Page 64 of Accidentally Mine
I saw the look in his eyes and knew what was coming.“Three-quarters?”
He shook his head.“I was going to go with more like five-eighths.”
“Ah.”I leaned over and smacked his arm.He could always be counted on to make me laugh.“I’ll take it.”
He sipped from his own glass of lemonade.“You’re well more than the average man.Trust me on this.Brain injury or not.I’m just an old guy, but I know people.Your parents would be proud of the man you’ve become.”
My parents.I’d never known my mother, but I’d seen pictures of my mother and father smiling together, proof that they’d had a happy marriage before I was born.Dad had spoken of her often, and I’d often walk in on him staring at those pictures, a sad look on his face.
Now, I could barely even remember the damn pictures.Hell, they were somewhere in my home, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of where they were.But the thing that bothered me most were the memories of my dad.I’d had so many of them.Now, they were slipping away.Disappearing forever.
“Would they?”I asked, staring at my empty glass.Because I didn’t know.
“Yeah.Definitely.”Ernest would know better than me.He and my father had met fishing on the McCorkle Fishing Pier in South Boston and had become the best of friends when I was just a baby.My dad would hunt with me, but he and Ernest would fish every Friday, then they’d go out for beers at the pub.When I was eighteen and my father didn’t show up for their regular fishing date, Ernest called the house and I’d told him the bad news, that my father had suffered a stroke.He came to the funeral and kept checking on me every so often.
When I left school and started my company, he got in touch to see how I was.I learned that he’d been laid off from his job as the concierge at the Four Seasons, because of ageism—he wasn’t as fast as the kids half his age.I needed someone to handle my affairs, and he was available.He’d been my sounding board ever since, for the past eight years.
More than that, he was like a second father.Divorced, with an ex-wife who’d moved away and taken the kids he loved and turned them against him, he’d had an empty place in his life.Through the years, he’d become the man I’d go to when I wondered what my dad would say about something, since they were so alike.They even looked alike—at least I thought they did.I couldn’t fucking remember.
Now, everything was blurring.I couldn’t remember any of my father’s individual traits.
Fucking hell.
“I can’t remember him,” I muttered to the floor of the patio.“It’s all falling away.My head is like Swiss cheese.I’m losing things.Losing who I am.Who they were.What happens if I lose everything?”
“You won’t,” Ernest said, standing.He walked to the grill and turned the dial.“People whohaven’tsuffered brain injuries forget things too, kid.Live in the present, keep looking to the future.That’s what you need to focus on.You live each day to its fullest potential and leave the past where it is.”
I nodded.Focus on the future.If I had a future.If I didn’t have Roselynn, I had no idea what my future would hold.More of the same.Work at the company I’d created and loved.But there had to be more.
I wanted more.
But I didn’t know what I had to offer to a woman.When I was in bed with Roselynn, making love to her?That gave me confidence.Feeling her respond to my touch, bringing her to a shuddering mess against me, making her sigh and experience pleasure that I could tell she’d never felt before.It felt like I was healing her.
Just as she healed me, made my heart open to the possibility of love.
Ernest reached into the grill side cabinet and pulled out plates and silverware, setting the table for dinner.“On the menu: Steak.Potatoes.Salad.This weather’s supposed to clear by dinner.”
“Sounds good,” I said, tenting my fingers in front of me.I needed to get inside and take a shower, but instead, I sat, rooted to the spot.Thinking of the future.There was nothing to flip a coin on now.And a trick coin would be useless.I had no say in whether she stayed or left.
Or did I?
I ate dinner with Ernest and texted Roselynn one more time, before I went to bed.As expected, I didn’t get a response.
Fucking maddening.
When I went to bed, I dreamed of my parents.That they were standing at the side of the highway, watching my accident happen.I knew it was them, but their faces were just a blur.
And then those eyes again.Turquoise.Roselynn.Rebecca.Two women fused into one.
I woke in a sweat, sat bolt upright in bed, and made a decision, once and for all.
There was no doubt, it was Roselynn haunting my dreams.And if that wasn’t fate, I didn’t know what was.
I would confront her, and I would fight for her.She may have felt like she was the one who’d torn me apart, but the truth was, she was the only person who truly made me feel whole.
18
Roselynn
