When We Touch

“She’s here, Dad. Living in Oceanside. She has a business and a child. She never left.” Even I can hear the rage seething in my tone. I’m ready to rip someone limb from limb. I’m just trying to figure out who. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His casual tone fuels my anger.

“Emberly Warren. I just saw her. She’s here in Oceanside.”

“So what?” He exhales a dismissive laugh. “You’re there in Oceanside. Are you trying to say you never left?”

“You told me she was sent away after I went to college. Her mother had arranged for her to marry a preacher’s kid or some kind of bullshit, and she’d moved on without me.”

“I told you the same story I was given.” His condescension is almost more than I can tolerate right now, but he continues. “Either way, it’s in the past. That town gave you nothing but grief—”

“And you made millions destroying it.”

“Karma is a bitch.” He has the nerve to gloat.

“Don’t act like you did it for me. I never took a dime of that money—”

“Still, you left Oceanside poised for greatness. You focused on your studies and made it all the way to the top of your class. You went to one of the most prestigious law schools in the country and became the youngest partner to join the ranks of the oldest firm on the East Coast. Do you think you would have done all those things holding onto a little girl back home?”

I don’t need him to recite my résumé to me. He can’t begin to understand what I wanted when I left this place. Only Ember knew. She’s the only one who listened to me when I talked and looked at me like I could rule the world—even if it was just from a little bedroom community on the coast.

My father thinks I want all these things. He has no idea how once I’d lost her I didn’t have anything else. He’ll never understand how I buried the pain in the grind of studies and research and cases and claims.

“She wasn’t meant for you,” he concludes.

It’s the only thing I might possibly accept—if I were in the mood to accept any of this.

“She has a little girl.” My voice is quieter, my mind returning to the small child leaning over the table.

H

er dark hair and eyes are just like Ember’s. The sun shining through the window had lit her porcelain skin, highlighting her olive features chiaroscuro.

“It must be his. Perhaps it’s why she’s back in Oceanside. To be near her mother.” He says it like it’s the logical response.

Only it’s not logical.

Ember never got along with her mother.

None of this is logical.

None of it makes sense.

When I saw her today, she looked at me with all the shock and pain and hurt and anger I’ve felt these last ten years as though I’d betrayed her. There’s more to this story.

“I’m going to find out what happened.” My voice is calm, but I hear the edge. I know he hears it as well.

“I love you, son.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

I slam the phone down and walk the short distance to town fast, burning off the excess anger. I can’t talk to her now—she doesn’t want to talk. Her words burn in my stomach like acid. There’s nothing here for you. Not anymore.

I’m at the Pack n Save, and my pulse has slowed. Pausing, I look toward the cake shop. It’s quiet and still, in direct opposition to how I feel inside, to what I’m sure is happening behind those walls. It takes all my willpower not to storm in there and take her, pull her in my arms and force her to tell me the truth, tell me what happened, what made her give up on us.

The tension is back, burning hot in my chest, and I start walking again. Following the road, I make quick progress to the end of the short strip of businesses. I pass the small bank that’s been here since I was a kid, a little retail and knickknack store, an antiques store, and the post office. The last building on the corner is a gas station. I hesitate long enough for a car to pull up to one of the pumps, then turning on my heel, I storm all the way back up the street.

My head is full of thoughts—ten years is a long time. While I spent it losing myself in work, neither of us are teenagers anymore. Ember has always been smart and strong. She’s always known what she wanted. I remember how she was with me. Telling me to kiss her. Telling me to teach her everything. I won’t take that for granted.