Olivia handed the mug of steaming hot coffee to Mac. Black, strong, two sugars. She remembered the day they'd ate at the Empire diner how he preferred it. He was surprised to learn that she had taken the time to notice such a small thing as how he took his coffee. But then being observant was what he paid her to be.
'You're not joining me?' he asked accepting the mug.
'I have trouble sleeping,' she reminded and held aloft the glass she had refilled in the kitchen. 'My narcotic.' As she took a drink of the vodka she was very much aware that he was watching her and knew he was going to comment. She didn't have long to wait.
'Surely that only makes it worse.'
Her shrug was non-committal. 'Depends which way you look at it. I'm not an alcoholic, Mac. I just enjoy a drink.'
'Using alcohol to elicit comfort may benefit you at the time but in hindsight it only intensifies the problem that you're drinking to forget.' He dropped his eyes from the coolness of the gaze she was giving him and chewed down on his bottom lip, realizing how judgmental he had sound. 'Olivia, I - '
'Didn't take you long, did it?' A restless feeling washed over her and she shuffled to the edge of the seat, wrapping both hands around the glass.
'I'm just voicing my concerns.'
'Everybody's so concerned.' Flack had been concerned too. She took another drink, a longer one this time, just because she could and then licked her lips. Her head still hurt, her eyes still felt heavy, but the numbness was finally beginning to kick in. 'Don't tell me you've never drank too much, a little more than you should, just to forget.'
'I haven't.'
She turned her head and met his watchful gaze. 'Not even after you lost your wife?' He dropped his eyes only briefly and Olivia saw the wave of emotion flicker over his face. She sighed and wished she could take it back. It had been cruel and somewhat cold.
'I've never been a drinking man,' said Mac. 'The occasional scotch, maybe a sociable beer. I know my limitations and the dangers of becoming attached to something.'
'I can stop anytime I want.'
'So stop.'
'Maybe I'm not ready.'
'Maybe you're allowing it to control you.'
Olivia felt her teeth set. 'You know, Mac, when I let you in I made it clear that I didn't have to listen to anything you might have to say. I choose to not listen to this.' She got to her feet; the gesture was one of irritation. 'I didn't ask you to come here and dish out the advice. I don't need it. And I don't need you to sit there judging me - '
'I'm not judging you, Olivia,' he interrupted. 'And if I come over that way, then I apologize.'
For some unknown reason tears sprang to her eyes and she bit on the inside of her cheek to stop them from spilling over. She wondered how a few words could sound so stern and yet offer so much comfort. She didn't need this. She didn't need him to be here, offering his advice and support, she didn't need it...not today. Least of all today.
'You've been through a lot in your life,' he went on gently.
'I don't need your pity.'
'Empathy is not pity.'
'Same difference.'
'Won't you let anyone be sensitive to what you've been through?'
She didn't need to think about it. 'I don't need anyone.'
Mac silently nodded. He found himself thinking about Claire. He felt like a fraud sitting there trying to push through her barriers, to get her to talk, when five years on he still wasn't completely ready to talk about losing his wife. It reminded him of how much he understood Olivia, how in that one way they were completely alike. She let go of a breath and when she spoke her voice was so quiet, he was almost straining to hear the words.
'Do you ever feel like...like your life is in a holding pattern...stalled, almost?'
He went very still, and when she turned her head to look at him, her gaze was intent on his. 'Sometimes,' he admitted.
'I wonder about it...you know? If people can outgrow their life.'
'Maybe we only outgrow parts of it,' he said just as serious as she was. 'And maybe new pieces fall into place.'
'I discovered something today. It changes everything and I'm not sure how to deal with that.'
Her open admittance told him that she wanted to talk about whatever it was she had discovered, but she was struggling. He didn't push. He just waited to see if she would back out or if she was prepared to put her trust in him.
Olivia's mouth felt suddenly dry, she drained the last of the vodka and set the glass down. Running her hands through her hair, she felt scared and nervous and didn't have a clue what she was doing. She wanted to talk to someone. She wanted to talk to him. Needed it, because she knew he would understand. And maybe because he knew everything anyway, that was what made it easier for her. She didn't have to explain why she needed to talk. He knew why.
'For years now...I've felt like I'm on the outside looking in. That this is someone else's life and I'm just watching it unfold, chapter by chapter. I tell myself it has to be someone else's life, all of this...everything, it hasn't - it couldn't have all happened to one person.'
