. She will understand. Or she won’t, but I have decided to stay.

 

We stay until three a.m., until after Wednesday has turned to Thursday, when the girl falls into a deep sleep, and then a coma. By four she will be gone. Her father and brother shake our hands and hug us and thank us for coming.

 

“
Stay with me,” Danny says. “I can’t be alone after that.”
“
Come to the hotel with me. I have my suite,” I answer.
So Danny walks the hundreds of yards to the hotel with me, tears in her eyes. She takes my hand and I kiss her goodnight before returning to my own bed. Alone. With my beautiful ex-lover asleep in the next room and my new friend asleep thirty miles away in North Topsail where I will be standing her up in just a few hours while I try to help this family with their loss.
In the night Danny slips into bed beside me, puts her arm around me, and drifts off to sleep. Exhaustion eventually takes hold and I too sleep, chastely, in the arms of my former lover.

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