Sorry it's taken such a long time for this to come up. We've tried putting up one chapter of each but this one's been kind of put aside. It's sad, really. This is a three-parter. :P Okay, well, we don't actually know Sandy's middle name but for now it's Michael. And we don't know Caleb's middle name but again, for now, it's Anthony. Tell us what you think. Read, review, and of course enjoy.
Chapter 2: Kirsten.
I lie in bed feeling the empty space next to me. I smile for a minute, remembering how Sandy always loved a good surf in the morning. I know that is not the only reason he is missing this morning. I lean over on my side and pick up the rose lying on his pillow. A note beneath it. I recognize his handwriting immediately. Kirsten. I went surfing but don't get up! I'll make you breakfast in bed. I'll be back before you know it. Don't you move from that spot, beautiful. I love you. xoxo. Sandy. He never had the best penmanship but I adored his signature. It always looked best when it was next to mine. I remember the first day we signed our marriage license, how wonderful our names looked side by side. Sanford Michael Cohen. Kirsten Nichol Cohen. I smile fondly, smelling the rose in my hands. He always was a charmer. Understanding, too.
I had read my father's letter to me, last night. It was an apology. I should have been the one to apologize. That's the other reason why Sandy's nowhere to be found this morning. I know he wants to give me time to think. Time to absorb all that's happened. How could I have been such a fool? The last time my father and I had spoken, I had just come out of the hospital after my car accident. He confronted me about my alcoholism and I lashed out at him. I blamed him for everything that had gone wrong with the family. My mother's drinking. Hailey leaving at 17. I know I never had the perfect family but I was out of line telling him that the family was screwed up because of him. I remember the conversation so vividly. I can still hear him tell me I was an alcoholic. Underlying in his words, telling me I hadn't given thought to my kids. That I was a bad mother. It wasn't his fault. Well, not entirely. He didn't force gallons of alcohol down my throat.
I was controlled, then. The alcohol was like a lover. No one was going to take it away from me. Not Sandy. Not my father. I was hooked. Addicted. It soothed the pain that no one else could take away. No person could ease my hurt and alcohol could. It numbed me to the point where I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't see what was happening around me. Not until the accident. I thought I was going to die. I didn't want to die. I wasn't ready. I thought I could give up the vodka in place of my life. I tried. My father had to tell me the honest truth. I was an alcoholic. I didn't handle it at all. I yelled at him, retorting with his own indiscretions. Facts that had been exaggerated just so that I could put him in his place. And then he died and the vodka was the only thing that could comfort me. The burning sensation down my throat, the dizziness that allowed me to forget for a moment that I was in pain, the unconscious, dreamless state which allowed me to release any tension. Any feeling. Because being in a coma-like sleep was better than being shaken by guilt and regret. I was weak. I couldn't handle anything, then. The alcohol was my crutch.
I peer over at the drawer, once hiding a small flask of vodka, now holding the letter from my father. He was never perfect. But he was my dad and that made him perfect to me. For me. He made me who I am to this day. He always drove me as a child. The swimming. The ballet. Art. He always wanted me to attain such grace and poise. Well, I got just that as well as many headaches and screaming matches with it. He always told me that in the end it would be good for me. He wasn't completely wrong. If it weren't for my dad, I wouldn't have gone off to Berkeley to find the love of my life. I think maybe, in an odd way, it was a part of reason he hated Sandy so much. He wanted so many different things for me and in the end, it was his drive that pushed to into Sandy's arms at Berkeley.
He lied about so many things but never about us. When Rachel had introduced herself into my marriage, he was there to listen to me. He did use it against Sandy at the settlement conference but he had been there for me. He was never a very open man, always quiet. Things went downhill once I left for Berkley. We stopped talking. He pushed me away for disobeying him. I came back with Sandy and then we just stopped getting along. He always did treat us like investments but there were odd times when I just had him as a dad.
Even amidst all the fighting. All I ever really wanted was for him to be proud of me. He never made me feel it. Sometimes I just hated him. He always made me feel inadequate. As if nothing I ever did was good enough. As if everything I did, was a disappointment or an embarrassment. My adopting Ryan just seemed to push him over the edge. It was confirmation that our relationship was lost. I never discussed it with him. I would have done it anyway but that wasn't the point. Most women would have called their parents about a new addition to the family. A new son. I didn't.
Everything with us was always so different. His second wife was my best friend, making my stepmother, my best friend. He was the cause of many of the twisted and elaborate relationships between the Nichols, the Cohens, and the Coopers. Math that I can't even solve. There was also the addition of my new sister, Lindsay. She was the love child of an affair my father had while married to my mother. This knowledge caused me a pain that I could never fathom. The betrayal, the deceit, and the lies punctured my image of what seemed to be a happy marriage. I had seen flaws in my parents' relationship but none that would lead me to believe that my father was ever unfaithful. He was the type of husband whose mistress was his work but my father needed both the Newport Group and Renee Wheeler. My mother had then become the type of wife who drank away the hurt she felt inside. Using alcohol as a method of releasing the confusion and suffering she incurred while without my father.
