Goodbye, Orchid Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  Goodbye, orchid

  “A richly detailed story of star-crossed lovers . . . all told with unforgettable heart and insight.”

  —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You, Cruel Beautiful World and With or Without You

  “A book full of soul and heart about love, loss and redefining oneself. I adored this modern, important take on the power of love.”

  —Karin Tanabe, author of A Hundred Suns

  “Goodbye, Orchid tugs at readers’ heartstrings and takes us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through this serious romance, layered with trauma and lost love. The characters—including Phoenix’s twin brother and friends—are richly drawn, and the themes are timeless. But it’s the story that kept me turning those pages and hoping for a satisfying ending. Van Den Hende did not disappoint.”

  —Susan Cushman, author of Friends of the Library and Cherry Bomb

  “Goodbye, Orchid is a beautiful book, full of deep, thoughtful truths as well as hard-won wisdom for its protagonists. All the characters are richly drawn, and the author never shies away from showing us their flawed humanity. Their individualized and honest perspectives make the journeys as surprising as they are engaging.”

  —Chris Kipiniak, actor, writer Marvel Comics, The Truth podcast,co-creator BEHEMOTH

  “Ms. Van Den Hende tells a heart-pounding story of survival, resilience and true grit.”

  —InD’tale Magazine

  “An inspiring and explosive novel that shows how two people confront the misperceptions in their lives.”

  —Larry Kirshbaum, literary agent and publishing advisor

  “As a combat decorated and wounded veteran, I was truly captivated by Carol’s storytelling. Phoenix Walker captures the mindset, roller coaster and daily heroics of my experience after being injured. All around excellence.”

  —Doc Jacobs, Bronze Star with Valor and Purple Heart-decorated Navy Corpsman, CEO Doc Jacobs Foundation, author of There and Back Again

  “In this most worthy novel, the protagonists’ lives are shattered and they re-emerge champions, showing a true test of character. Phoenix is all of us, unconquerable until we’re conquered. A tale of sacrifice and rebirth; heroism is in the details.”

  —SSGT Aaron Michael Grant, author of TAKING BAGHDAD: Victory in Iraq With the US Marines

  “Carol Van Den Hende has written a wonderful, heartbreaking yet heartwarming novel, perfect for our times. I couldn’t put this book down and was captivated by the main character, CEO Phoenix Walker. I highly recommend reading Goodbye, Orchid, and sharing it with everyone you know.”

  —Michele Kessler, chief executive officer at REBBL Inc.

  “A human drama that traverses every emotion, Goodbye, Orchid reminded me how life can change in a second. It’s a beautifully written tale about the power of true love to overcome deep-seated misbeliefs. Phoenix and Orchid’s story will forever live in my heart. Highly recommend!”

  —Gordana Gehlhausen, Project Runway couture designer

  Goodbye, Orchid

  by Carol Van Den Hende

  © Copyright 2020 Carol Van Den Hende

  ISBN 978-1-64663-189-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters are both actual and fictitious. With the exception of verified historical events and persons, all incidents, descriptions, dialogue and opinions expressed are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  REBBL® Elixirs is a trademark of REBBL Inc. and used with permission of the company

  Published by

  3705 Shore Drive

  Virginia Beach, VA 23455

  800-435-4811

  www.koehlerbooks.com

  Dedication

  For my humorous hubby who proves that love really does conquer all. To Joshua and his kitty-shaped spot in my heart

  “I’m beginning to like you

  So you probably won’t get what I’m going to do

  I’m walkin’ away from you

  It probably don’t make much sense to you

  But I’m trying to save you.”

  —Jack White, A Martyr For My Love For You

  Mortality tests for willingness,

  traces a finger along one cheek.

  A snake’s bite—or black widow’s caress.

  You ready, Golden Boy?

  –July 29

  CHAPTER 1

  TEMPORARY GROUND

  Phoenix

  SUNDAY JULY 29, MANHATTAN

  Phoenix never believed today was goodbye. Even though hellos come with goodbyes. Like black holes and Stephen Hawking. Like doughnuts and doughnut holes.

  But today’s goodbye wasn’t the end of something.

  Orchid’s kiss, petal-soft, had changed everything. That was last night. Today, she stood before him, in a leather-edged tunic layered over tights. “It’s not too late to come with me,” she said, her laugh tinkling like the metal bangles on her arm. She and Phoenix stood at the mouth of the TSA pre-check line before airport security, parting a stream of passengers. Lodged like two boulders in a brook. Her flight was boarding in minutes.

  “I’m not going to spoil your moment in the spotlight,” he replied.

  She reached up for a hug. Her slender frame made Phoenix feel even taller than six feet. Yet, there was tenderness too. Mentor, I’m her mentor, he recalled, slipping from her embrace.

  “Spoil my moment? You know I wouldn’t be going to China if it weren’t for you. You always encouraged me.” Her voice rose above the hum of conversations around them. Her lashes were ringed kohl black. Pale skin and ebony hair framed her dark eyes.

  “Who, me? You did all the hard work. Stop giving me the credit you deserve. You’re going to be awesome,” Phoenix said.

