Page 76 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Forty

ALTA

Time was not working for me anymore. Time was officially driving me crazy.

It was one thing when I felt like we were making progress. When the more I reached out to him, the more he seemed to respond—reluctantly at first, but more and more the longer I persevered. More like himself every day.

But he’d stopped responding, going silent out of nowhere. And I could either continue to be patient and pray that this silence meant he was finally, finally coming back to me, or I could go to him and demand when the hell he was planning on being ready.

Well, maybe not demand, maybe just ask nicely. Just for a ballpark number, you know? So I didn’t have to stress so much.

Patience was never really my strong suit anyway, which is why I wasn’t surprised to find myself walking up the front steps of Harper’s townhome after the third night of silence in a row.

I knocked.

Then I thought better of it and rang the bell. I wanted to make sure he heard me.

No answer.

No answer to the phone, or his texts, and now to the door. For the last two weeks we had been making steps toward being okay. But now, suddenly no answer meant no hope. No answer meant no way forward. No answer meant no Harper, and I did not sign up for this not to have him at the end.

Fuck no.

“The caller you have dialed has a voice mailbox that is currently full.”

“Fuck .”

I mean darn!

Geez, I was cursing a lot these days. But my nerves were entirely fried.

“Harper,” I called hesitantly to the door.

It was after work hours, after dinner hours, and I’d already checked his other usual locales.

He couldn’t be anywhere else but home. And the prospect that he was here and he could hear me and just wasn’t answering fried my nerves. I knocked harder. “ Harper! ”

Nothing.

Long painful silence from the other side of the door was like an answer to a question I’d refused to ask.

I refused to give Harper the chance to even imply that we could be done that night when he was upset and hurting, and I thought after these past weeks of space that was the right thing to do. To be there for him no matter what.

But he wasn’t answering. And after a while I realized that was his answer. He was done. We were, and that was it.

I didn’t want to accept it as I stood at the door in the dead cold. But the difference between me standing here now and me knocking on his door that first time I visited was palpable.

He wanted me then, and he wanted nothing to do with me now.

Heavy, sluggish, defeated, I turned away from the door and carefully picked my way down the front steps. The light cascaded over the front walk as it flicked on and the sound of the front door opening brought my head whipping around to meet him with excitement spilling out of my chest.

That excitement died on arrival. It wasn’t Harper at the door—or rather, it was a Harper.

Alexandra Harper to be precise. She was opening her son’s large wooden front door dressed in a long robe, her shoulder length hair fluffy around her face.

Her eyes looked sleepy as she squinted at me through the darkness. “Hello?”

“Um,” I looked around myself, but eventually took a step back toward the door. “Hello.”

“Oh,” she said, seeming to find some recognition in just the few words I’d spoken. “Oh, it’s you! Come in, come in. It’s freezing out here.”

I bit my lip. “I’m okay here, just—is Harper home?”

“Harper,” there was a smile in her voice and I found myself nearing further to see it. It was pretty, like her. And when I neared enough to make out her facial features, I realized that I knew that soft smile. Because it was his. “You call him Harper?”

“I do, yeah,” I said awkwardly.

“Why?”

I wrinkled my nose. “He goes by Gus here.”

She wrinkled her nose too, her head shaking and her smile pulling into a grin. “That boy.”

I peeked an eye over her. She was a far cry from storming out of the shop in tears like that first time. She seemed more herself, like the way she’d been in my brother’s office. Calmer, more composed, more in charge of the situation. But in a soft way.

I knew Harper had complicated feelings about his family, but she seemed so pleasant right there. And suddenly I was curious. “What do you call him?”

She smiled and her cheek sank against her hand on the door. “Auggie. He once told me that his sister and I were the only people he’d ever let call him that. I guess he meant it.”

“Auggie,” I repeated. It was cute, but she was right, he’d never once mentioned it. I gave her a knowing look. “He’s very protective over his memory of her.”

She hummed. “Are you sure I can’t invite you in?”

I straightened, suddenly remembering my place in all this and who I was talking to. “No, that’s alright. Um, can I ask where he’s at?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, actually. All I know is he left town.”

I blinked, air lapsing in my lungs as I choked out, “Left town?”

“Yes, he?—”

“ Left town where ?”

“He didn’t offer that information and I’m not in the position to push him these days.” She paused, looking at my face. “He’s coming back, sweetie.”

My chest hollowed out, my brain not working, “Well, how do you know that?”

The silence in the air was heavy. It meant something, and between my freak out that Harper was gone and my own feelings about it, I realized I’d said something very insensitive.

I blinked up. Stepped forward. Covered my mouth. “Oh, Mrs. Harper. I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that. Not at all—I’m so sorry.”

Another Harper smile graced her face and she shook her head like it was inconsequential.

“I didn’t think you did…” Trailing off she looked like she might be done talking but after a second she added, “You know sweetie, my son’s been on the move for a long ti me.

He’s never stayed in the same place for more than a couple of years at a time. Not since he left after Mar.”

“On the move?” I asked.

