Somehow Jen convinces me that a vacation is exactly what we need. Apparently I'm slightly moody and disconnected. Go figure. Maybe she's right. I just haven't been able to stop thinking about Stevie and why she was so happy. Had she met someone? Was she doing something that fulfilled her more than music? Did she miss me at all? Did she ever even think about me? Was Lori just fucking with me? I mean I probably deserved it. They probably wanted me to be going crazy for taking Stevie away from them. She hadn't just walked away from me, she had left them, too. Well as far as I could tell anyway. The truth is though, she could come and go constantly and I wouldn't be made aware of it. That in itself drove me crazy as well. That maybe at some time I could have been in the same city as she and I would have never even known it.
"Lindsey!" Jen's voice breaks me out of my thoughts. I can tell from her tone that she is very annoyed with me. Nothing new I suppose, I constantly annoy her it seems, yet she kept having my children.
"Yeah?"
"Oh so you're back to the real world now? We landed, help me with the kids." she tells me, taking control of the situation. We get off the plane and situated into the car she rented and she puts the address in the navigation. I follow the directions, but take in the scenery and I immediately know this vacation was a bad idea. Stevie loves Maui. We had come so many times while we were together and even when we weren't. She came here so many times on her own as well. So much so, I had looked into finding her here but it was a dead end as well. As I took in the familiar sights, the memories of our time here flooded my mind. It was intense and painful. Finally I pulled into the drive of the house we rented and started unloading. I tried to busy myself with the kids and getting every thing where it needed to go instead of wallowing in my own sadness and getting lost in my memories of Stevie. It worked for awhile.
"Dad, take us to the water, PLEASEE!" my son Kyle begged. He was 7 now and looked so much like me.
"Yeah Daddy, please?" Anna asked. Anna was 5 now and wanted to copy everything that Kyle did. Most times it made me laugh.
"Ok, Ok little munchkins. Let Daddy get his swim trunks on and we'll go right out. You wait down here." I told them before I jogged up the stairs and changed and grabbed a few beach towels. I met the kids and we walked out the back door down to the water, each of them holding one of my hands. I may regret a lot of things in my life, but by far, these are two of the three things I'm the most proud of in my life. They live in California, yet they take in the squishy feeling of the sand on their feet like it's the newest sensation they've ever felt. They giggle until we reach the water and I let them get a feel for the warm water as I take in my surroundings. It's as beautiful as I remember it. I can't stop the memories that come at me all of the sudden of walking along this same beach with Stevie. I can feel her hand against mine and the breeze whipping her long blonde hair into my face. I can see how beautiful she looks and her eyes are so full of life. I swear I can still hear her laughing and that's what bring me back to reality. I feel the tears burn my eyes as I see that it's just me here, with my children that are not hers, and I hear them laughing as they build a sand castle. The realization that I've stood in this same place hits me and only then do I realize that the place that we stayed together the very last time is the house next door to ours.
I can't just stand here anymore, I have to do something, so I immediately jog out into the water and dive in, swimming furiously. I surface every minute or so and take a peek at Kyle and Anna, who are perfectly fine and continue to swim furiously until I can get rid of all of the hurt that I feel. I know I shouldn't feel hurt, she is the only one who should feel hurt, but how could she just walk away from me? How could she erase each other from the other's life, like we never had anything at all? I don't understand her resolve. When I've finally swam as much as I can, I tiredly walk back to the beach to see the kids have made friends. They're frustrated when they have to say goodbye, but I assure them we can come back a little later.
I give the kids a bath to clean the sand off of them and put them down for a nap, going to lay down myself. I know it's wrong, but I can't face Jen right now. She hasn't done anything wrong, but here in this place, all I can think of is Stevie and I just can't pretend to be interested in anything my actual wife has to say. I finally drift off and when I finally awake I realize that I couldn't even escape Stevie in my dreams. I realize I had been crying in my sleep and am shocked to see that Jen has been comforting me.
"Sorry Jen, must have had a strange dream." I tried to sleepily explain.
"It's OK Lindsey. I know you miss her. I guess coming here wasn't such a good idea." she says quietly, knowingly. We don't really talk about Stevie, except when I almost lost my mind when she first left. I feel about as crazy now as I did then. Normally I would think Jen felt threatened, but she doesn't, I can tell. She probably knows Stevie will never come around again and is truly not a threat. She rubs my back soothingly and suggests that I find something to occupy myself.
"You could call your friend Mick, I'm sure he wouldn't mind catching up."
"No, that's not a bad idea. Maybe I could just drop by, surprise him." I say, totally uncharacteristically. I'm not a sporadic kind of guy, but I need to get away from this side of the island. This is Stevie's place.
I know I'm a little heavy on the internal monologue here, but I always imagine Lindsey as an internal monologue type of guy but we'll be getting somewhere soon, just setting it all up!