  “Thank you. Thanks for seeing me off.”

  “How else was I going to get rid of you?” he asked, his voice oddly gruff.

  “Shut up. I have abandonment issues, you know that.” She blinked, then her left cheek dimpled. He knew better than to think that she was joking. He wasn’t going to tell her, but if it came to it he’d protect her from a 787 Dreamliner crashing through the windows of their terminal.

  Orchid tiptoed up to kiss his cheek. The edges of their mouths brushed. Crap. He stepped back and her hopeful expression came into focus.

  “You better get going or there won’t be any China,” he said and released her elbow. It struck him that their stance mimicked Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, their hands nearly touching, as if heaven was in those millimeters between.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

  “You have to. You have exactly ten minutes to get through security.”

  She held his glance for a beat too long and opened her mouth. “This thing between us—”

  He shook his head to stop her words before it was too late. “Don’t go all dramatic on me,” he said. What he really meant was, Don’t screw up our magic, the thing that keeps it real.

  So real that she’d comforted him when he confessed it was too late to live up to Dad’s expectations. Gone one year today. That had led Orchid to trust him with memories of the accident that had killed her parents. The one thing they shouldn’t talk about was them. Phoenix’s ex, tough mouthy Tish, had said it best. You break women until there
’s nothing left, Tish had said as tears fell down her face. And she never cried.

  “You better go,” he said, distancing himself from Orchid’s reach.

  She looked at him as he soft-pedaled back, keeping the attraction between them at arm’s length.

  Her mouth opened and closed. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

  The previous evening validated every feeling Phoenix had suppressed since starting work with Orchid on a pro bono project months earlier.

  Standing in the airport he recalled what his brother, Caleb, had said the first time he’d seen them together. “You two are hot for each other.”

  “You’re going to miss your flight. We’ll talk when you’re back,” Phoenix said.

  She sighed and ran a hand with rings on every finger through her silken hair. “You’re a piece of work, Walker.”

  She used his surname when she was pissed.

  “And you are a magnificent marketer about to wow the world of beauty. Now go,” he said, and watched as she passed through security to board her overseas flight.

  Tish’s accusation rattled his brain. Orchid is not a woman I want to break.

  Later that morning, after working out and showering, Phoenix pulled on a white button-down dress shirt and tailored slacks. He was leaving his apartment to see Mom. She was in town for some flower show. Or a color seminar. And most of all, to be with her sons on the anniversary of their dad’s death.

  Phoenix held the elevator door for Mrs. V and her dog. They chatted until the lift descended to the lobby.

  “How’s Elton feeling today?” he inquired about her panting little terrier.

  She told him about the pup’s joint issues. They walked out into the sunshine together. She bent to lift Elton’s paw in a miniature wave. Phoenix waved back, then turned right toward the subway station.

  As he strode, he couldn’t stop thinking about Orchid. What makes her so different? Did something shift when she confessed her secrets? She had worked so damned hard to raise money for military vets; even when she couldn’t bear to see their injuries, it was like she felt their pain as if it were her own.

  At the 86th Street station, he descended the steps two at a time. Energy buzzed to his fingertips. Down below, the cavernous space echoed empty except for a homeless man seated on the ground. This guy looked worse off than most. Phoenix fished for a rumpled bill. The vagabond scowled over his bulbous nose at the lone single. Phoenix was distracted by a square of paper that tumbled out with the money. He walked towards the track and unfolded the note. It read, I’m going to miss you more than you know. Orchid had pressed a lip-shaped kiss print into the blank spot below the words.

  He’d miss her too, until her return in six weeks.

  At the edge of the platform, he punched up a song from Orchid’s playlist and plugged in his AirPods.

  “Where have you been all my life?” wailed Rihanna. Indeed.

  He stood without noticing his physical surroundings, lost in thought about Orchid. Sleek hair; slender; smart; strong. Orchid sparked tenderness and more. Like no one else he’d ever known. On a whim he texted Caleb, both thumbs a blur.

  You were right about Orchid.

  Eighty thousand pounds of steel mass squealed towards the station. Phoenix stepped forward. Rihanna belted out a ballad over the sound of metal on metal, “Are you hiding from me, yeah? Somewhere in the crowd—”

  In his peripheral vision, he noticed a figure swaying towards the gaping hole in the ground. “Hey!” Phoenix shouted, turning as the beggar stumbled right for the open track.

  Without thinking, Phoenix dropped his phone and bounded forward. He grabbed the guy’s coat to pull him away from the blurred train speeding towards them. The man jerked back. His bearded mouth screamed with fury. For a moment, they swung with wild centrifugal force. Suddenly, the guy yanked himself free. Phoenix tripped backwards. His feet scrambled to find purchase. Until there was just air over the edge of the platform.

  With a split-second to grasp at nothing, Phoenix crashed through the empty space to thud onto the track. He could feel the train’s screech judder. The sickening crush of steel slicing bone. Fuck! He could barely breathe. The air filled with screams. He attempted to lift his head. Except he couldn’t move. Broken until there’s nothing left, he wanted to say.

