by C D Cain
Copyright © 2019 CD Cain
Published by Fleur-de-lis Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.
ISBN: 978-0-578-48469-3
Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.
Editing by Kira Plotts
Proofreading by Cassie B. and Carol Krupic
A Chambers of the Heart Book
By
CD Cain
Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly.
Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile.”
–Mark Twain
Dedication
To my little family of three.
Each morning I pause to give thanks
for the blessing of sharing another day with you.
Table of Contents
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
After the Storm
About the Author
Eyes of darkened ruby tortured me with one of the best and simultaneously one of the worst memories of my young adult life. They were lying on a pillow of soft cotton within the tiny white box. Unlike my own eyes, these were protected from the sight of a future I had accepted yet no longer desired. They saw only the white cotton which nestled them softly in the memories they sparked. Had it not been for its contents, the small box would have been hidden among the trinkets of Charlie Grace’s over-sized wooden desk. It was from her. There wasn’t a card or any tangible evidence she had been the one who sent it, but there was little to no doubt the gift was from Sam. Gift. Such an odd word for the object I couldn’t take my eyes from nor tear my thoughts away from since the moment I found it. Had she meant it to be a gift? Surely not, as this was the day of Charlie Grace’s long-awaited engagement party. The social event of her one-and-only daughter’s engagement. A December night’s proposal had been the last contact between Sam and me.
“Dear, staring out the window at your guests doesn’t exactly count as attending the party.” Charlie Grace had entered the room without my notice. “You do actually have plans of leaving this room and joining us, don’t you?”
“Of course, Mother,” I said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Charlie Grace turned to leave but stopped shy of the doorway. “See that you do, dear. See that you do.”
“Hey, Mother?”
She looked over her shoulder but didn’t turn around to face me. “Hmmmm?”
“Did I get a package in the mail yesterday?”
“It’s your engagement party. You’ve gotten many packages this week. I can hardly keep up with all of them.” She waved her hand as if dismissing the entire topic altogether. Although we both knew she would have been highly offended if the presents hadn’t arrived by the dozen the weeks before the party.
I walked from behind the desk to face her and held up the tiny white box. “This box? Did I get this one in the mail yesterday?”
“Oh, dear Lord, that thing is hideous. Who on earth sent this to you?” She picked the box up from my hand and inspected it to see if she could find a name on it. She handed it back to me. “Who would ever make, or better yet, buy a gaudy cicada charm?”
I looked down at the charm shaped like a tiny locust. The sunlight streamed in through the window and reflected off of the gold to make it look as if it glowed. I suppose some would call it gaudy. Although the meaning behind it made it the most beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever seen. It had been our first kiss. So many moonlights ago, we had sat on the bayou’s dock and listened to the cicada’s song. We were lost in each other. Had been lost in each other. Even though my heart ached for the loss of Sam in my life, my mind soaked up every bit of the memories of her lips upon mine. This charm took me back to a time when I dreamed of a different life. A life not held to the conformities I faced now. I felt a glimmer of once-felt happiness stir inside of me. I turned my attention back to Charlie Grace before I let those feelings gain strength in me. This is what I had. This day is what I had.
“I don’t know who sent it,” I finally said.
“Well, dear. Do make sure you never wear it in public or around me.” Mother turned her back to me and left the room.
“I’ll see you downstairs, Mother,” I mumbled under my breath.
I had grown tired of our conversation. Truth be told, I had grown tired of most of our conversations. Without Memaw as a buffer, Charlie Grace and I held no delusions of our mother-daughter relationship. Memaw had been more of a mother to me than Charlie Grace ever was. Than Charlie Grace ever could be. Without her, the glue to what little relationship Charlie Grace and I had was gone. We were strangers to each other. Strangers who had absolutely no common ground to build a foundation on.
Sure, Mother thought my engagement to Grant brought us closer together. She believed my wishes to let her plan everything in relation to the engagement was a sign we had grown closer. Little did she know, or even care, that it was merely a way to disassociate myself from the inescapable event. If I had my wish, I would sleep through the whole damn thing.
I walked back to the large window behind the desk. Looking out at the setting in front of me, I realized Charlie Grace had her perfect day. Yes, she would finally get her long-awaited wish. In her eyes, a good southern woman was nothing without the gold band that attached her to a fine southern man. It was as if a woman was defined by the type of man she was lucky enough to snatch as a husband. For me the man was Grant Thibodeaux and he was the epitome of her dreamed son-in-law.
