Cal Abraham Sheppard

I’m thinking about changing my major, but I really don’t know. 

I know you all say Momma and Daddy and Tinley and Matty are dead but I just don’t feel like they are. In my heart, I mean. It’s like… I can still feel them around. Like we’ll go to the grocery store and see them. Is that crazy?

-

No, Sal, no, that’s just normal grief, I think. I do that too. I always think I’ll see Dad when I’m running in the park. I don’t know why it’s there, but it just is. 

Yeah. Daddy always helped her catch ‘em in the garden. 

But… I don’t think I was. I genuinely only remember getting on a bus and driving away. Nothing else. 

You could always read Cal’s face. Or at least Maisie could. Britton always complained about how stoic he was, how she never knew what he was thinking. Maisie could always see it though. She picked up on his micro-expressions more than anyone else did. She could tell his mood by the way he blinked and the speed at which he moved his eyes away from hers. Then, it seemed like he was disappointed. Disappointed and angry. Angry and frustrated. Like he was holding back. Like he was biting his tongue about something. Maisie thought she knew what was bothering him - it was obvious that she was with Eli at this point. She rubbed a small love bite on her neck that she had forgotten about until that point. 

“You can say goodbye to the chickens too, if you want,” Maisie said plainly. Trying to crack the smallest of smiles, but Cal’s face didn’t change. “If the kids are ever at Nora’s, you are more than welcome to talk to them and play with them. They love you, you know. You’ll always be their Cal Pal.” Cal really was the first man in their lives after their own father died. After the loss of Rachel and Layton, Maisie didn’t know how she was going to pick up her life and put it back together. But she had to for the kids. And Cal was a big part of that. Now, Cal was leaving. And she knew she would be okay, but the kids didn’t need to lose another person they loved and trusted. “And you can always come over to see them…. I know you probably don’t want to though. But yeah, come grab your stuff. Say goodbye to the chickens…. Oh, do you think you could cha–” Maisie stopped. For a moment she forgot they were breaking up. She was going to ask him to change a light bulb, but she stopped herself and said, “Never mind, I’ll ask Eli.”

And she didn’t realize his name slipped. And her face ran white.

Cal Pal stung. It bit at him like a bad bee sting. It rung repeatedly in his ears. He instantly heard Lincoln’s laugh. His high-pitched voice with his sweet, little lisp. He saw Frankie’s concentrated face as she dug up dirt with him in their garden. He felt his fingers twitch, remembering the night Maisie taught him how to braid her thin, blonde hair. Cal never learned how to do hair in Plumfeld. The men in the town would say he was a man, after all, and there was no need to look pretty. Yet the few spa nights he spent with Maisie and the kids, putting on face masks, learning to braid, and even painting their nails would always sit warmly in his heart. He remembered how excited he was to go back to Nora’s the next day and show Rebel he could put not one, but two braids into her thick, red hair. He wished, only for a moment, that he’d never fallen for Maisie. He never planned on breaking up. After all of he and Oaklynn’s losses, his relationship with Maisie felt like his redemption. His perfect family -  with a tiny son and daughter who he’d do anything in the world for, a farmhouse on the hill, and his very own ode to his late mother in the form of a wonderful, lively garden. Now, someone else would get to tuck the kids in. Eli would get to kiss the top of Maisie’s head, smelling her sweet hair. He would get his shoes muddy playing with Lincoln in mud and rain puddles. He’d be the one who Frankie would dance around the living room with on his feet. It burned Cal’s chest. It soured his stomach. And as Maisie let Eli’s name slip, it felt like the last nail in Cal’s coffin.

Uh, sure. Yeah, I’d like that. My therapist thinks getting my hands in the dirt will help in keeping me centered. 

Hey uh, Cal? You know how you told me mom and dad are… dead? Why don’t I remember it?

-

It will. That’s why I garden. That and because Mom loved hers so much back at home. Sometimes she’ll come visit mine as a butterfly. I like to think it’s her at least. Though Tinns was the one who really liked butterflies, huh?

