Troubled Youth

He was sitting in the backyard of his older brother’s house sipping on a beer and watching the sun go down. Shannon had disappeared into the house with his wife and had been gone awhile. Jared could pretty well guess what they had gone off to do. Shannon’s two sons were with their grandmother so Shannon had found himself with a moment almost alone. Almost was always close enough for that man.
Jared had felt a small pang of jealousy earlier when he watched the boys, fifteen and thirteen years old, leave the house with their grandmother, Shannon’s wife’s mother. He wished he had kids of his own to hand over to a grandmother for a day or two. He had a daughter but he had only ever seen her once.
No, don’t think about her. Thinking about her only makes him think about his daughter’s mother. That was another deep well of pain for him. He mustn't go down that path. Not here. Not now. He wasn’t aware of it but he was chewing his bottom lip.
“You alright?” Shannon asked sitting down on one of the couches across from Jared, his hair tousled.
“Just thinking.”
“You spend too much time thinking bro.” Shannon smiled combing his finger back through his hair.
“I know.” Jared smiled very slightly.
“How’s everything at home?”
Jared shrugged. “Fine.”
“You and her fighting again?”
“Every relationship has ups and downs.” Jared brushed off the comment. “I’m used to it.”
Shannon made a face.
“What?”
“I would have thought you’d be tired of fighting with women. I mean, after all you went through with...” Shannon stopped before he said her name.
Jared swallowed. Shannon saw his little brother was not alright.
“Look, I don’t want to bring up anything that’s going to upset you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I was already thinking about her before. Seeing your kids going off to their grandmother. I just... I remembered when I had a chance at that.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened to Ella.”
The name made Jared inhale sharply. Shannon was the only one who dared say her name around him. He closed his eyes to hold back tears.
“I know. There was nothing anyone could do.” Jared sighed. “I just wish...”
“Everyone always wishes.” Shannon said when Jared paused. “You’ve got Alice now and she’s a total babe. She loves you and you love her. Go home and take her to bed. Stop arguing.”
“Arguments aren’t solved with sex. She’s not you.”
“She’s not...” Shannon stopped realizing he was about to say something he shouldn’t.
He was going to say she wasn’t Ella. They both knew Ella solved all her problems with sex. That was how she would cope, how she would get over things. It didn’t matter that Shannon never finished the sentence; Jared knew what he meant.
“No, she’s not.” Jared said stiffly.
“Sorry.” Shannon said quietly. “I know it’s close.”
“It’s been ten years since. You’d think it would hurt less.” Jared bit his bottom lip as his eyes started to water. “But I still think about her every day. God knows I love Alice, I love her so much. It’s just Ella... we had a child. We did so many things together. She was so much a part of me. I can’t help but wonder what could have been.”
“Jay.” Shannon moved to sit next to his little brother.
“I just don’t understand it. She was even younger than her father.” Jared broke into tears. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s just the way the world works.” Shannon pulled Jared into a hug. “It was her time.”
“She was only forty seven.”
“You guys were so close that last year.”
Jared nodded. “I was the only one there when she passed but I don’t think she knew it.”
“Shh, don’t think that way. She knew you were there. Her soul knew you were there.”
Shannon knew his brother was about to break down. He pulled him tighter and Jared released, sobbing into his brother’s chest. He was fifty-eight years old but sometimes he still felt like a kid, like a lost kid. His emotions had been left a wreck in Ella’s wake and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get them back in order. Not only from her passing, but from the things she’d put him through when she was still strong and they were just two lost kids hanging onto each other for life.
He’d felt adrift for so long after her. Just wandering. He’d moved out of the country like he and Ella had talked about. She’s always wanted to go back to South Africa but he couldn’t live there without her. Instead he bought a house in Morocco and spent most of his time there now. He was back stateside for Shannon’s birthday and a few other things but he’d be going back soon. He and Alice were in a hotel for the next two weeks before they went back to Morocco. That’s where he’d met Alice. That’s why he lived there.
