VI.

I can't believe that he's gone. I keep expecting to hear his car in the driveway, his keys in the lock, his steps on the stairs.

"So how's the party?" I asked Joey in a feeble attempt to deflect my attention from the bone-crushing emptiness and pain now ruling my mind and body.

"Oh, it's fabulous. The pâté is all the rage," she said as she walked quietly into the room, our room. Except that there no longer was an "us", no "we" to make it "our"; he was gone —

God!

— and I was alone. Bonded in mutually-fated solitude, both Joey and I were dutifully shrouded in black. Mitch hated black.

I just can't stand the way they look at me. "Shh! Here comes the widow." But it's even more disturbing than that. I can see it in their eyes: judgment. The wrong one died; I was the one who strayed.

"And how's our boy?"

"He's great. He's keeping it all together."

"Which is exactly what bothers me."

"Me, too."

Was it really less than a week ago that Dawson had come home to announce his intention to leave USC and move to Boston—to be near Joey? And we had told him he was wrong.

"He's stubborn, Joey. He's just like his father. He's going to need you."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, her voice instantly comforting. "I know this probably doesn't mean much now, but he's not really gone, you know. Because if ever there was someone who was a complete reflection of his father, it's Dawson."

I'm not sure if I wanted to hear that. "You think so?" I said in auto-response mode.

"Maybe not on the surface, but the stuff that matters, the good stuff? Absolutely."

That's funny because I keep fixating on all the bad stuff. I've been compiling this list of all of his flaws—of which there were many.

You know Mitch Leery. He was not the handiest of husbands, let me tell you! He couldn't fix an appliance to save his life. But he would always insist on trying…and make things worse.

Mitch. You absolutely crazy…totally exasperating…completely lovable fool!

I think that the reason that I've been making this list is because I don't want to think about how selfless he was. If I think about that, eventually I'm going to have to start thinking about how badly I hurt him…and what a cold-hearted, selfish bitch I was.

I broke down. "I cheated on him, Joey! My God, the horrible images I must have put in his mind. It seems like it was such a long time ago, but it wasn't, really. It was just a few years. And even though things were great, they were really, really great—I know he still must have felt some of the pain I inflicted."

I couldn't believe I was confiding this in anyone, but the girl who first discovered my "indiscretion" also knew something about the guilt I was feeling.

When did she become the adult?

"You know, growing up and spending all that time with you guys, I think I was too little to really understand it," she said sympathetically, "but I always knew that there was something special about the way you guys looked at each other. Like you were in on this great secret that the rest of us weren't privy to. My parents never had that, not even in the best of times.

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend to know what was going through his mind before he died, but I know your husband loved you very much," Joey said, placing her hand on top of mine. "I think he forgave you everything."

Could I ever forgive myself? Our romantic idyll, tainted by my own failures, was over now. I could have given him years more of happiness, if only…

If only.

Sitting together in that bedroom windowsill overlooking the eerily-still creek, Joey and I recognized another sincere moment of understanding, and clarity, between us. Joey Potter, my surrogate daughter, the young woman whom we embraced as a member of our family, certainly knew Leery men. It might take awhile for them to come around, she would agree in covert silence, they might act stupid and childish and parade their feelings on their sleeves—but Leery men always came around, willing to forgive.

Us.

But not always forget.

Them.

zzzzzzzzzz

It didn't work for Dawson to put three thousand miles between him and Joey. He tried, but he could not stay away, either spiritually or in physical reality. His cell phone bills were staggering. What was more bewildering, even more minutes were wasted on incomplete calls than actual conversations; Mitch finally switched the plan to double minutes with Joey's dorm reflected as the favored number.

We had no idea that our son spent a long weekend in Boston—no idea, that is, until he showed up in our front yard, surveying his old haunt, anxious to tell us about a life-altering change in course. He flew! To Boston. Right after 9/11. Was he crazy? I guess it shouldn't have surprised us. In Dawson's mind, his story with Joey had not yet played out, and the fact that that was more important to him than an illustrious film career was strangely endearing…and disconcerting.

Mitch couldn't hide his disappointment. "If you're going to stand here and talk to me about crossroads and paths so you can drop out of school and go crash on a sofa, then don't presume to talk to me like you're an adult," he said finally, more frustrated than mad. My loving husband certainly knew about the dangers of pursuing a difficult woman, but he never doubted my love for him. Was Dawson so sure Joey wanted him in the same way?

I watched my son playing with his infant sister on our lawn and my mind drifted back to the events of the previous year and a half. Who was Joey Potter really? Did anyone—Dawson, Pacey, Jen, her sister—ever really know her? There was so much she kept secret, even from those she loved.

The Joey Potter I knew as she approached her 18th birthday was lonely, scared, eager to make changes and at the same time terrified by it all—especially if it threatened to alter her treasured personal relationships, her anchor in life. That was the dependent part of her that held onto the past even as she flung herself headlong toward an independent future.

I hate to say it, but I believed my son had once again become her security blanket, her sure thing. As her world expanded to the world beyond, while simultaneously narrowing to a single college campus, I think Dawson remained the person she most relied on for advice and support. Was that love? Yes. Co-dependence? Most definitely. Romance? That remained to be seen.

