There is no cure.

One Month Gone

Two Months Gone

Three Months

Four

Estella isn’t mine. The paternity test comes back. Moira makes me come into her office to deliver the news. I stare at her blankly for five minutes while she explains the results — there is no way, no chance, no possibility that I am her biological father. I get up and leave without saying anything. I drive and don’t know where I am going. I land up at my house in Naples — our house in Naples. I haven’t been here since the issue with Dobson. I leave all the lights off and make some calls. First to London, then to my mother, then to a realtor. I fall asleep on the couch. When I wake up the next morning, I lock up the house, leaving a set of spare keys in the mailbox and drive back to my condo. I pack. I book a ticket. I fly. As I sit on my flight, I laugh to myself. I’ve become Olivia. I’m running away, and I just don’t give a f**k anymore. I trace the rim of my plastic cup with my fingertip. No. I’m starting over. I need it. If I can help it, I’m never going back there. I’m selling our house. After all these years. The house where we were supposed to have children and grow old together. It will sell fast. I’ve received offers for it over the years and there are always realtors leaving their cards with me in case I decide to sell. In the divorce I gave everything to Leah so long as she left the Naples house alone. She hadn’t put up much of a fight, and now I can see why. She had something much crueler planned for me. She wanted to give me back my daughter and then take her away again. I close my eyes. I just want to sleep forever.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Birthday parties made me uncomfortable. Who the hell even invented them? Balloons, presents you didn’t want … cake with all that fluffy, processed frosting. I was an ice cream kind of girl. Cherry Garcia. Cammie bought me a pint of that and handed it to me as soon as I blew out my candles.

“I know what you like,” she said, winking at me.

Thank God for best friends who make you feel known.

I ate my ice cream perched on a barstool in Cammie’s kitchen while everyone else ate my cake. There were people everywhere, but I felt alone. And every time I felt alone, I blamed it on him. I set my ice cream on the counter and wandered outside. The DJ was playing Keane — sad music! Why the hell was there sad music at my birthday party? I slumped in a lawn chair and listened, watching the balloons bob. Balloons were the worst part of parties. They were unpredictable; one minute they were happy little balls of emotion, the next they were exploding in your face. I had a love/hate relationship with unpredictability. He who must not be named was unpredictable. Unpredictable like a boss.

When I dutifully started opening presents, my husband standing to my left, my best friend jiggling her br**sts at the cute DJ — I was not expecting the blue packaged delivery.

I’d already opened twenty presents. Gift cards mostly — thank God! I loved gift cards. Don’t give me shit about gift cards not being personal. There’s nothing more personal than buying your own gift. I’d just put the last gift card I’d opened on the chair next to me, when Cammie took a break from flirting with the DJ to hand me the last of my presents. There was no card. Just a simply wrapped electric blue box. To tell you the truth, my mind didn’t even go there. If you work really hard at it, you can train your brain to ignore things. That shade of blue was one of them. I sliced the tape with my fingernail and pulled away the wrapping, balled it up and dropped it in the paper pile at my feet. People had started to drift away and talk, getting bored with the present unwrapping show, so when I opened the lid and stopped breathing, no one really noticed.

“Oh fuck. Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.”

No one heard me. I saw a flash. Cammie took another picture and moved away from the DJ to see what was making my face contort like I’d sucked on a lemon.

“Oh fuck,” she said, looking into the box. “Is that?”

I slammed the lid shut and shoved the box at her. “Don’t let him see,” I said, glancing at Noah. He was holding a beer in one hand, his face turned away from me and talking to someone — it might have been Bernie. Cammie nodded. I stood up and bolted for the house. I had to walk around people who were still eating cake around the island in Cammie’s kitchen. I made a right and darted up the stairs, choosing the bathroom in Cammie’s bedroom, rather than the one downstairs that everyone was using. I kicked off my shoes, closed the door, and stood bent over the sink, breathing hard. Cammie came in a few minutes later, shutting the door behind her.

“I told Noah you felt sick. He’s waiting in the car. Can you do this, or do you need me to send him home and tell him you’re staying the night?”

“I want to go home,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”

Cammie slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor. I sat on the edge of her tub and traced the lines of the floor tile with my toe.

“That was uncalled for,” she said. “What’s with you two sending each other anonymous packages?”

“That was different,” I said. “I sent him a f**king baby blanket, not … that.” I eyed the box that was sitting next to Cammie on the floor. “What’s he trying to do?”

“Umm, he’s sending you a pretty clear message.”

I tugged at the collar of my dress. Why is it so damn hot in here?

Cammie pushed the box across the bathroom tile until it nudged my toe.

“Look again.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t see what was underneath the divorce papers.”

I flinched at the word divorce. Bending down, I retrieved the box from the floor and lifted out the stack of papers. Divorce was heavy. It wasn’t official, but he’d obviously filed. Why did he need to tell me this? Like it made a difference anymore. I put the papers next to me on the lip of the tub and stared down at the contents underneath.

“Holy hell.”

Cammie tucked her lips in and raised her eyebrows, nodding.

The Pink Floyd CD from the record store — the case cracked diagonally across, the kissing penny — green from age and flattened, and one deflated basketball. I reached out a finger and touched its bumpy skin, and then I dropped everything on the floor and stood up. Cammie quickly scooted out of the way, and I opened the door and stepped into her bedroom. I needed to go home and sleep forever.

“What about your f**ked up birthday present?” Cammie called after me.

“I don’t want it,” I said. I stopped when I reached her doorway, something eating at me. Turning back, I strode into the bathroom and crouched down in front of her.

“If he thinks this is okay, he’s wrong,” I snapped. She nodded, her eyes wide. “He can’t do this to me,” I reiterated.

She shook her head in agreement.

“To hell with him,” I said. She gave me a thumbs-up.