Maisie was never really good at eye contact. It wasn’t that it made her uncomfortable, but it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to hold when she was uncomfortable. She liked eye contact to know someone was listening to her. She liked eye contact when asking questions. It was something that was driving her crazy about raising Frankie, but Maisie often reminded herself that eye contact is a learned trait at not necessarily something that you’re born knowing. Anyhow, Maisie avoided Cal’s eyes. She didn’t want to see the hurt and disappointment on his face, and she didn’t want him to see the hurt in hers. She held back and held off as long as she could. Finally, Cal spoke. 

“That’s not true, I do love you.” Maisie retorted almost immediately. She did look up into his eyes, and he was hurt. He was really, really hurt. And it hurt her. Cal made a comment about letting Maisie be with who she really wanted to be with, and it made tears well in her eyes. “I love you, Cal. So, so much. Like… more than words can describe,” she wiped a few tears away from her eyes, looking up to the light that hung above their booth. “The way you are with Link and Frankie. The ways you just jumped right into being there for them and for me. The little farm we created…” It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that to be with someone, she would have to hurt someone else. But he was right. Maisie did want to be with Eli. She wouldn’t tell him that, but she also wasn’t fighting to have him back. “I do love you Cal, and I promise this hurts me just as much as it does you.” 

But as many times as Maisie said she loved him, she never said she was IN love with him, and that’s what mattered here more.

As Maisie spoke, professing all of the love she had in her heart for Cal, he rolled his tongue angrily around in his mouth, shoving in another bite of pancakes to keep him from saying something he didn’t really mean. To him, Maisie felt as cold as his food tasted. He was disappointed. Disappointed in his life, in his luke-warm breakfast and tasteless diner coffee. Disappointed that his second chance of love had been seemingly chewed up and spit out before he even really had a chance to enjoy it. Disappointed that Maisie would choose a douche-bag like Eli Bates over a hard-working, honest guy like himself. Cal didn’t even have to ask. He knew it was Eli. He knew they’d had something together once from the first time he saw how Maisie looked at him, and though Cal oftentimes saw that same shine in her eyes when they were together, it was never nearly as bright. She didn’t shine for him the way she shined for the stupid, arrogant, music man. 

Maisie will never forget the look on Caiden’s face when she asked him if he thought it was possible to be in love with two people at the same time. He warned her. He said love was tricky and that she really needed to figure out her feelings before she broke someone’s heart. “I think I’ll end up breaking someone’s heart anyway,” she told him. “I don’t want to settle. No matter what, I think my heart is going to ache.” Then Caiden said something that really changed her perspective, “It shouldn’t have to ache. You don’t deserve that.” It was true. She didn’t deserve that, but her heart did ache. It ached the entire first night with Eli. The entire trip in Hawaii. That night on the beach, in the rain, and in the Jeep, Maisie’s heart no longer ached. It didn’t ache for Eli. It didn’t ache fro Cal. It didn’t ache for her children or her late family, or herself. In fact, whatever the opposite of ache was, that’s what she felt that night. And that’s when she knew what needed to happen. The rest of the trip was weird. It wasn’t that Maisie was distant, but it was almost like she was preoccupied. If Cal had asked about it while they were still there, she would’ve told him, but he didn’t. So she didn’t say anything. 

When they landed in Washington, Maisie was just so ready to get home that she packed her children into her own car once they reached Nora’s house and drove back to her place without saying a word to anyone. Not to Nora. Not to Eli. Certainly not to Cal. She put them to bed and crawled into her own and slept better than she had in weeks. The next morning, Eli came over to watch the kids and brought Sailor and Lily to play, and Maisie threw on a hoodie and a pair of leggings. Her hair in a bun. She snuggled Eli for a moment or two on the couch while the kids were off in the playroom. Her heart was aching. Not for herself. Not for Eli. But for Cal. About the conversation that they needed to have. “I don’t wanna go,” Maisie said to Eli, fighting back the tears that were swelling in her throat. He told her better now than never, and that he’d be there when she got back. She kissed him a few times kissed the kids goodbye and left out the front door, to her car, and down to the diner. 