I miss her. She died when I was younger. I was in my twenties. I had already been married to Sandy and Seth was only about four or five. She had fallen ill, ovarian cancer. Hailey was just a teenager. At that time, I never knew that she'd leave the house at such a young age. She left to travel and study elsewhere. She couldn't stand being in the house any longer. The fighting, the yelling, the drinking, and the slammed doors. Hailey was the last thing in that house, after mom, that made me want my family back. My father barely noticed me after Jimmy, Berkley, and Sandy. He, however, took a large interest in Seth.
Seth, when he was younger, was easier to mold than a hormonal teenager and married young mother. My father taught Seth to sail and he loved every minute of it. But as time passed on, Seth inherited Sandy's traits. His humor and sarcasm. His love of comic books and distaste for sports. My father then just slipped away from his life, visiting seldom.
When Sandy got a job with the public defender's office and Seth began school, I had realized that I needed a job. My dad, the businessman as usual, offered me a position at the Newport Group and I, of course, accepted. After many years of grueling work, I became the head of residential development in Newport. I had thought that this would bring me closer to my father. I was wrong, here. Though our offices were only a few doors away, I still couldn't reach him. Our relationship was professional at all times, even at dinner. There was no way that he'd get close to me. I hadn't realized how strained our relationship had become.
It was at his birthday party, the year Ryan had come into our lives, that we let some of our emotions come out. We're alike, he and I. Very private, personal, silent people. Afraid at times to show how we feel. After my father had found out that I had adopted Ryan, he decided he'd cut down some of my time at the office. This came as a shock to me as all I wanted was for him to be happy and here he was cutting away my job and the last thing that kept him talking to me. I was upset and Sandy ended up telling him that I wanted to quit. At his party I wanted to explain but being as stubborn as he was, he ignored me and told me that he expected my resignation on his desk Monday morning. I spent most of the evening locked away in my room, wondering what I was going to do and what I wanted. Sandy found me and we discussed our situation, how I didn't want to quit, and that it wasn't my intention. I went out to the back and my father found me. We talked about my mother and Ryan and Hailey, eventually reaching the most unspoken of topics, us.
"You're all I got, Kiki. And then I'm running you so ragged you don have time to talk to me…"
"That's not true and you know it. I just want you to be proud of me…"I sit in bed, with the letter he had written me folded neatly in my lap. And now he's gone. Tears flow freely as I remember him. His rare smile and laugh. His unseen love. My father. I sob at the realization that he truly is gone. Simply a memory. As hard as it is to accept, he is no longer with me.
I realize that I have no way to apologize. No way to tell him that I'm sorry and that I love him. I never meant to blame him for any of the things that have happened in my life. The door opens as Sandy greets me with a smile, tray in hand. Upon seeing my face, his smile leaves his as he rushes over to me, placing my breakfast on the bedside table. He gathers me into his arms, my head resting against his chest as he strokes my hair. "Shhh, baby, it's okay," he whispers to me.
"He's gone, Sandy. He's really gone and I can't tell him how sorry I am for what I've done. For what I've said. I can't tell him I love him," I cry. Sandy nods before whispering to me again.
"He knows, Kirsten. Trust me, somehow, he knows that you love him."
"What do I do, Sandy? What do I do? I have to show him somehow, tell him," I say, shaking my head before looking up at him through tear-stained eyes. I watch him as he thinks for a moment, His eyes wandering as he tries to calculate a way to make me happy.
"Write a letter to him, Kirsten. Write him a letter and we'll get it to him. He'll find it. They say that if you write a letter to someone who isn't with us anymore, they can still get it. They'll still know, Kirsten. Come on, we'll go today," says Sandy.
I look at him, grateful. I reach up and cup his face with my hands, my thumb feeling the stubble on his face. I pull his head down, his lips meeting mine as I leave soft kisses. His lips linger against mine before he slowly slips his tongue into my mouth. My own tongue slides against his as our kiss deepens. I love Sandy so much.
He pulls away and smiles at me. He's going to take a shower. As he leaves for our bathroom, he turns and smiles, reassuringly at me. Everything is going to be fine. As I dress, I think of all the things I want to say to my father one last time. Just before I finish my letter, Sandy emerges from our closet, fully dressed. He kisses my temple and walks me to our car. The drive is long and silent. I am grateful.
My father had never truly liked Sandy. He had thought that he wasn't deserving of me. Sandy, however, was my perfect man. He was everything the opposite of what I had grown up with. What my father had never realized was that I was not deserving of Sandy. He was an honest, humble, true soul and I was a spoiled young adult when we had met. Somehow, we had fallen in love and remained in love. Even to this day. I never knew love could feel this way. I've never felt more complete. He is my other half. There was nothing about our relationship that was normal or average. We were as different as you could be and yet we couldn't live without each other. Even now, our lives are as passionate as it was when we were twenty-two.