While our eyes were still locked, I reached out a hand and felt along the floor until my fingers found the penny.

“You didn’t see me do this,” I said, tucking it into my bra. “Because I don’t give a f**k about him anymore.”

“Do what?” she replied, dutifully.

“Good girl.” I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you for my party.”

Then I walked to my car, walked to my husband, walked back to my life.

I was in bed an hour later, turned toward the ocean, even though it was too dark to see it. I could hear the waves rushing against the surf. The ocean was choppy tonight. Fitting. Noah was watching television in the living room; I could hear CNN through the walls. CNN was a lullaby to me at this point. He never came to bed when I did, and every night I fell asleep listening to the drone of the news. Tonight, I was grateful to be alone. If Noah looked too carefully — which he often did — he would see through my hollow smiles and pretend illness. He’d ask me what was wrong and I wouldn’t lie to him. I didn’t do that anymore. I was betraying him with my rogue emotions. I had the penny clutched in my fist, it was burning a hole through me, but I couldn’t put it down. First Leah had come to me, throwing those deed papers in my face. Papers that, until that moment, I knew nothing about. Now, him. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? Ten years was a long time to grieve a relationship. I’d paid for my stupid decisions with a decade. When I met Noah, I finally felt ready to put my broken love to rest. But, you couldn’t put something to rest when it kept coming back to haunt you.

I stood up and walked to the sliding glass doors that led to my balcony. Stepping out, I walked lightly to the edge of the railing.

I could do this. I kind of had to. Right? Exercise the ghosts. Take a stand. This was my life, damn it! The penny wasn’t my life. It had to go. I lifted my fisted hand and felt the wind wrap around it. All I had to do was open my fist. That was it. So easy and so hard. I wasn’t the type of girl to back away from a challenge. I closed my eyes and opened my fist.

For a second my heart seized. I heard my voice, but the wind quickly took it away. There. It was gone.

I stepped back and away from the railing, suddenly cold. Backwards I walked to my bedroom, one step, two steps … then I lurched forward, throwing myself against the railing to peer over into the space between me and the ground.

Oh my god. Had I really done that?

I had, and my heart was aching for a goddamn penny. You’re an idiot, I told myself. Until tonight you didn’t even know he still had the penny. But, that wasn’t really true. I’d seen inside his Trojan horse when I’d broken into his house. He’d kept it all those years. But, he had a baby, and babies had a way of making people throw out the past and start new. I walked back to my bedroom and shut the door. I walked back into my bedroom and shut the door, and climbed into bed, and climbed into my life, and cried, cried, cried. Like a baby.

The next morning I took my coffee out there. I was dragging, and I told myself the fresh air would be good. What I really wanted was to stand at the site of where I murdered my penny. God, would I ever stop being so melodramatic? I was halfway to the balcony with my coffee clutched in my hands, when my foot passed over something cold. I backed up a step, looked down, and saw my penny.

Gah!

The wind. It must have blown it back toward me when I threw it. I didn’t pick it up until I was through drinking my coffee. I just sort of stood there and stared at it. When I finally crouched down to retrieve it, I knew. You couldn’t get rid of the past. You couldn’t ignore it, or bury it, or throw it over the balcony. You just had to learn to live beside it. It had to peacefully co-exist with your present. If I could figure out how to do that, I could be okay. I took the penny inside and pulled my copy of Great Expectations off the bookshelf. I taped the penny to the title page and slid the book back in. There. Right where it belonged.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I kiss her as I slide my hand up her skirt. She pants into my mouth and her legs tense as she waits for my fingers to push past her panties. I let my hand linger at the place where the material meets her skin. I enjoy the chase. I don’t have sex with easy women. She says my name, and I tug at the material. I’m going to have sex with her. She’s beautiful. She’s funny. She’s intelligent.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t do this.”

I pull away from her and drop my head in my hands. God.

“What is it?” She scoots closer to me on the couch and puts an arm around my shoulders. She’s nice. That makes it worse.

“I’m in love with someone,” I say. “She’s not mine, but this still feels like I’m cheating on her.”

She starts to giggle. My head jerks up to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, covering her mouth. “That’s pathetic and a bit romantic, yeah?”

I smile.

“She in America, this girl?”

“Can we not talk about her?”

She rubs my back and pulls her dress down.

“It’s okay. You’re not really my type. I’ve just always wanted to bang an American. Like in the movies.”

She gets up and wanders over to my fridge. “This is a nice flat. You should buy some furniture.” She takes out two beers and carries one over to me. I look around the room guiltily. I’ve been here for two months and the only thing in the room is a couch the last owner left behind and a bed I purchased the day I got here. I need to make some purchases.

”We can be friends,” she says, sitting down next to me. “Now, tell me her name so I can Facebook stalk the girl who cockblocked me.”

I run a hand across my face. “She doesn’t have a Facebook. I don’t want to say her name.”

“Caleb…” she whines.

“Sara.”

“All right,” she says, standing up. “I’ll see you at the gym then. Call me if you want to get drinks. No sex attached.”

I nod and walk her to the door. She’s a nice girl. Even nicer to take that whole situation with such good humor.

When she’s gone, I pull out my computer. I order a kitchen table, a bed, and a living room set. Then I go through my emails. Almost everything in my inbox is work related. My mother emails me daily, but I’ve yet to respond to any of them. When I see my father’s name, I start. My mother must have told him I was back in London. I click on his name.

Caleb,

Heard you were back in town. Let’s get together for dinner. Call me.

That’s all he wrote to the son he hasn’t seen in five years. Eh. Why not? I pull out my phone and text the number in the email. Might as well get the reunion over with. Maybe he’d surprise me and be less of an as**ole than the last time I had dinner with him and he spent the entire two hours texting on his Blackberry.