The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection #4) - Richard Paul Evans Page 0,56
bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything good.
—William Faulkner
SATURDAY–SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19–20
According to the marketing gurus and their charts, the Saturday before Christmas is the busiest shopping day of the year. They call it Super Saturday. It was anything but that. Business was good, the customers plentiful, but the day was miserable. To my surprise, Wendy didn’t act angry or bitter, as I’d expected. She just seemed sad—like she was grieving again. I think she was. She had grieved my father. Now she was grieving the death of the store.
I counted the minutes until we closed and I could go home and suffer alone.
* * *
That night I had a dream about Dylan. It wasn’t a bad dream. In fact, it was sweet. He was loving me. When I woke, I wished it had been a bad dream. I could have dealt better with that. I wouldn’t be left craving him.
* * *
I had assumed I wouldn’t see Dylan again. Maybe ever. But I was wrong. Sunday evening I was on the Internet looking through a listing of apartments in Brooklyn when the doorbell rang. I looked out through the peephole. Dylan was standing there in his leather bomber jacket. His hands were behind his back.
I opened the door.
“Hi,” he said.
“What do you want?” I asked, sounding harsher than I intended.
“Now there’s an irrelevant question.” He brought a box out from behind his back. “I bought you a Christmas-birthday present.” He offered me the gift. “What did you call it, a ‘two-in-one’?”
“I can’t take it.”
“You mean won’t.”
I just looked at him.
“Look, this isn’t some pathetic attempt at getting you back. I had already bought it, so I figured I might as well give it to you.”
I still just stood there.
“C’mon, Noel. It’s just a birthday present.”
I exhaled slowly. “All right.” I took it from him. “Thank you.”
“You can open it.”
I furtively glanced up at him, then looked back down at the gift. I tore the paper back, revealing a heavy black hinged box. I lifted its lid to expose a beautiful black resin Montblanc pen with a gold nib.
“It’s for writing your book. When you’re ready.”
I looked up at him. “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”
“I’m a thoughtful guy.”
Emotion rose in my chest. “I’m sorry.”
Dylan raised his hand. “We’ve already done this.” He looked at me for a moment then said, “But there is something that still needs to be said. May I?”
I nodded.
“I’ve spent most of my life dealing with abandonment. It’s a real thing, you know, not just some trending psychobabble. When you’re a kid and your parents give you away, it does something to your wiring.
“But, over time, I’ve learned some things about it. Things that help. Humans are born vulnerable. If they don’t have care, they die. So, the fear of abandonment is hardwired into us for survival. We fear abandonment even as we fear death. It’s that primal.
“The thing is, when you’re a kid, there’s no way to make sense of that. My parents gave me away like I was a stick of gum. I’m an adult and I still can’t make sense of that. Part of me wants to hunt them down and make them explain.
“But the truth is, my inner self doesn’t blame them. It blames me. It’s in there asking, What’s wrong with me that they didn’t love me? We wonder why we’re so unlovable.
“Noel, we’re no different. Your mother left. Your father sent you away. Your husband left. How do you process that? How can you just say, It’s them, not me, and believe it?”
His voice cracked. “Sometimes it feels like the only way to deal with that fear is to push people away. Because the chance that you might really be unlovable is much too terrifying to face.
“It’s a pretty simple conclusion. In fact, I figured that out when I was Alex’s age—that the only way I was going to make it through life was by going it alone. That’s why I burned through foster homes like a wildfire. I punished anyone who took a chance on me. And I had to prove to myself that I didn’t need them. That I didn’t need anyone.
“And then Stratton and Charlotte came along. I tried to push them away, but the harder I pushed, the tighter they held. They did the impossible. They convinced me I was lovable. So when Susan abandoned me. I still believed I was okay. And my reward is that I have this beautiful little girl