Her stomach was churning. Surely, she wouldn’t be eating anything. Then she saw Cal through the window, sitting at the booth they had sat in together so many times before. Her hands in her lap, she asked the waitress for a water with lemon and then Cal opened his mouth to speak. He was hesitant, tiptoeing around it almost, and Maisie blinked hard. Her eyes closed, the corners of her mouth turned downward, she didn’t want to cry but she couldn’t help it. “I know what this conversation is, so you can just say it.” Her voice was louder than it probably needed to be, but she didn’t really care. Her anxiety was through the roof, and she didn’t know if she could handle the ache in her heart. She hid her face in her hands and cried, feeling her water being dropped off at the table and hearing Cal’s coffee being topped off. “Please just say it so we can get it over with.”

Maisie’s guilt was spread easily and obviously across her face. It was in her body language and the way she sat back so far in the booth, as if not to be any closer than Cal than she needed to be. It was in the way she hadn’t made direct eye contact with him yet. The way she barely spoke to their waitress, and in the way she anxiously raised her tone when she was confronted. Maisie was cornered. It was apparent to Cal that she’d fallen out of love or lust or whatever beautiful soul connection they had with him, and it deeply hurt him. It angered him. It took him so many places all at once. He swallowed, silently nodding in thanks as his pancakes were delivered, and though steaming hot and smelling delicious, he didn’t take a bite just yet. 

Cal’s eyes lingered from the pool of syrup on his plate to Maisie, and though she was crying, when she asked him to just say “it” - he did. 

“...You aren’t in love with me anymore,” He stated, bluntly. It was the truth, and you wouldn’t tell him otherwise. “It seemed like you were still in love a couple days ago, but you aren’t anymore, and it’s okay,” He lied, his chest heavy,“I love you enough to let you go and not keep you from who you really want...” Then Cal took his first bite of his chocolate chip pancake, and they tasted disappointing and nothing like his mother’s. 

“Hey,” He said to Maisie as she slid into the booth across from him, childless. He wondered who she had watching Lincoln and Frankie. He could tell something was going on, and though she tried her hardest to conceal it, he was pretty sure he saw a love bite on her neck, “I...uh...” Cal’s chest began to tighten, and he stared at his untouched coffee cup, “I don’t know how to do this.” 

He squeezed his hands. His knuckles zinged with a combination of frigidness and soreness. Cal had taken up boxing and he was bruised on his hands and a little on his face, but nothing too noticeable. He shivered. He should go back inside, but there something relaxing about watching his breath in the cold. He inhaled, then exhaled, blowing out a line of white air when he heard the back door close, the chaotic loudness of the house coming in and out of his ears as quickly as the door opened and shut. 

He figured it’d be one of his sisters, or possibly one of the guys coming out for a Friday night smoke before they headed off to parties, but instead, Cal was met with a familiar, comforting face. 

“Birdie?” He was shocked to see her, some color quickly flushing back into his cheeks, “Hey,” He got up and pulled her in for a hug, sure he’d feel cold to her but not caring too much, “What’s up? What are you doing here?” 

I mean… I guess so. 

You know, I could really use your help in the garden here. I think I’m going to make room for more tomatoes so we’ll have loads of ‘em in the summer. If you’re free someday, we could work a little then go grab a bite or something. I miss ya. 

Where I’ve been, who I’ve been with, what I’ve been doing is none of your damn business. 

Alright. As long as you’re home safe and had fun. S’all I can ask for, right? 

Thud-ump. Uh-oh. Maisie swiftly moved out of her room and into the kids. Lincoln was sitting on the floor, between the twin beds, sobbing. She scooped him up and wiped his tears away. “I know, buddy,” Maisie said. She set him down on the bed and looked him over. A bump was already protruding from his forehead. Her mom always said that if the bump goes out, you’re gonna be okay. If the bump went in, then you’d have a problem. But he seemed okay. He said he was jumping on the beds, and Maisie explained that it’s not always safe to do so, that we need to check our surroundings to make sure our bodies felt safe, and if you didn’t know, to find an adult. Maisie asked for a kiss and got Lincoln changed and sunscreen’d up. She put sunscreen on herself, reapplied some of Frankie and even put a little Issy’s face too. And soon, Cal was ready to head out to the beach with the kids. Maisie grabbed a chair and a couple of towels and hats and sunglasses and toys, despite Cal having a bag of them too. Plus a boogie board. Maybe she had too many things…