College was already changing her in subtle ways. She latched onto her dream with both hands and everything else in between; she kept focused, intent on excelling everyone's expectations. The first changes appeared more external than internal. Clothes, makeup, girl things. Thanks to a little prodding from Jen and Jack, she had decided to lighten her hair, praying, she later joked, that the dark cloud wouldn't follow her to Boston.

Maintaining her contact with that dynamic duo became incredibly important. Joey ached for friendship, but always found it difficult making new friends. Her roommate Audrey said it had taken weeks for her to break down the intricate barriers she had erected for self-preservation. If Audrey hadn't been so determined, I have no doubt that connection could easily have become another missed opportunity.

Audrey refused to let her go down that insular road. And I know another person who wouldn't have let her get away with it. Unfortunately, that significant other was still missing in action somewhere in the Caribbean. By showing up the way he did at Worthington, Dawson, on the other hand, seemed to be encouraging his dear friend to keep herself sequestered—perhaps because it was the well-traveled road that led, as he had once predicted, back to him.

"Chose your own path," Mitch had pleaded with Dawson. "Dad, that's what I'm trying to do." "No, you're not. You're following Joey down hers." Dawson felt that he would have serious regrets if he didn't follow his heart and stay in Boston—near Joey. And I have to admit that the controlling, emotional side of me wanted him to do exactly that—to be near us. But, deep down, I still had honest reservations.

"Did Joey ask you to stay in Boston?" I asked him when we had a moment to converse alone.

"No," my son acquiesced without the slightest hesitation.

"Are you two…" "Together? No. It makes no logical sense, I know," he conceded. "The past few years of my life, I haven't done anything without a clear-cut objective. I've always been asking myself, 'What's my goal? What am I trying to accomplish?' And my whole life, everybody's always been telling me to follow my heart. The irony is," he noted, with some surprise, "now that I've finally figured out what that means, everybody's telling me I'm crazy if I do it."

I got the impression then that we weren't the first ones he had talked this over with. Were his friends in Boston equally reticent?

"People change, Dawson. It's a fact. You…all of your friends…you're all going to change. So if you are absolutely sure that you want to be with Joey, just make sure that you are not going to prevent either one of you from growing," I emphasized. "And, sweetheart, I am not dismissing this beautiful idea of soulmates, but the reality of eternal coupling…well, quite frankly, it boils down to one thing: faith. So ask yourself this question: is Joey the kind of person that you are willing to take a very big leap of faith for?"

Unfortunately, I knew that she was that person, in his mind, simply because he refused to think about it any other way. Reason played no part in my son's feelings about Joey Potter. He admitted being in the dark about where they were—and, even more important, where he expected things to go. He found it hard to decipher what he viewed as "mixed signals" from her. The old adage held hard and fast: the more he learned about Joey, the less he knew.

Though he once thought he knew her, Joey was such an enigma; she was Dawson's elusive ideal. I'm jumping ahead here because there was a conversation we had years later, when Dawson had a little too much to drink at a holiday party, that shed a great deal of light into his feelings then, and why he could never give up on her.

It wasn't just the childhood bond, he told me. "When we were together…she'd given me a glimpse of something else, a side of herself that I'd never really known…and I was spellbound. It was like being caught in the grip of a powerful electric current, and as much as I tried I couldn't let go. We were just beginning to explore our sexuality together when she cut it off. And then—well, it's years in the past now—she offered herself to me and I handled it badly. I rejected her. It was against everything in me, but I thought it was right at the time. Part of my anger with Pacey was the knowledge that he got to continue the journey.

"Mom, I know that what they have between them is profound—but I wanted to understand that part of her, too. And I never really did."

Which brings us back to what turned out to be the pivotal relationship in Joey's young life: Pacey Witter. My primary reason for questioning whether or not she was the right person for Dawson to make a life-changing decision about revolved around my own observations of Joey with Pacey the previous year. Joey was too deeply affected by the failure of this relationship for any romantic liaison immediately afterward to be anything more than a rebound relationship for her, a search for comfort—something safe—when everything else seemed to be falling away.

On a very basic level, Dawson knew that but still didn't expect to be included on the list. Their history, he believed, awarded him a different designation.

zzzzzzzzzz

Reluctantly, begrudgingly, we let him go. What else could we do? Damn muses! They never seemed to cooperate when you wanted them to. Dawson thought he'd find new ones in California, but the USC experience, he confessed later, had been both exhilarating and frustrating. It offered a lovely, very expensively layered cocoon, but wasn't something that my son, who was used to making films on his own (and without fuss), turned out to be interested in. He preferred the nitty gritty, hands-on experience. Paradoxically, movies became his reality—Joey was the fantasy.

In a way, Dawson used her as a crutch as well—an excuse to follow something different than the finely-tuned plan that had been mapped out for him years in advance. If he'd had a chance to reconsider, I'm sure Mitch would have seen this. Underneath all his bluster and concern, my husband knew going to California or staying in Boston was Dawson's decision to make. And he was proud of his son, a determined and decided romantic who was driven to express his independence by turning back to a familiar drummer.

