But I brought myself here.

Single-story white Spanish structure with a tiled roof.

Unchanging.

Exactly as it had been twenty-five years ago.

I climb from the car, hurry up the pavement, and knock on the door. Fuck, I didn’t call. What if he’s not here? My pulse starts to accelerate again—

The door opens wide.

Blue eyes staring at me.

The sight of him makes my emotion give way.

“I’m glad you came here,” Jack says, pulling me into his arms and holding on to me firmly.

“I don’t want to fuck up my life. I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t want to lose Chrissie. But I don’t know how to forgive her. I don’t know how to get through this, it is tearing me apart, and I’m the closest I’ve ever been since Chicago to using again.”

Jack pats me firmly on the back. Like that, everything inside me seems less on the edge and a little more manageable.

“It will be OK, Alan. Come in. We’ll talk. We’ll get through this together. You can stay as long as you need to. Neither of us is going anywhere until we’ve worked through this for you.”

*  *  *

I sit on a chair above the cliff staring at the ocean. I’ve been here four days. We talk. We cook. We jam in the studio together. Sometimes we just sit, silent, like we’re doing now. Jack says an occasional trite, folksy axiom, his version of wisdom. Little bits of nothing that have the strange power to move through me as something significant, soothing, focusing, and grounding.

I take a sip of my coffee and shake my head. It’s ridiculous that what Jack does works so completely for people in crisis. But everything is clearer and in focus in me, and that moment of crisis that’s remained a threat even after twenty-five years has stepped back away from me again.

I’m no longer on the edge.

I still don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.

I shift my gaze to Jack. We’ve been friends forever. I still don’t get him. The man is an enigma unto himself. I’ve never asked. But I’m tired of talking about me.

“How do you do it?” I ask. “Get past things as a man you shouldn’t be able to get past with Linda. Stay together all these years and not go insane that she’s married? It’d be like endless purgatory to love her and not be the man in her life.”

Jack turns, studies my face, and then laughs. “Fuck, I can’t believe you’re asking me that. No one ever does. Not even Chrissie. But she’s like me. I think she gets it without asking.”

He looks out across the Pacific, his chin bobbing in little nods, and then purses his lips, stares at the sky and exhales slowly.

“It’s how it worked out,” he says in measured slowness. “We did what we thought was right for everyone, and I’ve never regretted loving her and I will always love her. No one can have everything the way they want it. The man who tries usually ends up with nothing. I have enough. Enough is a pretty fine thing.”

I shake my head.

Jack studies me, amused. “Even when you go through life with the best road map, you’ll still find roads you never expected. Sometimes it’s the unexpected roads that are the best journeys.” He laughs. “I’d say you’ve gotten a few unexpected roads lately and you definitely have enough. More than enough.”

“Fuck you.”

I drop my head into my hands. His jabs come out of nowhere. Why do they make me laugh? Corny ’60s shit. Life can’t fucking be this simple for him, not for any man.

I sit up. “I need to leave soon. I’m back on the road in six days. I talk to the kids every day. It’s not good. Krystal and the boys, they come to the phone. I’m not sure, but I think Chrissie makes them. They sound awkward and distant when they speak to me. Kaley has rebounded back into hating me, though. She won’t even speak to me.”

Jack’s lips curl in an upside down smile. “That girl loves her mother. All she sees right now is that you left. She doesn’t know why and you don’t have to tell her. She doesn’t hate you. Don’t take it personally. She loves you. Chrissie’s hurting. They all are. It must be a terrible weight for Kaley to carry. It’s not her fault, but she is probably blaming herself and feeling guilty and that’s why she’s lashing out at you.”

“I haven’t talked to Chrissie since I walked out. I need to. I’m not sure I’m ready to or what I’m going to say.”

Jack leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

“I’m not going to defend my daughter. I love her, but I don’t always understand her and I do know she doesn’t do things to hurt people. She always wants to do the right thing. She tries so hard—too hard, I think—to be what she thinks she needs to for everyone she loves. Almost like if she can be perfect and not make a mistake she won’t lose the people she loves. It must be exhausting for her. Especially since it’s usually when she fucks up the most. But she’s all heart, always has been, and I love her exactly as she is. There is no other way to love a woman, not even your daughter. If you’re going to love them you have to love them as they are.”

An unwanted vision of Chrissie flashes in my head, from long ago when we were young in New York the first time we loved each other, in the car, after hitting me repeatedly only to fuck me the next minute. A Chrissie crazy moment. But I can still see her face. Her beautiful face, ravished and tear-stained and desperate. I definitely can still hear her words: You’re leaving. Why, Alan, does everyone I love leave me?

I fight back the emotion by taking a sip of my coffee. It wasn’t until later, when Chrissie told me everything she’d gone through, that I understood why she had said that to me.

There’s a long silence between us.

We both seem lost in our thoughts.

Jack sits back, looking up at the sky again. “I miss Jesse. I liked him.”

Oh fuck.

I don’t want to talk about him.

Why are you going there, Jack?

“As much as I liked him,” Jack continues, “I never understood why Chrissie married him. They were good friends, but that was really it. I knew she was still in love with you, and so did Jesse. They were happy together. I didn’t expect that. It wasn’t until about a year before Jesse died that I sat out here with him, we talked, and he told me why she married him.”

Another long pause.

Fuck, the nerve stretching.

I didn’t want to hear, and now you’re making me wait.

“Jesse knew he was going to die young,” Jack says. “The doctors didn’t even think he’d make it to forty. After Chrissie moved back to Santa Barbara they spent all their time together, just friends, talking. Jesse was good to talk to. They were both in a lot of pain about a lot of things. He didn’t want to die alone, so out of nowhere he just asked Chrissie, and he was shocked when she said yes. At that time in her life, I think Chrissie just needed to be needed. Jesse loved her. He definitely needed her. He loved those kids even knowing they weren’t his. He was a good man. I miss him.”

Christ. My head feels like it’s about to explode again. Every time I think there’s nothing more to know, out comes something new to deal with.

Jack smiles. “I asked him one time how he could be friends with you. Jesse said that he liked you and he was lucky enough to be the one with Chrissie so why fuck that up by hating you?”

He pats my leg hard once and then stands up.

“Don’t fuck up your life by hating yourself, Alan. The person you need to forgive to get through this is you. I’m going to go barbecue dinner. How about fish tonight? I’m tired of steak.”

After dinner, we settle on the patio.

“I’m leaving in the morning. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m going to do.”

“You’ll know when you know. But don’t make decisions with your head.” He balls up his fist and taps his abdomen. “Make them with your gut. It won’t steer you wrong. Where your family is concerned that’s where a man’s decisions live. Don’t question what your gut tells you. Just do it.”