Rachel and Layton lived in a big house on a lot of land, and Maisie got it when she got the kids. Lawyers were working out the financial aspect of it all, and they were going to update her when they figured everything out. For now, Rachel’s mom was letting Maisie and the kids stay in the house. It’s what Rach would want, and it’s what was recommended by Nora and other social workers Maisie had been in contact with. But with the large house and a lot of land, Rachel and Layton never felt the need to go on a vacation. In the years since Francesca was born, they never took a vacation. Not to the beach, at least. And they had only been down to Echo a couple of times. They were really home-bodies. They liked to go on sail boats every year on the summer solstice, but they didn’t spend a lot of time near the water or on the beach. Frankie loved it immediately, as Maisie would have expected her to, but Lincoln didn’t seem so sure quite yet. Maisie figured he’d see Frankie having fun and he’d have fun too. He was tired, they’d been up for a long time and he hadn’t had his nap. The time change was going to be hard on his little body. 

Cal set Lincoln in the sand, and his goose-egg made Maisie’s heart skip a beat. It was cute but it was sad and she was worried about what other people might say about it. But boys were tough, and he’d be okay. Lincoln, at this point, was older than Maisie’s youngest brother, Caspar, was when he died. And the same age Isadora, her youngest sister, was when she died from cancer. She would’ve been eleven at the time of the accident, but seeing her kids at the same age… it broke her over and over again. She missed her family, and she liked that Cal had a big family. It reminded her of her own. Lincoln cried at the sight of the ocean. She wasn’t sure where the fear came from because he hadn’t cried like that at Echo or at the docks since Maisie met him. “Hey, bub. I’m right here. You’re okay. You’re safe.” And after a while, he did warm up. “Mommy’s helping build the sandcastle.” Maisie helped fill buckets, scoop sand, and decorate the towers with shells. Lincoln giggled and Frankie and Issy played near the water, Maisie sure to keep an eye on both of them. “You look good in those yellow trunks,” Maisie said to Cal. “Here, turn around. Let me reapply your sunscreen on your back.”

For as long as Cal could remember, he wanted a family. Perhaps it was because he grew up watching his parents remain so deeply in love and raise he and his siblings, or perhaps it was just the brain-washing and strange ideals that were forced down the throat of every living, breathing person in Plumfeld. Regardless of whether it came from the fairytale love of his folks, or the paragons of heavenly bliss that his prior hometown expected families to be, it was a desire that soaked into Cal all the way to his core. He yearned so deeply for a family and a farm and a steady job and a caring wife, and the more he spent time with Maisie, Frankie and Lincoln, the more Cal was letting himself believe in the possibility of his dreams. Especially in this Hawaiian paradise. It felt perfect, almost too perfect, and as he spotted Eli and his kids a ways down the beach, Cal had to remind himself to stay just a bit guarded. Though they hadn’t talked about it, (they were more like avoiding it), he knew deep down in his heart of hearts that he wasn’t the only man who knew what Maisie’s mattress felt like.

“Holy shi--woo! That is cold, Linky!” Cal screamed, snapping back into reality as his little buddy poured some cold, ocean water down his back. It sent Lincoln into a fit of laughter, so Cal didn’t mind. He picked up a bucket, scooping more and more sand into it and building different sized towers until they had the coolest sandcastle for as far as his eyes could see. Lincoln began placing seashells on it, and Cal and Maisie both reminded him to use gentle hands. He was a little boy, and while he was sweet and kind, he was still inherently clumsy and rough. Cal wouldn’t care if he knocked over the castle anyways - he was too busy still riding his first vacation high.

“Ah, thanks. Believe it or not, Rebel and Lily helped pick ‘em out. They’re so good with clothes. I think Reb’s gonna be just like Jaci Mae and designing her own clothes in a few years,” Cal turned around so his back was facing Maisie, and he jumped just the slightest bit at her hands and the cool sunscreen lotion on his back. He was thankful that he got more of his mother’s skin tone. She was able to tan in the summer and get decently dark without too much burning involved, but he wasn’t mad at Maisie for wanting to protect him from the sun and steal a few extra touches while they waited for nighttime. 

