Page 46 of The Hand That Holds Me
“Its possible. Let me call him and see what he knows.”
She got up and paced as the phone rang over the speaker.
“Hello.” A masculine voice answered the call.
“Josh, its Caroline. By chance have you heard from Maddie today?”
“Am I on speaker?”
She hit a button and moved the phone to her ear, walking away from me into the kitchen.
“Okay… No. Absolutely not! I would never do that!… Okay…. Okay…. I understand. I’ll call you back in a little bit.”
As she came back into the room, she looked troubled and a little relieved.
“Had he heard from her? Does he know where she is?” It was killing me to think he knew where Maddie was. She belonged in my arms. I love her and I’m helpless to find her without help.
“He has heard from her but he won’t tell me where she is. She is convinced that the entire family betrayed her.Me included. He is going to get her to agree to talk to me tomorrow and I will figure out what needs to happen next. Now that you know she is okay, I think it’s time for you to leave, Lucas. You have caused enough trouble for my family.”
“I can’t just walk away from this and not look back. I love her. I need her. Please Caroline, let me stay until you talk to her. Maybe you can convince her to hear me out.”
“This isn’t about you talking to her and making sure your ass is covered. This is about me making sure my best friend doesn’t think I stabbed her in the back. I can’t do that with you listening and trying to get her to talk to you. I will call you tomorrow and let you know what I can but I make no promises.”
“Can I ask one favor? Will you tell her I love her?”
“I’ll try but she is very hurt over all of this. I don’t know if she will even listen to me. You really made a mess of this.” She led me to the front door and gave me a small hug before she closed the door, effectively shutting me out of Maddie’s life.
I drove home is a fog, feeling like the happiness I had experienced with Maddie was a cruel joke. How could she find the perfect love and have it end without fighting for it? How could she leave without listening to me? Granted, I had not given her much reason to trust me when she found out about Jason but I had hoped she would yell and scream, not run like the devil was chasing her.
I arrived at my house and couldn’t remember the trip I had just made. My world was spinning apart without Maddie and I was powerless to do anything about it. She ran into the arms of another man to seek comfort from the secrets I had kept from her, images of him touching her running through my head.
I wandered into the kitchen to grab the bottle of whiskey from the shelf. I needed something to dull the pain in my chest from the loss of her. As I tipped the bottle back, I thought of all the times I should have spoken up and told Maddie about Jason. I could have made it seem like a coincidence but even then, she would have felt betrayed.
My anger at losing her rose and I needed to channel it into something besides trashing my house and destroying my liver. I reached out to the one person who knew what it felt like to be without Maddie and the only man I trusted to help me, us, work this out.
“Lucas, how are you?”
“We have a problem, Jason. Maddie was in the office today while we were there and she overheard us talking, I think. She left her ID and credit card on top a stack of signed contracts and ran. She left and no one in her family knows where she.”
“What do you mean? Is she missing? Do we need to get the police involved?”
“There isn’t any reason to call the police. Caroline talked to a friend of hers and he knows where she is. He won’t tell anyone unless Maddie says it is okay. Caroline got her to agree to talk to her tomorrow, so for now, there isn’t anything we can do but wait until she decides to listen.” Thinking about her with Josh made my vision go red. How could she run into the arms of another man?
“How could you let this happen? Why did you wait to long to tell her about you and I. I was just telling you that your lies were going to cost us and now I may have no chance to reconcile with my daughter. I will never forgive you for this” Anger and worry were evident in his voice.
“I never lied to her, but I know how it looks. I’ve been beating myself up every since I found out and I don’t need you piling up on my now. I need your help if either one of us is ever going to have her in our lives.”
“What can I do? The only things I know about her are what you have told me and what I have seen from her work on the program. I haven’t laid eyes on her since she was 7 years old.”
“I need the letters Sara sent to you. She needs to know why you stayed away for so long so I can make her understand why I approached her relationship with you the way I did. I plan to tell her everything and lay my heart out for her….if she gives me the chance to speak to her.” I swallowed my pride. I would do anything to make this right and I needed the letters from Sara to help achieve that.
“I’m on my way to you now. I’ll be there in about an hour and we can discuss everything. You sound broken, Lucas. We can fix this if we work together and maybe, just maybe, find a miracle along the way.”
Sleep eluded me last night so I got up and walked back to the beach, waiting for the sun to rise, the last few weeks running in a loop through my head. I couldn’t figure out why he felt the need to be deceitful about Jason to me. He had plenty of time to tell me he knew him, but instead he let me fall in love with a lie.
As the sun began to lighten the sky from inky black to subtle oranges and pinks, I felt the weight of the situation begin to lessen. In my head, I heard my mother remind me that no problems are too big to fix. No situation was too challenging to allow it to overtake us. I slowly began to understand what she meant as the orange sky grew brighter along the water’s edge, giving way to beautiful blue.
I loved Lucas and I ran from him. I ran from my family instead of confronting them and giving them the chance to tell me their side of it all. I believed words shouted through a door without finding out what they meant.