Mac saw the network of lines that tugged at her green eyes. She looked sad and tired and infinitely lonely. It was the loneliness that made him feel like they were partners somehow, victims of a similar war. He didn't offer advice or words of comfort he just let her talk.
'They say it gets easier over time. But it doesn't. You just learn to live with it. How can it get easier when how they were taken was so brutal and so wrong? It's been twelve years and I don't think there'll ever come a time when I stop missing them...feel them around me. I wake up most mornings and I have this warm feeling that everything's all right and then I remember it isn't, that they're all gone and the emptiness is all there is. That never really goes away. Not when you've lost someone...not when you've lost everyone.' Her voice cracked, and she sucked in a long steadying breath.
In that one moment, with tears of sadness shining in her eyes, Mac shared her pain. Knowing he had stumbled upon something important, knowing that she had offered it willingly. He wondered if she realized the extent of what she had done. If she knew the huge step she had just taken.
'I want to be back on the inside, Mac...but there's no one there,' she implored. 'There's just me and I'm lost. Wandering around lost in the middle of nowhere and I don't know how to get back.' Feeling the tears threatening to spill over, she turned away and shook her head bitterly.
Mac understood how it felt to be in a place where there was no one to care for you, to protect you...to look out for you.
'I cry for all of them every day. I cry for all the missed moments, the kisses at bedtime, the hugs, the fights...the laughter, the good times out on the Cape...the joy that'll never be as complete again. And every day...every single day, I blame myself.'
Mac lifted his head. 'What happened wasn't your fault,' he told her. But she wasn't listening.
'I should have gone to Portland. Swallowed my pride and gone with them. What did it matter if he didn't want me there...they were my family and I should have been there.' Her voice was cracking with emotion, but beneath the obvious pain there was anger. 'If I had...it would never have happened. They would still be alive. I could have stopped it.'
'Olivia, you were sixteen. No more than a child yourself.'
'I should have been there,' she implored, her voice breaking.
How many times had Mac blamed himself for losing Claire? He had promised to protect her and that would never leave his mind, it stayed like a splinter under the skin. He'd had no control whatsoever over what happened that gray day, nobody could have known what terror and tragedy lay ahead; yet just like Olivia was now, he blamed himself. He blamed himself for something that wasn't even his fault. And all because of a promise.
'You feel guilty...therefore the guilt prevents you from talking about the pain and by not allowing yourself to talk about it, the burden becomes greater,' he said quietly voicing his own thoughts and fears. 'You believe that you could have done something, anything, to prevent it from happening.' She turned to face him and he met her tear-filled eyes and felt something tug, deep and sharp inside of him. 'Truth is...you couldn't. No one could have stopped it. No one, Olivia. Least of all you. It happened...and it wasn't your fault.'
A floodgate opened inside of her. The guilt...yes, the guilt was what she had lived with for so long. Her father's sudden death...Charlie, Lily...and in some small way, even her mother. She couldn't stop herself from thinking that she could have stopped the nightmare. This was her doing. Because she felt so guilty. The guilt of how her father had died that wet and windy Thursday night and the guilt of not being there to protect her brother and sister from Hickey. The guilt of shutting her mother out afterwards. Realizing what she had done, what she had admitted, her body began to tremble and the tears fell unashamedly from her eyes as a choked sob escaped her lips.
She was broken. She was falling to pieces right before his very eyes. The deep abyss of pain that often threatened to drown her did just that. She had worked hard over the years to not let it win, to never let it drag her under. Knowing what would happen if it did. Knowing she would never claw her way back out. But she was tired, she was emotionally exhausted...and she was broken and she didn't want to fight anymore.
Oh God...she didn't want to fight any more.
Without thinking, Mac got to his feet and went to her. He reached for her, folded her shaking body into his arms. He expected her to pull away, but there was no fight in her. And that in itself made him ache for her. She was hovering on the brink of a breakdown and he wanted to help her, he wanted to help her more than he'd ever wanted to help any other human being.
The first tentative step had already been taken. One day at a time, wasn't that what they said? Mac knew she had done this, that she'd let him get close to her and he didn't know why, but it scared him. Because in the back of his mind he knew that because of that shared connection he could get close to her, too.
Olivia trembled against him, cried into his shoulder and still he held on. Needing it - but uncertain of its shape and meaning - as much as she did.
Case closed.
End of Part 2.
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COPYRIGHT. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Debra Jay. 2006