My eyes begin to water as I peer at the horizon before me. The climb up the hill is long and winding. I don't mind. My letter balances on my lap as one of my hands is in Sandy's, his other hand, clutching the handle of our car. My moment to bid farewell to my father approaches. My heart flutters in my chest as I see the steeple. Plots of buried family members, loved ones, lost ones scatter the ground. Among them is my father's. Sandy parks our car before walking around to the other side to open my door. Almost immediately, he takes my hand and rubs it soothingly. My pain is deep.
As we stand before Caleb Anthony Nichol's grave, a soft breeze blows my hair against my neck. I look up at Sandy, tears falling down my face. He nods, kneeling before the grave and placing a bouquet of flowers on the soft, lush green grass that had grown there over the three months. Time had flown. As he stands, he brushes off any dirt from his knee with the back of his hands. I look out, frozen. He turns to me, cradling my face with his fingertips. He stares deep into my eyes. We stand, transfixed in an eternal gaze of adoration. He leans forward and catches my lips with his. He leaves small pecks on my lips, lingering kisses. He kisses the tip of my nose before pressing his lips to my forehead, my hands drifting upward to hold his wrists as we stand in this position for what seems like eternity. "I love you," he murmurs against my head.
"I love you, too, Sandy… I can't do this without you," I reply honestly.
"I'm here, Kirsten. I won't leave you," he says, pulling away and looks into my eyes once more. I nod, turning toward the engraved stone before me. I pull the letter from my jacket pocket and place it with the flowers. I stand to look at the sight in front of me before bringing my hands together to pray silently that somehow my father will receive the contents of this letter. That somehow he'll forgive me.
I feel Sandy's warm arms wrap around me as I shiver, pulling me closer to his body. I lean into him as I sob quietly. I miss you. Sandy can hear my cries. He gathers me into his arms in an embrace as my head rests upon his shoulder. I allow my sobs to grow louder as I cannot suppress my pain anymore. My heart is aching.
As my breathing slows, I feel a damp area on my shoulder. Liquid has seeped through. This is when I realize that I was not the only one shedding tears over my father. Sandy was too. Sandy takes my hand, wiping his tears with his other. We walk hand in hand to our car, our memories are with us. Our sorrow has been strung. This is my eternal farewell to my father.
Dearest Daddy.
I know, it's been ages since I've called you that. I know you're gone and I miss you. First of all, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it. I was wrong. You were only trying to help me. God, I'm so sorry. You have never been a bad father. It always hurt when you weren't there but it always counted when you were. I didn't mean to place blame on you. I know you aren't the root of all problems. I'm so sorry that we've drifted apart when you and I were the only ones left in Newport. I'm sorry that I've been such a fool. You're my father and I love you so much. I just wish I told you that more often.
I don't know what was going on with me anymore. Last year was this whirlwind of emotion. You hurt me. You really did. I didn't know how I was going to forgive you after what happened with that Renee woman. I know it's cliché but Lindsay was the silver lining. She was, in all honesty, a sister to me. I know she was a daughter to you. You loved her so much, I swear I was a little jealous but she deserved it. She deserved to be loved by her father and you turned your back on that. Again, I thought I could never forgive you. It was like you drove her away from us. It was always like you drove everyone away from us. Mom. Hailey. Lindsay. It sounds like I'm blaming you for everything wrong in this family but I'm not.
I've realized that things happen for a reason. You're my father for a reason and I wouldn't have it any other way. You and me we were stuck together for a reason. I worked for you, trying to reach you for so many years. I don't think I ever did. I controlled you, though. Julie was right, you listen and do whatever I say. You even turned down Hailey because I said so. All those times I was jealous. All those times I tried to connect to you. I realize now that I always did. When I told you to treat Lindsay like a daughter, you did it. When I married Sandy, sure, we didn't have your blessing and yeah, you treated him like crap until the last few months or so. I knew you loved him as much as he loved you. You tried for me, and I know that now. I'm sorry I forgot that. I know you couldn't stand to fight with me. I couldn't stand fighting with you either.
You were right. There were two. There were always two. You and me. For over 20 years, it's always been just the two of us and for the past 20 years, I never told you how I really felt. I'm so sorry, daddy. I love you and I just wish I could have told you that more often. I wish I could have hugged you more. Spent more time with you. Talked to you. I can't even remember the last time you and I actually spent quality time together, not including the business and working dinners. I miss you so much, and I'm so sorry.
I'm writing you this letter because I didn't get a chance to apologize or to tell you how I felt. I'll never get to tell you now. But I hope that somehow this letter reaches you. What I'm trying to say and express. I never appreciated you while you were in my life and now you're gone. We never miss the ones we love until they're gone…
I love you. I will always love you and I'm so sorry about everything. What I said and what I did or didn't do or say. I'm just sorry. I wish you were here now to hold me one last time. I want to tell you one last time that I love you and that I'll miss you. I just want an opportunity to say goodbye. But I can't turn back time. I can't dwell on a past that I can't change. I'll remember you always as the great man that you were and the father you gave me.
I know somehow this will reach you. I know you're watching over me… with mom.
I love you, Daddy.
Kirsten.
One more to go and that's Caleb.