Alice knew a lot about Ella but not everything. She knew Jared had a daughter and how much he had loved Ella but she didn’t know the emotional turmoil Jared had gone through. Thirty years of his life were laid at Ella’s feet and she always had taken it for granted. In spite of that all he loved her to the point of physical pain when she left the world. Alice knew Jared had a lot of emotional issues to overcome and she was patient with him for the most part. They had been together five years.
Jared’s problem was he knew Alice wanted to get married. A long time ago Jared had told himself as he watched the woman he loved get married that he would never marry unless it was to her. He loved Alice but he couldn’t bring himself to break that promise to himself. Ella was gone and he would never get married. He couldn’t.
When Jared sat back and wiped at his eyes Shannon carefully examined his little brother’s face. He still didn’t look his age. He looked closer to mid forties than he did to almost sixty. Shannon squeezed Jared’s shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Okay enough.” Jared sighed picking up his half empty beer. “Thanks for always being there.”
“No problem.”
“I guess you and Alex are doing alright.” Jared said glancing at Shannon’s tousled hair.
“Yeah.” Shannon blushed running a hand through his unkempt hair. “She’s sleeping now.”
“Tired her out that quick?”
“We were gone a while.”
“Oh, must not have noticed.”
“You tend not to when you’re thinking.”
Jared nodded.
Shannon looked up to see his wife opening the back door to their house. He smiled as he watched her long legs move over the threshold of the back door to step outside, her blond hair being ruffled in the light breeze. His face froze when a smaller blond woman stepped out behind her. It was like seeing a ghost. He went as white as a sheet and Jared tilted his head at Shannon’s expression.
“Shan? You okay?” Jared turned to look behind him.
He saw the two women and his heart stopped. He saw her too. The thin blond woman with her hair neatly tied back. His eyes started to water and he got up to walk towards her. He was taken back thirty years when he looked at her face.
“You look so much like her.” He was breathless, his voice barely audible.
“I’ve been told.” She smiled tentatively.
Jared pulled the small woman into his arms and started to cry again. “Soleil.” He sobbed against her shoulder. “Soleil.”
She tightened her arms around him feeling her own eyes prick. She’d finally found her father. She’d been looking for so long but after he had turned fifty there wasn’t much to find. Work got in her way and her own personal life. Years she had been looking for her parents and she finally had found Jared by finding his older brother.
Jared stepped back holding her at arms length. Even with tears in his eyes he could see some of her facial features reflecting his own. Her nose, her eyes. Other than that she was the picture of her mother. He smiled and kissed her forehead.
“I’m so sorry.” He pulled her into a tight hug.
“It’s okay. I know why you gave me up. I always knew why, since I was a kid.”
“I wish things could have been different. I wanted to raise you. Your mother wanted to. We just couldn’t.”
“Is she here?” Soleil asked hopefully.
Jared froze. She didn’t know. He took a deep breath and stepped back from his daughter.
“Ella died ten years ago. She had cancer like her father but it spread faster. She was forty seven.”
“Oh.” Soleil felt a tear roll down her cheek as she took that news in. “I wanted to meet her.”
“She would have wanted to meet you too.” Jared said wiping his eyes. “Let’s go sit.”
He was aware that as he lead his daughter to the outdoor couches, Shannon and his wife had gone back inside to give them privacy. He sat down across from his daughter and let her ask him questions about himself and about Ella. He teared up quite a few times remembering back and recounting their adventures out loud but Soleil reassured him it was okay, that he would be alright.
She was twenty-four and smarter than he could have hoped for. She’d finished college as a business major and was working at a firm that she had been rapidly climbing upwards in. Eventually she wanted her own business but this was just a way to get started, a way to get experience. She had a boyfriend and was pretty sure he was it for her. They’d talked about getting married but nothing was set in stone yet. Jared wanted to meet him and Soleil promised he would.
They were outside for hours. The sun went down and Shannon had come out to light the fire pit. He brought out dinner that his wife had made and the four of them sat talking. Jared wondered how this day had finally come. He couldn’t stop looking at his daughter trying to convince himself she was really there. He thoughts kept going back to Ella and how he wished she was there with them. He had always pictured this happening but he’d pictured it with Ella at his side wearing a ring he had given her.