All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
2013 Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
.................
Timing.
It's funny how timing is everything in life. If only we could be prepared, perhaps receive a script in advance, as to how events will play out, maybe we'd do things a little differently.
Or maybe we'd take our chances and trust that everything happens for a reason.
Take the death of Colton Bishop. Thirty five years young, a lively, hard working father of one. He married his high school sweetheart, resided in a Neighbourhood where everybody knew everybody.
And everybody loved Colton.
Then one day, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Timing was everything.
We'd had an argument, Colton and I. It was stupid shit, shit I don't even remember now. I'd invited him to a work event, and I'd gotten really drunk. He was one of my best friends, we grew up together, both die hard Giants fans, both Guitar Hero aficionados, a shared history that meant we knew everything about one another. As much as two guys could know. You know, the stuff that really mattered. And we'd be there. If anything happened to the other, you could take it for granted that the other would be there. We had each others backs, that's the way it was.
Colton didn't know the area. This work party was in some hotel. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called, maybe I had a mental block over the whole thing. Like it was better to just cut myself off than try and understand. But whatever way you spun it, there was no reasoning. Just timing.
He'd been walking towards the bus stop, or that's what they say he was doing. I guess we'll never know. I've tried the whole talking to his headstone thing but I don't get any answers. Just new questions and a whole load of shit I should have told him when he was still here. I wish I could have told him to turn around and cross the street. I wish he'd stayed that night and I'd been less of the stubborn opinionated bastard that I knew I could be at times.
Especially when I'd been drinking.
The combination was lethal.
They made off with his wallet. I know he only had seven dollars in there. He'd been using his card all night. The bullet wound was fatal. I stood there, sobered by the news, in some sterile, clinical police station room. His wife had taken their daughter Sofia to Paris to stay with her sister for the summer. He couldn't go because of work. The police couldn't get hold of her.
So it was me who identified the body. Sobered and blissfully numb, something I'm thankful of now considering how many people talked to me that night. Trust me I've had my fair share of breakdowns since then, but that night, when they told me, I didn't punch a hole in the wall. I didn't drop to my knees crying, like they do in the movies, I didn't shout 'Why!' At the top of my lungs, reaching for the heavens.
I listened to what they said. I nodded. I told them he'd been with me. That we'd had a fight. Then I went to identify him. I'm grateful that a lot of that night is now blank to me. People always tell me that when someone dies, if you're there by their side when they go, it's really hard to remember them how they were. Like their last moments are imprinted into your memory's hard drive, overriding every other memory you have of them. The truth is, from what I can vaguely recall, he looked like he was sleeping.
It was a face I knew well. We'd gone to college together, and after many an alcohol fueled bender he'd crash in my dorm room. It was definitely him. No mistaking his messy blond hair and tanned skin, the beads he wore around his neck that I always told him made him look like a hippy. I'd always been jealous of his innate ability to attract any woman he wanted with his all American Abercrombie and Fitch look. He was always the optimistic, buoyant, upbeat one. I was the moody bastard, the guy who should have been there.
But things were about to get infinitely worse.
Yet again, the timing stung the most.
..................,,,
I met Caroline when we were in our first year of college. I studied graphic design and she was studying the history of art. It was a time when information technology was exploding into the mainstream and the World Wide Web was only going to get wider. There was money to be made and I fancied myself as a Steve Jobs wannabe. She was my type down to a tee. I'd always gone for blondes, and she was the quintessential girl next door. Perfect white teeth, long blonde hair, devilishly seductive blue eyes and that ice maiden thing down pat. Back then it was sexy, I loved the chase, I loved how aloof she could be, how detached and self centered she was. It was a confidence that drove me crazy.
What did I know? I was eighteen, and horny, and ridiculously immature. I look back and wonder where my own sense of immortality came from. When you're eighteen everything seems like its gonna last forever. Life is one big, long party filled with beers, bongs, and girls. Caroline and I had a tumultuous relationship. We'd have insane arguments, she'd have me fired up like I'd never been in my life. Standing outside her dorm room, screaming at her through the door. If I thought I was moody, and I'm not denying that I'm a shit head to live with, but my God I had nothing on Caroline. She lit a fire at a time when I was burning brightly myself. Eighteen with the whole world at my feet. Waiting.
As if I commanded it.
We'd been together eight weeks when she called me. She was her usual self, calm and cool, so I had no reason to freak the fuck out.
No, that would come later.
She asked to meet me at a coffee shop, the place we often grabbed a cup of joe before a day in lectures. I knew what she was going to say before I even sat down. I cold see her wringing her slender fingers, perfectly manicured nails tapping on the plastic table, elevating my heart rate.
As I sat down I cringed. She was always one for drama. Her pregnancy test sat centre stage, like some ornament in the middle of the table, inches from her scarlet red finger nails. I remember what she said like it was yesterday. Sure everybody says that, but it seems like yesterday that she uttered the words that changed my life forever.
