She watches me with her quiet brown eyes. I remember that Amelia also studies me with the same silent intensity. I bat the unwelcomed comparison away.
“Does it matter?” I ask her with thinly veiled distrust. She has everything she could ever hope for. Does it matter if I’m happy or not?
She presses her lips together and then the words spill out as if she has been saving it up this whole time. “I know that it’s not my place to say, after what I did. But I do care about you. I don’t want you to think that I left you because I didn’t think you’re good enough. It’s because I thought you were too good. Your standards were so high that I didn’t think any normal person could ever meet them. It was difficult for me. It was suffocating. Instead of rising to the occasion, well, I folded. I chickened out. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I could live up to your ideals. I thought that eventually you would kick me off the pedestal and be resentful of me.”
“Why are you telling all of this now?”
“Because,” she says as she softly strokes her daughter’s chubby cheeks. “I have found happiness, and it only makes me realize how unfairly I have treated you. You have no idea how sorry I feel. I just want you to be happy as well.”
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the caffeine, or maybe it’s the emotional intensity of seeing my ex after all these years. All I could hear is a loud hum in my head as I stumble back home and collapse into my unmade bed.
When I wake up again, it is already dark out. I blink in confusion as I try to figure whether it is morning or night. Then everything clicks in my head. When I first met Amelia, I disliked her immediately because I put her into a little box rather than seeing her as a complete person. When I got to know her a little, I fell in love because all I could see were the good parts. Instead of really knowing who she is, I just put her into another little box. I thought she was perfect, and I was hellbent on creating our perfect life together. I never took the time to really get to know her or what she wanted. I tried to brute force my way into her life like a round peg into a square hole. Of course, she was concerned and so she drew back. Rather than giving her space, I only rammed ahead harder.
When I found out who she really was, it was as if a rug was pulled from under me. My perfect vision of the future disappeared in a puff of smoke. My little box broke. But that future never really existed. It was all in my head. I didn’t even tell her about it. Instead of acting like a man, I took all of my petty insecurities and frustrations out on her. I broke it off with her because I thought she killed my dream. Yet truthfully, I was the one who killed it. I was the one who killed it because I never built it on reality.
Yes, she didn’t tell me who she was. She didn’t tell me about her father. But does it really matter? She hasn’t seen him in years and if he really did what she said he did, I don’t blame her for cutting him out of her life. The man deserves to be in jail. If Alfred Worth really wanted to ruin me, he didn’t need to send his daughter. He could create the most outrageous scandals and lies without anyone’s help. She didn’t do anything to hurt me. Once my head has cooled, I clearly see how wrong I was.
I call up Valentina. “Can you hold the fort down for me for a few days? I’m going back to California.”
I hear her sigh. “I had a private investigator look into what she told you. It all checks out. She was telling the truth. That scumbag father of hers deserves to be locked up.”
There is a smile on my lips. “Why are you telling me this? I thought you didn’t like her. Since when are you on her side?”
She says, “I never said that I don’t like her. I’m not on her side, but I am always on yours.” I fight back a laugh as I picture Val rolling her eyes.
Then Val emphasizes, “Do what you need to do.”
Chapter 17
Amelia
It’s a slow day at the cafe. There have been a lot of those lately. I rest my chin in my palm and lazily watch an ant crawl across the floor. Only twenty minutes until closing and I have already wiped down all the tables and chairs and cleaned the floors. I’m ready to mad dash out of here the second the clock hand hits twelve.
It gets dark early now, and even though it’s only four in the afternoon, it feels like late in the evening. An old radio is playing blues music from a local station. The singer’s high pitch voice only makes me anxious.
The morning was busier. Penelope Winston came in early for her usual routine, but even she seemed less energetic than usual. She paid me five dollars for a three-dollar cup of coffee and threw the change into the tip jar without a single snarky word. Mr. Mark hadn’t come in all week. I think he went to his sister’s in Oregon for the holidays. The rest of the customers were just tourists with unfamiliar faces who dashed in and dash out, never to be seen again.
I yawn and continue to watch the clock. Ten more minutes. I have the urge to leave. It is already dark out and eerily quiet. The hair stands on the back of my neck when a bird flies by the window. I wish there
