It's Caleb's birthday today and he has a present for me. Suddenly he has all the time in the world again as he prepares to formally retire at the age of 48, not as old as he looks, for in my mind 48 is grey hair and more lines, more acceptance of the way things are and less resistance to stress, drama, life's bumps and jolts.
He is still frighteningly handsome in the wind and otherwise, and I find myself back on the docks for the second time in two days, wishing I had worn a warmer coat today, wishing I had my scarf instead of hunching my ears down into my collar to avoid the worst of the cold gusts. I find myself daydreaming about Jacob. Jacob was the perfect antidote to Caleb and to Cole, by default. Don't get me wrong. The similarities between Caleb and Cole were few while Cole was alive and now that he's gone it's almost as if they have become the same person and Caleb is now some sort of a romantic half-dead historical figure launched into my present to act as a barrier to any and all happiness that I pursue.
He smiles reluctantly and I am impatient. I need to go. I'm not feeling well. I don't want to be alone with him but he was insistent upon a solitary trek out past the boats jostling one another for purchase against the waves. Ben is working. The boys are home, the children are home and I have driven out under the guise of needing to clear my head and run some errands, replete with promises not to do what I'm doing right this minute. Curiosity is my weakness, I'll admit it. It gave the princess to the devil and it killed the cat too.
It probably killed some grown men I know of, but we won't get into that, because Caleb's going to play this out slowly, appearing to have some sort of five- or perhaps ten-year plan to reel me back in. Some sort of death wish, only it's for me, not for him. They're all so heavily invested in being certain there's no double-meaning and no doubt that I am left collecting breadcrumbs all along the trail through the woods and just as I manage to outrun the wicked witch with her candy and gingerbread house, I find myself face to face with the big bad wolf.
He stands too close. I smell Armani and Irish Spring. He's shaved so recently his skin is smooth enough to touch but I don't. His lips are smooth enough to kiss but I won't and he hands me a bag.
It's your birthday, I tell him. You're supposed to get the presents. Henry will have something for you on the weekend. (Henry is plotting an elaborate birthday picnic lunch for his father. We're going to freeze to death but nine year olds cannot be talked out of their grand plans.)
I think this is something you should see, Bridget.
I take the bag from him and peer inside. Ancient tissue paper has been flattened in folds around another box. A set of stapled notes and receipts is shoved down beside it.
Caleb? Why don't you just tell me what it is.
Just look at it. Please.
I pull out the paperwork first. It's a layaway form from 1986. Lochlan's name is repeated nine times. Eighty dollars each month. Jesus. I'm sure there were months when he didn't come close to making that unless he held some over from the winter working at the garage.
There are several blank spaces and still more spaces where the store appeared to make notes attempting to contact Lochlan for a full year and then Forfeit to Caleb C____, paid in full is written in a different hand, dated August 1989.
I'm not getting it.
Open the box, Bridget.
I don't want to open the box. I think right now I'd rather vomit on Caleb's bespoke shoes or maybe run screaming straight into the Pacific but oh, there's that curiosity again and I'm reaching in.
The box is cream-colored satin. Slightly aged but still crisp. I really don't want to know.
Caleb grows impatient and takes the box from me. He opens it and turns it around so there is no mistaking what's inside. So that I see it, plain as day.
A diamond ring. A beautiful gold and diamond engagement ring. Delicate. One of the nicest I've ever seen. And holy, my head is pounding now and I am beginning to look for an escape route because I don't like where this is going and Happy fucking birthday indeed, your present is you get to fuck with Bridget's head a little more. Just the way you like it, Satan.
Lochlan was afraid that Cole would propose to you before he could pay this off. He was hoping to win you back with this. Amazing the things you find out when you hang out at the circus, dirty as it is. Sadly, Cole beat him to the prize, pardon the pun, and Lochlan let the deadline on his next and subsequent payments pass without acknowledgment. He never even bothered to try and get his money back. He just walked away from it all. Isn't that ironic seeing as how he used to be so poor?
I am dizzy and he grabs onto my arm, tightening his fingers around my elbow until I hold my breath. He bends down so that his eyes are level with mine, his nose touching mine. His lips moving and disturbing the air on mine.
You know what the really ironic part is, here, Bridget?
His eyes are so blue now they have turned black but hey, what do you know? So has the sky, the water and the rest of my soul.
The really ironic part is I wouldn't have let you marry him anyway.
Then why are you showing me all this now?
Because he's gotten too close again, and it has to stop.