'I'm pregnant.'
I'd barely sat down. The waitress hovered and then thought better of it, hurrying to another table, cheeks flushed at what she'd heard. I remember meeting her eyes and garbling something. I don't know what I said, but I knew above all else that this was my responsibility. Hers too, of course, but I'd never turn my back. I'd never walk away from my actions because the consequences didn't fit the picture I thought my life would be.
My dad had walked away. I know how that can screw a kid up. I couldn't visualize my children back then, but right now I couldn't imagine my life without them. The biggest shock of my life was about to get a little bigger. We were having twins. After the briefest of relationships, eight weeks and one day together, to be exact, we were on the road to becoming parents. To be more precise, we'd conceived just three weeks into our heated, hormone fueled relationship. I didn't know her, she didn't know me. Not really. We'd been thrust into this situation, two kids trusting that they were untouchable when really we were just like everybody else. And now we had a huge decision to make.
Caroline went along with my whole spiel about standing up and being responsible. We decided to keep the babies. My mother, ever the pessimist, ever ready on the sidelines to push me down, told me that this would end in tears. She promised to stick by us but she wasn't happy, any fool could see that. My brother Scott was in his final year of medical school, he was concentrating on his studies, he was gaining quite the reputation for diligence and accuracy, choosing to become a heart surgeon. He could have done anything and excelled. He could have had any woman he wanted back then, but he was so focused he put me to shame. I'd always had my head in the clouds as a teenager, college was the perfect time to live an adventure of a lifetime. Just not on these terms.
We carried on with college, I was there for every scan and doctors appointment, and I found a job working at a small Internet based magazine for gamers. The pay wasn't amazing, but I had a real zest for the web, and I'd been captivated by video games since I was a kid. It put a roof over our heads, the kind of roof Caroline would rant about, she was used to so much more. She was born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, and I did everything I could to please her. I promised that I'd be somebody, that we'd have some money and I'd keep her in the manner with which she was accustomed. Cracks begin to show when you barely know somebody and you're suddenly on top of one another day in day out. Our sex life dwindled as the pregnancy progressed, she was tired, I understood that, but I think she was also resentful, as if she held me solely responsible for what had happened.
Then the day came. In a blur of tears and feeling more useless than I ever had in my life. They were born.
I named our daughters.
Elodie was born first, a healthy five pounds seven ounces. Natasha followed, at four pounds eight ounces.
I fell in love with Caroline the moment she held our children. Nuzzled up to her chest I felt something inside me change. Like it was the defining moment of my life. Before that moment times had seemed immeasurably tough, every day brought a whole string of unspoken sentences and a home filled with an oppressive atmosphere. I didn't know what to say to make things better for her, all I could do was hope with the birth of the babies, things would change for us.
And they did. At least for a little while.
The magazine was going from strength to strength. We'd launched a hard copy of the publication and it became a fast seller. Focussing on the gaming market and with our various expos around the world, we had more work that we ever knew possible. Caroline's mother looked after the girls whilst her daughter went back to school and I brought in more money than I'd ever imagined. I was able to provide a better life for my family. Nothing seemed to matter more than the girls, and I wanted to give them everything I hadn't had as a kid. Caroline was happier, and we were getting along, finding snippets of time away from our roles as Mom and Dad. I started to see what I'd loved about her to begin with, and for the first time I started thinking this was all a blessing in disguise. The whole time I'd been anxious about where life was headed, when really, I had so much more than I'd have had without Caroline.
Timing was everything. The day I met my wife, everything changed. If I had to go back, if you gave me a run down of how these years would play out, would I change a thing?
The answer would always be no.
I'd change some of the things I did, though.
Like working so hard, and so often.
The girls grew faster than I ever anticipated. Folk always said that the baby years would pass in the blink of an eye. They weren't wrong. Those were the busiest years for me, trying to reach some end goal, and the parameters kept changing. I was trying to please Caroline, but really I was fighting a losing battle before we even began.
She wanted me more more often, but she loved the money, she loved the parties we were invited to as I made editor. The glitz and glamour was a dream come true for her, and she never once worried about money. I didn't want her to, if money kept her around, if it kept us as a family, then I'd keep working. We'd move into a bigger house, we'd have a new car every year, the girls could go to a better school. I think I knew back then what I was missing. Every new thing the girls did. The school plays, the dance classes, the gym meets, the vacations Caroline took without me.
But I didn't do anything to change it.
In some ways I think maybe I burrowed into my work, like it was something to escape to. I wasn't the dad I wanted to be. It didn't come as easily as I thought. It wasn't all fun and sunshine. They tested my patience. I'd have to walk into the bathroom in the rare moments I was home with them and lock the door for a few minutes of silence. Or as close to silence as I could get.
I didn't appreciate the little quirks they had, didn't video tape enough, didn't sit and watch enough. Before I knew it they were thirteen.
And I'd missed so much of it.