Lincoln was the best little snuggler. He had a cute, little, turned-up nose like Cindy Lou Who, and his little hands were still so chubby. The dimples on his knuckles made Maisie’s heart skip a beat. It broke her heart that Link and Frankie had lost their parents, and it broke her heart thinking that she may never have children of her own, but she loved Frankie and Link like her own. Link raised his arms, and she scooped him up. He nuzzled his head in the crook of Maisie’s neck, and his two little hands were wrapped around her. He was a sensitive little boy, and Maisie would let him be as long as he wanted to. “You figured correctly,” she smiled, leaning against the door. “I was just worried you were changing.” Maisie couldn’t wait to see Cal in a swim suit, laid up on the beach. She was hoping he’d let loose and have a little bit of fun. Rebel told him the night before that she wanted to stay in Britton’s house and not his, and he about had a heart attack over it. At first he protested, but Maisie talked him down from it. 

Maisie met Cal’s lips with hers, pulling him back in for another two kisses after he was finished talking. She was happy to know that there was a small children’s bedroom next to her own and that’s where she was setting up Frankie and Link’s stuff. She and Cal were getting the entire king bed to themselves, and Maisie was excited to use every inch of it for every inch of them. Maisie not only wanted to see Cal chill in a bathing suit, she wanted to see him completely bare-assed. And the sooner, the better. “I’m happy your first vacation is here with me. With us.” 

Lincoln had started calling Maisie “Mommy” instead of “Maimy” like the kids had been. He popped his little head up and said, “Mommy, can we go to da beach? I want to find a daw-phin.” His voice was raspy, like Layton’s had been, and his eyes were just as blue as Rachel’s. Maisie’s eyes grew wide and she looked over at Cal, “Well, of course we can go to the beach, buddy. Maybe Callie can come help us see if we can find that dolphin for ya!” Maisie set Lincoln back on the floor, and he ran over to his room where his things were all unpacked. Maisie stepped forward, closing the master door behind her. She peeled her t-shirt off, reaching for her own bathing suits in the drawer, and she teased Cal, “I blame you if we can’t see a dolphin and his heart gets broken, so take a good long look at me now. I can’t promise you’ll see much of it after.” She gave him a wink before peeling of her shorts. “Get changed, sexy. It’s beach time.”

Seeing a woman in her underwear was practically a sin in Plumfeld, and though Cal had experienced life outside of the confines of the cult for nearly four years now, sometimes he still fell back into the mindset of the young man he used to be. As Maisie joked, peeling off her t-shirt to reveal a lacy bra, Cal turned away. He didn’t want to be immoral or rude. He couldn’t look at a woman in such a vulnerable state as that...even though he’d literally been inside of her already. She continued to joke and Cal spotted an orange flower on the wall. He took a few deep breaths, (something he learned from his new therapist though he’d never admit that to Britton), and grounded himself - remembering where he was now, that everything was surely alright, and seeing a woman in her underwear or bathing suit was surely not a big deal. He blamed his nerves on the duration of their flight. He hadn’t slept much - barely at all, in fact, and the less he slept, the more his anxiety ate at his insides. 

“I better find some damn dolphins then,” He finally said with a half-smile, turning to face Maisie as she switched out her panties for swimsuit bottoms, “And quick.” 

Thud. A bang from next door followed by the sound of Link crying sent Maisie scurrying off to Lincoln and Frankie’s room, and Cal quickly swapped his shorts out for his yellow swim trunks. When he first got to Nora’s and saw her pool, he and his siblings went swimsuit shopping and Sunny insisted Cal get the yellow pair. They were fine, he guessed, and he’d worn them ever since. He gave himself one look in the bedroom mirror, foolishly admiring his abs, before heading next door to see what had happened. It turned out that Lincoln had been trying to jump from his bed to Frankie’s bed and ended up with a big, ‘ol bump on his forehead. Cal was sure he’d be alright. He and his siblings got goose eggs damn near weekly growing up, but Cal still let Link milk it and he carried him and his bucket and pail all the way to the beach.