She nodded. “At first I thought he’d tire of it and come home. Then after so long, I thought he might never stop. And then he got here. Something here was more important than whatever he was running from.”

I must have just blinked at her, because she tried again. “What I’m saying is, I don’t think you have to worry about him leaving.”

My throat felt like a desert. I couldn’t even clear it. Looking at my hands, I realized they were starting to hurt with cold, but not as much as my heart hurt. Quietly, I whispered, “I didn’t know any of that.”

Every couple of years? Was he on the run? What was he doing? Was he still doing that now? Who was with him if he was moving around that much? Who did he have to lean on?

Who did he have now if his parents were here and I couldn’t reach him?

I felt weak all of a sudden, like all the strength had been sapped from my body all at once. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like standing anymore. Taking a shaky step back, I said. “Well, thank you anyway.”

“Wait! I wanted to thank you,” Mrs. Harper said, taking a step outside the door, and pulling her robe tighter around herself.

“Thank me?” I asked, confused and not trying all that hard to make sense of anything. “For what?”

“For stepping in during that meeting,” she said. “I guess even after all this time I’m not strong enough to stand up when I want to. I know you didn’t do it for me, but it meant a lot to me anyway, so thank you.”

“But I interrupted.”

“You may have, but I see it as the gift that it was. And once Auggie understands everything, I’m sure he will too. ”

She was an optimist, I guess. From where I stood, it looked to be the opposite. It looked like Harper had seen what he’d needed to and decided that cutting me off would be the most merciful way to release me.

Suddenly, a thought hit me and I looked up at her again. She looked happy in a way. A far cry from her storming out of the shop crying all those weeks ago. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but… For a missing person, you have to prove sustained life after a certain amount of years. So?—”

I was surprised to see a smile cross her face, even though it was sad. Slowly, she began to shake her head. “My husband thinks that if we force closure, this pain will finally start to subside. I don’t agree.”

“So…” my head tilted as I took her into full view for I think the first time since I met her. “So you’ve been keeping her alive.”

“No,” she huffed a laugh. “My daughter’s not dead. I know it in my heart. I simply have to prove it to the courts every year,” she laughed again, almost to herself than to me, adding, “And William, well. He shouldn’t have left it up to me if he didn’t want me to do what I thought was right.”

I laughed too, floored by her tenacity. And surprised by her courageousness.

“And this deal with my family,” I said, eyeing her for a reaction. She didn't give any. “Is there anything I need to tell them?”

Giving me her full attention, she pinned me with a serious look. “Right now, I’m enjoying getting to know my son again. And I think he is too… You understand me, honey?”

I paused, thinking about the small light of hope in Harper’s eyes the last time I saw him. And strangely I believed her, this woman who had thanked me , when really she was the one pulling her family together by the fraying threads.

Nodding, I said, “Okay.”

Turning, I made my way down the walkway, but thinking better of it, I turned back. Who knew, with Harper being MIA, this could be my last and only chance. So I said, “I’m Alta, by the way. And your son, he’s—he’s everything to me.”

She smiled. “Oh, honey, I knew your name well before you got here. Turns out, you might just be everything to him too.”

I couldn’t go home. I missed him and now I was more confused, more in the dark than I had been even before.

And worse, I had no clue where he was or when he was coming back.

I couldn’t go back to one of the many places we’d fallen into each other.

The only thing I’d be able to do was wish he was there.

So when I knocked on the second door that night, and was met with a familiar face, I couldn’t help but feel all the feelings I’d been holding together for the last few weeks start to rush me all at once.

“Al?” Lis said, her voice cautious. “What’s wrong?”

“He—” I tried to hold together my tears, but they were already falling down my face. “He’s gone.”

Before I knew it, I was falling apart in my sister’s arms. And before too long, my other sisters were there, listening as I told them absolutely everything about how me and Harper came to be.

When I finished telling my story the three of them looked at me with blinking eyes and shocked expressions.

Clementine was surprisingly the first to speak. “You… have had sex in so many weird places.”

My laugh burst free through my tears. “That’s the first thing you think of?”

“Well, you detailed everything . What else do you expect me to say?” she snorted.

I continued to laugh but tears began to fall again. “Oh I don’t know. If you think it’s crazy. If you think I’m crazy to think that it’ll work out. If you think he—loves me?”

I didn’t expect to get a resounding audience of laughter, but that’s what I got. Even Melissa was laughing her soft, hiccupping giggle. I blinked between them, my misery momentarily sheltered by their humor. “What?”

Ceci sat in front of me, her hands steady as she wiped my tears, then gripped my shoulders. “Would you stop asking ridiculous questions already? He obviously loves you, but you won’t feel any better hearing it from us.”

“Then what do I do?” I asked.

“You’ve done exactly what you should do up until now,” Clem said, rubbing my shoulder. “ Be there for him. ”

To my surprise Ceci and even Melissa were all nodding in agreement. But Ceci was the one to add, in her most mischievous voice. “But there is something you’re missing.”

“What?”

She patted my cheek, smiling an evil smile. “You’re still being way too nice.”