Mitch knew the quirky ins and outs of marching to a different beat. My husband, the impossible dreamer. Yes, Dawson was his father's son…

My husband. Mitch.

Mitch Leery was always trying to find, but never quite succeeded in, that one venture that would "make" him and his family. Ultimately, what he found was that being a family was the hardest, most rewarding work of all. He loved it—and we loved him.

I don't remember much about those days. There was a knock at the door, followed by the tentative ring of our doorbell, then a more urgent series of bursts…colored lights flashing outside…more voices and a hastily-delivered admonishment…the lights fading… And then that voice became recognizable: Doug Witter.

How was it possible that Mitchell's light had been extinguished so quickly? He was doing something so ordinary…a last-minute milk run, the usual Sunday routine…

"Pacey's here," she said. "He wants to say hi."

Pacey's here.

The words spilled out so easily—as if they held no power. I didn't question them. "Ask him to come up," I replied.

Dawson told me about the kiss at the airport. The one she gifted him with after another tortured battle over letting go and moving on. The grand gesture that may have lacked the meaning he sought, yet being the unrequited romantic, Dawson interpreted it as a foreboding of a more hopeful future.

The moment I saw Pacey, and the ease at which Joey now operated around him, I knew that self-preservation had receded quietly behind a screen—a Joey veil. This wasn't the same girl who felt she was no good for the boy she loved, who beat herself up about not being smart enough or wise enough to help him when he needed her most. Neither was this the girl who had erected startling barriers after their breakup: Dangerous waters – Proceed at your own risk.

No. This was a girl who miraculously had found her balance again.

She's not surprised to see him. She's not flustered, unnerved, discomfited. Why not? Unless…

Thinking back, I can vaguely recall Joey and Pacey wandering around the house, reconnecting with their past. It occurred to me that Mitch's death had robbed them of something as well. A trusted father figure, a surrogate dad—someone to look up to without fear of embarrassment, shame or bitter recrimination. The piece that made their dysfunctional puzzle whole.

Why did we need milk anyway? Not for Lily, who was still on formula. Not for Dawson, whose goodbye had been so full of regret a few hours earlier. Not for me—hell, I don't even like milk!

Mitch's cereal.

I had no explanation for the reasons why Dawson kept Joey at arm's length during the days surrounding the funeral, refusing her comfort, her consolation. I didn't see him push her away. I was surprised to learn that she had returned to school so quickly, but only because I had assumed Dawson would want her to stay. He didn't.

Another funeral years later, and another detached response from Dawson, caused me to see things in a different light.

"He blames himself, you know."

No, he blamed her. I'm glad I didn't know at the time, having lost myself in the myopic world of grief, because I'm afraid my reaction would have been severe. More anger, more tears. Would that have been enough to convince Dawson that his father's death was an accident?

You can't live your life around what ifs.

What if…he had left five seconds earlier?

What if…he had left five seconds later?

What if…I had asked him to wait until the morning?

I wondered why Joey had stopped calling. Days turned into weeks, and eventually months, during which time I did notice that there were more calls from Jen, Jack and even Pacey than Joey, and that seemed strange. Finally, I gathered up the courage to ask Dawson about it. He did not respond directly.

"What if I hadn't come home that weekend?" he queried in return. "What if…"

I stopped him. "I've thought about it too, sweetheart, and your coming home was a blessing. It gave you and your father a chance to reconnect, however briefly. You had an unique opportunity to tell him who you were…what you cared about."

"He was disappointed in me. His last words…"

"He never got to see that his dreams were still alive in you. But, Dawson, his last words to you were about love. He loved you."

"I told her it was her fault," he blurted out. I couldn't wrap my mind around what he'd just said. Someone had disconnected the comprehension button. "What?"

"I was drunk, upset. I told Joey that if she hadn't given me so many confusing signals, I wouldn't have felt compelled to stay in Boston to straighten things out. That Dad should've been driving me to the airport instead of…"

"Dawson!" I had buried the anger long ago, but this dredged it up again. It was so unfair. Somehow I think Joey knew that her best friend's anger was misdirected at her, perhaps even understandable. She forgave him without making him grovel—but she kept a respectful distance anyway.

The next thing I knew, it was Jen whom Dawson was bringing home for the holidays. Another surprise, but not really when I considered the history. She had always been there for him, seeing him through his many "Joey traumas", as she good-naturedly referred to them, as well as his crisis of faith as a young filmmaker. She lent solid support. Joey & Dawson together was a childhood concept borne of mutual need and dependence; Dawson & Jen, on the other hand, seemed to be a very adult one. They were good for each other in so many different ways…and seemed happy in each other.

I often wonder whether or not that relationship would have survived if the powers that be hadn't intervened…again. Joey was robbed at gun point in downtown Boston and Dawson, who blamed himself for keeping her out so late (a filmmaking rescue mission), was beside himself with fear, worry and regret. The mugger was hit by a car and died.

What if…it had been Joey?

Faced with the potential of another devastating loss, my son predictably found it hard to let go. I think it scared him more than almost anything else in his life. It certainly woke Jen up.