Carried Away

Regardless, it sounds like she’s been stewing about this for some time so I decide it’s best for her to vent, to let her get it all off her chest.

“A little. Does Dad know?”

“No…Nan does. She took me.”

That knocks the wind out of me. I’m too stunned to speak, and in the pause, Jackie continues, “I was so young and he was…” She sighs. “He was nothing to me.”

“And now you feel guilty…Is this what you’ve been carrying around?”

She’s crying again. I can hear her trying to pull the phone away from her face.

“Does Charlie know?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because…I don’t know. Half of me is ashamed and the other half knows I did the right thing…I think…” A fresh round of tears comes through. “I…I think I feel guilty because I know I did the right thing.”

“Then you did,” I tell her quickly, with no room to spare before she crumbles again. “Listen to me, you are not being punished, Jackie. No one is punishing you. Shit happens equally to good people and bad––”

Being in journalism you see a lot of that. Unimaginable horrors happening to people who have the least to lose.

I think of Jake and everything he’s endured. He’s lost everyone he’s ever been close to, everyone he’s ever loved. And still he tries, despite what he’s carrying around.

“This guilt is eating away at you, and it’s not good for you or my niece. You need to talk to a professional…But I know this for a fact, tragedy doesn’t discriminate. You didn’t do anything to deserve those miscarriages. They just happened…Jack?” I prompt when all I get is silence.

“I’m nodding,” she croaks.

“What about all the mistakes I’ve made? Don’t you think I deserve to be happy despite them.”

It makes me think of the day Ben fired me and what came before that. Dad was right, Halpern’s family didn’t deserve what I did to them.

In hindsight, had I not been in school and distracted by Halpern’s story, I could’ve even been one of the journalists that speculated about Jake’s guilt. Considering the circumstances, anyone would easily jump to the conclusion that Jake had been drinking that night. It would’ve been a fair assumption. “Assumptions make an ass out of you,” Nan always says. And she’s right, it would’ve been the wrong one.

“Of course, I do.”

“Then what makes you different?” The silence is heavy and rife with trap doors. This could go either way so I nudge her in the right direction. “You are not your history any more than I am mine.”

Or anymore than Jake is his, for that matter.

The next day I’m deep in the middle of researching on the annual Ironman competition hosted in July, which happens to be the second oldest Ironman in North America, when an email alert catches my attention.

It’s from Sports Illustrated.

I open it and with every word I read, my level of excitement soars. They want to do a feature story on Jake’s organization and the kids. I can’t keep a lid on it.

I jump into in the baby blue Mercedes and race to the farmhouse to spread the good news.

“Jake!” I shout, pushing through the front door. When he doesn’t answer, I barrel down the hall.

“Jake?” I shout entering the studio.

He’s staring at blank canvas. Just staring at it with an expression so pensive I almost forget why I came here.

In that moment I get another glimpse of what Jackie meant when she said she just knew. Because whether he likes it or not, Jake Turner is my once-in-a-lifetime love.

He turns to face me and a big smile stretches across his face. I get dimples and teeth and pure joy. “Come here.”

I don’t walk. I run. I run into his open arms. And he catches me.

Before he can kiss me I stop him. “I have to tell you something first.” He nods. “Sports Illustrated wants to do a story on you and the boys.”

His face falls. All of that good stuff I was getting from him a second ago is gone.

“No”

“Jake…I don’t––”

“I can’t do it, Carrie.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to. The only reason I agreed to the Gazette is because it was local.”

“I don’t get it. You’re doing an amazing thing for those boys. Why don’t you want the world to know about it?”

“Because I just don’t. That’s why. Can’t that be enough for you?”

It’s the guilt. It’s always the guilt. It’s still there. Maybe it’ll always be lurking beneath the surface.

“Jake, it was an accident.” I can tell by his demeanor he’s getting angry with me, but I press on. He can’t live like this his entire life. “You can’t keep punishing yourself like this. It’s not healthy.”

“Do you remember how bad things got for you after you posted that article?”

“Yeah,” I answer, not certain where he’s going with it.

“Multiply that times ten. Imagine people going through your entire life and trashing it. Twisting every single thing you’ve ever done to suit their agenda. Imagine the press standing outside your window for a year. Following you everywhere you go. Harassing the people you know. Drawing the wrong conclusions about everyone you’re seen with…” He paces like a caged beast. “I do the S.I. article and it won’t be about the kids. It’ll be about me again. And Bresler and Karen and she doesn’t deserve that.”