I had known Grant throughout grade school. Growing up in a small town, we didn’t have the school diversity most of the larger cities had. Therefore, you pretty much stayed with the same kids and attended grades together year after year. It wasn’t until Grant came home for the summer after his undergraduate years that our relationship took a path all its own. Charlie Grace worked her matchmaker skills the night of my graduation party and had Grant arrive as the main event for the evening. Of course, she tried to masquerade it as him delivering the jeep she had gotten me but I saw beyond the diversion.
She had tried for years to attach me to a young man of an influential family but I had always managed to dodge the connection. Grant was different. He was easy to be around. He never pressured me or tried to make our relationship be more than it truly was at heart. More importantly he loved our town as much as I did. Looking back, I realize this was one of the key elements in my relationship with him. We had common dreams—common goals to connect us to one another. I could be with him and never change what I wanted in life. He slipped in under my radar and here I stood watching him as he mingled among the crowd. The last months of residency had been taxing on both of us. It left little time for anything beyond rotations much less time to find our footing after Sam had come in and out of my l
ife. The proposal had been a huge surprise to me. It came out of nowhere and was unlike anything we had planned. Grant and I had always agreed we would make no plans to marry or even get engaged until after we had completed our residencies. We both felt our education was the key focus in our lives. Or so I thought we did. Changes like these are what I noticed in him over the last several months. I suppose we all change a little when we grow. I know I had.
I looked down at the charm in the palm of my hand. A cicada. Nearly a year had slipped by since that night at the cabin. The night I answered my longing to feel Sam’s kiss. Had we been lost in the song of the thirteen-year cicadas? The strength of the male’s serenade drowned out nearly every other sound that night, including the sound of my fears and hesitations which screamed through me.
It wasn’t until I felt my body give itself over to her that my fears returned. I couldn’t unravel the depths of what it meant to be lost in the passion of her touch. She admitted to the same and actually stopped our passion from going any farther. My body and heart ached for her the weeks following our near night together. I tried my best to accept the boundaries of our relationship into one of a platonic friendship. Yet no matter what I did, the ache was there. Finally, one night alone in a hospital on-call room, I could no longer deny myself to feel her next to me again.
Memories of Sam’s body against mine and of her kisses down my body caused tears to form in my eyes. I straightened my back and stiffened my body as I briskly wiped them away. No, I wouldn’t let my thoughts travel any further down that road. That was then, this is now. Besides, she was the one who had cut off all contact with me. I turned from the window and prepared myself to join the party out on the lawn.
“Hi.”
I stared at her, frozen. How is she here? How is Sam standing in my doorway?
“Hey,” I squeaked out.
“Hey.” Her voice was meek and her body’s expression was drawn inwardly. She leaned against the doorjamb as if making a stand she would enter the room no further.
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed the cicada I held in my palm but then tightened the grip around it when it nearly slipped from my hand due to my nervously sweating palm. The last thing I needed to add to our tension would be for it to fall onto the desk in between us. “I’m just really shocked to see you. I’m having trouble coming up with something to say.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She turned from the doorway to take a step into the hallway.
“Wait!” I yelled as I rushed around the side of the desk. “Don’t go. Please, Sam…don’t go.”
She slowly turned back toward me. “I really should go.” She stared down the hallway and shook her head. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“How are you here? At this time. On this day. Why now after all of this time?”
“Honestly,” she said as she raised a small card in the air “by this.” She tapped the card against her other hand. “Your mother actually sent me an invitation. To be fair, she sent me and my father an invitation.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she had done that.”
“So, you didn’t give her my mailing address?”
“No, not at all. I wouldn’t do that.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Her voice cracked. “What does matter anymore? You know?” Again, she turned to step into the hallway.
In two quick steps I reached her and gently put my hand on her arm to stop her from leaving. That’s all it was. Nothing sensual or passionate. Just a simple touch on the arm to stop her from leaving. Yet the mere sensation of her skin under my hand soared through my body as a current of energy. It took my breath. I felt her flinch underneath my touch.
“Come back in.” Cautiously, I pulled at her arm as I urged her to come back into the room. “Please. Can’t we please talk?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t move.
“I got the charm.” I opened my hand to show her.
She looked down at it and sighed deeply. “I bought that for you so long ago.” She reached out and rubbed it with a single finger. “Seems like a lifetime ago.” Her eyes glistened with the dew of fresh tears. “I thought maybe one day you could use a happier memory to wear on your chain.” Her eyes drifted to the gold cross around my neck. She briskly wiped the tears from her eyes before they were free to travel down her face. “Well, I don’t suppose that will happen now. Not such a great memory after all.” Her voice had grown cold.
“Says you,” I mumbled.