  CHAPTER 2

  I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF

  Veronica

  At Sarabeth’s Restaurant, Veronica Walker cut a fine figure, handsome and refined. Her graying hair was coiffed stylishly, and she wore a tapered cardigan.

  She sat alone, wondering what could possibly be delaying her normally responsible son. Phoenix was already forty minutes late. She regarded her watch again, as if that could make him appear faster.

  The young waitress checked her iPhone, with a different reason for noting the same duration. “I’m sorry, ma’am, Sunday mornings are our busiest time. If you don’t order, I’ll get in trouble with my manager.”

  Veronica glanced at the menu. “Four Flowers mimosa, hold the flowers.”

  “Anything to eat?”

  “Okay, leave the flowers.”

  When the waitress stayed waiting for an order, Veronica cleared her throat. “Please give me a few minutes.”

  The waitress nodded politely. “Certainly,” she said, and left the older woman.

  This was not like Phoenix. If it were Caleb, she could be confident he was most likely asleep in a strange woman’s bed, hungover and disheveled. But Phoenix? He’d texted he was running a little late. This was more than a little. Maybe the anniversary of her husband’s death was making her edgy.

  Veronica’s phone vibrated on the table. Must be Phoenix. Thank the Lord.

  She answered with no preamble. “Phoenix Walker, is that you? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?”

  She didn’t recognize the woman who spoke. “Hello? Is this a family member of Mr. Phoenix Walker?”

  Her tone struck Veronica with fear. Time slowed. “Yes. I’m his mother.”

  There are moments when self-preservation inspires the brain to slow the speed of input, because it can only absorb so much at a time. Veronica heard “accident,” “train,” “surgery” and then her mind shut down. It couldn’t be him. He was on his way straight here.

  “Where?” she asked. She pushed against the weight of the news to stand up, her focus narrowed to the one place she needed to be right now.

  Veronica grabbed her Louis Vuitton satchel. She caught sight of her waitress, champagne flute in hand, mouth wide with surprise. For the first time in her life, Veronica fled without paying and didn’t give a damn.

  “How is he?” Veronica was overcome by desperation. She stood up from the hospital’s plastic chair. Her high-heeled feet, swollen from pelting pavement, complained at bearing her weight. She ignored them, angry at her own weakness. Phoenix was who mattered.

  “We don’t know yet. I just came to check on you. You have someone coming?” The nurse’s hand hovered near her, as if ready to comfort a lost child.

  “Yes, I’m about to call my other son, Caleb. Here’s a picture of him.” She bent to pull up the home-screen photo on her phone.

  “So handsome,” the nurse said, eying not Caleb’s features but Phoenix’s. It was often the case, that even as people complimented her boys, they lingered on Phoenix’s tousled hair and blue eyes. Both were good-looking, but Caleb frightened strangers off with his scowl and tattoos. In contrast, Phoenix’s warmth held universal appeal. The screenshot had been taken years ago. It showed young adult boys, virile with the lie that nothing could harm them.

  Fear rose in her throat. “It can’t be him. Please don’t let it be him,” she pleaded, both with the nurse and an omniscient being. The rigid seat caught her collapsing mass.

  CHAPTER 3

  MANY SHADES OF BLACK

 
Caleb

  Traversing the narrow corridor leading to his New Brunswick tattoo shop granted Caleb Walker a few minutes before starting work to grieve his father’s death. His dad had been the ballast against his mother’s bias, and it was now a year since he’d died.

  The room was empty in the morning before weekend opening hours. The interlaced black and white linoleum tiles echoed with each scrape of his booted heels. Caleb looked around at the walls dotted with framed prints of the shop’s best work, ornate tattoos of celebrities, pets, kids, and arcane symbols. From the number of tattoo revisions the shop undertook, he knew that sometimes the things people initially loved would later become the bane of their existence.

  He fingered the small animal skulls atop a metal-rimmed glass case. The yellowed bone reminded Caleb of the dead animal that had led to his first love. He lapsed into fifteen-year-old high school memories, and one particular blue-sky day. Caleb had only dug the squirrel’s grave a foot deep when an attractive teen girl drew closer.

  “What happened?” Her voice had lilted.

  “Dunno.” He shrugged, lifting his dad’s shovel. “Just found it. Figured I better bury it before animals get him.”

  She knelt, ruffling the squirrel’s fur.

  “Hey, don’t do that.” He dropped one denim knee onto the soil inches from her hand. “It might’ve been sick. You don’t want to get whatever killed it.”

  She sat back, cornflower blue eyes round with respect. “You’re smart. You must be Nixy’s brother.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You’re here to see Mr. Straight-A, huh?”

  She snickered. “What’s your name?”

  “Caleb. And Nixy’s my brother,” he had said, pleased at the ease in swapping importance, mocking his twin’s newly bestowed nickname.

  So what if she was captain of the swim team? Beneath the stylish bangs and clear braces, she harbored a dark streak that wanted to touch dead animals. Phoenix, student president, star athlete, could have any girl. Why not leave this one—pretty on the outside, fucked up on the inside—for me?