She cocked her head to the side in the way that made butterflies flutter across my stomach. It was the one particular mannerism of hers that had haunted my visions over the last three months since I had seen or spoken to her.
I shrugged and looked up at the ceiling as I tried desperately not to cry. “Say what you want. Say it’s not such a great memory for you but you won’t take it from me. That night with you, that time with you, is one of the best memories I’ve made in my life. So, I love it.”
“Shouldn’t this be?” She raised her arms in the air. “Shouldn’t all of this be your best memory? It’s your engagement party after all.”
I rolled my eyes and looked away from her. “Not exactly,” I said as I ran my finger down the spine of a book in the bookcase next to me.
She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I certainly meant to give it to you under different circumstances.”
“You surprised me with it.” I walked to the desk and sat on its edge. I hoped the distance between us would encourage her to come into the room so we could finish talking.
“Yeah well.” She followed but stood behind a high-back burgundy chair in front of the desk. “I was packing when I came across it. I didn’t want to take it with me. You know I really wanted to throw it away.” She didn’t look me in the eyes but rather over my shoulder to stare out the picture window behind me. “But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.”
“I’m glad.” I sat the charm down on the desk. “Wait a second. Did you say packing?”
“Yes, Rayne, packing.”
My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach at the sound and tone of my name. The acid in her tone could not be denied. I missed Stormy. I missed the nickname she had given me and the way she used to say it. Hell, I missed the person who was Stormy. You don’t realize how much something affects you until it is gone—the innocence of a nickname or the tenderness in the eyes of the person holding you as they say it. It’s those things you miss the most when they are taken from you. I breathed in deeply to catch my breath.
“Hindsight, I should’ve found a way to throw the damn thing away.” Sam shrugged. “Would’ve been smarter than this.” She swept her hand across her forehead to brush away the fallen curls. Her cropped, blonde layers had grown out considerably since the last time I had seen her.
“Maybe for you but I’m glad you gave it to me. It means everything to me. That night means everything to me.”
“Don’t,” she said through gritted teeth as she looked directly at me for the first time. “Don’t you dare say something like that to me.” Her tone was angry and bitter.
“Sam.” I pushed myself off of the corner of the desk to take a step toward her.
“Don’t, Rayne.” She held up her hand. “I swear I’ll walk out of the fucking door if you take another step.”
I slumped back down onto the coolness of the wooden desk. I was shocked at how angry she spoke to me. I’m not sure what I expected when I saw her but I don’t think I let myself imagine it would be this. “What do you want me to say? What can I say? You’re really pissed at me so I’m thinking there’s not too much I can say.”
She was silent for several seconds. Her grip tightened and relaxed against the back of the chair several times before she spoke again. “I suppose I came for you to say goodbye to my face instead of your mother sending an engagement invita
tion. At least you mean more to me than to do something like that.” She took in a deep breath, rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and exhaled. “You meant more to me than that.”
“Past tense, huh?” I turned my eyes away from her and fixated them on a wedding photo of Jacques and Charlie Grace. “I told you I didn’t know she had sent you an invitation.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” She shook her head. “You just don’t get it. Whatever. All I did was come to say goodbye and have closure to this whole mess.”
Mess. “What do you mean goodbye?” I asked flatly. “I thought we did that in December.”
“I suppose so but I’m leaving Alabama and I won’t be coming back. I gave up my fellowship.”
I stood up off of the desk. “You did what? Why?”
“Again…you don’t get it, Rayne.”
My heart sank even further down the pit now swallowing it. Why? Why would she give up everything she ever wanted? I opened my mouth to say something but what felt like ten minutes passed before I could make a sound. “I guess I don’t get it. I don’t know why you would give up your whole life’s plan.”
“Doesn’t make sense, does it? I was the strong one of us. The one who never got her feelings involved. Yet, it’s me who was unable to pick things up where they left off and keep going on with my life’s plan.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Yeah, well, life’s not fair.”
“Where are you going?”
“It doesn’t matter,” She waved her hand in the air to dismiss the question of its importance.
“Yes, it does.”
“Why?”
I walked around the desk and sat down in the chair as I feared my legs would no longer hold me up. Again, I looked at the bookshelf to take my eyes from her. This time they fell on Memaw’s picture. In that instant, I felt the loss of her crushing down on me again. I had told her goodbye and now Sam was standing in front of me asking me to do the same to her. I felt the tears building inside of me. “Because how will I know where to find you? How will I gain any strength in knowing this life is worth something if I can’t picture you in it? Picture your surroundings. Picture your life. I may not be in it but it doesn’t mean I want to know a world without you in it.”